“ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Danny will absolutely feckin’ kill us. There’s no way you’re dragging me into this,” Kieran whined, as I laid out my plan to the boys.
I turned toward O’Connell, giving him my best puppy eyes, knowing that if I could rope him in I’d have Kieran.
“I don’t know, love. I’m not sure he’s gonna like this. He’s never mentioned his birthday before. I’m not convinced he wouldn’t just tell us to feck off.”
I grinned, knowing that he wouldn’t tell me no.
“Look guys, I’m not saying that we throw him a huge surprise party. The shock would probably give him a heart attack anyway. I’m just saying that it wouldn’t kill you to put up a few balloons, sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ and give him a cake.”
My suggestion was met with stony silence, and even the sight of them standing to attention with their arms folded was an emphatic no.
“Come on, pleeeeease,” I begged.
“How did you even find out it was the old codger’s birthday?” Mac asked.
“He needs to file his date of birth on his tax returns,” I answered, ignoring the fact that I was completely abusing privileged information.
“Fine!” O’Connell surrendered at last.
“We’ll put up the balloons when he’s out for dinner. You make the cake and meet us here at six. Kieran will pick you up in my car and give you a hand. You can sing ‘Happy Birthday’ while we stand behind you mumbling then we’ll go straight back to training when Danny explodes and shouts at us for wasting his fucking time.”
“Perfect.” I smiled, and they all groaned.
I was sure O’Connell thought he’d put me off with that little rant about how much Danny would hate my plans, but I was tenacious and all I heard him say was, “no problem, baby. What a fantastic idea. We’d love to help.”
“Thanks, guys,” I told them, knowing it was wrong to just let Danny’s birthday pass us by.
“You are soft as shite with her, ya know.” Mac chuckled to O’Connell.
“Like you could tell her no.” He snorted.
“Fuck me, no.” Mac carried on, as though I wasn’t even in the room.
“Especially when she does that doe-eyed thing. I don’t know why they call you the Hurricane. The way she tramples all over us, she’s more like one than you are.”
“What the feckin’ hell is going on here?” Danny barked, as he walked in the office.
“If you lot ain’t got nothing better to do than stand round here gossiping like a bunch of old ladies then you can all give me twenty-five burpees. I want every one of you sorry fat articles out in the gym now!” Danny barked, as he stomped back into the gym with the boys following single file.
“I’ve changed my mind. I say we let the evil bugger’s birthday ride,” Mac groaned.
“Told you.” Kieran pouted grumpily, as he marched off to take his punishment.
“This better be a friggin’ awesome cake, babe. Danny’s gonna have me doin’ burpees for a month for this,” O’Connell warned.
He didn’t look all that concerned, though. He could do twenty-five burpees in his sleep, even after the four hours of training that he’d already done. Yep, my man was a machine.
As it turned out, my cake was friggin’ awesome, and I should have received some sort of award for producing such a masterpiece in my little kitchenette. I’d made a square cake into a boxing ring and had used boxes of pre-coloured fondant to make the figure of Danny sitting in an armchair in the middle of the ring, cigarette hanging from his mouth and reading a paper while a boxer was doing push-ups on the floor next to him. The boys had loved it and their gushing enthusiasm for the cake far outweighed mine for their effort with the balloons. About twenty of the smallest, saddest, most pathetic looking balloons that I’d ever seen decorated the entrance to the office.
“Seriously! That’s the best you could do?” I complained.
“He picked ‘em,” blamed Tommy, pointing at Kieran.
“It’s not my fault,” protested Kieran, “I didn’t blow ‘em up like that!”
They started squabbling amongst themselves, and I rolled my eyes, knowing that it was a pointless endeavour to complain anymore. There was nothing that we could do about it now, anyway. Popping the birthday candles into the cake, I waited for O’Connell, the only one who wasn’t arguing, to give me the signal to light them.
“What the feckin’ hell is going on in here?” Danny asked without his usual bark.
I burst into a joyful rendition of “Happy Birthday” with the guys mumbling along behind me as promised. When I was done, I thrust the cake toward Danny and told him to make a wish. He looked at me hard, and I could practically hear the guys sucking in air as they held their breath, waiting to see which way he would go. Very slowly, Danny reached up to remove the half burnt out cigarette that was hanging from his lips, blew out the candles, and replaced the cigarette. Everyone was eerily quiet, and Kieran filled the silence with his solitary party popper. It was all really quite tragic, and I could see the corners of Danny’s mouth twitch, but he held back a smile and quietly said, “Back to training.” The boys didn’t need telling twice, and they legged it from the office like it was on fire.
