Friends Like Us Read online

  She shrugged. ‘So, maybe I like weirdos.’

  ‘Yes, they have their place, I’ll admit. And I am a weirdo in many ways. But there’s more to my weirdness than just bread.’

  ‘Glad to hear it because,’ she leaned into his ear, ‘I have a confession. I don’t do wheat. I haven’t eaten it in fifteen years.’

  ‘No.’ He was genuinely shocked.

  ‘Do you think that might get in the way of us having fun together?’ She flicked her hair and gave him what can only be described as the sexiest look he had ever been the recipient of. He took another gulp of Martini.

  ‘No,’ he said, raising one eyebrow and giving what he hoped was an equally sexy smile. ‘No, I don’t think so at all. I don’t think bread needs to be an impediment whatsoever.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. I’m glad to hear it. Another Martini?’

  ‘Yes please!’ His voice came out a bit croaky, like it was breaking all over again, but thankfully she didn’t seem to notice. This could be the most exciting night of my life, he thought. Oh my God, there could well be life beyond Melissa! He resisted the temptation to do a one-man conga round the bar or begin a Mexican wave fuelled by sheer enthusiasm for life. He threw a peanut into the air and caught it in his mouth.

  I, he thought, am on fire!

  7

  Melissa

  Finally reunited with her Beetle, Melissa drove to her parent’s house, a cul-de-sac called Beach Court, a place where life, unfortunately, had been anything but a beach.

  Melissa had spent the day writing up a double-page feature, part of a series called Breadline Lives which she had been working on for the last three months. It told the stories of the women who live below the breadline and how they manage to keep going. It was an important piece, she believed, something the paper should be doing more of. She had been careful to give these women the dignity they deserved and tried to give a sense of who they were, that they weren’t just poor, or under-educated or forgotten. They were deserving of respect and a far better hand than the one they had been dealt.

  She finished it at about six and then knew she had to go and see her mother, whose birthday it was. The onerous task had been hanging over her all day. She wished she was knocking on Cormac’s door instead. She would call him later and see if he would help lift her mood before the day was lost.

  ‘Happy birthday, Mam.’ Melissa stood there, smile on face, posh flowers in one hand, wondering if her mother was actually going to step aside and invite her in. There was always that feeling that her mother didn’t actually want her there, but after a moment’s hesitation, Mary stood aside and let her pass. Melissa had given up wondering why she didn’t have a key, but she hadn’t had one for years, the reason lost in the annals of time. But not having a key had its benefits, it meant she wasn’t really a part of this family, part of her mother’s life. It meant she could walk away and leave it all behind. She had realized over the years how much better that was for her sanity.

  Automatically and surreptitiously, without even realizing she was doing it, she checked her mother’s eyes for signs of drunkenness, listened to her voice for the slight slur and twitched her nose for the smell of fermented grape. Amazingly, her mother hadn’t been drinking, which was always a relief, it made the ordeal ever so slightly more bearable. She could relax. Not a lot, but she could feel the tension lessen a little.

  ‘I bought these for you,’ she said, presenting the flowers.

  ‘Right.’ Her mother hesitated again, almost unsure of the correct protocol and behaviour, which was utterly bewildering to Melissa but she actually didn’t know any other way. This was the way her mother was.

  ‘They’re flowers,’ said Melissa helpfully. ‘Freesias. Nice, aren’t they?’ she urged. Sometimes, she felt it was like trying to civilize someone who had never met other human beings before, like Tarzan. But Tarzan, she often thought would have been easier to get along with, a more amenable and predictable character altogether.

  ‘Take them, Mam,’ she said, ‘they’re for you. You’re meant to take them.’ Sometimes she had to spell normal behaviour out. Breathe. Just breathe, she told herself. This was a technique that enabled her to stay a good ten minutes longer sometimes. She loved her mother, she really did and she believed that deep down Mary loved her. They were mother and daughter, no one could take that away from them, but it was so hard sometimes just to be around her.

