by Melissa Hill
“Olivia, calm down,” Matt began.
“What? I hope for your sake, Matt, that you didn’t know about this, because if you did … ”
Catherine bit her lip. “Maybe I should have said something, but I really didn’t want to upset you – ”
“Of course you should have said something! You should have asked for my permission, and if you had, you would know that I would never, ever cut her hair like that!”
Ellie looked upset. “I’m sorry, Mommy, I didn’t mean it,” she said, and her bottom lip began to tremble.
Olivia lifted her up in her arms and kissed her gently on the temple. “It’s OK, honey, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Well, that’s the thing,” Catherine began, and was Olivia imagining it, or did she say this with a hint of a satisfied smile? “Ellie brought some chewing gum with her and –”
“What? She did not bring chewing gum with her, she isn’t allowed chewing gum – she knows that.”
Ellie had by now buried her face in her mother’s chest, so she couldn’t see her expression.
Catherine put a hand on her hip. “Well, she must have got it from somewhere, Olivia, because she came in on Saturday and it was all stuck to her hair. It was everywhere.” She looked at Matt exasperated. “I combed and combed it but there was no way I could have got it out. In the end I had no choice but to cut it out – there was nothing else I could have done.” At this, her eyes sparkled with tears – feigned tears. Olivia was convinced of it.
“It’s OK, Catherine, I’m sure you did your best,” Matt said, putting a hand on her arm.
Olivia felt as though she was in some kind of strange nightmare. Where on earth would Ellie have got chewing gum?
“But why didn’t you tell me?” Olivia said. “Why didn’t you phone and ask me if it was OK to cut it out, if it was OK to cut her lovely hair in this – this grotesque style!” She didn’t want to say too much in front of Ellie but she was pretty sure her daughter had no idea what ‘grotesque’ meant.
“I didn’t know what to do. Honestly, I thought and thought about it, but in the end I decided that there was no point in upsetting you again so I just went and did what I thought was best. You didn’t see how bad it was, Olivia. The hairdresser said she’d never seen anything like it. In fairness, I don’t know how she managed to save so much of Ellie’s hair.” At this Catherine burst out crying. “I really didn’t know what to do!”
“Oh, Catherine, don’t.” Matt put a comforting arm around her shoulders, and Olivia felt like throwing something at him. Why did he always end up taking her side? Could he not see what a terrible thing she’d done? She had no right to make that decision, no right to do something like that without consulting Olivia about it. It would take ages for Ellie’s hair to look presentable again, despite the so-called best efforts of the concerned hairdresser.
“Olivia, surely you can understand the position she was in,” Matt said. “What was the point of telling you over the phone? What would you have done?”
“I would have got the first plane home, that’s what I would have done. But if I were looking after someone else’s child I wouldn’t take it upon myself to make such a decision. Her hair is ruined, for goodness’ sake.”
“Her hair would have been ruined anyway,” Catherine sniffed. “I thought I was doing you a favour by not telling you and ruining your weekend.” She looked at Matt. “I knew how much you were looking forward to it.”
“I know you did,” Matt soothed again, and at this Olivia gritted her teeth.
She sighed. “As it happens, I don’t agree with you,” she said. “But the damage is done now.”
“Can we go home now, Mummy?” Ellie pleaded.
Catherine pointed inside. “Her things are in the hallway,” she sniffed tearfully.
“Fine.”
Without a word of goodbye to either of them, Olivia turned and walked inside. “Yes, we’re going home,” she answered her daughter, who hugged her even tighter. “Back home where we should be.”
44
Leah was horrified. “You really should have asked me,” she said, when the following day Olivia and the newly coiffed Ellie visited her at the shop in Blackrock. “I would have been delighted to look after her for you, you know that.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask now, but to be honest I didn’t want to put you on the spot – you’ve enough on your plate at the moment.” In all the years they’d known one another, she had never seen her friend look so lost, so deflated.
