Friends Like Us (3 page)

She was thinking about Melissa, the following day, when she was tidying up, putting things back in their rightful places, cushions, remotes, glasses, mugs, books. The detritus of a home. But it wasn't really a home, was it? Not for her. Hopefully, it was for Rachel, but not for Steph. A home is somewhere you feel safe, but Steph was living with a bully, a man who was quick to anger and who wasn't afraid to push her around. Literally.

When she was pregnant with Rachel, he grabbed her arm behind her back. She'd been reading a pregnancy book at the time and was engrossed in thoughts of maternal love and wondering how to get babies to sleep and hadn't heard what he had said. So, when she felt him twist her arm, she was too surprised and shocked to react and it was over so quickly that the next morning, she wondered if it had actually happened. Although, he brought her breakfast in bed… which was quite unlike him.

‘Bit drunk last night,' he said, standing there, in the doorway, tray in both hands. She wondered if he was trying to apologize.

If only she had done something about it then, gone to her parents, refused to live with someone like that. So she had often thought over the years, in a way,
she
was to blame. There was nothing stopping her from leaving, really, was there? But she had chosen not to, and now this was the bed she had made for herself, her own doing and therefore she couldn't complain.

And this is how she lived her life: walking on broken glass.

Even with Rachel, she couldn't say the right thing any longer. Everything caused Rachel, who was now sixteen-going-on-stroppy, to bite her head off. And there was nothing left that she was good at, nothing. Once she might have thought she was a good mother, but that talent had fallen by the wayside. And she used to be a good friend, was she able to at least be that?

But having seen Melissa again, she felt a lift in her heart. Normally, she felt so leaden, so weighed down, as though there was an actual physical pressure on her shoulders, but today she walked a little taller, a little brighter, feeling, weirdly, a little less alone. Steph felt good; she could almost remember the person she once was, the person she was before she met Rick, before she got married. Almost.

Her parents made marriage look so easy, they were a real team. Nuala was the ideas-person, the one holding the reins, and Joe was happy to be along for the ride, one which had now lasted forty-three years.

Whatever Nuala pursued, Joe would be there, her cheerful companion in life, and now on all the retiree trips they seemed to go on – to gardens across the country with the ‘Grey Green-fingers', to France for the ‘Francophiles over Fifty' group and to the mountains, on the first Sunday of every month, with the Wicklow Wanderers.

Behind every great woman was a man like Joe. It was he who made sure that the book for Nuala's reading group was put aside for her in the library. It was he who took the Dart into town to buy the Prussian Blue from the art shop now she had taken up oil painting. And, even now, he made her a cup of tea, put two shortbreads on a saucer and a flower plucked freshly from the garden into a vase and carried them to her at seven a.m. (He'd only ever missed one day that Steph could remember – when Nuala had gone into hospital to have her gall bladder removed. That day, instead, he had made a flask and transported the entire ritual.)

Steph never failed to marvel at how two people could be so right for each other, and silently and lovingly cursed them for making it look so easy, especially when it was so hard for Steph and Rick.

Rick loved Rachel, of course he did, but it was obvious he no longer loved Steph. If he ever did. And she hadn't loved him for years, there was something mean about him, a darkness and a
rage
, which made life a daily trial.

He had always done exactly what he wanted. He worked, he drank, he socialised, he
womanised
. And she had long suspected that something was going on with Miriam, her next-door neighbour and (former) friend. Miriam was always friendly, always flirtatious, but then, imperceptibly, something changed. There were the little things, like quick glances between Miriam and Rick, or sometimes it was the fact that they didn't look at each other at all. And suddenly it was all rather
perceptible.

She had no proof, nothing. Except she knew it. If she accused him, he would only call her mad and she would look such a fool. But she knew it, she did! Being the weak person she thought she was though, Steph continued socializing with Miriam and her husband, Hugh, smiling when required, and running the house and looking after Rachel. Inside, she was wallowing in failure instead of going mad and all-Edward Scissorhandsy on his suits. And while Rick sprang up the career ladder, Steph felt she had nothing to show for her life. She used to be ambitious, the girl most likely, until life upended everything and she had achieved absolutely nothing.

