The Other Side of the Story (5 page)

6

TO [email protected]

FROM
Gemma 343@ hotmail.com

SUBJECT non-stop drama.

Wait till you hear. Last night I was in bed, comforting myself with the film director-farmer fantasy when I heard a noise coming from Mam's room. Some sort of bump, then she was calling piteously, 'Gemma, Gemma.' Like this - Ddgemmmmaaah ddgemmmaaah... so I pelted into her and she was turned on her side, writhing like a dying haddock and said, 'My heart' (So people really
do
say that in the real world) 'I'm having a heart attack.'

I believed her - she was grey, her chest was heaving and her eyes bulged. I grabbed the bedside phone so hard it fell on the floor.

It's the weirdest thing, making a 999 call - I'd only ever done it once before Anton had had badly bad hiccups and I'd been very drunk. (Actually, so had he, it was the reason for his hiccups) We'd tried everything to stop them, cold key down his back, drinking from the wrong side of the glass, looking at his bank statement to see just how overdrawn he was. It had seemed like an emergency at the time, but the 999 operator had given me short shrift.

This was a different story I was taken very seriously, told to put Mam in the recovery position (whatever that is) and promised that an ambulance was on its way. While we waited, I held Mam's hand and begged her not to die.

'I've a good mind to,' she gasped, 'That'd teach your father.'

The awful thing was I didn't even have a phone number for Dad. I should have insisted on getting hard-faced Colette's number, in case of emergency, but I'd been too proud to ask.

Mam was wheezing and fighting for breath - it was absolutely terrifying, I can't tell you - and I couldn't get over my bad luck. Imagine! Losing two parents in one week. It had never said that in last Sunday's horoscope.

This was the time that I wished that the autumnal evening classes you and I used to sign up for (but never go to after week three) had been in first aid, instead of yoga or Spanish conversation. I might have learned something that made the difference between my mother living and dying.

I half-remembered something about aspirin - weren't you meant to do something with that for heart-attack victims? Either you were definitely supposed to give it to them, or you were definitely
not
supposed to…

In the distance came the sound of sirens, getting closer, then through the bedroom curtains the blue light flashed. I ran down to open the front door and ten minutes later when I'd undone all the chains and locks, two fine hefty young men (you'd have liked them) burst in, pounded up the stairs with a stretcher, strapped Mam on, then pounded backdown again, me scampering to keep up. They slid her into the ambulance, I hopped in after her, then they were attaching Mam to all kinds of monitors.

We wee-wah'ed through the streets as the men checked Mam's readings and I can't say how I knew but very shortly the atmosphere changed from efficiency to something less pleasant. The two men were giving each other funny looks and the knot in my stomach got worse.

'Will she die?' I asked.

'Nope.'

'Um…?'

Then one of the lads said, 'There's nothing wrong with her. No heart attack. No stroke. All her vital signs are fine.'

'But she was gasping,' I said. 'And she'd gone grey.'

'Probably a panic attack. See your GP about it, get some Valium.'

Can you imagine! The siren switched off. The ambulance was doing a u-turn and, at a much slower speed, Mam and I were returned home and deposited outside our front gate. Mortified. The lads were quite nice about it. When I clambered out I apologized for wasting their time and they just said, 'No bother.'

I went back to bed and I swear to God I was burning with shame, in
flames
from it. Every time I was just drifting off I'd remember again and go Aaaagh! and have to sit up. It took hours to get to sleep and when I woke up it was Saturday morning and time to read the rave review of Lily's book in the
Irish Times
. (Copy attached from the
Irish Times
website.)

I hate my life.

Although I'm glad it's cheering you up - but soon you'll make friends and you won't be lonely any more.

I have to go now because Dr Bailey is here (again). Please write and tell me nice things about Seattle.

Love

Gemma

PS I shouldn't even humour you on this, but if you really need to know, I thought the coffee flavour was too concentrated and I'd much prefer it with milk chocolate instead of dark.

I was allowed out to collect Mam's prescription from the chemist. Dr Bailey had prescribed stronger tranquillizers. Then he'd scribbled on his pad and said, 'Perhaps some anti-depressants too.'

Mam said, 'The only anti-depressant I want is for my husband to come home.'

'That's not on the market yet,' Dr Bailey said, already edging down the stairs and back to the golf course.

I went to the same chemist I'd gone to the other night. Not only had they been nice to me, but it was the nearest.

The door pinged and someone said, 'Hello again.' It was the same man who'd saved my life on Wednesday night.

