Three Women (10 page)

KATE SHOOK HER
head. Why had she ever let herself be persuaded by her sister and that social worker to agree to meet her daughter? She should have stuck to her guns and said
No! No! No!
Marian Kelly from the adoption agency had got in touch with her to say that her daughter really wanted to meet her. One meeting and nothing more. Sally had told her to stop being so bloody selfish and think of her daughter – a poor girl who had no idea what her mother was like.

‘Erin’s probably been imagining all kinds of things about you, so if you meet at least it would put her mind to rest once and for all, as she’d know what her biological mother was really like,’ urged Sally.

Kate had thought about nothing else for two weeks and finally agreed, with Marian’s help, to set up a meeting with her daughter in a restaurant off Dawson Street. She was dreading it and was in an utter quandary as to what to wear. Half her wardrobe of clothes was out on top of the bed so she could try things on. What would Erin expect her to be like? She had no idea. Should she go really casual, or would Erin expect
her
to be all dressed up? She slipped on a black jacket and trousers with a white top. She looked like she was going for a job interview! She pulled on her turquoise silk wrap dress, but it looked far too fancy for where they were meeting. The scoop-neck red wool over-dress and leggings with her boots … Maybe she was trying to look too young? She didn’t know what to wear.

She was pulling on a grey shift dress with pearls when Aisling came in and perched on the corner of the bed, her long black hair falling forward, her eyes rimmed with kohl, taking in the mess of the bedroom.

‘What are you doing, Mum?’

‘I’m trying to decide what to wear when I meet a friend tomorrow for lunch.’

‘What?’ Aisling looked puzzled as she took in the clothes strewn everywhere. Kate was usually a real neat freak and liked everything put away in its proper place.

‘It’s just this friend is a very old friend and we haven’t seen each other since we were very young,’ Kate explained, ‘so I want to look well but not mutton dressed as lamb.’

‘Mmmm.’ Her daughter was giving it some thought. Sixteen-year-old Aisling had her own sense of style. Black boots, black leggings and some kind of sixties-style geometric print top worn under a half jacket, which seemed to accentuate her slim frame.

‘That grey shift is good on you but a bit oldie really. What about this one?’ Aisling picked out a simple but very expensive black dress and a white top to go under it. ‘Wear it with your good black suede boots and maybe put a splash of colour with some jewellery too. You know that silver and purple neck thing Dad gave you? That might work.’

Putting on everything that Aisling suggested, Kate had to admit it was the exact look she wanted to achieve.

‘Thanks for the help. You should be a fashion stylist!’ she said.

‘Nah, I’m more interested in biology! We’re doing about genetics at the moment.’ Aisling disappeared off to her own room as Kate re-hung and re-folded everything. She was so nervous about this meeting tomorrow, but at least thank heaven she had what she was going to wear sorted.

ERIN WAS IN
bits. In all her twenty-six years she had never been so nervous and tense and anxious about anything. She kept taking deep breaths as she walked along Dawson Street, trying to calm herself. Her heart was racing so fast it felt like it could fly out of her chest.

‘Do you want me to come with you?’ her mum had offered. ‘I can sit somewhere down the back of the restaurant, or go off and leave the two of you alone … Erin, I’ll be there, nearby just in case you need me.’

Erin laughed, remembering how her mum had sat outside her primary school the day she started, waiting in the car for nearly an hour just in case she was needed, and had then gone home and sat by the phone in case Erin’s class teacher sent for her.

‘Mum, thanks for offering, but I’ll be fine, honest. I have to do this by myself. I think that the first time we meet it’s important it’s just the two of us.’ She could see her mum was wounded and she hugged her. ‘But I promise the minute our meeting is over I’ll phone you and tell you all about it.’
She
smiled, thinking of Nina with her mobile phone at the ready.

Claire and Nikki had offered to come too.

‘No one’s going to notice two girls in a restaurant, sitting at a table over in the corner, eating and chatting,’ they reasoned.

