The next morning as I drove past the protestors, Nora waved at me to stop and when I slowed down, she leaned into my window. ‘Come and say hello to Christy.’
‘Christy Power?’ I said. ‘Red’s dad Christy?’
She nodded. ‘The very one. He’s writing a poem, or a collection of poems. He’s just read one out to us. “Nora’s Last Stand”. I told him there was no way it was going to be, but he said it flowed better this way.’
I parked the car and walked over to them. Christy was sitting on Nellie’s flowery picnic chair, with his notebook, sucking on an old chewed pencil ruminatively.
‘Well, young Tabitha,’ he said, and began to try and get up.
‘Hello Christy,’ I said, easing him back down. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I meant to come down weeks ago, swell the numbers a bit, but my legs haven’t been so good.’
‘There are new people here every day,’ I said. ‘It’s turning into a day care for the retired.’
‘You see, Tabitha,’ he said. ‘You never lose your passion. Eyesight, ability to sprint 100 metres, to cook a soufflé, but you never lose your principles.’
‘Since when did you cook a soufflé, Christy?’ said Nellie. ‘I don’t think it was on soufflés you were reared.’
‘Bacon and cabbage,’ he said, giving her a wink. ‘Like we all were. But I wouldn’t mind a soufflé. Just to see if they are as nice as they sound…’
He was right, I thought, as I listened along. They had created something, my mother and her pals, they had created a sense of community, a cause, a reason to be, out of passion and commitment. They had created a space for people to come down, have a chat, pass the time of day, hold placards and feel part of something greater than they were.
‘So, you’re never going to sell the land, are ye?’ said Christy. ‘It’s a bit hare-brained, wouldn’t you say. Have these fine people not convinced you yet? You are going to tell the developers where to go, aren’t you?’ He was smiling at me but Christy meant business. They all did. These were not pensioners who gave up. Christy had survived the death of his wife, bringing up a son on his own. He’d left school at fourteen and had worked his way up in the council to a nice, desk job. And he wrote poetry.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘It’s kind of hard to make a decision when you have protestors clouding your thoughts.
‘I know you’ll do the right thing,’ he said. ‘Whatever the outcome. You’ve got a good heart, you have.’
‘Tea, Christy?’ said Robbo. ‘Nice and hot?’
‘Thank you, lad,’ said Christy. ‘I was just saying to your mother, how nice it was that you and Red were… you know, friendly again.’
Nora just gave me a shrug and a weird smile, as if she hadn’t contributed to this particular part of the conversation.
‘I’d better go,’ I said. ‘Are you here for the day, Christy?’
‘I think so. If Robbo over there keeps the tea coming.’ He gave Robbo a wink.
‘The more the merrier,’ said Nora. ‘We need all the reinforcements we can get. Now, Tabitha, at this board meeting tonight, you’re to tell this Brian Crowley, that you won’t be selling.’
‘But, Mum, it’s not that simple,’ I said, crossly. I admired the protestors and couldn’t help but be impressed by the community they had created, a mini movement. It may not be of the magnitude of the Sheep’s Head Peace Camp but it was significant. But it still didn’t take away from the fact that our school needed money.
‘Well, whatever you decide,’ said Christy, ‘we all know your heart is in the right place. Decisions can be difficult.’
I flashed him a grateful smile, touched by his kindness.
‘They don’t have to be,’ said Nora. ‘This decision is wrong. Pure and simple.’
‘Let me just write that down,’ said Christy. ‘It’ll be good for the poem.’
*
Nora had been right, I thought. I didn’t have fun anymore. The last time I had gone out was to Celia’s soiree and that didn’t count. But at Clodagh’s party, there surely was an opportunity for fun and to prove to my mother that I too could have a laugh. Drinking, music… and Red. He didn’t make me feel fun. Just awkward.
And then there was the not insignificant issue of what I was actually going to put on. I mean, what did people wear to parties these days? At Celia’s, everyone was in various shades of taupe. But to a cool, media party?
Unless you counted my collection of sensible suits for school or my tracksuit bottoms and cashmere jumpers (all slightly bobbly, if truth be told), I had nothing to wear. And the thing was, I wanted to look sexy. Attractive. Still got it. That kind of thing. Things that I hadn’t asked of myself in years. If Red was going to be there, I didn’t want to turn up in my easy-care separates.