'Hello.' I handed over the prescription. He scanned it and clucked sympathetically. 'Take a seat.'

While he ducked behind the melamine divider to get Mam's happy pills I noticed they'd all kinds of nice things that I'd missed on my mercy dash on Wednesday night.

Not just the usual chemist paraphernalia of painkillers and cough mixtures but mid-range face creams and, most distracting of all, nail polishes. This is how I feel about nail polish
…

A few of my favourite things

Favourite thing No.

My nails: A testimonial

All my life I've hated my hands. I'm prone to short limbs anyway and nowhere is it more pronounced than my fingers. But about six months ago, at the behest of Susan, I started getting my nails 'done'. Which means getting them lengthened and strengthened with all sorts of fake jiggery-pokery. But the best bit of all is they don't look fake. They just look like nice nails, a nice length, painted a nice colour. (No horrible witchy femme fatale red talons for me.)

I am different when my nails are done. I am more dynamic, I gesticulate more, I am better at scaring my staff. I can indicate impatience by drumming on table tops and I can wrap up a meeting with a few choice clatters.

I am now utterly dependent on my long nails. Without them I'm like Samson without his hair, I feel naked and devoid of power. And I no longer laugh when people make fun of girls who regard breaking a nail as a disaster, because a broken nail has the same effect on me as kryptonite on Superman.

For the first time in my life I've started buying nail varnishes. I'd always felt sort of left out in that department but I've made up for lost time and now I have lots of them. Opaques and clears and metallics and glitterys and opalescents.

The only problem is what to do when things go wrong at work, now that I can't bite my nails any more. I might have to get false ones to bite, the way people get fake fags once they've given up smoking. Or indeed, I could take up smoking.

When the man re-emerged with the happy tabs, I'd selected a nail polish: a milky beige colour, the same colour as the January sky, which is absolutely horrible on the January sky but, interestingly enough, quite chic as a nail varnish.

' That's a nice cheerful shade,' he said.

I thought that was a funny remark for a man to make. Especially because it wasn't true.

But then when he started reeling off instructions — 'Take the anti-depressants once a day, if you miss a day, don't double up the dose the next day, just carry on as normal. Only take the tranquillizers as an emergency, they're highly addictive' - I remembered that on Wednesday night he'd thought the tranquillizers were mine. Evidetldy, he also thought these pills were for me and I wasn't sure quite how to go about telling him they were for my mother.

'Um, thanks.'

'Take care,' he called after me.

Back at Mam's, anxiety began growing inside me. I needed to go home. I had to

a) do my laundry

b) put out my wheely bin

c) pay bills

d) set the video to record
I
love 1988
.

Also, in the outside world, I had to

e) get a birthday present for Cody

f)get fancy tights for Davinia's wedding (I had to masquerade as a guest even though I'd be working at it.) (I really should get a clothing allowance because I have to buy so many gussy clothes for work. Hats and cocktail dresses and whatnot.)

g) get my nails done.

The second I stood up, I must have conveyed my purposeful air to Mam because she said anxiously, 'Where are you going?'

'I have to get home, Mam. I've my laundry to do and -'

'How long will that take you?'

'A few hours, so -'

'So you'll be back here by three. Or why don't you bring your laundry here and I'll do it for you?'

'There's no need.'

'I do it much nicer.'

'Yes, but I've other things to do too.'

'What about me? Are you going to leave me here on my own?'

I drove away, fear sitting in my stomach like a bag of stones. There
had
to be other people who could help, but I scrolled through the options and found thin pickings.

1) Siblings of mine? None.

2) Caring and supportive spouse of mine? None.

3) Siblings of Mam's? Also none. Like me, Mam was an only child - obviously it runs in the family.

4) Siblings of Dad's? Check! Two sisters — but one lived in Rhode Island and the other in Inverness - and one brother, Uncle Leo, who had died nearly seven months ago of a massive heart attack while buying a new bit for his drill in Woodys. The shock was appalling, and made far worse when his wife, Margot, who was one of Mam's best friends, died only five weeks later. Of a broken heart, you're probably thinking. Of taking a corner too fast on a wet night and coming into collision with a pebbledashed wall, actually. It was horrific, especially so soon after Uncle Leo - Margot was a hoot and although I'd only seen her at weddings, Christmas and other family beanos, even I missed her.

