Friends Like Us (27 page)

And there he was. Charlie. He had a tray of glasses, a plate with biscuits on it, and a bottle of something. Just seeing him made her feel that she had made exactly the right decision coming along.

‘Just before we get started,' he said, smiling at everyone. ‘My own elderflower cordial. I just want everyone to try it and see what they think.'

And then Charlie spotted Eilis and stopped for a moment, his whole face lit up. ‘And we have a new member, it seems,' he said. ‘Eilis is joining us tonight and hopefully for longer.' He looked at her again, a smile playing broadly on his face, but his eyes had that intensity of connection and she felt it spread throughout her body, from heart, to brain, to the tips of her fingers. He didn't break eye-contact. ‘She's a very good gardener and an excellent doctor,' he said, looking right at her. He was smiling but there was an intensity about him that made her feel simultaneously embarrassed and thrilled to her very core.

Twenty grey-haired heads peered around at her, all smiling. There were a few ‘you're very welcomes' and a couple of ‘good to meet yous'.

Charlie smiled at her and then began passing out the glasses.

‘And he makes his own Elderflower cordial as well!' said an older woman in a loud voice. ‘Could he be any more perfect?'

Everyone in the room laughed.

‘Thank you Rosemary,' he said. ‘But taste it first. It might not be any good.'

‘I'm sure it will,' said another woman. ‘I tasted your sloe gin at the last class and it was delicious.'

‘Thanks Pauline,' he said. ‘I'll have more of that soon. I'm also trying strawberry champagne this year. We'll have a taste of that in a few weeks.'

‘Champagne!' said Pauline. ‘I haven't had it since my wedding. 1971 it was.'

‘I've got a damson tree, Charlie,' said Rosemary. ‘I'll pick you some for damson gin.'

Charlie, noticed Eilis, seemed to have quite the following. She watched the clamouring for Charlie and his tray and suddenly her excitement leaked away. She felt like a waif he had picked up. He was nice to everyone, she wasn't special like she had dared to hope. She must have imagined everything. She felt like a balloon from a party a week ago. I'm just a sad, sex-starved woman in need of a little male attention. Only I believed that he might like me too. How stupid I am, she thought. He just thinks of me as another member of his coterie. She stood up, ready to sneak out.

‘You're not going, are you?' A deep, low voice. Charlie!

‘I think I've got to go… you know, things to do…'

‘But you're here now? Stay for a little bit anyway.' He was looking at her, intently. Those blue eyes. Jesus. She stopped breathing for what seemed like minutes. She must be officially dead, she thought, and if her lungs didn't kick in again soon, she might need medical attention. Another of one of life's little ironies. Was she imagining it? Was it real?

‘One for you?' He offered a glass to Eilis. ‘I hope you like it. The elderflower is from a tree in my mother's garden. It's in full bloom now.'

And… breathe. Great, lungs working. She returned the gaze. She might just stay after all. She realized that she didn't have a choice in the matter. Her body was preventing her from behaving sensibly.

‘Look,' he said. ‘I'll have a sip. Just to prove it isn't poisonous.' He took a swig from his own glass. ‘No, look, still alive.'

He gave her a glass. ‘Slainte,' he said.

‘Slainte,' she returned, feeling as though if she looked into those eyes any longer, she might be rendered to stone. She sipped. It
was
delicious. She looked up. He was smiling at her. ‘It's gorgeous,' she said. ‘So sweet…'

‘I know,' he said. ‘I can't quite believe it myself. It just turned out really well. It doesn't always. Often, the concoctions I make are undrinkable. But this is nice, which is why I brought it round for the gang this evening. I am now fantasizing about becoming a cordial billionaire. Don't encourage me.'

She laughed a little too long, a little too hard. But it was intoxicating to talk to him. She felt a bit giddy and light-headed. And totally unlike her usual self. She didn't laugh like this, or feel like this usually. She normally felt weighted down or serious. This was different. What was it? Happiness?

‘Every day is like Saturday now,' he said. ‘Giving up my nine-to-five was the best thing I ever did. And now I am free to make elderflower cordial and hang around with interesting people.' He looked at her. ‘I'm not waiting all week for the glories of a weekend. Every day is like Saturday now.'

