by Claire Allan
“I don’t think anyone needs to be seeing me naked,” Liam said and Detta choked on her drink which sent a wave of laughter around the room.
“God, I needed this,” Niamh said, sipping from her glass. “Of course, by this I mean a good laugh – not the wine. Although the wine definitely helps.”
“Amen to that!” Ruth chimed in.
They made their way to the living room and Ciara sat down by the fire and pulled a cushion onto her knee. Her mother was always teasing her for that – the way she always had to have a cushion on her lap, but she couldn’t help it, she felt exposed otherwise. She’d always been that way and was even more so now since having the baby. She felt extra comfortable with a layer of stuffing between her and the world.
She chewed on her lip – the chatter was continuing around her, all the cares of the world gone from her friends’ eyes but she wondered what they were all hiding.
Sure, she knew they had their share of heartache, but no one really knew what went on behind closed doors, did they? None of them knew the truth about Ben and she wondered did she have the nerve to tell them? Admittedly that was easier to contemplate now that Lorraine had been so accepting of the news.
“Penny for them?” Detta asked, sitting down beside Ciara and staring into the crackling fire.
“Oh, just thinking,” Ciara said. “Life and stuff.”
“I fecking hate that stuff,” Detta said with a warm smile.
“Me too,” Ciara smiled.
“Anything you want to share? I know it’s not official group night, but I’m always here to listen. The others are chattering nineteen to the dozen anyway.”
Ciara looked across the room and the others were indeed lost in a conversation about films of their childhood. All were currently trying their hand at Dick Van Dyke’s dodgy accent from Mary Poppins and she couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’m okay.”
“Okay, but you know if you need to talk I’m a good listener. I’ve big ears, in case you hadn’t noticed. My nickname used to be ‘FA Cup’.”
“Your ears look fine to me.”
“Are you mad? They’re mahoosive! When I lived in London for a year they were in danger of getting their own postcode!”
Ciara laughed. “You are funny!”
“But I’m not prying. My nose is perfectly in proportion,” her friend replied, rearranging her emerald-green skirt around her ankles.
Ciara believed her. She wasn’t like Mrs Quinn with her nosy ways and her acid tongue. There was something about Detta that made her instantly trustworthy – maybe because she was funky and hip with an air of calm about her.
“I was just thinking how much my mum would enjoy something like this,” Ciara said, suddenly thinking how much she would like to see her mother relax in the company of others.
“Would she not come along to the group?”
“She doesn’t see the point. Anyway, she’s fine with things. She’s been on her own for a long time. She told me she couldn’t ever imagine having a man in her life again. Not long-term.”
“And you don’t believe her?”
“I think she’s afraid of getting hurt. She’s had a lot of disappointments in her life.”
“I hope you aren’t counting yourself among those, young lady, because I’d be proud to have you as mine,” Detta said warmly.
Ciara blushed deeper at the compliment. “I haven’t exactly turned out how she would have liked – pregnant at fifteen and all that.”
“There are worse things that could happen.”
“I know. But she had higher hopes for me than this.”
“You’ve achieved a lot, pet. You don’t sit around the house complaining about your lot. You go out there and work and you’re brilliant with Ella. God knows how you put up with that oul’ biddy in the shop. I’d do time for that one, I swear to God.”
Ciara laughed. “I just get on with it and think of the money. She’s not that bad if you just keep your head down and get the job done.”
“You’re a superstar,” Detta said with a smile.
“So you are,” Ruth butted in.
Startled, Ciara felt her heart sink to her boots. She hadn’t realised the dodgy Dick Van Dyke impressions had dried up and that she was now the sole topic of conversation.
“My Eimear would do well to learn from you,” Ruth went on. “That irresponsible little madam doesn’t know how to get herself up and out of the door without someone prodding her along the way.”
Ciara knew that now was the time she should tell Ruth just how much Eimear was likely to learn from her if she didn’t change her ways.
She thought back to earlier that evening when she had bumped into Ben Quinn on her walk into the village. She thought of the sneer on his face and his cocksure attitude. She thought of how many times she had desperately wanted to knock that smile off his face. She felt mildly nauseated at the thought that he could do to someone else what he’d done to her – then again, that could just be the excess of chocolate she had eaten on the bus on the way back from Derry mixed with the sickly sweet alcopop she had been drinking.
“I feel a little woozy,” she said, suddenly feeling her tummy turn over and she ran up the stairs to the bathroom where she sat on the cool floor and willed her stomach to settle. Her face clammy with sweat, she fell back against the sink and let the cool porcelain soothe her. She was taking deep gulps of air to steady herself when Ruth, accompanied by Detta, popped her head around the door.
“Here’s some water,” she said, handing Ciara a tall glass.
“Just sip it now,” Detta added, kneeling down and reaching out a hand to check her forehead.
Ciara wanted to sink in towards her, but she tried to remain calm. No tepid water or soft hands on her forehead would make this sinking feeling go away.
“Ruth, can we talk for a bit?”
“Sure, pet, no problem,” Ruth said, sitting down on the edge of the bath.