Jeans. Try the jeans. And my black top. Better perhaps than with the black trousers? What about my ballet flats? Hmmm. I assessed myself in the mirror. No. No way. I looked like a nun on a night-off. Maybe it was the way I was standing, slightly hunched? I pulled myself up, ballerina style.
‘Mum! Oh my God!’ Rosie was standing at the door, laughing. ‘Oh my god what are you doing, you look ridiculous!’ She looked effortlessly gorgeous as always, in her old tracksuit bottoms, long hair loosely tied. ‘Mum… you haven’t gone mad, have you?’
‘I think I might have. I was just trying to look nice. It’s Clodagh’s party and it’s going to be full of scary media folk. No one eats, apparently, and they all have personal trainers and dieticians and food coaches and…’ I sounded pathetic, I knew that. ‘I just want to up my game…’
‘Up your game?’
‘Just a bit. Not enough to win Wimbledon or anything, but enough not to embarrass myself by tripping over the balls or getting tangled in the net…’ my metaphor drifted away, exhausted. ‘Listen, I know it’s stupid and it goes against everything I’ve ever taught you about being yourself and not trying to fit in. I know that it’s not feminist or empowering, but for one night, just one night, I don’t want to look like a principal of a suburban national school. I want to look like… like utterly unlike me. I want to look nice.’ I didn’t want to tell her about Red. How could I explain that one? That I wanted to look nice for a man that wasn’t my husband and someone with whom I shared a secret past.
‘You do look nice,’ she said, loyally. ‘You always look nice. But if you want to look a little bit more glamorous, then I’ll help you.’
‘But I don’t want to take you away from your books.’
‘I need a break,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get you out of the house and then I’ll go back to them.’
‘Or go and see Alice and Meg?’ I suggested. ‘It is Friday night after all.’
‘They’ll be working too,’ she said, quickly. ‘Everyone is. Anyway, I’ll give you a hand.’
‘I don’t even know what’s fashionable anymore. I don’t even know how to get dressed. I mean, are jeans still even a thing? Or is it something else entirely. Dungarees or spacesuits. I have no idea.’
‘No, jeans are still a thing,’ she reassured. ‘But you can’t wear them with that.’ She eyed my blouse. ‘Take it off…’
‘But…’
‘Off.’ She scanned the contents of my wardrobe with the eye of a personal shopper. ‘Right then…’
I felt almost giddy with delight, sharing this moment with her. I missed her, I had been so worried about her, yet here she was, bossing me about, being my daughter again, the one I loved with all my heart.
‘What about this?’ She held up a top on which I had spent a ridiculous amount of money and it had hung, reproachfully, in my wardrobe for three years. A daily reminder of my profligacy.
‘It’s not me. Too low-cut,’ I said. ‘And too tight. It might be okay if I was a yoga teacher, living in LA, existing on nettles. And had an entirely different personality. And face. And body. Then, then it would be gorgeous on me. But there’s not enough time. I mean, I can’t even touch my toes…’
‘So? Try it on.’
I didn’t argue and pulled it on.
‘Now the jeans.’
I did as I was told, wriggling in. They were tight but not insurmountable or un-get-in-able.
‘Good,’ said Rosie, narrow-eyed, with an air of Henry Higgins, surveying and scrutinising. ‘Now the shoes.’
‘I thought I could wear my flats. They’re comfortable and…’
‘Comfort?’ She looked at me as though I had suggested wearing a pair of novelty Garfield slippers. ‘Oh no, tonight is not about comfort…’
‘Who are you?’ I said. ‘What kind of creature have I raised? I thought high heels were a symbol of male oppression?’
‘Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s one night. Wearing high heels is not going to kill you. You wear those flat shoes every day. They’re like slippers.’
‘Which is why I wear them.’
‘These.’ She produced another vast waste of money. They weren’t me, respectable teacher, mother and politician’s wife. I had worn them only once and never again. ‘These are perfect.’
‘They are ridiculous,’ I insisted.