She kicked herself once again for agreeing to go away with Matt when by rights she should have been around for Leah. “By the looks of things, you’re still very busy here too.” The shop was packed to the gills and Olivia almost had to fight her way through the crowds to get to the kitchen out back. Amanda was out front, flitting around like a butterfly on one wing and Olivia suspected – spying her casually flicking through a newspaper when there was a queue a mile long – about as much use.
Leah gave a rare smile, the first one Olivia had seen since the split with Josh. “I know, it’s great, isn’t it? But seriously, you should have asked me to take her. Alan and Amanda could have looked after things here over the weekend, and I certainly could have done with the diversion. I can honestly say too that I wouldn’t have cut her hair without asking – not like that anyway,” she added, dropping her voice to a whisper. Ellie was out of earshot and incredibly, Olivia thought, seemed to be enjoying all the attention her new hairstyle was getting. Eva had been equally horrified and the previous evening Olivia had to physically stop her mother from marching across the green to “tell that madam exactly what I think of her.”
“But tell me, what happened afterwards?” Leah asked. “What did Matt say?”
Olivia shrugged. “We went straight home, obviously. He called over a while afterwards and, to be honest, he didn’t say much other than to reiterate that Catherine had done what she thought was best, and didn’t want to upset me by telling me blah, blah, blah.” She rolled her eyes. “The weekend was a disaster, Leah. Bulgaria was wonderful but I was so stressed about Ellie being with that – that witch, that I just couldn’t relax and enjoy it.” She explained how Catherine had – purposefully, she was sure of it – tried to upset her by insinuating that Ellie was being a nightmare.
“I find that very hard to believe.” Leah gazed lovingly at the little girl, who was staring fascinated at the huge blocks of chocolate that had been delivered earlier that day. They lay there like lumps of rock waiting for a talented sculptor to begin work.
“Well, I did too, and, as it turned out, it was Adam that was causing problems, not Ellie.”
“Oh?”
“Obviously, Ellie knew I was upset about her hair, and she told me that when Catherine took them for a day out at the lake, Adam picked up a dirty piece of chewing gum from one of the benches and put it in his mouth.”
That wasn’t the worst bit, Olivia thought. Back home, Catherine had instantly presumed it was Ellie who had somehow ‘sneaked in’ the gum. As if Olivia’s four-year-old was some kind of underhand smuggler. But as it turned out, it had been Adam who, when finished chewing the dirt and grime, had taken it out of his mouth and begun playing with it. Hence Ellie’s hair.
“Adam gave me the bold bubblegum, Mummy,” Ellie’d said, troubled that once again she’d been betrayed by her new friend. “An’ it got caught in my curls.”
Leah shook her head. “And the silly cow never even thought to ask if it could be Adam, I suppose.”
“Nope. He can do no wrong as far as she’s concerned. Don’t get me wrong – Adam’s a nice child but he’s very spoiled, and personally I think he’s crying out for his dad’s attention. Matt’s away a lot, and it’s Catherine who looks after him most of the time.”
“A regular little family, aren’t they?” Leah said sarcastically. “That whole thing with her is really odd, if you ask me.”
“You know, I think you might have been right about her having some kin
d of crush on him,” Olivia said, admitting it out loud. She’d been going over and over everything that had happened since she and Matt got together, and it really did seem as though Catherine was doing her level best to try and make things hard for them. “But what should I do? Things are shaky enough between me and Matt as it is, and we’ve only been together a little while. He can’t see any wrong in what she’s doing, and he won’t hear a word said against her.”
“And how do you feel about it all? I mean, despite all this business with Catherine, do you think he’s worth pursuing?”
“To be honest, I don’t know where I stand with him, let alone how I feel. We tiptoed around one another at the weekend – it was hardly the love-in that we’d planned.”
Leah looked sideways at her. “So you haven’t bared your soul yet, as such?”