Detta stood awkwardly. “Should I go?”
“No, no, it’s fine. Honest,” Ciara said, pulling her knees to her chest and sitting with her back as straight as she could. “Ruth . . . I need to warn you about Eimear. Or it’s more that I need to warn you about Ben Quinn and Eimear.”
“Ben Quinn? Why? He’s a nice lad, isn’t he? I thought he might be a stabilising influence.”
Ciara choked. She couldn’t help it – when she thought of Ben having a stabilising effect on anything all she could do was laugh.
“He’s not a nice lad, Ruth. He’s a selfish pig and if Eimear isn’t careful – very careful – she could find herself in the same sorry state I did.”
“What do you mean?” Ruth asked and Ciara swallowed hard. The best-kept secret in Rathinch was about to be blown wide open.
Detta moved towards Ciara and sat beside her, which Ciara would be forever grateful for.
“Ella’s daddy . . .” Ciara began. “It’s Ben. He told me he loved me – he made me feel special and attractive and sexy.” She could feel herself blushing at the words. How ridiculous to sit here among these grown women and talk about feeling sexy when she was just a young thing?
“We only did it the once. I know, I was stupid. I wasn’t careful. I just didn’t think I would get caught out. He told me it would be okay. But when I told him I was pregnant he couldn’t get away fast enough. He told me he would tell everyone – everyone – that I was lying and that I had slept my way round the village. He’s a pig, Ruth, and Eimear doesn’t know what she is getting herself into.”
If Ruth was shocked by any of what she heard, she did a very good job of hiding it, Ciara thought as she looked across the bathroom at her new friend.
“What a complete fucking bastard,” she eventually said, and looked at once stricken. “You don’t mind if I swear in front of you, do you?”
“For the love of God, Ruth, Ciara‘s one of us, I’m sure she’s heard worse language than that, and I’m also sure she knows that Ben is indeed a fucking wee bastard,�
�� Detta interjected with a soft smile.
It felt good, Ciara realised, to have it out in the open. She didn’t know how, or if, that would help Eimear retain her dignity but she was surprised to feel she had gained some of her own dignity back.
“I can’t believe you’ve kept this to yourself,” Detta said, rubbing her hand.
“I only told my mum on Tuesday. I knew that I was going to have to talk to you, Ruth, and I couldn’t tell you and keep it from her. Before now I didn’t see the point. I knew there was no chance he was ever going to admit that he is Ella’s dad and if he doesn’t want to be in her life, then I don’t want to force him. But now, well, when I think he is worming his way into someone else’s life I can’t let him get away with that. No one deserves to be treated like he has treated me.”
Ruth raised her glass. “Amen to that!”
* * *
Niamh topped up her glass and handed Liam another cool beer.
“They’ve been gone an age,” Liam said with a look of concern.
“They sure have,” Niamh agreed. “I hope Ciara is all right.” She wondered if she should have gone upstairs with the others – but she felt more comfortable here on the sofa with a nice glass of wine. She didn’t cope well with sick people or hysterics. She had enough drama in her life, so whatever physical or emotional trauma was keeping them in the loo she was happy enough to let them get on with it.
However, Liam was clearly not as comfortable with being left alone with her and a couple of drinks.
“I do hope they’re okay,” he said, giving her a pitiful look which made her realise he wanted her to go and check things out and report back. He was a man – a man’s man – there was no way he could go barging into a bathroom to make sure everything was hunky dory.
“Okay then,” she said with more grace than she felt. “I’ll go and chivvy them along, You know, make sure everything is okay.”
She took a deep breath, stood up and sat her wineglass on the fireplace before heading for the stairs. Almost as soon as she reached the bottom of the staircase she was greeted with the most raucous laughter she had heard in a long time.
Intrigued, and if truth be told a little jealous, she made her way up to the bathroom and put her head around the door. The colour had returned to Ciara’s cheeks and it was Ruth’s face which was flushed. Detta was sat on the edge of the bath, her head thrown back in laugher with her blonde curls bouncing as she giggled.
“Men. Bastards. The lot of them!” Ruth said.
“Apart from Liam!” Detta interjected.
“Well, of course apart from Liam,” Ruth replied, clutching her stomach.
“He wants to know if you are all okay,” Niamh interrupted, still confused about what was going on.
“Oh, we are just men-bashing and plotting our revenge on the world. You know what it’s like,” Ruth said with a grin. “Men. Can’t live with ’em. Can’t kill ’em.”
Niamh of course knew that Ruth wasn’t being deliberately insensitive to her own situation. It seemed however that neither Ciara or Detta knew this and the look of horror on their faces was enough to send Niamh into kinks of laughter herself.
“Oh you are right,” she muttered through her tears of laughter, “you are so right.”
The baffled look on her friends’ faces was enough to knock her laughter up a gear and she struggled to gain her composure.
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually, her tongue loosened by the wine, “but if you knew my bollocks of a husband the way I know my bollocks of a husband you would understand why it’s all so very funny. Because, ladies,” she said, her tears of laughter turning to tears of sorrow, “if he was here right now. I would fecking kill the bastard myself.”