‘Try them on.’
Wobbling fawn-like, I waited for Rosie’s verdict. Her beautiful face frowning with concentration. How could I regret any decision I had ever made when I had Rosie to show for it?
‘There’s one thing missing,’ she said. ‘One moment!’ She ran from the room and returned with a pair of hoop earrings which she had borrowed from me and never returned. ‘And these.’ She stepped back while I looped them through my ears. ‘Right,’ she said with triumph. ‘You are perfect. Beautiful, actually.’
‘Really?’ I was pathetically grateful for the compliment.
She laughed. ‘One hundred per cent yes. You look like my mum, but different.’ She was the Rosie of a year ago, before this year of exam stress and the end of things with Jake. Smiling, delighted at her success in the fashion makeover.
‘You remind me of Rosaleen,’ I said. ‘I called you after her, you know. Little rose, Rosaleen and Rosie.’
She came over and hugged me and, for a moment, we held each other, as though she was still my little girl and needed one of my long hugs.
‘Rosie?’ I said when we pulled away. ‘Everything okay?’
She nodded. ‘Have a good time, Mum. You won’t be too late, will you?’
I shook my head. ‘Are you worried about me?’
‘No. I just… I just like you being at home, that’s all.’
‘I won’t be late, I promise.’
And she smiled as I waved from the front door, those Rosaleen blue eyes.
*
‘You look gorgeous.’ Clodagh eyed me approvingly, swiping two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and handing one to me. ‘I knew you were still in there, under the school-teacher exterior, the old Tabitha lurks.’
‘Shut up, Clodes,’ I said. ‘It’s easy for you. You don’t have to try. Tonight, I am the product of my daughter. Rosie was my stylist.’
‘Well, she did a wonderful job. What’s this?’ I had handed over her present. ‘Oooh…’ She tore off the paper. ‘Pride and Prejudice! Thank you!’
‘It’s a special edition. And read this…’ I said, pulling out a card I’d made.
‘You are invited to a Jane Austen weekend in Bath with your best friend, Tabitha, who, by the way, is paying for everything. Just say the date! Really?’ she squealed. ‘That is the best present ever. Are you sure?’
‘Totally. I can’t wait myself. I thought we could go to Bath for a posh weekend away and have treatments in the spa there and do all things Jane Austen.’ At college, Clodagh was obsessed with Jane Austen and wrote her final dissertation on female empowerment in the novels of… etc. ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘we can’t not celebrate your fortieth birthday! Well, we did, two years ago and it was so good, we should do it all over again.’ Thinking back, that was last time I had had fun.
She laughed. ‘Tab, this is why you’re my best friend. No one in the world knows me like you do. Thank you!’ She clutched me hard. ‘Let’s go in the autumn. Deal?’
‘Just say the date… my finger is hovering over the Ryanair confirm flights button.’
She smiled and dropped her voice. ‘It’s the perfect trip for two women in their mid-forties…’
‘Mid? Early, surely!’ I dropped my voice significantly. ‘We’re only forty-two.’
‘Whatever, it’s immaterial, really. Just remember, yesterday I was thirty-nine. Tonight I am a mere forty. It’s magic.’
‘Got it. Now, who’s here? Anyone famous, glamorous. I am expecting top-notch celebrities. Some scandal that will end up in the tabloids in the morning.’ I looked around and spotted a couple of famous faces. A few soap stars. A DJ was over in the corner playing music I had never heard before – it certainly wasn’t Johnny Logan. ‘Where’s Max?’
‘Somewhere over there,’ she said, waving a hand vaguely. ‘On his mobile probably. Or having a fag.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘No one is meant to know he’s a smoker because I think he thinks it shows weakness. I mean, he is obsessed with his health. He’s always drinking green slime and worrying about the lines on his face. He doesn’t want people to know his fallibilities.’
I laughed. ‘But he does drink, doesn’t he?’
‘Are you mad? You can’t work in the media and be teetotal. You’d have your NUJ card taken off you.’ She paused. ‘He’s a man of contrasts. But that’s what makes him interesting.’ She paused. ‘Kind of.’