“With the way things are going, I don’t feel confident enough, Leah. I had hoped to broach the subject at the weekend but then ...” She shook her head. “Anyway, I’m not sure if this thing we have is actually going anywhere, so why put myself through it? Why ‘bare my soul’ as you put it, to someone I’m not sure of?”
Leah nodded. “Maybe it is best if you don’t say anything for a while. See how he deals with this Catherine situation first. But if he stays around, you might have to get used to the idea of having her around too.”
“Heaven help us then,” Olivia laughed, although it wasn’t at all funny. “So, have you spoken to Josh since?” she asked, tentatively changing the subject and instantly a shadow crossed her friend’s pretty face.
“I’m seeing him tomorrow,” Leah admitted, almost shyly, as if she didn’t want anyone to think that she was being weak. “He’s phoned every day since, but it’s been hard …” She trailed off, a catch in her voice.
“I know it is.” Olivia touched her gently on the arm. “Still, I think you’re doing the right thing by meeting him. You two still have some things to talk about, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, mostly about how he should take the rest of his stuff out of the apartment and get out of my life for good.” Leah said vehemently, but Olivia could see the sorrow in her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about – about her,” she added, and her expression grew hard. “I just don’t want to know. You won’t believe this, but I dreamt last night that Sharon ended up getting pregnant as a result of that night.” She gave a broken laugh. “It would be just my luck if she did and, despite all his bull, Josh was consumed with joy, and the two of them and their spawn ended up living happily ever after.”
Olivia didn’t want to admit that this particular thought had crossed her mind too. Sometimes, life had a way of coming back to bite you in the rear like that.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Look, just go and meet him and keep an open mind about what he has to say.”
“I suppose.” Leah didn’t look at all enamoured of the prospect. “I might need a shoulder to cry on afterwards though.”
Olivia grimaced. “We’re invited to Kate’s tomorrow night though, aren’t we?”
Leah rolled her eyes. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“Does she know about you and Josh?”
“No, I didn’t want to say anything yet, because I know exactly what she’d say. And let’s face it, she’d probably want to hunt Josh down and kill him.”
Olivia nodded. As they both knew only too well, Kate was fiercely unforgiving about any wrongdoings towards her friends.
“Well, I suppose you could always leave it, but I think I’d better go. It was nice of her to invite me and I’ve hardly seen her since she had the baby –”
“No, no, I will go. It’s not ideal, but at the same time, she’ll have to know eventually.”
“I hope she’s in the mood for vino this time though.” Leah raised a tiny grin. “Something tells me I’ll need to drown my sorrows.”
“Well, look, there’s no point in you driving then. Why don’t I call to you beforehand and we’ll go together. Mum’s taking Ellie, and from what I can make out, is determined to do a patch-up job on her hair.” She grimaced. “Not sure it’s such a good idea but what can I do? It has to be better than – ”
“Girls, girls!” Just then Amanda burst through the door and cut short the remainder of Olivia’s sentence. Typically dramatic, she was flushed and seemed to be waving a newspaper over her head. “You have just got to read this!”
“Let me guess,” Leah drawled. “BTs are having a mid-season sale?”
Amanda shook her head impatiently, as she flicked through the pages. “Nope, even better. It’s last Saturday’s paper actually, and I would have missed it only …oh, where has it gone?”
“What is it?” Olivia asked, and then she and Leah gawped in unison as they caught sight of Robin staring back at them from the Weekend Lifestyle section of the Independent, the headline overhead proclaiming: Nuts about Robin – Irishwoman Takes US Publishing World by Storm.
“Publishing world …what?” Olivia asked, looking at the others. “I didn’t know Robin had written anything.”
“Neither did I,” Leah said, and by her tone, Olivia knew she was hurt at being kept in the dark. She and Robin normally shared everything and Olivia knew that Leah had told Robin about her and Josh’s recent split. So why hadn’t Robin said anything about this?
“Well, according to the paper she’s being paid a fortune for writing these dinky little picture books,” Amanda said, only too happy to fill them in. “About children’s illnesses, apparently.”