‘I’d bloody notice!’ she laughed. ‘The two of you are no secret agents and I’d feel you were watching my every move. I promise I’ll fill you in on everything when I get home, okay?’

‘Okay,’ they agreed, wishing her luck before she left.

Even Jack had offered to mosey along and sit and read nearby if she needed him.

‘Jack, I am not going to have half my family and friends there the first time I meet my biological mother! Thanks, but no thanks!’ He looked sort of relieved and she guessed her dad had put him up to it.

She had told Luke and even he had said he was just a call away if she needed him. ‘But I’m sure that the two of you will get on fine. If she’s even a patch on you, you will probably immediately bond with her.’

Erin wasn’t half so confident about it and wished people wouldn’t assume that this amazing mother–daughter bonding would happen. She had heard some pretty awful stories of people meeting their birth mothers, and even Marian had warned that often things just did not work out. But she really wanted to give it a try.

She had spent hours trying to decide what to wear, trying on outfits secretly in her bedroom. She wanted to make a good impression but didn’t want to appear a fashion slave or to be dressed too casual. It was so difficult. She narrowed her selection down to two outfits – her grey-and-black-striped
wool
dress with leggings and her black suede boots, or her favourite jeans with a cute little blue knitted cardigan wrap and a white lace shirt that she had bought at a vintage stall in Galway. She opted for the latter and, twirling around in the mirror, hoped that the woman she was meeting would like it too.

Café Paradiso was in a laneway just off Dawson Street and was one of her favourite places. Meeting for Saturday lunch was ideal, as during the week the restaurant was busy with workers from all the nearby offices; but at the weekend it became a much more relaxed spot, the waiters happy to let everyone take their time, to sip their wine and drink their coffees and mull over the dishes of the day.

She got a good table, positioned where she could see the door yet away from other people, so no one was able to sit too close to them and overhear their conversation. This was perfect, she thought, allowing herself to relax as she ordered a coffee.

Every time the door opened her eyes flashed to the incoming female figures. Was that her? That must be her, definitely! That woman with the funky haircut and fur jacket on her own looked around the right age. Erin smiled at her, disappointed when the woman made for a table at the back to join a friend.

God, it was nerve-wracking waiting. She ordered another coffee. The tables around her were beginning to fill up – friends meeting each other, couples ordering lunch, tourists trying to translate the menu, but still there was no sign of her. The waiter hovered around her and she reassured him she was waiting for a friend who must have got delayed.

She noticed the older man near the window reading
Saturday’s
paper, and the guy with the glasses sitting right at the back, working on his laptop. She had read and re-read the menu several times and wished that she had brought a book or a magazine with her in her handbag. As if guessing her thoughts, the manageress handed her the glossy weekend colour magazine from the
Irish Times
to peruse.

‘Thanks,’ she said, disappearing behind its cover and glancing again at the time. What could have delayed Kate? Was it traffic, or trying to park? Where could she be? Surely she had allowed herself enough time on a day like this to get to their meeting.

Forty minutes later, she watched as the young couple beside her finished their meal and left. She was tempted to do the same, but what if there was a good reason for her mother’s delay and she arrived to find Erin gone? It was too important. She’d waited a lifetime for this meeting – she would wait as long as it took.

She ordered the chicken Provençal, which was a house special. She was tempted to order a glass of wine but didn’t want to be drunk when her mother arrived, so opted instead for sparkling water.

Still watching the door, relief washed over her when a glamorous-looking woman in an expensive black jacket came towards her. However, this lady was intent on grabbing a table of her own close by and was joined a few seconds later by her husband. Disappointment engulfed Erin. Her mother wasn’t coming. She had stood her up, changed her mind about meeting her. She was silly to have believed that this meeting would happen. Her mother hadn’t wanted her years ago and nothing had changed.

She wanted to pay her bill and go, but instead she stayed.
She
had to give in to that glimmer of hope, the possibility that her mother might still turn up. No matter how late she arrived, Erin would be waiting for her.