  ‘Yes, very nice,’ Mary said, eventually, and awkwardly. Already exhausted by the encounter, Melissa was reminded yet again how weird, depressing and tiring just being Mary’s daughter was.

  ‘Dad here?’ she said.

  ‘Garden.’

  They walked through the house and out into the back. It was early spring and still chilly and her father, Gerry, was kneeling at a flower bed wearing an old cotton sun hat. Around him were pots of primulas and bulbs.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Melissa…’ He tried to say something and gave up. Instead, Melissa bent down and quickly kissed him on the cheek as he tried to get up from weeding the flower bed. She could tell he was pleased to see her. He always was, in his very quiet way. They were close, she and her father, Gerry, but he was a man of very few words. He would try to speak but would soon stumble over words, losing confidence in the tumble. Mary was silent in a different way. She just didn’t speak and her silences were deafening, frightening, in that they pervaded the whole house. It would have been better if she was a shouter. Melissa used to have her own transistor radio which she carried around the house when she was a teenager, just to have voices, music, anything, to lift the torpor.

  ‘It’s a bit cold,’ Melissa said. ‘And getting late.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ he said, standing up. ‘Well, you know…’ Her father loved everything Melissa did but he just never said as much. She knew it though. He knew how difficult Melissa found being there. He had tried to make this better for her by buying her treats such as a Nunch chocolate bar on his way from work on a Friday and leaving it in her coat pocket, or making sure she had a fiver in her purse ‘just in case’. Melissa didn’t know why he had stayed all those years, was it because he loved her mother, or was it because he loved Melissa. He was a kind and loyal man. They were both lucky to have him.

  ‘Someone’s been to the garden centre, I see,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What are you growing?’

  ‘Bluebells, tulips and narcissi.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘Should be, should be.’

  She looked across at her mother who was still holding the bloody freesias as though they were a bunch of weeds. Melissa watched her, this woman, who had given birth to her and named her and… what else? What had she to thank her for? This woman who had never got to grips with an alcohol addiction, who was still a total mess and although she wasn’t drunk now, she would be later. She was still the same.

  Her mother was small and grey now and really didn’t have the same power she once wielded over Melissa, but it still shocked and surprised her when her mother was exactly the same each time she visited. Why, she would think, am I so naive that I think she will be different? Why do I never learn? This is as good as it will ever be… and that wasn’t very good at all.

  Her mother was a drinker; she would drink wine, whenever she could, most evenings and sometimes lunchtimes. She always drank alone as her father never touched a drop. He may have done once and maybe stopped to ensure there was at least one parent in the house. But Mary has been drinking since before Melissa’s time. She doesn’t remember her mother being anything but a drinker. She was more drinker than mother, that much was clear.

  When Melissa was growing up it was gin, but she moved onto wine when every supermarket made it practically criminal not to put a bottle in your basket.

  ‘I nearly forgot,’ said Melissa. ‘I have a present for you.’ Melissa already wished she hadn’t bothered.

  ‘Another one?’ Her mother’s face pained at the thought of
having to go through the performance twice.

  ‘Presents are nice things,’ said Melissa, losing patience. ‘People normally like receiving them. Actually, in most cultures people are quite happy to have too many. Crazy, isn’t it? Anyway,’ she said, ‘it’s only small, not really a present. I saw it and thought you might like it. Here you go.’ She passed over a paper bag.

  ‘What is it?’ Her mother took out the contents and stood there holding a jar.

  ‘It’s jam.’

  What had seemed, when she had bought it, a useful, even charming, present now seemed totally rubbish. ‘The jam is from Caviston’s Delicatessen. It’s posh. Rhubarb.’

  ‘Jam. Right.’

  ‘Yes, but nice jam. For your toast in the morning.’ It’s jam, she thought. Who doesn’t like jam? Jam!

  ‘Thank you Melissa. That’s very nice of you.’

  They chatted awkwardly for a few moments, her mother dangling the jam in one hand, the flowers in the other, her father standing there, trowel in hand, none of them knowing quite what to say.

  ‘Well,’ said Melissa finally. ‘I should go.’