“Illnesses?” Olivia repeated. “What kind of illnesses?”
Amanda tut-tutted. “Honestly, Olivia, I would have thought you of all people should know.” She shook her head. “Aren’t they always saying that you should write about what you know and, by the looks of things,” she added, eyes widening, “Robin’s making a nice little career for herself by doing exactly that.”
“You don’t mean …?” Olivia’s sentence trailed off as she scanned the article. As she tried to read the words, she felt as though a firework had just gone off in her stomach. Robin writing stories …
Leah, who had by then read the article from beginning to end, looked up from the newspaper. “She has,” she confirmed, astonishment written all over her face. “Robin’s written some book about allergies – children’s allergies – and now it’s being made into a cartoon or a TV series, or something.”
Olivia looked at her in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”
“I know!” Amanda cried. “Believe me, Robin was the last one of us I’d have expected to do something like that.” She put a hand on her hip. “I’m a bit annoyed, to be honest – I had hoped to try my hand at one of those pregnancy manuals. But now it seems freaky old Robin has beaten me to it. Lucky cow, I bet she’ll get to go on TV and everything.”
“That’s not all,” Leah said. “It says here she’ll be doing a promotional tour here shortly. I can’t believe she kept quiet about this. I’m always asking her when she’s coming home.”
Olivia said nothing. She was still coming to terms with the fact that Robin had written not just a book – but a book for and about children. What did Robin know about children? What advice did she have to give to anyone about looking after an allergy-prone child? Granted, she had the experience of her own childhood but still …
“So, she’s finally coming home, then,” Amanda said. She shook her head wistfully. “Imagine, all the old gang together again.” At this, Leah nudged her. “Oh, except for Peter of course, sorry, Olivia,” she added hurriedly, but Olivia didn’t even notice.
She was too busy wondering what would happen when Robin returned home, and when their paths crossed – as Olivia was certain they would – what would the two old friends have to say to one another?
45
From her bedroom window the following day, Catherine watched them giggling and laughing with one another outside Olivia’s house like they were a couple of teenagers. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was losing Matt, she knew it.
Despite what Matt had described as their ‘disastrous’ weekend away, despite all the hullabaloo about Ellie’s hair, they still seemed crazy about one another. If Matt had thought of taking Catherine away for a weekend with him, it would have been far from disastrous. Olivia didn’t know how lucky she was that he kept going back to her, despite her carry-on.
And talk about being overprotective! Jeez, the woman was close to obsessed with that child. Catherine supposed it was because she’d been widowed, and Ellie was all she had in the world, but still! If Olivia wasn’t careful, her daughter would grow up terribly spoiled. Not that she was a bad kid, Catherine thought, a little guiltily. Ellie had taken some time to settle on Friday, but she’d over-exaggerated when she told Olivia her daughter had had a tantrum. She was very good-natured really, and Catherine felt bad about using her to try and upset her mother’s new romance.
Matt seemed fascinated by Olivia, though – it was as though he felt some sort of kinship with her, simply because they were both widowed. Catherine felt what lately had been an all-too-familiar sense of panic. What if Olivia and Matt and their respective children started playing happy families? What would happen to her if they all lived happily ever after?
Yesterday, after Olivia had gone off in a strop over Ellie’s new haircut, she’d quizzed Matt about the woman’s husband, and how and when he’d died. She’d been naturally curious about it, but more importantly, she wanted to find out if the two had had the heart-to-heart over the weekend that Matt expected.
But to Catherine’s utter delight, it turned out they hadn’t shared any stories, past or otherwise.
“She was totally preoccupied with getting home to Ellie,” he said, over the hearty meal she’d prepared for him. “The time wasn’t right. I told her a little bit about Natasha, but she seems very hesitant to talk about Peter. All I know is that he was her first love, they’d been together since their college days and she presumed they’d be together forever.” He shrugged. “Obviously, things didn’t turn out that way. I’d imagine she’s finds it hard to let go.”