‘That sounds wonderful,' she said. ‘You're lucky.'

He shrugged. ‘I don't know about that…' he said. ‘But sometimes I
feel
lucky.' He laughed.

‘I'm a coward, though,' she said. ‘I couldn't give up my job. However much I wanted to. The thought of it just being me scares me.' And for a moment, their eyes locked again and she felt that charge between them. It was like she had been electrocuted.

‘Really?' he said, looking serious. ‘Something tells me that there is nothing cowardly about you at all. You have an aura of strength.'

It was quite the nicest thing anyone had ever said about her and she took a moment to let his words sink in, to enjoy the compliment. Charlie, she realised, was one of life's listeners and asked questions and nodded along, as if he was actually interested. It was unusual and lovely.

‘So why gardening? When did you get the bug?' he said.

‘My first house,' she said. ‘It had a tiny yard and I began growing things and they
grew
! It was most surprising.' He laughed again. And then Eilis told him how gardening kept her sane; being in her little plot, tying up her roses, planting out seedlings was an antidote to the madness of her working life.

‘So, you'd prefer to be fighting off black spot and destroying slugs…' he said.

‘No, it's not that. I love being a doctor,' she said. ‘I love helping people. Or I did. God, I feel awful saying that. It's not that I hate helping people, I just don't want to anymore. Or I want to take a break, I just don't know. I have become aware…' she stopped, searching for the right words. ‘I'm just aware of my limits, how little, we mere mortals, us doctors, can do. And once you realize that, it's terrifying. Like stage fright. Or like you are on a tightrope and you look down and see the drop. You just think I can't do this. I'm going to fall.'

I'm babbling now, she thought. Babbling like a mad woman. A nice man asks a few questions, seems to listen intently as if what she had to say
mattered
, and I open up. What will I tell him next? The details of my menstrual cycle? In spite of herself, she carried on talking.

‘Most doctors don't allow themselves to look down, to see the drop,' she said. ‘But I did and now… now I don't even trust myself anymore.' She could almost feel her voice beginning to break. Why do I always make a show of myself? I'm going to be blubbing in a moment. Don't be nice to me, she was thinking, don't be nice or I will be a bawling mess. She took a slurp of the elderflower cordial.

‘Compassion fatigue,' he said. ‘That's what it's called, isn't it? God, you doctors are amazing. Jesus. What you guys do. Dealing with all that, day in day out. No wonder you're tired of it.'

‘I am,' she was nodding now, grateful he understood. Being tired of caring was something that you couldn't tell other people, certainly not other doctors. She had never admitted this to anyone, not even Rob. ‘I
am
tired of it. Oh I don't know.'

‘I know it won't solve your problem,' he said, passing the plate to her. ‘But have one of these,' he said. ‘A cheese straw. To go with the cordial. It's the best I can do at short notice. Sorry.'

‘They'll help, I'm sure' she said, taking one. ‘Did you make these as well?'

‘From a packet,' he said. ‘Cheese straws might be a bit of a stretch for me.'

‘They're delicious.' She held out her glass. They clinked.

‘And here's to you,' he said. ‘Here's to you being brave… doctors and nurses. I take my hat off to you.'

They looked at each other. It was a look of recognition, deep recognition, a connection as though he was really
seeing
her. She had no other way of describing it. Strangely, she thought she was going to cry, she could feel this surge of emotion spread across her body. She had found someone who understood her, and it felt amazing. Whatever happened, this was enough. She was happy knowing one person on the planet was like her. After a lifetime of feeling like an outcast, she knew she wasn't alone.

‘Fruit trees, people.' Kate was standing up in front of the rather motley crew, tapping the bucket again with the trowel. ‘How to grow fruit trees…'

And then, as she moved to sit down, Charlie whispered in her ear: ‘Join us in the pub afterwards. Gogginses, across the road. We all go. It's become quite a tradition.'

She sat down, and tried to listen to the talk but her mind was pounding with so many thoughts. Mainly of Charlie. She kept glancing at him. The straight nose, the hair curling over his ear, the way he tried to get comfortable on the small metal chair.