“Seriously, you made them put up balloons?” Danny asked me when they were gone. Putting down the cake, I gave him a great big hug, which he definitely wasn’t expecting.
“It does them good to remember that birthdays are for celebrating,” I told him. “Now sit down and open your present, and I’ll make you coffee to go with your cake.”
Sensing that he was about as used to receiving gifts as I was, I didn’t want to embarrass him by watching, and set about making his coffee while he opened his gift. When I placed it down in front of him with a plated slice of birthday cake, he was still palming the butter soft, leather tobacco pouch that I’d bought him.
“You’re something else you know that, sunshine,” he spoke quietly.
Standing up, he gave me a quick kiss and no more was said. He sat down and tucked into his cake and coffee before putting the boys through their paces. I smiled to myself, knowing that we’d done the right thing.
TAKING THE TIME TO BAKE Danny’s cake had messed with my study schedule, so I hit the books pretty hard after that. The long walks home from the gym or the library weren’t quite so painful now that I had my gorgeous new winter coat. With his first signing bonus, O’Connell had bought me a new dark grey, fitted woollen coat with a Christmas red cashmere scarf and matching gloves. He called them an early Christmas present but admitted there was no way he was letting me go any longer with just my thin summer jacket. I wanted to protest, but I was so grateful that I could have cried. There weren’t any jewels or flowers in the world that could mean the same to me as that gift did.
The exams came and went, and I was relieved that the marathon study sessions had paid off because nothing in the tests came as a great surprise. Even Max, Albie, and Ryan seemed unusually happy that we’d made them study so much. Unfortunately, as all of the gang went off to party, celebrating Christmas and the end of term, I had a shift at Daisy’s. I spent so little time there now compared with my old shift rota that I was looking forward to catching up with Rhonna and Mike. Unlike the Em of old, I actually engaged them in conversation, and I knew they’d be on tenterhooks waiting to hear how I did on my exams. Half an hour after me, and ten minutes late for her shift, Katrina flounced in without a single apology for her tardiness and proceeded to take over all of the tables I’d been covering for her. So far, I’d seemed to have gotten away with the whole ‘vomiting over my boyfriend’ incident relatively unscathed, so either Katrina had been so drunk herself that she didn’t remember, or she was saving up her ammunition for a day that she could really embarrass me with it. As it was, I found myself caring less and less. All she could do was humiliate me and it wasn’t as if I hadn’t experienced worse. Feeling relaxed and happy that my exams were over and life was good, I hummed gently as I wiped down the tables then went to take an order from one of my customers.
“What I can I get you?” I asked.
“Well, I believe you know what I wanted, but thought better of giving it to me,” O’Connell’s mum replied.
“I mean, what would you like from the menu?”
“Let’s cut the shite, shall we? I wouldn’t put anything from this greasy spoon inside me. I’m here to talk about why my son has cut me off.”
I refrained from pointing out that putting herself outside of one of Mike’s awesome Daisy burgers would be far less detrimental to her body than constantly plying it with alcohol. Sylvia was scary and intimidating, and she knew it, but my way of dealing with scary and intimidating was about to change. I wouldn’t engage in a no holds barred slanging much with her. For a start, I had far too much respect for Rhonna and Mike for that, but above all else, it just wasn’t me. My stand would be dignified but firm.
“Sylvia, I respect the fact that you’re Con’s mum, and we’ve discussed your concerns, but the bottom line is that we love each other and we want to be together. I understand that you have reservations about our relationship, but I really think that you should discuss those with Con and not me.”
I was as polite and respectful as I could be, which, in the circumstances, was probably more than she deserved, but venom filled her face, and I didn’t think this would end well.
“What do you know about love, you money grabbing little whore? You saw an easy mark in my son, and you thought you’d jump along for the free ride!”
None of this was true, but that didn’t matter to Sylvia. Despite my initial defence of her, O’Connell was right. I was the only thing standing between her and her meal ticket. This time, though, she was out of luck if she thought she could scare me off, because now I saw her for the cruel and evil bitch she really was, and when I thought about how the man I loved had been treated as a scared, hungry, innocent child, I was enraged.
“I love him enough to want to take care of him, and despite what you’d hoped for, your son and I are in this for the long haul. If you want to salvage whatever relationship you have left, then I suggest you come to terms with the idea. And please don’t come to my place of work again. You aren’t welcome here,” I replied, shaking.
