Stand by Me (17 page)
Nevertheless the fear stayed there, beneath the surface, because she always remembered the telephone conversation she’d overheard during her grey period. (Dominique had divided her depression months into three distinct periods: her black period, when everything had been so awful that she hadn’t even been able to function like a normal person; her grey period, when the clouds lifted but not completely, when she could go for hours without feeling the crushing weight of despair engulf her again but she knew that it might; and her blue period, when she was fine for weeks but, unexpectedly, would start crying for no apparent reason.)
She’d been sitting in the living room, staring blankly at the TV, when the phone had rung and Brendan had answered it, even though the handset was right beside her. He’d gone into the kitchen with it but she’d heard him talking anyway.
‘It’s not what I signed up for,’ he said, and she could sense the anger in his voice. ‘I married her because I loved her, she was pregnant and I thought we could make a go of it. But even if she was the only woman on earth for me, this would be too much. I never know when I’m going to come home and find the place in a mess and her with her head down bawling her eyes out.’ There had been a silence while whoever was at the other end spoke, and then Brendan continued: ‘It’s not what anyone wants or expects. I’m out all day working my butt off. Well, that’s one good thing to come out of it - it’s too much of a knife-edge to be home, so the business is expanding at a rate of knots! I’m so knackered every night that the fact that she won’t let me near her isn’t as much of a big deal as it should be. But I want someone to love me. Not someone I have to treat like a piece of effing china. No, thing is, if it doesn’t improve, I have to . . . well, nobody can live like this for ever.’
At the time, the tone of his conversation and the meaning hadn’t registered with her. It was only later that she recalled it (word for word) and was shocked by it. Shocked and scared at the thought that he might one day leave her. She didn’t want to be alone. Even worse, she didn’t want to be alone with the baby. The thought made her shake with fear.
Dominique knew that she was the only person who could make herself better. She wanted to do everything she could to keep Brendan happy and their marriage steady. She loved him. She would always love him. He needed to know that. And she needed to show him. So as she began to get better, she tried to be as perfect a wife for him as she possibly could be. By always agreeing with him, always being there for him, always supporting him in everything he did. And it had worked.
He’d stayed.
The doorbell rang and she went to answer it. Evelyn and Seamus were standing on the step, looking upwards at the leaded porch windows and the elegant lamp in its ceramic shade, which swung gently in the breeze.
‘Hello, Mam, Dad.’
It was the first time in nearly two months she’d seen her parents.
‘You’re looking well,’ said Evelyn as she stepped inside.
Her tone wasn’t entirely approving, but Dominique knew that it was because she was wearing a low-cut top and a short skirt and Evelyn didn’t think they were suitable clothes for a married woman with a ten-year-old daughter. Dominique didn’t care what Evelyn thought. It was a warm day and the skirt and top suited her figure, which had stayed slim thanks to healthy eating and occasional visits to the gym with Linda and Cherise.
‘Have you changed things in here again?’ Evelyn looked around her.
‘We repainted, but that was months ago,’ replied Dominique.
‘You’re never content to leave things well enough alone.’ Evelyn followed her through to the kitchen, where party food was piled on the huge pine table.
‘I can’t stop Brendan,’ Dominique said. ‘It’s in his blood.’
‘Where is he today?’ asked Seamus.
‘Working.’
‘On a Saturday? When Kelly has a party?’
‘He went out ten minutes ago and he’ll be back a bit later,’ said Dominique. ‘He needed to meet one of his foremen or something.’
‘Gran! Gramps!’ Kelly saw them immediately and ran the length of the garden, her long red-gold hair glinting in the sunlight.
‘Happy birthday, sweetheart,’ said Seamus, who had been entrusted with the task of giving their granddaughter her present. ‘You look lovely.’
Kelly was wearing a lime-green dress with a wide skirt that flared out whenever she twirled, which she did now in front of them. It was a big change from the shorts and jeans she normally preferred. Kelly, Dominique knew, took after Brendan with her love of sports and the outdoor life and her lack of interest in pink sparkly dresses. But today she’d given in to her inner girl and was flouncing at every opportunity.
‘No need to show off,’ said Evelyn.
‘But it’s very pretty,’ added Seamus.
‘Mammy bought it for me specially,’ Kelly said.
Seamus handed over the present – a pair of pink Barbie roller skates.
‘Great, thanks.’ She kissed both her grandparents and ran back to her friends again.
‘You spoil that child,’ said Evelyn. ‘She barely gave those skates a glance.’
‘She’s excited, that’s all,’ said Dominique. ‘It’s the first birthday party like this she’s ever had.’
‘Indeed.’ Evelyn looked at the gaggle of children laughing and shrieking as they jumped on the bouncy castle.
‘She deserves it.’
‘I’m not saying—’
‘Evelyn.’ Seamus put his hand on his wife’s arm. ‘It’s fine.’
Evelyn hesitated and then nodded.
‘Would you like a drink?’ asked Dominique. ‘There’s beer, Dad. And a variety of lemonades.’
‘I’ll have a beer,’ said Seamus.
‘Orange juice for me.’
Dominique handed a bottle of Harp to her father and poured a Britvic for Evelyn. Her mother’s hand touched hers fleetingly as she passed her the glass. Dominique felt herself tense and then relax again. She was trying really hard to get on better with Evelyn. It was important both for her and for Kelly.