And why, oh why, did she have to lose it in front of Melissa yesterday? She normally kept all her feelings buttoned up, but it was just seeing Melissa again, just being around her and remembering the girls they used to be, and the tears just came and wouldn't stop. And Melissa was her usual brilliant self, allowing her to cry and being utterly normal and unfreaked out about it.

And what about Eilis? Would she get the note, would she call? Steph had left both their mobile numbers, asking if Eilis would meet them next week. There was something Steph was hoping to rope Melissa and Eilis into and it was something that might bond them together again.

One of the old nuns at school had called her name when she was dropping Rachel off at school earlier. Sister Attracta, unbelievably still alive and now some kind of honorary nun, wafted around the Abbey looking increasingly wizened but rejuvenated by her the task of organizing each year's reunion. ‘Stephanie Sheridan,' she'd called, using Steph's maiden name (another thing, apart from her independence, that she shouldn't have relinquished). ‘I wonder, my dear, if you would like to help with this year's reunion. It is your twentieth.'

Normally, Steph would have run a mile from such an event, but Sister Attracta had ways of making you agree. The big night wasn't until December and was to be held in the Shelbourne Hotel, which was a far cry from their leaving do which was held in the school hall, draughty and miserable, with the nuns beadily managing the consumption of orange squash. Steph remembered having a bottle of vodka confiscated and so the orange squash had remained unadulterated.

Would Steph be able to look after all the invitations? asked Sister Attracta in a tone that would not countenance a negative response.
All
she had to do was track down each of the one hundred or so girls in their year and invite them to revisit their school days and their past.

Steph immediately thought of Melissa and Eilis.
She
would if
they
would. She was going to ask them when they met next week, and this, she had begun to think, begun to hope, was a way of them being the way they were, the three of them against the world, a gang. She hoped they would say yes, she didn't know what she would do if they didn't want things to be the same. She hadn't realized how much she had missed them, and she hadn't realized how much she needed them.

Tidying some newspapers, she found Rick's mobile, left over from last night. She was amazed he would leave this hanging around. He normally had the thing permanently in his hand or pocket. Quickly, she dropped it on to the rug and, aided by a sharp kick, its new home was among the dark and the dust. Steph had been engaging in this subtle form of domestic terrorism for quite some time now. It was strangely satisfying.

And then, she spotted Rick's keys on the hall table. Would hiding them be too much? Probably. Don't push it, Steph, she thought. Keys could be tucked behind a cushion or slipped into a drawer another day. The phone was enough for now and she didn't want Rick suspecting he was living with a domestic terrorist, he might get angry and that really defeated the feeling of satisfaction.

She looked at herself in the mirror. This is me, she thought. I'm thirty-eight and what do I have to show for nearly four decades on this planet? What exactly have I
done
? Except turn into a wreaker of domestic acts of terror. The temptation to cackle maniacally was overwhelming. The secret, she realized, was staying on the right side of madness. But she was like a beginner, wobbling on the tightrope.

She heard a beep from his phone from beneath the sofa. She paused, in mid-air, and suddenly she knew she had to see what that text was. Normally, she would never check his messages but she was feeling slightly reckless, the old Steph wouldn't have been afraid of anything and after seeing Melissa again, she could feel something of her younger and more daring self stir.

She fished it out and looked at the screen. Immediately, she wished her younger self had stayed where she was.

Missing you.

And the name of the sender? Angeline. His junior from work.

She scrolled back from the text and read as many as she could, her heart beating wildly, trying to take it all in.

They went back months and months as far as she could tell. Texts from Angeline saying she missed him, texts from Rick saying he wanted her. Arrangements to meet, times and venues, hotel rooms, bars and restaurants, passion, sex, desire. It was all there, an affair in text form.

