Friends Like Us Read online

  Eilis peered at him through the leaves. My God, she thought. He certainly is handsome. Better than she remembered at the hospital. But then again, A&E wasn’t the place which showed people in their best light, she should know; the fuzzy, buzzing electric lights of the hospital, sucked the light out of everything. He was laughing.

  ‘Muscles?’ he said. ‘Me? Who do you think I am? And doesn’t my brain get a mention?’ He raised an eyebrow.

  ‘If you had one, it would. As it is, we’re just being kind to you. Care in the community, you know, dear brother. Now, would you be so kind as to help this lady to the car with her beautiful lilac tree.’

  Eilis couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was more the kind of gorgeous that you thought was long gone with Clark Gable or the rise of the New Man. Who was it he reminded her of… Poldark! That’s the one.

  And then he looked up and Eilis found herself frozen to the ground. And then she saw that he was blushing.

  ‘It’s you,’ he said, slowly, surprised, a smile now edging its way across his lips.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ she said.

  ‘You know each other?’ said the girl.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, at the same time as Eilis shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Which is it?’ said the girl, intrigued.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘You know that night when Mam had to go to hospital?’

  ‘When I was in Cork?’

  ‘Yes, well,’ he paused. ‘And we had a bit of a wait in A&E…’ he broke off to glance at Eilis. ‘Well, I was a little on edge and I took my frustration out on this poor woman. She was the doctor on duty… in the middle of, I presume, an extremely stressful shift…’ He looked at Eilis. ‘I’m sorry. No excuse. I was out of order and I am sorry for making your difficult job worse.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Eilis. ‘We get it. Don’t worry. It happens all the time.’ She was gripping her tree and squashing the leaves under her sweaty palm.

  ‘Well, I’m really sorry… I was just… you know.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said gently. ‘It’s fine.’

  He was looking at her intently.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘What can I do to show I’m sorry?’

  ‘Well, you sent the flowers, so that was enough. Thank you, they were lovely.’

  ‘I’ll have to think of something else,’ he said, looking at her. ‘I was really out of order.’

  ‘You can carry it to the car, that’s what you can do,’ said his sister. ‘You’re a pillock. We now have official confirmation.’ But she was laughing. ‘Please ignore my brother,’ she said to Eilis. ‘Once an arse, always an arse. And thank you for looking after our Mam.’

  As she was speaking, the Poldark-alike had moved around the counter towards Eilis. He took the tree from her and for a moment his hand was on hers and she felt suddenly that something was happening, and it felt dangerous and exciting and that she was alive. Jesus. She tried to breathe.

  He hoisted it easily and they began to walk towards the car, about ten metres away.

  ‘Just there,’ she said. ‘Thanks so much.’

  Poldark placed it down while she searched for her keys and, as she fumbled around, she couldn’t help noticing his hands, the very opposite of Rob’s smooth doctor hands, she thought. These were calloused working hands, made for grabbing and carrying. How could hands be attractive? she thought. Hands! For God’s sake. She felt hot… early menopause, she wondered, or a mid-life crisis or just generally crazed. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t normally so flushed and blushed.

  She could see chest hair poking out of the top of his shirt and found herself thinking of his hands grabbing her and him kissing her all over her body and what his body must look like under his clothes…

  He held out his hand. ‘Charlie O’Malley.’

  ‘Eilis McCarthy.’

  They shook hands. His felt rough to the touch, nothing soft about those hands. She wanted to hold onto them and never let go. But thankfully she managed to loosen her grip just before it got too weird.

  ‘Will you be okay when you get home?’ he asked, speaking gently. ‘Do you have help the other end?’ He was looking at her with his amazing eyes. He looked like he really cared. Would it be too much to ask him to come home with her? To help her, of course.

  She was going quite, quite mad.

  ‘Grand, I’ll be grand… don’t you worry,’ she said, sounding not grand at all and rather addled. He was looking at her as though she was a curiosity. Which of course she was. A sex-starved female who was latching on to the first gorgeous, visible man.

  ‘How’s your mother?’ she managed. ‘Is she totally recovered?’