‘Clodagh! Loveen!’ In front of us was a vision of shimmering green. Long red hair cascading over her shoulders, voluptuous curves barely contained. Bridget O’Flaherty. She looked even more amazing in the flesh. Fleshier, really.
‘Bridget!’ Clodagh hugged her, air-kissing as though they were long-lost friends. ‘So lovely that you came.’
‘I would not have missed this for anything. I just love parties, especially ones like this. It’s full of the old dinosaurs of Irish television. All those ones who you thought had popped their clogs years ago. I mean, I just saw Val Connolly. Who exhumed him?’
‘Val?’ said Clodagh. I could tell she was doing her best to hold on to her smile ‘He runs his own production company now. Makes millions.’ She turned to me and imperceptibly widened her eyes giving a tiny shake of her head.
‘Well, not as disinteresting as I initially thought,’ said Bridget. ‘I always say, there are only two points to a man. One, if he’s drop-dead gorgeous, or two, if he’s loaded. Normally, I like both.’
Clodagh managed to mouth ‘see what I mean’ to me. ‘Tab,’ she said, ‘I should have introduced you… this is Bridget O’Flaherty, our new weather...
‘The new meteorologist and television personality,’ said Bridget. ‘Or that’s what my agent wants me to call myself. It’s meaningless, to me, but she insists on it. Absolutely insists. Says I’m not just a pretty face. Well, she says I’m that, but she would wouldn’t she, being my mother and everything. Meteorologist and television personality, that’s me! Anyway, pleased to meet you.’ She shook my hand.
‘Tabitha,’ I said. ‘Clodagh’s friend. No media connections. Just here for the free champagne.’
‘So, how old are you, Clodagh?’ she said.
‘Forty,’ said Clodagh, quickly, eyes giving a flicker.
‘Really?’ Bridget raised a sceptical brow.
‘Yes really! Goodness me, you don’t think I am younger than that, do you?’ went on Clodagh. ‘You don’t think I am pretending to be older than I actually am to lend myself a sense of gravitas?’
‘Gravitas? Is that something to do with gravity?’
‘No,’ said Clodagh. ‘It’s to do with gravy. On your roast chicken.’
Bridget looked confused, but I was beginning to laugh, discreetly.
‘We all like gravitas, Bridget,’ Clodagh continued. ‘Except some of us were born with it, some of us have gravitas thrust upon us and others don’t even know what it is.’
‘Oh do fuck off,’ said Bridget, sweetly. ‘All I’m saying is that you don’t look forty…’
‘Nor do you,’ said Clodagh.
‘But obviously I don’t!’ said Bridget.
‘You look fifty!’ Clodagh drained her glass of champagne. ‘Oh, aren’t you?’
‘I’m fecking thirty-one,’ said Bridget, rattled. ‘It’s just that I’ve been working – professionally – since I was five. It’s really ageing, those late nights and having to get on the road again. Fecking Riverdance. Even now, if I walk into a shop and they are playing the music, I can feel my feet start to twitch, and my knees start to ache. I can hear the voice of our teacher shouting at us to keep on. I can’t walk around Temple Bar or any of the tourist shops. It’s all Mammy’s fault. She put me on the stage, spotted my talent early. Her own dancing career was cruelly cut short by a terrible accident that involved a bullock at the St Patrick’s Day parade when she was twelve. Never got over it and she put all her effort into me. When my knees packed in, she thought television was our only answer. She’s over there, actually.’ She pointed out a woman who looked like a slightly older version of Bridget, the same look entirely, but she was shorter and her hair an unnatural shade of red.
Then Bridget suddenly shouted. ‘Selfie!’ And put both arms around us and held up her phone. ‘This, ladies, is going on Twitter,’ she said. ‘I try and post every fifteen minutes. Everyone smile!’
And just as I was clinched in this media sandwich, I saw a face looking over at me. Red. He waved his hand, an indiscernible expression on his face, while I disentangled myself from Bridget’s limbs.
Maybe it was the effect of the champagne, but all I wanted to do was put my two hands around his face and pull him towards me and kiss him. I wanted to remember what he tasted like, what it felt to feel his breath on mine, feel the heat of his skin on me.
