Ripples (2 page)

She'd be over
fifty
.

Crikey! What an awful thought.
Brenda quickly put it to the back of her mind.

She stroked Barry's back. He had pale, pasty, spotty skin. Barry wasn't God's gift in the looks department, or even in the sex department, come to think of it. But beggars couldn't be choosers. He was her last chance to have a man of her own.

Her bubble of happiness at his unexpected arrival was getting a little flat. Imagine even thinking like that! Was this how pathetic she'd become?

Why couldn't she have been like all the rest of her friends? Brenda thought sadly. Why couldn't she have met a nice man? A man who would have courted her properly. Brought her flowers and chocolates. Held car doors open for her. A man who would have proposed and given her a ring and a day to remember.

A wedding day with a beautiful white dress and veil and all the trimmings.

Had it been so much to ask for? Had she just grasped at Barry because the
years were slipping by? Because she'd been so panicky and lonely. Afraid of ending up a spinster on the shelf. With no man to show for a lifetime of Friday and Saturday nights dolling herself up to go out on the hunt to find a mate?

Year after year. Dance after dance. Disco after disco. Night club after night club.

Was she crazy to believe that Barry would divorce Alison and marry her?

How happy she'd been to vote
YES
to divorce.

She could still remember how firmly she'd marked the X with the black pencil in the polling booth. She'd been so happy to hear the news this evening that the law was to be passed in favour of divorce. She was sure Barry would have been pleased too. When she said it to him, he'd just grunted and said, “One marriage was enough for me.”

They could live together. It was much less complicated, he muttered.

Of course, she'd agreed. But deep, deep down she was scared. She wanted him to
want
to marry her. That was how it should be. What if he dumped her for some babe in the office? If he could cheat on Alison, he could cheat on her. The thought came out of the blue. She buried it.

She wasn't going to think about that now. He was here, in her arms. That was all that mattered.

He wouldn't have been here if there hadn't been a row
. Another sneaky, horrible little thought escaped.

What was wrong with her, for crying out loud? Another even more awful thought came to torment her. Maybe she was starting the change of life early. Hell! That was all she needed. To become a dried-up old prune as well.

She thought of Eileen O'Neill at work. Eileen was having an affair with a married man. He had four kids. His wife knew about it. He spent Friday to Monday with Eileen and the other three days at home.

Eileen was nuts about him. She was so cracked about him she'd even got in Sky Sports so that he and his pals could watch live football. He'd promised Eileen many times that he'd marry her if he could. Safe in the knowledge that divorce wasn't legal in Ireland.

Well it looked as if it was going to become legal now. It would be interesting to see if he kept his word. He was an out-and-out bastard though. Not satisfied with one mistress, he had several strings to his bow. He didn't think being faithful to Eileen was important. But still she took
him back and listened to his lies, and believed him when he told her his flings were over. On two occasions he'd been unfaithful to her, but she'd just closed her eyes to it.

Brenda snorted. What a foolish woman she was. There he was, living with his wife, living with his mistress, seeing other women. Having his cake and eating it. And Eileen was so desperate to keep the lying, cheating, two-faced creep, she'd got Sky Sports for him!

Never! Never in a million years would Brenda sink to such levels. She had her pride. Besides Barry wasn't
anything
like that two-faced rat of Eileen's. Barry had
integrity
.

Brenda felt a little happier. He'd change his mind about the divorce. She was sure of it. If only Alison would find a new man. That would solve
everything, Brenda thought with renewed hope. Maybe it would happen soon. In a few days' time, Alison was going to Tomangos with some friends. Ciara was going to a party. Brenda was going to have Barry all to herself for a few hours. They would go to a football match together. She wanted to share every part of his life.

“I suppose I'd better go home,” she heard her lover say.

How she longed for the time when he could stay all night. That would be the most wonderful thing in the world.

Lillian McHugh snuggled under the quilt and pulled it up over her ears. The bed was lovely and warm. She could hear the rain lashing against the window.
I think I'll have a lazy day today
, she decided.