5) Neighbours? The best I'd come up with was poor maligned Mrs Kelly. This I struggled to comprehend because when I was growing up the cul-de-sac felt like a community; all the families seemed to be roughly the same age. Now, without me having noticed, it had switched over to much younger families. When did it all change? When did everyone start dying or settling in those easy-to-manage apartments which are the final port of call before the great three-bed, semi-d in the sky?

6) Friends? Mam and Dad weren't exactly part of a large, glittering set and any of Mam's friends were also Dad's friends - they were a 'couple', they went out with other 'couples', they talked about people being 'a lovely couple'. There were 'the Bakers' - Dad played golf with Mr Baker. And 'the Tyndals'.

7) Mam's spiritual adviser? Father something or other - worth a try.

You picked a fine time to leave us, Noel Hogan, you prick. Didn't scan but I liked it all the same. I couldn't help thinking, What if he never comes home? What if it's always like this? How will I cope if Mam starts to hyperventilate every time I leave her house? How will I hold down my job? How will I have a life?

7

I
had
to go to work on Monday morning. I really,
really
had to. Davinia had requested a face-to-facer, plus I needed to go to Kildare to check on the site and ensure that the marquee was being erected in the correct field. I know this seems like a total no-brainer, but it had actually happened to Wayne Diffney, from the boyband Laddz (you know him, he's the 'wacky' one with the extra-stupid hair). His wedding marquee was put up in the wrong field and there wasn't time to take it down and reassemble it, so an extortionate sum had to be paid to the farmer who owned the land. It wasn't our agency, thank God, but nevertheless it shook the foundations of Irish Event Organizing.

So on Sunday night, feeling guilty and defensive, I pressed 'mute' on the telly and said, 'Now, Mam, I absolutely
must
go to work tomorrow.'

She didn't answer, just sat staring at the silent images, like she hadn't heard me.

It had been a terrible day - Mam hadn't gone to Mass, and it's impossible to convey how serious this is to someone unfamiliar with the Irish Catholic Mammy. The ICM won't miss Sunday Mass even if she's got rabies and is foaming at the mouth — she'll simply bring a box of tissues and brazen it out. If her leg falls off, she'll hop. If her other leg falls off, she'll walk on her hands while still managing to wave graciously at neighbours passing by in cars.

At ten o'clock on Sunday morning, I interrupted Mam who was sitting passively in front of the telly watching a weekly round-up of the stock market. 'Mam, shouldn't you be getting ready for Mass?'

(At that point I suddenly remembered who the fourth Mary who'd moved was. It wasn't a Mary at all. It was Mrs Prior -
Lotte
. No wonder I hadn't been able to remember. The incipient Mass must have prompted it because Mam had once said, 'I'm very fond of Lotte, even if she is a Lutheran.' But the previous summer Lotte had gone to that great clog-dancing competition in the sky and Mr Prior had sold the house and gone into sheltered housing.)

Mam didn't seem to hear me so I said, 'Mam! It's time to get ready for Mass. I'll drive you.'

'I'm not going.'

My stomach plunged. 'OK, I'll come with you.'

'Didn't I just say I'm not going? They'll all be looking at me.'

I employed the line that she'd fed me throughout my life every time I'd been self-conscious. 'Don't be silly,' I said. 'They're far more interested in themselves. Who'd be bothered looking at you?'

'All of them,' she said woefully, and actually, she was right. Under regular conditions, eleven o'clock Mass counted as a 'promenade'. For Mam and her cronies it counted as 'going out'. If someone in the cul-de-sac got a new winter coat, the first time it was unveiled to the public was at eleven o'clock Mass. But now that Mam was a deserted wife, she'd knock any new winter coats off today's agenda — and there was bound to be one or two, it was January, it was Sales time. All mutterings and sly glances would be directed at Mam and her abandonedness, completely bypassing, say, the maroon wool/polyester mix topcoat that Mrs Parsons might have bought at a whopping seventy-five per cent off.

So Mam didn't go to Mass, she spent yet another day in her dressing-gown and now she was refusing to hear me.

'Mam, please look at me. I've really
got
to go to work tomorrow.'

I turned the telly off altogether and she turned to me, wounded, 'I was watching that.'

'You weren't.'

'Take tomorrow off.'

'Mam, I have to go to work in the morning because over the next four days every second counts.'

'That's just bad planning, leaving everything until the last minute.'

'It's not. The marquee costs twenty thousand euros a day to rent so we have to cram everything into the few days we have it for.'

'Can't Andrea do it?'

'No, it's my responsibility.'

'So what time will you be home at?'