*
Clodagh passed me another glass of Prosecco as soon as Bridget had gone to air-kiss and schmooze others. ‘You look like you need this,’ she said. ‘I know I do. What do you think of her?’
‘Who?’
‘What’s wrong with you? You’re miles away.’
‘She’s…’ I came back to the conversation. ‘She’s just like all you media types. Self-obsessed.’
She sank her wine. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘But who else would put them through this except for self-obsessed, masochistic narcissists.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Talking of another one.’ And then, louder, ‘Max! I thought you’d disappeared somewhere.’
And there was Max, shorter and plainer than I had remembered, wearing a black polo-neck, like a miniature James Bond, or at least someone trying to channel James Bond. And failing. He didn’t smile. ‘No, but I’m not going to stay much longer,’ he said. ‘I’m going to head off.’ He nodded at me, ignoring Clodagh’s obvious disappointment.
‘Max, how’s it going?’ I said, while Clodagh began speaking.
‘But, it’s my party,’ she said. ‘It’s only getting started.’
‘Clodagh. I’m tired. I’ve been working all week. I am not fecking twenty-five any longer.’
‘Excuse me a moment,’ I said, wondering why Clodagh bothered her arse with this charmless excuse for a boyfriend. And she questioned why I had stayed with Michael! Yet there she was, with someone who, every time I met him, displayed as much charisma as a boiled turnip. He looked not unlike one too.
For a moment, I stood, not knowing what to do. I was aware of Red out of the corner of my eye, still in conversation with someone. I couldn’t walk up to him. He’d waved. Was that enough. I mean, I’d see him again on Monday. We didn’t need to talk to each other tonight, did we? But then, he was suddenly alone, the man he’d been talking to had gone. And Red looked directly at me. The two of us stood, watching each other, in the middle of the melee, the noise, the talking, the braying. Bridget was taking another selfie in the midst of a group. I recognised Lucinda, Clodagh’s producer, who was trying not to be head locked into the group.
Without thinking, we moved towards each other and then we were standing in front of one another.
‘Hi Red,’ I said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Grand, you?’
‘Lovely thanks. How’s your dad? It was really nice to see him again,’ I began gabbling. ‘He’s looking well, better than I thought he would, you know, after a stroke. And the house is the same. It was nice to see it again. And tell him that Michael didn’t have any of Peggy’s cake, but Rosie and I loved it…’
‘She makes a good cake,’ he said. ‘I think she might put whiskey into it.’
‘No wonder it was good. Maybe I shouldn’t have given so much of it to Rosie. But it was good to see her eating something.’
He smiled. ‘I remember once finishing off the sherry trifle for Christmas… I was eight. Oh my God. Mam had made me a separate one, in a tiny bowl, without sherry, but I polished off the adults’ one. I’ve never had sherry since. Sick as a dog. I can still smell it now. There’s that wine shop in Sandycove, and I can’t even walk past because of the smell. It smells of being sick on Christmas night.’
‘I don’t think that is what they are going for,’ I said, laughing. ‘Anyway, you’ve never told me that!’ I was behaving as though there hadn’t been an eighteen year hiatus, as though we were still together.
‘Tab,’ he spoke carefully, reminding me that there was a yawning gap between us, ‘there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ Jesus, I was forgetting myself, slipping into a place, a feeling, I had no business being.
‘Forget it. Okay?’
I nodded. And breathe. And smile. I thought.
‘So,’ he said, as though we were starting all over again. ‘Having a good time?’
‘Well, I just met Bridget O’Flaherty, weather supremo, meteorological tsar…so that was exciting.’ I was working hard to keep things light, to stop myself from either slipping into our easy repartee which left me confused or to start crying and force him to confront what happened. Neither was going to help our current working situation but all I knew was, standing there with him, his body close to mine, bending to speak into each other’s ears so we could hear each other above the music, I was happy. For the first time in years, I was happy. I could feel it, a warmth in my stomach, a fizzing in my synapses, and a lightness in my toes. Happiness. A strange and lovely feeling. Fun. I was in danger of actually having fun.
‘Tsarina.’
‘What?’
‘Weather tsarina, surely?’
‘Indeed, weather tsarina, sultana… princess of precipitation? Which do you prefer?’