  ‘You’ve only just got here…’ said Gerry.

  ‘I know, but I’ve work…’ She knew they would never ask what she was doing and why she might have to work on a Saturday evening. So he nodded and patted her arm while Melissa kissed him goodbye. She felt bad leaving him in this house, is that atmosphere, when wine o’clock was nearing. She wished she could sort it out, make everything better for everyone but from painful experience, she knew she had to walk away.

  ‘Bye Mam,’ she said and walked out of the house to her car. As soon as she had shut the door behind her, she felt the utter relief of duty done. She was free again. She started the engine and was about to begin reversing the car when there was a tap on the window, it sounded like someone was knocking with a glass jar. It was her mother.

  Open up, Mary mouthed. Open up.

  Melissa wound the window down. A pot of jam was thrust in.

  ‘You have it, Melissa. I won’t eat it.’

  ‘Mam I bought it for you,’ said Melissa, fighting the urge to shout. ‘And there’s no need to say you won’t eat it. You don’t have to eat it but you also don’t have to tell me you won’t!’

  ‘But it’ll go to waste.’

  ‘Grand, so. Waste it. It doesn’t bloody matter!’

  ‘Take it.’

  ‘Jesus!’ she took the jam and put it on the passenger seat and reversed off the driveway, resisting the temptation to lob the jam at the house like a grenade, pebble-dashing it with sticky red bloodiness. It slunk on the passenger seat, embarrassed to be so unwanted.

  Text: ‘Am eating jam with spoon. About to fall into sugar-fuelled coma. You know how I died. Tell Rolo I love him. Thanks for everything.’

  There was no text back, however. And nothing all evening. Usually Cormac responded straightaway. That was one of the amazing things about him, his reliability. He still hadn’t replied an hour later. Maybe he’d lost his phone? That was plausible, she supposed. Or maybe he’d had an accident and was fighting for his life in some hospital or in a coma. But somebody would have called her, surely. Or maybe he was out having fun. Could he be on a date? It was only a matter of time until he met someone else, though, she would think. Someone serious. He was undeniably attractive, not movie-star unreal but real-life really handsome. It was the combination of sexy greying hair, the slim build and broad shoulders. And then there was his smile, a sweet beautiful smile that spread over his face like a sunrise. And he was so un-moody, unlike all the other men she seemed to come across; he was always happy to see her. Cormac was one of those men who make you feel better about the world. One of those amazing, reliable, kind, amusing Brigadoon kind of men. The blue-moon types.

  If he was gay, she often thought, it would make the whole thing easier or, at least, instantly more explicable to people.

  She had decided very early on that she couldn’t make herself vulnerable to him and risk losing him, like all the other men in her life. It would never have lasted between them, she believed, because very soon, he would have got fed up with her and walk away. That’s been the pattern of her life so far so why would it be any different with him? And they would never have had this wonderful friendship. This way, it was perfect. This way, she could be her best self and never lose him. It had worked – kind of – for years.

  But she was aware it couldn’t go on forever. Someone would come and take him away, some nice girl who loved Cormac, and she would have to watch while they skipped into the sunset with Rolo prancing about. And maybe they would ask Melissa to be godmother to one of their children and Melissa would have to get a cat or something, to stop her getting lonely.

  But what if she wasn’t nice? What if she was horrible? What if she banned Cormac from seeing her? What if they had to say goodbye after all? Melissa couldn’t think about that. She was suddenly finding it hard to breathe. The thought of life without Cormac? Unthinkable.

  8

  Eilis

  One morning, in an attempt to shed all memory of the night shift at the hospital, Eilis found herself handing over her credit card to buy a tree. A lilac tree.

  It had been the usual blur and buzz of trying to move patients from the waiting area, to being seen, and either home or a bed. Nothing had moved as fast or efficiently as she would have liked. She thought of that man, the guy who had sent the flowers, the one who had shouted out of sheer frustration as his mother was sat on a plastic chair. She wondered how they both were. She often thought of people, once they had moved on, and how they were getting on. And she imagined all of them, living nice normal lives, away from the hospital, their brief brush with it over and nearly forgotten.