Panic rose in me. Normally I'd live on site for a job like this, so that every moment that wasn't spent working was devoted to catching up on precious sleep. But it looked like I'd be doing the hour-and-twenty-minute drive from Dublin to Kildare and back, every day. Two hours and forty minutes of lost sleep. A day. Aaagh!

On Monday morning when the clock went off at 6 a.m., I was crying. Not just because it was 6 a.m. on a Monday morning but because I missed my dad.

It had been the strangest week of my life — I'd been so shocked and trying so hard to mind Mam. Now all the other stuff had gone and sad was all I felt.

Tears spilled onto my pillow. With child-like unreasonableness, I wanted Dad to never have left and for everything to be the way it had always been.

He was my dad and home was where he should be. He was a quiet man who'd left most of the talking to my mother but still, his absence in the house was almost tangible.

This had to be my fault. I'd neglected him. I'd neglected the pair of them. All because I had thought they were very happy together. In fact, I
hadn't
thought about it, that's how happy they seemed. They'd never given me a moment's worry, just jogged along nicely, seeming extremely fond of each other. OK, Dad worked and played golf and Mam was at home all day but they had plenty of shared hobbies — crosswords, drives to Wicklow to look at the scenery and they were very keen on gentle murder-in-the-community programmes,
Morse, Midsomer Murders
etc. Once they even went away for a Murder Mystery weekend although I don't think it was quite what they'd hoped for: they'd been looking forward to a serious murder investigation-style thing, with a 'crime', and a series of clues which would lead them to the villain. Instead they were plied with drink, bundled into wardrobes and groped by giggling co-sleuths.

Had Dad been unhappy for a long time? He'd always been such a nice mild-mannered person but had this been a cloak for something darker, like depression? Had he spent years secretly yearning for another life? Until now I'd never thought of him as a
person
, just as a husband, father and golf-lover. But there was much, much more to him and the extent of the unknown territory confused and shamed me.

I dragged myself from the bed and dressed for work.

By 10 a.m. the site in Kildare looked like a film set — lorries and people everywhere.

I was wearing a microphone headset so I looked like Madonna on the
Blonde Ambition
tour, except my bra wasn't as pointy.

The marquee had arrived from England and seventeen of the twenty staff contracted for had shown up to erect it. I had signed for four portaloos, a team of carpenters were hard at work laying a temporary walkway, and over the phone I had convinced a custom's officer to let the refrigerated lorry full of tulips into the country.

When the ovens for the catering tent were delivered — two days early, but at least they'd come — I sat in my car, turned the heater on and rang Dad at work to ask him, once again, to come home.

Gently but firmly he said no, then I had to voice a concern which had grown over the weekend. 'Dad, how will Mam manage for money?'

'Didn't you get the letter?'

'What letter?'

'There's a letter, it'll explain everything.'

Straight away I rang Mam and she answered by gasping, 'Noel?'

My heart hit bottom. 'No, Mam, it's me. Did we get a letter from Dad? Could you go and look?'

She went off and came back. 'Yes, there's an official-looking thing addressed to me.'

'Where was it?'

'On the window sill, with all the other letters.'

'But… why didn't you open it?'

'Oh, I always leave those official things for your father to deal with.'

'But this is
from
Dad. From Dad to you. Could you open it?'

'No. I'll wait till you come home. Oh, and Dr Bailey came, he gave me a prescription for sleeping tablets. How will I get them?'

'Pop down to the chemist,' I cajoled.

'No,' her voice shook. 'I couldn't leave the house. Will you go? The chemist stays open until ten, surely you'll be home by then.'

'I'll do what I can.' I hung up and mashed my face into my hands. (Hitting the redial button and hearing my mother gasp, 'Noel?' again, with
Groundhog Day
repetition.)

Leaving the wedding site at 8.30 p.m. was almost like taking a half day. I drove as fast as I could without getting stopped by the peelers, got to Mam's, grabbed the prescription and gunned to the chemist. The nice man wasn't there, thank God. I handed the piece of paper over to a bored-looking girl, but then the nice man popped out from behind the drugs bit and gave me a jaunty, 'Hello there.' Did he actually live in the chemist shop, I found myself wondering. Surviving on barley sugar sticks and cough sweets and resting his head at night on a bundle of springy corn plasters?

He took the prescription and murmured sympathetically, 'Not sleeping?' He surveyed my face and what he saw there had him shaking his head regretfully. 'Yes, the anti-depressants can often have that effect in the beginning.'