‘Sultana, definitely. I see no raisin not to.’
‘Red!’ I giggled. ‘You can do better than that.’
‘The problem is, I can’t,’ he said, making us both laugh again. ‘So meeting this sultana then. Highlight of your life?’
‘The highlight,’ I said. ‘Apart from the time I met Orville the duck at the stage door of the Gaiety after the panto.’
He laughed. ‘You see, I did not know that about you. Mine was meeting Ray Houghton. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I was eighteen,’ he chuckled. ‘Old enough to know better, but he was such a hero. Scoring that goal at Italia ’90. But he was well used to idiot boys like me being goggle-eyed and slack-jawed. A real hero. You don’t meet many of them every day.’
‘A bit better than Orville,’ I said. ‘And there I was thinking that meeting a green puppet could be the greatest brush with fame and you go and trump me with your story of meeting a man who single-handedly improved the mental health of an entire nation.’
‘Sorry about that,’ he said, laughing again. From behind us we heard the sound of ‘Happy Birthday’ being sung. We watched as a huge cake was pushed on a trolley towards Clodagh and a surge of people followed, all singing. And then a chorus of ‘For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow’, which someone changed to ‘For She’s A Jolly Good Newsreader’ started up, whilst Clodagh attempted to blow out the candles. But for some reason, before she had even mustered enough breath, Bridget had swept over them, with the zeal of a firefighter determined to put out all flames, however miniature.
‘Sorry!’ she smiled at everyone. ‘Instinct! I see birthday candles and I just have to blow them out!’ She clutched Clodagh’s arm. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Clodes?’
Clodagh looked as though she minded a great deal indeed. And as the cake began to be sliced up and handed around, she and Max were asked to pose for some photographer. But Bridget slipped in between them, holding a slice of cake in a paper napkin and as the shutter clicked, the cake totally obscured Clodagh’s face. I thought of Clodagh’s stricken expression whenever Max was around. Why did she bother with him? Why was such a cool and successful woman like Clodagh bothering her arse with Maximum Pratt?
‘What the hell is happening to this country?’ said Red. ‘I leave and everything is normal and upstaging people is considered entirely un-Irish. I come back and we’re all in competition with each other. It’s dog eat dog.’
‘If anyone blew out my birthday candles,’ I said, ‘I don’t think I’d be too happy. It’s one of those things that you just don’t do. Like cancel the barbecue because it’s raining or not watch Christmas Top of the Pops.’ I’d decided somewhere between Orville and Ray Houghton that I was just going to give in to this. I wasn’t going to run off. I wanted to be here, right now. Talking to an old friend. Okay, so we had history and it was slightly awkward and there was so much we weren’t saying, but for now, at this level, it was glorious.
‘Do people still do that?’ he asked. ‘Really?’
‘I don’t know if it’s still on,’ I admitted. ‘But every Christmas, when I am sitting at my mother-in-law’s dining table eating turkey, I wish I was at home, just me and Rosie, watching Top of the Pops.’
‘We watched it,’ he said. ‘Do you remember? It was just us and we roasted a chicken. You made the worst gravy I have ever tasted.’
‘And you insisted on making something from Delia Smith. Something involving asparagus. It didn’t work. Mushy asparagus, if I remember rightly.’ We’d had fun that day too. We’d had a lot of fun when we were together. We used to laugh a lot. And I’d stopped laughing over the years, and it was incredible to remember that I was still that person who laughed. Red seemed to be enjoying himself because he was laughing as much as I was.
‘I was just trying to show off,’ he said. ‘Impress you. Obviously didn’t work.’
‘Well…’ I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Yes, it did work. You did impress me. And I’m still impressed. More than impressed, actually.
He was looking at me. ‘You look… you look beautiful.’
‘Sorry?’ I said, frowning. What did he just say?
‘You look beautiful,’ he repeated. And he blushed. I could see it, the pink spreading from his neck to the top of his head. I’d forgotten that he used to blush but now it all came back to me. He blushed that time he asked me out for a drink, and the first time we kissed on the bandstand on the pier when it had begun to rain. How could I have forgotten? But if I had remembered it, I would have thought it was just a youthful affliction, not something a grown man, someone so assured, could do.
