A Time for Friends (23 page)

‘Oh indeed we have!’ Hilary laughed. ‘When it opened a few years ago Jonathan and I hot-footed it down to Wicklow to see what all the fuss was about.’

‘We did a lot of “research” in Powerscourt Springs. Well that was our excuse,’ Jonathan grinned. ‘There’s a lot of new places springing up – if
you’ll excuse the pun – but Powerscourt Springs led the way in health farms in Ireland, it was the first, and to my mind it’s still the best. Those views of the Sugar Loaf and the
Wicklow countryside . . . wow . . . and that Tranquillity Room with the recliner couches – I have to admit, it was my inspiration for a few places I’ve designed myself.’

‘Me too,’ confessed Hilary. ‘I wouldn’t mind being there right now, sitting in that lovely lounge, wrapped in a towelling robe, looking out at that horrible weather,
waiting for a facial or massage.’

‘Ooohh yes,’ agreed Andrea. ‘Or tucking into their gorgeous lunches. That walnut bread—’

‘Stop!’ commanded Jonathan. ‘You’re making me hungry. We need to focus on the job in hand,’ he added briskly.

‘Right well I’d like really soft lighting in our bedroom and en suite. Also I’m very tempted to break down the walls and have a freestanding claw-foot bath with antique
fittings. I think that’s a fabulous look too. All white to match my white-lace Egyptian-cotton bedlinen. And I want white voile draped over the four-poster and white louvre
blinds—’

‘I’m sure Jonathan has advised that you’d need to factor in steam removal so damp won’t become a problem if you go down that route,’ Hilary interjected, ever the
pragmatist.

‘Indeed,’ Jonathan affirmed. ‘I’ve made all these points to Andrea, but this of course is just a preliminary discussion.’

‘Of course.’ Hilary smiled at her partner and he gave her a tiny wink.

‘And you know the way they play that very calming music in all the treatment rooms in spas? I’d really like to have a sound system installed as well,’ Andrea declared, waving a
perfectly manicured hand in the air. ‘I don’t think Rowena has one.’

‘We can give you a quote for that too – we’ve worked with a firm who install them,’ Jonathan assured their client, who was seriously determined not only to keep up with
the Joneses but to outdo them.

It was all about impressing and outdoing people these days, he thought, amused at the notion that he, who had grown up in a small semi in a country town, decorating doll’s houses made out
of shoeboxes, was now working in a business that catered for the most affluent of Irish society.
It was far from health farms and claw-foot baths and sound systems you were reared
, he
thought, looking forward to telling his mother about his latest client. It would be interesting to see if Andrea and her husband would follow through with all their proposed renovations when they
got their quote.

Listening to Jonathan and Andrea discuss colour schemes for the refurbished bathroom Hilary felt some of the tension she’d been aware of begin to recede, and she slipped into working mode
and took her big notebook from her briefcase and began to take notes and draw diagrams of the various rooms.

Margaret Hammond stared out at the sleeting rain bouncing off the circular cream-and-brown ceramic table on her patio. Her garden, though rain-battered and windswept, was well
kept, thanks to the gardener that her son paid for to come once a fortnight. Niall was a generous son, she couldn’t deny, but he expected a lot of Hilary. Her daughter-in-law had her own
demanding job; surely he could have taken an hour or two off to bring her to the clinic. There was no point in Margaret expecting her daughter to take the time off. Sue was so absorbed in her own
life she had no time for anyone else.

Margaret sighed as she struggled to open the cap of her paracetamol container. She felt very arthritic today, always did when it rained. Old age was unforgiving and unrelenting and a cause of
great worry to her. She could feel her body deteriorating. Her eyesight was beginning to fade, her hearing getting poorer. The breathlessness caused by her heart congestion was increasing. The
water tablets she took were affecting her potassium levels and had to be adjusted and it was just one thing after another, she thought glumly, as the urge to pee increased and she hoped she’d
make it to the loo without wetting herself.

What would happen, she wondered, limping back into the kitchen, if she just stopped taking all her tablets? If she thought she would go quickly to her eternal rest she’d do it, Margaret
thought defiantly, wishing she had the nerve. Death did not worry her. It was the way of her going that concerned her. Her great fear about stopping her tablets was suffering a stroke and being
trapped in her body. Her other great fear was ending up in a nursing home.