Damn it, she thought as she felt a sob catch in her throat. Now she was the hysterical woman in the bathroom that she had been mocking just minutes before.
Ruth stood up from her seat on the toilet and guided Niamh to sit down in her place and then she put her arm around her shoulders and let her cry, while Ciara and Detta took turns to gently stroke her legs and make soothing noises. And yet the baffled looks hadn’t left their faces.
“Ach, I might as well tell you. I’ve nothing to lose from it. Seán’s a bastard. Was a bastard,” she corrected herself. “Last weekend I was sorting through his things and I found evidence, well, proof really, that he was having it away with the person I thought was my best friend.”
Niamh had often seen jaws drop in cartoons. She had many mental images of seeing chins clang off floors and tongues loll out in a comic fashion. None of those looked as pronounced as the dropped jaws on Ciara and Detta right at that moment. She could kind of understand Ciara’s reaction – she was young with crazy notions of love and romance no doubt – but Detta’s was a picture. The worldly-wise Detta who Niamh had come to see as the sage of the village in recent weeks was visibly shocked. She realised then that her veneer had fallen. She was no longer, in their eyes, the perfect housewife. She might have the dream house, the kitchen island and the marble work surfaces. She might drive a top of the range 4x4. The twins might well be dressed from Boden and Vertbaudet and her hair might not be even one strand out of place. The sheets on her bed were the finest Egyptian cotton, her underfloor heating perfect for their real wood floors. Her porch, with its view over the sea, might be the envy of anyone who ever set foot in Donegal. But her perfect life was far from that. She had to admit it: before now, even the tragedy in her life had been perfect. Gorgeous mum of two, widowed when handsome husband dies rushing home to her arms. Insurance policies all in place to make sure she never had to want for anything again. Apart from the handsome husband, that is. And she could grieve while staring out over a perfect sunset on her perfect porch swing, drinking her fecking perfect New Zealand Sauvignon out of her perfect Waterford fecking Crystal glasses.
But here was the reality – a life where, she realised with the sinking of her heavy heart, she was now the object of pity of three other people. People she had considered herself to be better than. People who, although she had wanted to let them into her life, she had considered herself above because, unlike theirs, her situation was not of her own making.
But then, all of it was a lie. The nice clothes, cars, marble worktops and everything else. And the biggest lie of all was that she and Seán had been blissfully happy.
“Well, fuck me pink!” Detta declared with gusto, while Niamh leant forward and put her head in her hands.
“I don’t know what to say,” Ciara said. “I always thought you two were so . . .”
“Perfect?” Niamh said, sitting back and gratefully accepting the cool flannel that Ciara had just wrung out for her.
Ciara nodded while Detta sat shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. Oh darling, this must be so hard for you.”
Niamh managed a smile. If there was ever an understatement that was the king of all the understatements in the entire world, that was it.
“I can’t believe it,” Ciara said.
Niamh saw pity in her eyes. She was used to that, people looking at her like she was a poor lost lamb. This was only pity taken up a notch. Extreme pity – the kind normally reserved for beggars or street drinkers or the poor feckers who go on the X Factor only to be mocked by the cruel judges.
“I don’t think I can believe it myself,” she replied. “Or, I don’t want to believe it, but you can’t argue with the evidence.” In her tipsy state she thought for a moment how it would be funny to put on a Lloyd Grossman voice and do her Through the Keyhole impression: “Now, who would shag a slut like this?” – except that up until very recently she hadn’t considered Cait a slut at all. It wasn’t Cait who had a drawer of La Perla underwear. She was much more an M&S girl, while it was Niamh who liked to dress up in fishnets and stockings for her husband. Her cheating fecker of a dead husband.
She relayed the story of the Post-it and of Caitlin’s big freeze since Seán died. They nodded, with the extreme-pity look on their face, and asked
had there been any other signs. Had he changed his appearance? Worked late? Worked out more? No, Niamh was sure there had been no difference. He always looked handsome, and he always worked late. As for working out more, if anything she realised he had been more energetic in bed. Then again, they do say the more you have sex, the more you want it. Maybe it was nothing more than that. As well as being a cheating bastard he was fecking Michael Douglas sex addict-a-like. She didn’t tell them about the Christmas party and how, like the world’s biggest tit, she had watched her husband dance cheek to cheek with his mistress.
“I wouldn’t have thought it,” Detta said. “Is that why you didn’t come on Tuesday night?”
“I thought you would judge me,” Niamh replied honestly.
“Christ, us judge you?” said Detta. “Would be a bit of kettle calling pot black there, wouldn’t it? None of us has an ideal life.”
But I was supposed to, Niamh wanted to shout. We worked for this our whole life. This was our dream.
“I suppose,” she answered.
“We’re a right crowd, aren’t we?” Ciara said with a half smile. “You must wonder what the hell you have let yourself in for, Detta.”
But as Ruth and Ciara laughed, Niamh sneaked a glance at their leader and realised that Detta too must have a secret of her own. She had laughed along with them, but there was something in her eyes that gave her away.