And I wanted to kiss him again just like that time on the bandstand. I wanted to be that twenty-two-year-old all over again.
‘Red…’ I began. ‘Red… I…’ I wanted to say that I was sorry. I wanted to explain why it had happened, my excuse, my reason. An answer for him.
He was looking at me, intently.
‘Red, there’s something I need to say…’ But behind us we heard a voice. Bridget.
.
*
‘There you are, Tabitha,’ she said, as though we were old friends. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere…’ She turned to Red. ‘Oh hello. Bridget O’Flaherty.’ She held out her hand. ‘And who are you?’ She inched a shoulder in front of me, so that it was just her and Red talking and me hanging around. ‘Don’t tell me what you do,’ she said. ‘Production company? Managing director?’
‘Nothing like that,’ he said. ‘I’m a school teacher. Red Power. Good to meet you.’
‘Oh.’ For a moment, Bridget was quiet, the only sound was her brain whirring, trying to work out if it was worth her while to be attracted to a teacher. ‘When did teachers get to be so handsome?’ She put her hand on the lapel of Red’s jacket and stood so I was slightly obscured.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘There’s something I’ve always wondered… how teachers manage to keep control of a classroom? I mean, we were always so naughty. I just wondered what you might do if someone you were trying to teach was being bold.’
I could hear Red laugh but I couldn’t see his face because Bridget had actually moved so she was blocking me off entirely. And then another group edged towards us so I was being cut off from them, Bridget’s back right in my face. Clodagh came up to me and pulled me to the bar. ‘I need a drink. A large one. Or a tiny but lethal one.’
‘Not tequila?’ I said, looking back at Red and Bridget. ‘You know what dark powers tequila has over you.’
‘Don’t care,’ she said, waving to the bar tender. Red had moved and was looking over at me but maybe, I thought, Bridget had done us a service. We couldn’t stand there, having a good time. I was married. There was a whole lifetime behind us. We had grown up. It we tried to be friends, then it would very likely go wrong, leaving us worse off, perhaps, than before. And Red was a handsome and lovely man. He needed to find someone with whom he could settle down. I had to let him go a second time, wipe out any thoughts or feelings I might have for him.
‘Two shots of tequila,’ said Clodagh, mascara slightly smudged.
‘Are you all right,’ I said, focussing on her, forgetting Red. ‘Have you been crying? At your own party?’
‘Max,’ she sighed heavily. ‘Says he’s going home, that he’s tired. I said it was my birthday and he said I was like a spoilt child. So I told him that I’d had enough.’
‘What?’
‘I told him, that I didn’t want to see him again.’
‘Really? At your own birthday?’
‘Yes, really. Me and Maximus Pratticus are no more.’ She gave a half-smile. ‘And now I’m single. Fucking again.’
‘Clodagh… remember? You like being single,’ I said, arranging my face into one of concern but inside I was relieved that Clodagh was no longer saddled with the man called Pratt. I glanced over at Red again, he and Bridget were now deep in conversation.
‘Just give me time, that’s all,’ Clodagh was saying. ‘A day or two and I’ll remember. But for now, let me get a little bit maudlin.’
‘Okay. Go ahead. You’ve got 48 hours starting now.’
‘Right.’ She sucked in air, and focussed her mind. ‘It’s really not fair. I’ve worked my arse off all these years, but here I am aged…’ she dropped her voice to a rasp… ‘forty-fecking-two… and what do I have to show for it? A career that is being threatened by a pneumatic weather girl with dodgy knees and a man who would rather spend his evenings at home than with me at my party. Surely I can do better than this?’
‘You can do whatever you put your mind to…’
‘I’m thinking of an ashram, in India.’ Clodagh was warming to her theme. ‘Or maybe running a nice little B & B in the foothills of somewhere. They always have to be foothills, don’t they?’
‘I don’t even know what a foothill is,’ I said.
‘I think it involves a hill, anyway,’ said Clodagh confidently. ‘And a foot.’ And we both laughed. But then she wiped away a tear. ‘So my brief encounter is over,’ she said. ’Appropriate, him being so short.’