“What’s wrong, Ma? Didn’t get the message the first time we talked?” O’Connell spoke gently from behind me, making me jump a mile. Mike was stood right behind him, and I was mortified by all of the attention.
“Cormac, what are you doing here?” his mum asked, genuinely shocked to see him.
“More to the point, what are you doing here? I was very clear when I told you not to go anywhere near Em and not a week later, here we are.”
“I was worried about you, Con. You’re much too young to tie yourself down. At your age, you should be playing the field and enjoying yourself. You wouldn’t listen to reason and it’s clear that lust has fogged up your brain, so I’ve come in the hope that Emily has a little more common sense.”
Everyone in the diner was openly staring at our little scene, and I really didn’t want to be part of this train wreck.
“That’s it, Ma. We’re done. I’ve told you how I feel about Em. Even after you tried to chase away the only thing that’s good and pure in my life, the only person who makes me happy. I gave you a chance to stay in touch with me if you just backed off. I don’t make empty threats, so we’re done. I’ve cleared the last of my stuff out of the house, and from now on, there will be zero contact between us, so don’t even bother asking for food or booze money. You’ve had the last penny out of me that you’re ever gonna get. Everything I make from now on is going toward mine and Em’s future together. I can’t stop you turning up to my fights, but you’re barred from the gym, and I’ll have you thrown out on sight if you come there. And if I ever find out you’ve so much as blinked in Em’s direction again, you’ll be sorry. Am I clear?”
O’Connell wasn’t shouting, but he was so wound up by this point that I could see him struggling to keep it together. As much as I loved that he’d defended me, this must be absolutely killing him. Sure, his mum was a complete bitch, but she was still his mum. To have to cut your only parent out of your life, just to have a chance at a happy future, was such a tragic thing. He was cutting Sylvia out in the same way that I’d done with my own mother. We’d made our stand and decided that from now on, our family would be of our own making, and it started with the two of us. O’Connell needed to remember that he wasn’t alone anymore. Walking closer, I said nothing but slipped my hand gently into his. As always, I could feel the anger drain out of him. He looked down at me with love and gratitude in his eyes that told me everything he couldn’t.
“Please, baby. I’m sorry for coming here, but don’t cut me off like this,” Sylvia pleaded. “You’ve got no idea how hard it is to raise a child as a single parent. You don’t know what I’ve been through to put food on the table when you were growing up. I depend on the money you give me now for food. Please don’t abandon me now just because you’ve met someone new.”
It amazed me how mercurial she could be. In an instant, she could swing from being nasty to playing the aggrieved, impoverished single mother perfectly.
“Fuck off, Ma. You didn’t put food on the table when I was a kid. I did. You didn’t raise me. I raised myself with a little help from Danny and Kieran’s Ma. I’ve been the fucking single parent, not you. If you want money, sell your house. You don’t need a three-bedroom place to yourself. But whatever you’re gonna do, fuck off and do it so that I can get on with the rest of my fucking life.”
Even with my touch to ground him, Sylvia had pushed him pretty close to the edge. Her little play on the heartstrings was like Frank telling me that he was raping me for my own good. She’d played her last hand as far as O’Connell was concerned.
“Fine. If that’s the way you feel, perhaps we’ll talk again when you’ve calmed down,” Sylvia said stiffly as she got out of the booth.
“No, Ma. There won’t be any more talking. Go away and don’t come back.”
“You don’t mean that. Without you I don’t have anything to live for,” she pleaded.
“Bullshit! I’ve lost count of the number of times you’ve threatened me with suicide. You do what you want, but that’s your choice, not mine. And if you think that some half-hearted attempt will work like last time, you’re wrong. I’ll have you institutionalised for psychiatric problems and put on suicide watch.”
Sylvia paled, and I wondered if that was exactly what she’d planned to do next. O’Connell had her flustered, and I guessed that didn’t happen often. She smoothed down her skirt that was far too short for someone her age, picked up her handbag, and with one more death stare at me walked out of the door.
“You okay?” Mike asked me. I nodded, and with a small sympathetic smile, he headed back to the kitchen. O’Connell looked around at the cafe’s noisy patrons and all but growled as peopled hurried to divert their attention back to their own meals and away from our drama. O’Connell turned toward me, and in an unusual display of vulnerability, rested his forehead on my shoulder wearily.
“How did you know she was here?” I asked.
“Tommy said she was sniffing round the gym when I was running, looking for you. I didn’t know that she knew where you worked, but I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
He was quiet for a moment, then resting his hands on my waist he looked me hard in the eyes.
“You didn’t run,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
“I promised, didn’t I?” I smiled.