Lillian smiled. How lovely! Who would have ever thought that she'd be able to lie in bed and do exactly what she liked. She could stay in bed all day if she wanted to. At seventy years of age, she was a liberated woman!

Thank you, God, for making me a widow
.

It was a heart-felt prayer. Since her husband Tom had died two years ago, her life had changed completely. She'd discovered a whole new world.

She didn't have to get up at the crack of dawn any more to cook a breakfast for a cross, grumpy old man. She didn't have to wash smelly socks. She didn't have to iron shirts. There were a lot of things she didn't have to do any more.

Lillian had hated Tom McHugh, her dead husband. They'd been married for forty-five years. He'd made her life a misery. She'd had to put up with his moods. His meanness. And his bad temper. Tom had been a most selfish man.

He'd courted her for three years, and then married her. She, like a fool,
had believed that life would be happy-ever-after. She'd mistaken his quiet, reserved ways for shyness. The relief of having a ring on her finger had been wonderful. She wouldn't end up an old maid! The excitement of having a home of her own had helped her overlook her disappointment in her new husband.

She'd thought that they would do things together. Go to the cinema, the theatre. Or even go out for a meal now and again. But once the honeymoon was over and they'd started living in the small terraced house they'd bought in Fairview, her dreams had quickly turned to ashes.

Tom wasn't the slightest bit interested in them doing anything together. He went to work. Read his sports news in the paper. On Friday he went to his football matches.

He expected his breakfast on the table at seven a.m. sharp. His dinner had to be on the table when he came home from work in the evening. They had sex every Saturday night and that was over almost before it started. After a few grunts and groans and rough fumblings Tom would roll over and fall asleep.

That had been the pattern throughout their marriage.

They'd had one child. Barry. He was a quiet, lonely boy. He'd left home as soon as he'd done his Leaving Cert and gone to live in a flat in Drumcondra.

Barry had married a girl from Phibsboro. Alison. They had one child. A little girl, Ciara. Lillian didn't see much of them. They had rarely come to visit when Tom was alive. Christmas, Easter, that was it. Lillian couldn't blame them. Who'd want to come and
try and make conversation with the old grump sitting by the fire?

Well, Tom was dead and she was glad of it. She was in an active retirement group now. She went bowling. She went flower-arranging. And they were always going on little trips to places of interest.

Lillian was having the time of her life. She was going to make the most of it, for as long as she could.

But today it was raining. The weather had changed and she was staying in bed. Lillian picked up her library book. A steamy romance. She curled up for a long read.

Life was good.

“The McHugh's were a bit frosty tonight,” Mike Stuart said.

“That's an understatement if ever I heard one,” his wife, Kathy, murmured out of the side of her mouth. “They'd have been at home in the Arctic. They had a big row earlier in the week, Alison said.”

“What's new?” Mike asked glumly.

They stood at the front door waving goodbye to their guests. They were caught in the wide beam of the car's headlights as Barry McHugh reversed
down the drive. He gave a toot on his horn. Beside him, his wife Alison looked fed up.

Kathy knew that the tight smile she gave them would be gone in seconds after the car headed towards the main road. She gave a sigh of relief as the Lancer's rear lights disappeared into the night.

Tonight had been a disaster! Alison had sniped at Barry constantly. At times he'd ignored her completely. This had been like a red rag to a bull. Several glasses of wine hadn't helped. As Alison's rage and resentment overflowed, she'd turned to her friends and said angrily, “I'm married to the biggest bastard you could meet.”

“Either take your go now, Alison, or lose it. You've been holding up the game for the last five minutes,” Barry said coldly. His eyes were like
flints behind his glasses. He glared at her.

“Get lost! I'll go when I'm ready. Just because you think you're
Mister Intelligence
. Well you're not. You're just a cheat. Who else would try and get away with putting Monaco down? And then say it was a
font
. It's not in the dictionary. It shouldn't be allowed. And you shouldn't get a triple word score.”