‘Clodes, don’t cry… please don’t cry.’ This wasn’t the glamourous 40th birthday party either of us has imagined, Clodagh in tears, me bewildered and bothered by Red.
‘It’s the champagne,’ she said. ‘I’m the only person in the world on whom it doesn’t have an effervescent effect.’
‘And the tequila,’ I said. ‘This is what it does. It makes people who aren’t natural criers, who stay stony faced at The Color Purple or It’s A Wonderful Life, into cry-babies.’
‘I did cry at both those films,’ she said. ‘But Max is neither a smiler nor a crier. He didn’t cry once at Dunkirk. The whole cinema was in floods and he was calm and collected. I think he might have been supporting the other side.’
I laughed.
‘I’ll have to carry on being nice to him,’ she went on. ‘My contract is up at the end of the month so I have to be professional and charming. When what I really want to do is set fire to his balls.’
‘Are they flammable then?’
‘When I finish with them, they will be. But what about Red. He looks cosy with old Bridget… are you okay with that? How are you? You never say anything!’ she said. ‘How awkward is it, really? And don’t give me that everything’s fine, it’s not weird at all. Because it must be. And I shouldn’t have invited him tonight. I’m sorry.’
We both looked over at Red and Bridget, still talking. Well, she was anyway. His back was to us.
‘It’s weird and awkward and… the same,’ I admitted. ‘I still feel the same.’
‘Good God no! You mean that you still, you know… still love him?’
‘Yeah,’ I nodded, resigned. ‘So it’s horrible. Can’t wait for the term to be over actually. And then I might never see him again except for brief encounters on the pier or whatever.’
‘Oh Tab,’ she said, hugging me. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m fine, I’m more worried about Rosie doing her exams, you know?’
‘So, why aren’t you crying?’ she said. ‘You’re drinking it too. Maybe you need another shot. A pint! A pint of tequila.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I should be. Because I’m not happy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not happy. Not really. Okay, so you make me happy. And my job. And Rosie is the best thing ever, but I’m not happy, not really, not deeply. Something’s missing.’
‘Tell me about it.’ Clodagh signalled for two more tequilas.
‘It’s like I’m living half a life,’ I rambled. ‘And I so desperately want all of me to be alive. Do you know what I’m saying?’
‘I think so.’
‘I hate being married to Michael.’ On I droned, the tequila loosening my tongue. This was probably why I never had any fun. I turned into a self-pitying fool at the first whiff of alcohol. ‘And I can’t complain because he’s all right, really. But he’s not interested in me.’ I was starting to slur. ‘And I’m not interested in him.’ I picked up my refresh tequila. ‘But do you know what the worst thing is?’
Clodagh was agog, with drink, I realised, and definitely not my fascinating story. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.
‘I’ve been married to a man for seventeen years who calls me Mammy.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t know your name,’ she said, ‘and it’s been so long and he’s too embarrassed to ask you what it is.’ And the two of us began to laugh.
She passed me another shot. ‘Ready?’
We both launched the drinks down our throats, faces contorted with the sheer horror.
‘You know,’ she said, signalling for two more. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that things can change just like that. It’s happened to me so often that I’ve stopped taking anything for granted. I mean, look at madam over there, talking to Red. I’ve got a funny feeling that she’s going to cause a few waves.’
I looked over at Red and Bridget but they had gone.
‘You see,’ said Clodagh, slurring. ‘It’s my theory that you never get everything you want at the same time. Keeps you persevering, you see. So all those things you want, nice relationships, happy career, children, a glass of rosé, that kind of thing. Basic needs in other words. You can’t have all of them at the same time. Each has to take its turn. So, you have a child, your career suffers. If you meet someone nice…’
‘You become allergic to rosé?’
‘Exactly.’ Clodagh looked as plastered as I felt.
‘Clodagh, I think you and I just might have had too much to drink.’
‘How very dare you!’ she said. ‘I haven’t had half enough!’ She held up her newly refilled shot glass. ‘Tonight,’ she declared. ‘Tonight I drink tequila.’ She tossed it back. ‘God, that’s disgusting,’ she said. ‘Disgustingly good.’