His sympathy — though entirely misplaced - was comforting. With a small smile of gratitude, I went home to Mam, where we sat down and opened the scary letter from Dad.

It was from his solicitor. Jesus, how serious was this? Although tiredness was making the letters dance before my eyes, I gleaned the gist.

Dad was proposing what he called 'an interim financial settlement'. This had an ominous ring because it promised a more permanent financial settlement to come. The letter said he would give Mam a certain sum a month, out of which she'd have to pay all housekeeping bills including the mortgage. 'OK, we have to take stock. How much is the mortgage?' Mam stared as if I'd asked her to explain the theory of relativity.

'Well, how about utilities? Roughly how much is the electricity bill?'

'I… I don't know. Your dad writes all the cheques. I'm sorry,' she said, so humbly I felt I couldn't go on. With anything.

Hard to believe that Mam had once had a job — she'd worked in a typing pool, which is where she'd met Dad. But she gave up work when she got pregnant with me; after the previous miscarriage she wasn't taking any chances. Maybe she would have given up her job anyway, after I'd been born, because that was what Irish women did in those days. But when other mothers returned to work when all their children were at school, Mam didn't. I was too precious, she said. More prosaically we didn't need the money; even though Dad never got promoted to fat-cat, Merc-driving, executive status, we always had enough. 'I think we've taken enough stock,' I sighed. 'Let's go to bed.'

'There's just one thing,' she said. 'I've a rash.' She extended a leg and parted her dressing-gown. Sure enough, her thigh was covered in raised red bumps.

'You'll have to go to the doctor.' My mouth twitched. Hysteria.

She actually laughed too. 'I can't ring Dr Bailey and ask him to make another house call.'

And I can't go to the chemist again. The nice man must think I'm a total nutter.

Tuesday morning saw ructions in Kildare. The interior designer and his eight-strong team swanned in to effect the transformation of a tent smelling of damp grass to a glittering Arabian Nights Wonderland. But the marquee wasn't fully hoisted, so both crews were trying to work around each other, and from the moment one of the marquee men marched along a length of gold satin in his muddy boots, battle lines were drawn.

The interior designer, a bouffed Muscle Maty, called the marquee man 'a cack-handed brute'.

However the marquee man thought being called 'a cack-handed brute' was the funniest thing he'd ever heard and kept saying it. 'Listen, lads, I'm a cack-handed brute. A
brute
?

Then he called Maty 'a big fat ponce', which was nothing but the truth, but not exactly conducive to a harmonious working environment and I had to use my considerable negotiating skills to prevent the interiors team from flouncing (what other way?) out.

Once calm was restored, I stood in the freezing field, hoping for privacy and rang Auntie Gwen in Inverness.

With a mini-shriek, she began marvelling at how lovely it was to hear from me and what age was I now, which I short-circuited rudely — I couldn't help it, time was in scant supply. Succinctly I outlined the situation re Dad and finished by saying, 'I was thinking that maybe you could have a word with him.'

Instantly Auntie Gwen became Dithery Old Lady. 'Well, I don't know… I couldn't… it wouldn't be my place… a girl, you say… but what would I say to him…'

My attention was caught by something: in the clearing between the portaloos and the pathway the interior designers and marquee men had spilled out of the tent. To my horror they seemed to be squaring up to each other. Several marquee boys were rolling up their sleeves and one of the interior lads was swinging his Evian bottle menacingly. Time to go. 'Yeah, thanks, Auntie Gwen,' and with her still wittering her lukewarm excuses, I snapped my phone away and strode across the frozen ground.

Later that same day I tried Auntie Eilish in Rhode Island. But she had fallen in with a bad crowd, a highly therapied lot, who couldn't commit to an opinion if there was a gun to their head. Her response was, We're all grown-ups. Your father is responsible for how he lives his life just as your mother is responsible for how she lives hers.'

'I'll take that as a no then, will I?'

'No. "No" is just a different type of opportunity. I don't believe in the word "no".'

'But you just said it.'

'No, I didn't.'

Later I tried Gerry Baker, Dad's golf partner, who did a big, fake, mortified laugh. 'I thought I might be hearing from you. Well, from your mother, actually. I suppose you want me to have a word in his ear.'

'Yes!'
Thank Christ, someone who was prepared to help
. 'Would you?'

'Go on outathat. He'll come to his senses in his own good time.'

Disconsolate, I rang Mrs Tyndal, in the hope that she might take Mam under her wing. No chance. She was noticeably cool then pretended someone was at the front door, just to get rid of me.