  ‘Oh…’ for a moment, she saw something flash across his face. Sorrow or fear. ‘Well, I don’t know… but you’re very good to ask.’

  ‘But is she okay?’

  ‘Yes, I think so, but it’s just hard to see her so old. She is in her eighties now, but she was the best mother, ever, is the best mother ever. We’re just very fond of her. She’s just not in the best health…’ he paused. ‘The thought of losing her scares me, if I’m honest.’ He looked at Eilis. ‘Sorry, it’s not something I talk about very often but you were there. You looked after her.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said.

  ‘You wish they would last forever, don’t you? Is your mam in good health?’

  ‘Not really.’ Eilis paused. ‘She passed away. Years and years ago, when I was eighteen.’

  ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ She almost laughed. ‘Sorry,’ she said, looking at his appalled face. ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘You were so young,’ he said, searching her face for signs of how she was feeling.

  ‘I know…’ But that’s the thing, she wanted to say, that’s exactly it, I can’t seem to move on. I can’t stop feeling like it has just happened. I can’t stop feeling like that eighteen-year-old whose mother has just died. ‘So, anyway,’ she said, ‘thanks so much and say hi to your mam.’

  There was something about him that made her want to stay and talk to him, something that drew you in. She didn’t want to leave but she could hardly just hang around like a lemon. She turned reluctantly to get into her car.

  ‘We give classes, you know,’ he said, suddenly. ‘On tree care. On loads of gardening-related things. Why don’t you come to one? They’re free.’ He stopped.

  She looked at him, into his handsome face, his dark eyebrows, his blue eyes and she realized that she had to see him again.

  ‘So, maybe you’ll come?’ he said. ‘The classes. Gardening… you know. All sorts. They’re really popular. We’ve got a little gang now. They are all really nice. Come next Saturday. It starts at five. And if you can’t come this Saturday, it’s every Saturday, Now, spring is here, it’s going to be weekly.’

  ‘Are you giving them?’ Shut up, she told herself. You are acting like you will only go if he is there. Which may have been the truth but he did not need to know that.

  ‘Mainly my sister, Kate. She is the real gardening genius. I’m just the man about the shop.’ He nodded in the direction of the shop. ‘We’ve both been gardening for years, but I set up the business a year ago and Kate helps out whenever she can. She’s a horticulture lecturer at the Botanic Gardens. I’m the brawn. She’s the brain.’

  ‘You’re the muscles.’ She involuntarily glanced at his broad shoulders, his height, his arms, his torso. Oh God, he noticed her. She was like a sad old woman, desperate for make attention. She looked away.

  ‘Yeah…’ he said, running his fingers through his hair, as though suddenly self-conscious. ‘You could say that. I’m just here to lug things round.’

  ‘What were you doing before?’ she found herself asking, as way of keeping him there as long as she could.

  ‘Law. But lost the will to live eventually. I went into it for my dad… to make him proud, but then one day I thought, he’s still going to be proud
of me even if I am not a lawyer.’

  ‘Really? And is he?’

  ‘Well, he’s passed away now,’ he smiled to show that it was okay, ‘but I am 100 per cent positive that he would be. I wish I’d done it years ago.’

  ‘I went into medicine to make my Mam proud,’ she said, wondering why she was telling him this. She never spoke about her mother but there was something about him that made it seem like the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘No, she died before I even went to college but she would have been. I’m sure of it. Her daughter, a doctor! I often think of her when I am on my way to work, what would she say now? She would have told everyone about me.’ She couldn’t stop talking! Just close your mouth, it’s not that hard.

  ‘I’m sure she would,’ he said, looking at her, smiling gently at her.

  ‘It’s quite humbling, thinking of that pride and then me just being me, nothing to be proud of, really. Anyway,’ she said, realizing that there was so only so long she could keep the poor man captive. ‘I should go. Let you get back…’

  ‘Okay.’ He hesitated. It was him that seemed reluctant, or was she imagining it?

  ‘So, see you around,’ she said, casually. ‘I might see you at the class.’ Might? Definitely. ‘Well, thanks so much for your help.’