‘Would you like anything else?’ the waiter asked kindly, clearing her plate away. She was so upset that she couldn’t face the thought of dessert and instead ordered a creamy cappuccino. She could feel the sympathy from the staff in the restaurant, who were probably used to girls being stood up by bastards of guys who simply couldn’t be bothered to be decent. But this was a much worse scenario, and she had to fight to control her tears as her gut instinct told her just run and get out of this fecking place and put the whole bloody fiasco behind you. Even the guy with the long black hair over on his laptop was looking at her.

The tables around her were emptying, the staff clearing up, resetting tables and trying to get a breather between the lunch crowd and the arrival of the early-bird diners. Shit – already she was getting text messages on her phone. Her family probably thought she was having a wonderful heart-to-heart, mother–daughter conversation instead of sitting here all alone.

She held her head in her hands as emotion wracked her. Kate Flanagan was doing it to her all over again – dumping her, getting rid of her as if she was a nothing, an unwanted piece of garbage she couldn’t be bothered about. At this moment she actually hated her …

There were only the two customers left now, and even the guy with the laptop had gone to the bathroom, leaving his laptop on – he must know and trust the staff here. She was dying to go to the bathroom herself but didn’t dare leave her seat as, knowing her rotten luck, it would be the very time
her
mother would arrive, look around for her and then leave. She really didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly the laptop guy, walking back, stopped at her table.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked kindly. He was kind of scruffy, with thick black jeans and a jumper and thick black-rimmed glasses. He was about her age.

‘I was supposed to meet someone … a friend.’ Shit, he probably thought she was a right saddo and had been stood up by a boyfriend or some internet date. ‘A woman friend, but she hasn’t bothered to show, I think … unless something utterly disastrous has happened to her … I don’t know what to do.’

‘Maybe you could text or phone her, or you can email if you want. I have my laptop,’ he offered.

‘Thanks … I don’t really know her and this was a kind of first meeting.’

‘Like an interview?’

‘Yeah … I guess.’

He hovered beside her.

‘I’d better stay another while,’ she sighed, ‘just in case she comes.’

Two minutes later he had moved to the table next to hers and had opened his laptop.

‘I had to get out of my place,’ he explained. ‘My flatmate’s girlfriend is over from Amsterdam for the weekend, so I had to give them a bit of space. I said I’d come here to have some coffee and pasta and pass the time. I’ve a load of work to do on this new project I’m working on and if it’s not too busy this place is fine to try to do some work.’

‘I see.’ She smiled, not really interested. But it was a relief to have someone sitting at the table beside her; at least she didn’t look quite so awkward.

‘They’ll chuck us out of here in another forty minutes,’ he said matter-of-factly.

Erin nodded. The matter at least would be taken out of her hands, and if Kate missed the deadline that was most definitely it …

She watched as he worked away, intent on what he was doing, going between print on his screen and lots of images. It looked like film.

After all the coffee and water she had drunk, Erin was really dying to visit the bathroom. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting you, but I wonder if you could do me a favour?’ she asked the stranger.

He looked up from what he was doing. It was so embarrassing …

‘I really need to go to the loo,’ she said, blushing. ‘And I was wondering if by any chance the woman I am meant to meet turns up, could you tell her I’ll be back in a minute? Even if you see a woman on her own coming in the door, or looking around the place, can you try and talk to her, please – it’s very important. She’d be around mid-fortyish, I think. My name is Erin, by the way.’

It was only as she said it that she realized how bizarre the whole thing sounded. He must have thought she was mad.

‘Sure,’ he nodded, taking a slow sip of his coffee.

Erin raced to the bathroom. Tears overwhelmed her as she sat in the cubicle. Glancing in the mirror, she looked awful and she threw water quickly on her eyes to disguise the fact that she had been crying. Then, brushing her hair and putting another layer of lip-gloss on to her lips, she went back outside. The chefs and waiting staff were sitting down having their own meal. It was so embarrassing. She would have to leave soon.

‘No one came,’ he said, barely looking up at her as she slipped back into her seat.

Erin blinked hard, trying not to cry again. She sniffed and reached for a hankie.