‘How’s Gabriel?’ she asked.
Evelyn’s eyes lit up. ‘He’s coming to stay with us for a few days next month,’ she said. ‘It’ll be a nice break for him and lovely for us to see him again.’
After his ordination, Gabriel had worked for a time in Dublin, but five years ago he had been sent to a remote parish in the north of Donegal. Dominique had spoken to him a few times on the phone, but not recently.
Gabriel had tried to help her during her depression too. He’d come to the house to see her, but she’d said over and over again that he couldn’t possibly know what she was feeling and he couldn’t possibly help her and that he was totally out of touch with reality. Gabriel had told her he’d pray for her, which made her laugh, although not with humour. If there was a God, she’d asked him, what good reason could He have for letting her feel like this? And Gabriel hadn’t been able to give her any answer she’d wanted to hear.
He’d assisted at Kelly’s christening, though, an event that Dominique remembered only vaguely. She’d been on the antidepressants at that time and everyone had said that she was looking great, but she’d still felt as though she was an observer in her own life.
Dominique hadn’t chosen her daughter’s name. It had been Brendan’s decision, because at that time she hadn’t called her anything but the ‘baby’. Brendan had suggested lots of different names to her, but she’d shrugged at all of them and said that he could call her whatever he liked. He’d chosen Kelly because it was his mother’s maiden name. By the time they got round to baptising her, neither Brendan nor Dominique could ever think of her as anything else, even though Dominique had overheard Evelyn whispering to Gabriel that she’d hoped they’d put something a little more traditional on her birth certificate. A nice saint’s name, she said, would be much more appropriate.
‘You should come and see him.’ Evelyn’s words broke into Dominique’s memories of Kelly’s christening.
She nodded slowly.
‘I’ll phone you when he gets here.’
Dominique nodded again at her mother’s words. Her attention had been drawn back to the garden where Kelly and three other children were balancing precariously at the top of the climbing frame. Kelly was laughing happily, her hair tousled by the breeze as she stretched her arms over her head.
She was a breathtakingly beautiful child. Dominique could never look at her without being astonished at how her strawberry-blond hair, hazel eyes and heart-shaped face all came together in perfect proportions so that nobody who met her was able to help themselves exclaiming at how lovely she was. As she watched her now, Dominique couldn’t quite understand how it was that she had been so unable to bear the sight of her ten years earlier.
‘What’s Brendan working on now?’ asked Seamus. ‘I saw his scaffolding around a site in Harold’s Cross as well as near The Square in Tallaght.’
‘He’s looking at apartments for the Harold’s Cross site and a hotel in Tallaght.’
‘A hotel!’ exclaimed Evelyn. ‘What’s he doing building hotels?’
‘It’s a consortium,’ said Dominique. ‘There are three builders involved. He says it’ll be very profitable.’
‘I hope he’s not getting out of his depth,’ said Seamus.
‘Oh, I think Brendan knows what he’s doing,’ Dominique said.
‘He certainly seems to have a business brain,’ said Evelyn. ‘Not that I would have credited him with it at first.’
Dominique said nothing.
‘You were lucky,’ Evelyn told her. ‘He stood by you twice.’
This time Dominique could feel herself grinding her teeth.
‘I’m his wife,’ she said tightly. ‘He’s supposed to stand by me.’
‘Your mother doesn’t mean—’
‘Yes she does.’ Dominique cut her father off as her good intentions about getting on with Evelyn swiftly evaporated. ‘She’ll always think of me as someone who was up the pole when she got married and so should be living in penance for the rest of her life. And she secretly thinks that what happened to me after Kelly was born was a judgement for me being flighty and irresponsible and for throwing out her stupid picture of St Dominic.’
‘Dominique! That’s not what—’
‘It bloody is,’ said Dominique. ‘It bloody always was. Now unless you want to mix with people and be nice, you might as well just go home.’
‘And they did,’ she told Brendan later that evening when they were sitting in front of the TV. She was sipping a glass of wine and he had a drink in front of him as she filled him in on the party. ‘Though Dad at least finished off his beer first.’
‘I know she’s a pain in the arse, but you shouldn’t allow her to rile you.’ Brendan yawned.
Dominique put her half-full glass on the coffee table. ‘I know that too,’ she said. ‘I do try, but we totally rub each other up the wrong way.’
‘They do their best,’ said Brendan. ‘Of course they’re a pair of miserable gits, but that’s the way they were brought up.’
‘You’re very tolerant,’ she said.
‘No point in me wasting my time worrying over them,’ he told her. ‘I’ve much more important things to concern me.’
‘Like what?’
‘Things are progressing fast on the hotel,’ he told her. ‘I had a meeting with the solicitor this afternoon.’
‘On a Saturday?’
‘Business doesn’t stop on Saturdays any more. We have a meeting with the banks on Monday and we wanted to make sure that everything was on track.’
He yawned again and she didn’t ask any more questions. Things had changed from the early days of their marriage, when he’d shared everything about the business with her. She knew that he tried to hide problems from her now, because he was afraid that telling her about potential worries would set her on the road to depression again. She tried to explain that she was fine, but she knew he dreaded a return to the past. And so that was why their mantra of ‘no secrets’ didn’t count any more.
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