  ‘No problem at all.’ He was still looking at her. ‘Glad to be of use. See you.’

  ‘Yes, see you.’ As he walked away, she allowed herself to watch him walk back to the shop. She had never seen anyone so… so happy. He was tall, tanned, muscular… and happy. Is happiness so rare, she thought, that it’s obvious when someone looks it?

  She got into her car and pulled away onto the road, winding down the window and desperately trying to focus on the journey home. She thought of Charlie giving up his job and following his dream. But I don’t have a dream, she thought, I’ve never had a dream except trying to fulfil other people’s.

  Those hands… the sexiest hands she had ever seen. She wondered, apart from carrying trees, what else he could do with them. She opened the window and made herself think of other things, mundane things. But she couldn’t think of anything, except Charlie.

  She tuned in the radio. Born To Run came on and she sang at the top of voice.

  We’ve gotta get out while we’re young… cos tramps like us, baby we’re were born to run.

  She had conveniently forgotten all about Rob and, for the entire drive home, she no longer felt unsettled or unhappy, she felt alive.

  Baby, we were born to run… tramps like us, baby we were born to run.

  9

  Steph

  Communion day dawned bright and blue. Steph had spied the vans arriving at next door’s since eight o’clock that morning. Totally Cheffilly had two vans, and then there was the hire crowd with the glasses and the plates. From the off-licence van there materialised boxes and boxes of wine and trays and trays of beer.

  Rick came downstairs.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asked, trying to make an effort, hoping he was in one of his friendlier moods.

  He didn’t answer her, just grunted, it was as though she hadn’t spoken. She felt suddenly foolish, as she often did, always on the back foot. And then Rachel joined them, they obviously had been midway through a conversation. ‘But why won’t you, Dad. Hugh comes on Fridays.’

  ‘But Hugh doesn’t work like I do,’ he said. ‘Hugh’s a pussy.’

  ‘Dad!’

  ‘What?’ he said, laughing. ‘He is! Public relations. No wonder he can take Fridays off to watch schoolgirls play hockey.’

  ‘Dad, please. Come on, just once.’

  Come on, Rick, urged Steph, say yes, say yes to your lovely daughter that you will go and watch her play hockey. Rachel knew Steph would jump at the chance to cheer her on, but Rachel had her eyes on the bigger prize; her father’s support and approval. But he was a busy man, busy giving others his approval.

  ‘Sweetheart,’ said Rick. ‘I would love to, there is nothing more I would like than to stand on the side of a freezing pitch on a Friday afternoon, in March, and watch you play hockey.’ He was teasing her, they all knew, but it was tinged by his harsh sense of humour.

  Rachel punched him on the arm. ‘Loser,’ she said. Steph was always impressed at Rachel’s confidence around him, something she herself had never mastered, but she was also sad about how he always got away with being the kind of dad who lets you down.

  ‘Listen, Rachel, I’m busy. I have clients. I get paid to be in meetings… that’s how we can afford to buy you nice clothes and whatever else it is you girls are into.’

  ‘Dad,’ said Rachel, looking at him straight in the eye. ‘Did your dad watch you play rugby or football…?’

  ‘Rugby,’ he said quickly.

  ‘Did your Dad see you play rugby when you were at school?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Rick.

  ‘And would you have wanted him to?’ Rachel had him now. Steph’s admiration for her only child reached its zenith.

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Rick.

  ‘Well, then.’

  He smiled at her and raised his hands in surrender. ‘Look, I’ll see what I can do. Okay?’

  Rachel shrugged. ‘Just let me know when you can squeeze me in. But remember, when you are old and wrinkly and in a care home, I may or may not choose to visit.’

  He laughed and Rachel swept out of the room, point made and scored.

  He turned to look at Steph. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we may have another lawyer on our hands. Chip off the old block, if you ask me.’

  Steph didn’t mention Rachel’s love of art history and her brilliant English essays, that she too might have a claim on her daughter. But she smiled and said nothing.

  ‘I just have to go and see Mam and Dad,’ she said. ‘See how they are getting on.’