If she was a braver woman, she thought, she would smash Rick's collection of horrible crystal whiskey glasses or flush his phone down the toilet. But she wasn't brave, not anymore, she was scared of what he would do. Even if she held the moral high ground she never, never, had the upper hand. He was always in charge and in control.

And Steph had met Angeline… how old could she be? Not thirty, anyway. Could she be mid-twenties? Twenty-five? What an utter bastard Rick was.

Managing to keep her anger on simmer, she dropped the phone back under the sofa. And, suddenly, she thought of something else, something else she needed to know. On the sideboard, in the hall, were letters from the credit card company. Normally, she left them to Rick, but this time she opened the envelope and scanned the rows and rows of transactions.

She spotted her own transactions: Rachel's new school coat, Steph's facial, paying for Melissa's car. And then something caught her eye.

Netaporter – €365.

She had often looked at the website, imagining outfits she might wear if she had dates to go on or weekends away. But her life never demanded a cocktail dress, and she had no idea that Rick had heard of the website. He certainly didn't buy her anything expensive and glamorous. Rick had never bought
her
anything like that. It was dated last month. And then more, a few days later, all in London. Selfridges. And the Wolseley, a Claridges bar bill and a room in The Connaught. They came to thousands and thousands of pounds. And she remembered that one of the texts specifically mentioned the bar in Claridges.

She checked the dates; the weekend he went to London to meet clients. But if that was a business trip, she was Rumpole of the Bailey. She then had a thought and went on Facebook and searched for Angeline Barrow. Birthdate? Last month. So it was a birthday weekend away. It had to be. Angeline was 29 years old. Steph shook her head. What was he thinking? Steph felt disempowered, dehumanised, worthless. Someone else was worth his time, his energy and she was nothing. She should have been used to it, but each time she was faced with his utter disregard for her and their family life, it was a new shock, a fresh wound.

Somehow she managed to get her coat, bag and keys and drive to the Dundrum shopping centre, and she did what she always did when subtle domestic terrorism did not quell her feelings of utter powerlessness. She went shoplifting. It was far more soothing than eating cakes, she thought, or drinking alcohol. The high was so much higher.

Aching feet, damp patches under her arms and, sticky-up hair. For an A&E consultant, this was what was called getting off lightly, the mere physical manifestations of a night shift and it didn't do you much good to dwell too long on the emotional toll. Eilis McCarthy knew dwelling on anything didn't get you anywhere. She was half-way through a night shift and it was 4am but in the parallel universe of hospital life, the time didn't matter, you didn't care. It was a case of getting to the end, whenever and wherever that was.

But in all these years, the nightmarish whirl of a shift on the A&E ward never ceased in its power to shock. And then, suddenly, like some terrifying fairground ride, it was over and you would be deposited on terra normal, legs shaking and eyes blinking in the sunlight, the throb of it all jingling and jangling in your brain.

And all those patients, the old, the dying, the strokes, the beaten-up women, the bizarre domestic accidents – all those
stories
– they didn't just float off and disappear.
You couldn't just forget about them and carry on with your day. Well, Eilis couldn't, anyway.

She would go home and try to do some gardening or gaze in the fridge for something to eat or be brushing her teeth and then she would realize she had totally stopped, frozen at the memory of the person who, just hours earlier, was fighting for life. They were men and women at their lowest, at their most vulnerable. Helpless, inadequately clothed, often alone, and Eilis would have stitched them up, made assessments, talked to them, soothed them, dispensed drugs, and then she was expected to just walk away. And then there were those who didn't make it, the ones who couldn't be soothed and medicalized back to full health, the ones who they couldn't help, couldn't save. It was them, the ones who had lost the fight, that were the worst, those were the faces that most haunted her waking moment.

Maybe she should have gone in for paediatrics. But that was heart-breaking, too, wasn't it? Worse, maybe. Or… maybe she should never have done medicine. But it was all her mother wanted for her.