She knew Hilary and Niall would do the best they could for her. Sue would think a nursing home was the perfect solution . . . as long as she didn’t have to pay . . . How had she reared a
daughter who was so . . . so indifferent and self-absorbed? Margaret shook her head. She had been too soft on her children and her husband. Done too much for them. It was as much her fault as
theirs that Sue and to a lesser extent Niall were somewhat selfish.

She could see in her daughter-in-law the same giving nature she’d had. She saw how Niall and her granddaughters often took Hilary, and all she did for them, for granted. Niall was content
to let Hilary run the household and ferry the girls to their various appointments. Margaret had done the same with her family while her husband had concentrated on his job. The difference was, she
hadn’t worked outside the home. Hilary was a woman with a career and a very successful career at that. She had elderly parents of her own to keep an eye on. She just couldn’t be running
after her and bringing her to clinics and appointments.

But what other options did she have than to accept her daughter-in-law’s assistance, Margaret brooded, finally managing to get her tablet carton opened. She studied the pile of white
rectangular tablets. It was a pity they were quite sizeable pills, difficult to swallow a large amount. An overdose caused liver damage, she’d heard. Would that be painless? What would happen
if it didn’t work? She filled a glass of water and shook two tablets into her palm, and swallowed them.

Coward!

It’s a sin to think like that.

If you didn’t have warfarin and the likes you’d be dead anyway – it’s the tablets that are keeping you alive. You are being kept alive through artificial
means.

‘Oh stop it!’ she said aloud, angrily wiping the tears from her eyes. She didn’t normally give in to self-pity but she felt low and fed up today. The come-down from her
steroids had kicked in and she missed the artificial energy they gave her. It was disappointing, too, to have to go back to the clinic in two weeks’ time. Even if she got a taxi herself, she
would still have a long walk to the clinic along hospital corridors, without the comfort of someone beside her if she took a wobbly. But she couldn’t impose on Hilary’s kindness any
longer. She would have to find some long-term solution. It was time to face facts and deal with her situation, instead of sticking her head in the sand, Margaret decided.

She made herself a cup of tea, buttered a slice of bread and cut a hunk off a block of Cheddar cheese. A spoonful of tomato chutney and an apple completed her repast and she carried her cup and
plate into her sitting room. It had grown so overcast and gloomy with the rain the room was almost dark. She switched on a lamp, the opaque light casting a warm glow over her armchair. She was
tired after her early morning start; a fire would be a nice treat. Normally she didn’t light one this early but she deserved some little perk, she told herself, spiritedly placing
firelighters and some turf and briquettes from the wicker basket beside the fireplace into the grate. In minutes a comforting blaze threw out a satisfying heat, the flickering flames crackling
companion-ably in the hearth.

‘I’m very lucky, I’m still living in my own home, I have my independence and a good pension,’ she told herself, trying to raise her spirits with her little pep talk.
After her lunch and a nap in front of the fire she would do her physio exercises and give some considered thought to making herself even more independent and taking some pressure off her much loved
daughter-in-law. Perhaps it was time to give serious consideration to going into a nursing home, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do.

‘More money than sense,’ Hilary remarked later that afternoon as she and Jonathan pored over a diagram of Andrea’s house, discussing the optimum placement of
lights to suit Jonathan’s interior design plan and Andrea’s desires. ‘Imagine remortgaging to spend an absolute fortune on redesigning that lovely house. They could have paid off
their mortgage and borrowed from the Credit Union, and they wouldn’t be paying a massive amount of interest for the next twenty years.’

‘We’re not all sensible like you, daahling.’ Jonathan took a slug of coffee and stretched. ‘I’m in hoc up to my eyeballs with my mortgage and 2000 car, but I just
adore driving around in my lovely new shiny BMW.’

‘But you don’t have kids and college fees ahead, you’re a free agent, and besides that penthouse you bought has increased in price with all that renovation you’ve done on
it. You’ll more than double your price for it the way things are going. Property prices are still going
way
up. People won’t be able to get on the property ladder soon,’
she pointed out.

‘That’s the Celtic Tiger, babes. Economy expanding more than 9 per cent. One hundred per cent loans from the bank, plenty of people will be buying, and we’ll be saying no to
more jobs than we’ll be saying yes to,’ Jonathan predicted confidently. ‘I mean look at how you’ve had to employ two extra people in the showrooms and three more
electricians. It’s all taken off everywhere you look.’

‘Yeah I know, it’s incredible how much the business has grown in the last few years, but you make sure you save some of your dosh – we nearly had to close during the last
recession in the eighties. I remember my parents being very worried, so I’m saving some of mine for a rainy day.’