“Well if you weren't so
thick
, you'd know that it was a font. I'll show it to you on the computer when we get home.”

“Oh, stick your bloody computer. You should have married one, you spend so much time on that one in the office,” Alison snapped.

She slapped down her letters.

“Is that the best you can do?
Rat!
Pathetic!” Barry's brown eyes flashed with scorn.

“Well I'm married to one, aren't I?” Alison retorted coldly. “Don't forget it's a double word score.”

“The first one you've managed so far,” Barry jeered as he wrote down the score.

They'd been playing their usual Saturday-night game of Scrabble. A tradition that went back to the carefree giddy days of their early twenties. They'd all been newly-weds. The future had looked rosy. Now, fourteen years later, things weren't looking too rosy for Barry and Alison. Much to Mike and Kathy's dismay.

Over the last few months things had become very bad. The weekly game of Scrabble that they'd always looked forward to, with a few drinks and a Chinese take-away, was becoming an ordeal.

“I've never seen them as bad as they
were tonight,” Kathy said. She collected the dirty glasses. Then she emptied the cold, greasy remains of the Chinese take-away into the bin.

“Why they ever married each other I'll never know. They're like chalk and cheese. They always were. I mean Alison is always gadding about. And Barry hates going anywhere,” Mike said as he picked the bones of a cold spare rib.

“Put that in the bin, you glutton.” Kathy made a face. “They say opposites attract. Maybe it worked at the start but it's not working now.”

“Yes, well, Alison made the big mistake of thinking that she was going to change Barry. He'll never change. He's not even making an effort now. I don't think that he wants to come over to us on Saturday night any more. All he wants to do is go to his football
matches. Or bury himself in his work. He lives in that office.”

“Would you say that Barry's got another woman?” Kathy asked her husband. She had often thought there had to be someone else. “He can't be spending all those nights at work.”

“Barry! Barry McHugh! Don't be
daft
, woman,” Mike scoffed.

He licked his fingers. “He'd run a mile if a woman came near him. Imagine Barry sitting down and having a conversation with a woman. It's hard enough for him to have a conversation with us. And he's known us for years.”

“Maybe you're right.” Kathy poured Fairy Liquid into a basin of hot water. “He's great fun, though, when he's in form. He's got a good sense of humour. I feel sorry for him sometimes. Alison is always nagging him.

“Barry likes being nagged. He likes
being told what to do. He never makes decisions. Alison makes them all. Did you hear her telling him that he was to get his hair cut next week? And telling him that she'd told Brenda Johnson that he'd tile her bathroom. Without even
asking
him! What is he, a man or a mouse?”

Mike picked up the towel and started to dry the dishes.

“It's like he's the child and she's the mother. It's always been like that with them. That would drive me nuts. If I came home and found out that you'd told Brenda Johnson that I'd tile her bathroom, you know what your answer would be.” He grinned.

“Alison was always a bossy boots. I wouldn't inflict Poison-Dwarf Johnson on you. I'd know better.” Kathy giggled.

Brenda Johnson was Alison
McHugh's best friend. Kathy didn't like her. She thought she was sly. She was always flirting with other women's husbands. Brenda was unmarried. She was in her early forties. She had recently bought a house that needed a lot of renovation. Brenda was an expert at the Poor-Little-Me-I'm-a-Helpless-Female act. Every man she knew was being roped in to help decorate. Barry was doing the lion's share.

“
Poison Dwarf!
Miaow! Brenda's not in the good books. What has she done now?”

“She had the nerve to say that I didn't know what stress was. She said that I had you to provide for me. She said that I could come and go as I pleased because I'm a housewife. She thinks that I have very little to do,” Kathy said crossly.

“Well I do provide for you. You can
come and go as you please,” Mike said innocently.

“You know what I mean.” Kathy flicked frothy suds at her husband. He flicked back and drenched her.