Once, he looked around and caught her eye and smiled at her. It was the sweetest smile she had ever seen. Am I fantasizing? Am I projecting? She smiled idiotically back. Stop being such a fool, she thought. And stop being such a coward and deal with your life. I'm not going to the pub, she thought. No way.

No, I am going, just for one. I'm driving so I won't stay long. I'll just be sociable for once.

No, I'll go home. Nice early night. And it was decided. She wasn't going. She was almost disappointed with how grown-up and sensible she was, but it was the right thing to do.

But as soon as the talk was over, she found herself walking with the others to the pub across the road. I'm just a pawn, she thought, a pawn in an evil game my body is playing with me. Surely this proves I'm not normal? I have no control over my body. But for once, she didn't care. She was going to the pub. Caution was being thrown to the wind.

But in the pub, Charlie was talking to Pauline and Rosemary and some of the others. He had waved at her, but she found herself cornered by George, probably the nicest man in the whole wide world but who had a tendency to go on a bit. And we all have that problem sometimes, thought Eilis, thinking of her recent babbling, so I can't complain.

‘So that must have been in '85 or '86,' George was saying. ‘And it wasn't the first time. And not the last, I can tell you. You see it gets hold of you, and destroys everything in its path. It's not letting go. Once it gets its claws into you, you may as well give up.' He shook his head, caught up in his terrifying memories.

‘That's awful, George,' said Eilis, feeling his pain.

‘I nearly lost everything, I did,' he said, emotion in his voice. ‘Nothing was untouched by it. I must have sweated for months and months. In the end, I had to use chemicals. It was the only way.'

For a moment, Eilis allowed herself to imagine George, who must have been in his eighties, as an Arnold Schwarzenegger-type, muscles and napalm. He took a sip of his half-pint.

‘So, George,' she said. ‘Did the chemical warfare work?'

‘It came back again,' he said, his eyes taking on a hardness, a determination. ‘And this time, it could tell I meant business.'

‘What did you do?'

He looked around, making sure no one was listening.

‘Fire,' he said. ‘I burnt the little bugger.'

‘Wow, that's serious.' She was impressed. ‘Did it work?'

‘Too right it did. Haven't had a problem with Japanese knotweed since. My Maureen called me Sam for years afterwards. You know, Fireman Sam. It did make us laugh. Fireman George,' he chuckled.

Eilis glanced over at Charlie and caught him looking back. He held up a hand to wave and beckoned her to join them. But she felt foolish and silly, hankering after someone who was effectively a stranger. She should go home.

She said goodbye to George, wishing him well in his one-man campaign to rid the planet of Japanese knotweed and slipped out, not even looking back at Charlie. Life isn't meant to be fun and games and fancying people and thinking about their hands and what is underneath their shirts… she stopped herself again, vowing to stay clear of the garden shop.

Anyway, it was only weeks to go until she and Rob were going to Greece, returning to the place they went to last year. Good food, sunshine, the Aegean. Last year had worked well; they had got into a routine where Rob would run in the early morning while Eilis went to the market and then they spent the days reading, sunning themselves and eating. R&R would make a very nice changed from A&E, even if she had the feeling she might have a better time with Charlie than with Rob.

She drove away from O'Malley's Garden and didn't look back.

Steph was at home, looking at the Sean McSweeney painting Mrs Long had given her on her last day working at the gallery, before she, pregnant and fuelled by the self-belief of youth, married Rick. Steph loved the painting so much when it hung in the gallery and had stood for ages and ages staring at it, and soaking it up that, eventually, Mrs Long said she couldn't stand her ‘mooning' anymore and presented it to her when Steph brought her the last cup of Lapsang she would every make for her.

She cried when she opened it. The sea was glinting in the background, a field of yellow lilies to the fore. It was a painting which expressed freedom, or a shimmering and wonderful world. And that's how everything seemed in those days, excitement just to be alive. Looking at it now, the shimmering light of the Sligo bogs, the sea beyond, she was reminded how reckless and careless she had been with her freedom.