‘We’re doing well, aren’t we though?’ Hammond and Harpur Interior and Lighting Design Specialists couldn’t have happened at a better time. What a stroke of luck for
us that the economy’s booming and people have massive amounts of dough to spend.’ Jonathan grinned. ‘Imagine we have a
waiting list
! Imagine I was able to afford to take
a
career break
!’

‘That’s the great thing for you, Jonathan. You have the safety net of the permanent and pensionable job to go back to if things go belly up.’

‘I don’t know if I’d ever go back; imagine being behind a desk after doing this. No thanks.’

‘At least you have the option.’

‘Not one I want to take. I love flying by the seat of my pants.’

‘It’s been mad for sure.’ Hilary sighed.

‘But fun, a lot of the time, Hil?’

‘Yeah!’

‘You’re in fierce bad form today. What’s up, Dac?’ he said in a Bugs Bunny voice and she laughed.

‘Ah nothing . . . everything. Getting stuck at the clinic with Gran H pissed me off. Niall pissed me off because he won’t have it out with Sue about doing her bit and I’ll have
to ring her myself. And I have five teenagers coming for a sleepover tomorrow night, and Niall’s got a gig tonight so I’ve to do a big grocery shop. And then to crown it all I’ve
to go and inspect the 2nd fix on the Horizon House Hotel project next week and I just know that little fart of an electrician is going to muck me around again. He thinks he knows everything and he
can’t stand the fact that a woman is telling him what to do,’ Hilary moaned.

‘When are you going? I’ll rearrange consults if I have any and come with you,’ Jonathan offered.

‘Ah you’re grand, I’ll deal with that little muppet,’ Hilary said grimly.

‘Look, we haven’t seen each other properly for ages. I’ll drive us down to Wexford and you can offload on me and I’ll tell you all about my new romance!’

‘Your what?’ Hilary asked, her bad humour forgotten.

‘I’ve met someone new,’ Jonathan smirked.

‘Right!! Spill!’ Hilary refilled their mugs from the percolator of coffee he’d made when they got back to the office.

‘Well he’s younger than me—’

‘Aren’t I always telling you to go with someone your own age or someone older for a change?’ Hilary threw her eyes up to heaven.

‘No, listen. Leon, that’s his name, is very mature. He’s a dad.’

Hilary raised an eyebrow. ‘Married?’

‘No!’ her friend exclaimed indignantly. ‘He was with a girl for a couple of years and she got pregnant. They never got married and they’ve separated and she married
someone else a few years ago. His son is eight. Leon hasn’t come out to his family yet. He’s lovely though, honestly. You’ll like him.’

They always are,
thought Hilary, but she kept that view to herself. ‘Where did you meet him?’

‘Would you believe I went into a small bistro in Dalkey. I was visiting a client to show her some swatches and I was too early so I went to a little place off a side street to have a
cappuccino and a wrap and it was jammers. I sat at a counter and he was sitting beside me, and I dropped a book of swatches and he picked it up. And then we got chatting. Turns out he’s a
carpenter. We’ve quite a lot in common actually.’

‘And this was a month ago and you’re only telling me
now
?’ She couldn’t hide her surprise. Usually Jonathan would be on the phone immediately after meeting
someone new.

‘I’m taking your advice; I’m playing it cool. Not rushing anything. I think this could work out, Hil,’ Jonathan said, eyes alight.

‘Oh Jonathan, I’d love if it did. You so deserve to find someone nice. Someone who will give you as much as you give them. Not a taker or a freeloader – you’ve had enough
of them.’ Hilary jumped up and threw her arms around her dear friend and gave him a hug. Her greatest wish for him was that he would find the love of his life and be in the loving
relationship he so longed for. ‘Aw thanks. Fingers crossed I don’t mess up this time. I don’t think Hannah could take any more sob stories . . . or you either,’ he grimaced.
‘Cripes, look at the time, I’d better get out of here, I’ve to go and meet Davy King in Woodies to mix a particular shade of duck egg blue to go with a fabulous flock wallpaper.
It cost a fortune. A hundred and ten sterling a roll, and they needed ten rolls so I
have
to get the paint just right. See ya, darlin’. We’ve sorted the 2nd fix in Wexford so
I’ll drive us down next week. Give the gang my love and tell Sophie to have a great sleepover. Give Smokin’ Sue hell!’ He jumped up off the chair, put all his work designs neatly
into a folder and gave her a hug before pulling on his black pure-wool coat and leather gloves.