  ‘Send them my best wishes,’ he said, faux-gallantly. He could, if he wanted, play the role of caring husband but most of the time he couldn’t even be bothered to act.

  Steph’s parents lived just up the road, in the house she grew up in.

  ‘Mum? Dad?’ She couldn’t hear the radio. Usually its job was to blast out news all day long but today it was quiet. What was wrong? ‘Everything alright?’ she called.

  ‘In here,’ she heard her mother call out. ‘Kitchen.’

  She walked through the hall, the little table with the letters and both sets of keys, the picture of Steph on her graduation day on the wall, Steph and Rick on their wedding day, Rachel as a baby and a picture of Steph and Rachel taken in the back garden, when Rachel was ten, their arms around each other, so easily and naturally. There they are, in the photo, as though nothing could break them, and now that bond seems to be broken.

  Steph may have had her own house, shared with Rick and Rachel, but she still thought of her parents’ house as her real home. It made her realize that she hadn’t properly moved out and on, emotionally she had never quite flown the nest. If things had been better with Rick, then maybe she wouldn’t feel like this. But her house was no safe haven and her childhood home was where she could be the old Steph, the confident relaxed Steph. She felt fulfilled and fortified by each visit.

  ‘In the kitchen.’ Her father’s voice sounded strange. She walked quickly through the house and was met by the sight of her dad, Joe, sitting on his armchair, looking pensively through the French doors at something (a blade of grass? a leaf?) in the garden, while her mother, Nuala, sat on a campstool dabbing paint on a canvas.

  ‘I can’t talk,’ he said, trying not to move his mouth. ‘I am posing and have been told not to move a muscle.’

  ‘Okay…’ said Steph, whispering, relieved to see it was just another of her parent’s many activities. ‘Genius at work.’ She tiptoed dramatically to the work surface and put down some peppermint creams, some scones and some lemon curd she had bought at a school fundraiser, and a copy of the Irish Times.

  Her mother laid down her brush; the spell w
as broken.

  ‘Hello Stephanie,’ she said, smiling brightly, genuinely delighted to see her daughter. ‘How lovely to see you. Is that elevenses?’

  ‘Even Picasso would have breaks for tea,’ said Steph, slipping back into her role as important member of this family. Here, she had status. Here, she was important. ‘Although his was probably a glass of absinthe. Nothing pedestrian and ordinary for him.’

  ‘Pedestrian? Tea?’ Joe was standing up, stretching his back. ‘Heresy! Drink of the Gods, tea is. I bet Pablo only drank absinthe because he thought he had to. All part of the look, you see. That and the stripy T-shirts. He probably drank tea when no one was looking. And wore a nice plain cardigan. Not unlike this one, I would imagine.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Steph, laughing. ‘You and he share a certain swagger.’

  Joe nodded sagely.

  ‘Let’s put the kettle on, so. Pablo here needs a cup of tea. As do I,’ said Nuala. ‘What do you think, Stephanie? You’re the art expert in the family.’

  Steph coloured. ‘Was, not anymore,’ she said. ‘Now… let’s have a good look at it. Hmmm. Well, I think it’s brilliant, Mam.’ And it was. For an amateur. And if you didn’t know it was meant to be an actual person.

  ‘More blue, I think,’ said Nuala. ‘On the nose.’ She reached out for her paintbrush to add a dab.

  ‘The nose?’ Steph’s dad, Joe pretended to be indignant. ‘My nose is many things. But blue it is not.’

  ‘It’s art, dad,’ said Steph. ‘Mam’s in her blue period. And you can’t come between an artist and her vision. And if Monet here thinks your nose is blue, then blue it is.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Monet, dabbing some blue on the canvas. ‘There. Just… like… that.’ She looked up. ‘Your nose is blue, anyway. Have a look in the mirror.’

  Joe made a sound like hmmphffftt.

  ‘And you’ve really caught the perpetually vacant stare in Dad’s eyes,’ said Steph.

  Both her parents laughed. The two of them always found the amusing side to any situation. In fact, whenever anything bad happened, Joe would always say: ‘Right, when can we see the funny side to this?’ And eventually, with most things, they would.