  Rob was at work, one of the main benefits of his specialism was that he hadn’t done a nightshift since his training. But this morning, when she tried to sleep away the nightshift, she couldn’t so instead of lying there thinking she got up, pulled on her old cord trousers and her wellies and went out into the garden. Spring was beginning to peak out, the garden gently rumbling into life on this morning. As she stood there, surveying her tiny plot, she could feel herself being woken up.

  She took a moment, standing in the sunshine, to text Steph.

  When can I come and see you?

  She had been thinking about her and wondering if everything was as it seemed. There was something about Steph, something slightly shaky about her, she wasn’t the same as she used to be. And it was a chance to see Rachel again. Steph was always the coolest and the calmest of the three of them, but not anymore. Her energy was different, she acted the same, but Eilis couldn’t help thinking that there was something wrong.

  Gardening was Eilis’ therapy. It was something she did on her own, entirely without Rob, it was her space, her thing. And if the insides of the cottage were a homage to all things modern, the garden, on the outside, was a hymn to all things traditional. She had honeysuckles and roses, she had lupins and foxgloves, she had climbers and ramblers, she fought duels with slugs, snails and greenfly and she put food down for birds and would let ladybirds crawl over her hands. If she didn’t have this garden, she often thought, she would have gone quite mad.

  Mam would have liked this, she would often think, as she was kneeling down digging away. And she would imagine her mother sitting on a chair nearby in the early-spring sunshine, the two of them chatting every now and then. But she couldn’t think about that because it made her too sad, so she would shake the thought away and carry on weeding.

  A lilac tree, she thought. That was the answer. A lilac tree! She suddenly couldn’t think of anything else. She would plant it just there by the fence and she imagined it in full bloom, and she thought of the blossoms she would pick every year in early summer.

  She’d been driving past a new gardening shop in Sandycove, just down the road, for some time now and she wondered if it was time to try it out. According to the small swinging sign by the front door, it was called
O’Malley’s Garden. And one thing she had discovered, second only to gardening on the soothing the soul stakes, was a good potter in a gardening shop, a surveillance of secateurs and seeds, a pondering of pots and plants. And God knows, she needed soothing. O’Malley’s Garden was on the corner of the row of shops in Sandycove. There was a yard to one side, filled with plants and pots, and inside were all the seeds and gloves and trowels and kneeling pads and various trinkets and treasures that only the green-fingered would love, such as a large and impressive display on bug and disease repellents. She stood inside for a moment, thinking how lovely it was; her perfect place. Some women liked the posh stores, she liked gardening shops. She settled in for a long and leisurely browse.

  Eventually, she found a lilac tree outside and shifted it to the cash desk, and waited her turn to be served. It was probably on the big side but she had thought that maybe she could half-roll it, half-shuffle it back to her car, get it in somehow and she’d worry about the getting it out of the car when she got home. Rob wasn’t the gardening type, even if he was around. She was used to yanking things around, wrestling with trees and bags of compost.

  ‘Going far?’ She jumped as the girl behind the desk spoke.

  ‘Um…’ Eilis was hidden by the tree.

  The girl sized Eilis up. ‘I’ll get some help for you.’ She obviously thought that a small woman like Eilis wasn’t able to carry a huge tree on her shoulders… And she’d be right. The girl shouted in the general direction to the back of the shop. ‘Muscles!’

  A man appeared. Tall, broad and handsome and wearing a checked shirt rolled up to his elbows, his face stubbly, slightly salt and peppery, with dark hair curling around his ears. He reminded her of someone…

  And then she recognized him. That man from the hospital, the one who sent the flowers. Mr Blue Eyes, or Mr Shouty as Becca had called him. Suddenly, Eilis felt incredibly embarrassed and tried to shrink even tinier. For one, brief mad moment, she imagined she could hide behind the tree like someone in a cartoon but, petite as she was, she couldn’t get quite enough cover.