A Time for Friends (26 page)

Jonathan Harpur was a really nice guy, Leon Kyle mused, sitting in the Friday evening snarl-up on the M50 and wondering what idiot had designed the toll bridge that narrowed to
two lanes causing huge tailbacks.

Jonathan was a talented interior designer, for sure. He’d shown Leon some of his commissions and Leon had been more than impressed. It would be good to keep in with him. His new buddy
might be able to put some nixers his way. What a pity he had to go down the country and visit his mother. It would have been nice to socialize with Jonathan this weekend in some of the
capital’s gay haunts. Leon exhaled a deep breath. He had to be careful where he was seen. None of his family knew that he had gay tendencies. They would all be shocked. He was butch, manly,
played soccer, had a child, and not one of his family or friends knew that his life was hell on earth and he hated himself. He hated that he preferred men to women, he hated that he hadn’t
the guts to come out, he hated
himself
for preferring men. He hated that he had to sneak around and tell lies and watch that he didn’t slip up. He certainly wouldn’t be able to
introduce Jonathan to his family and friends and definitely
not
to his eight-year-old son and ex-partner. They would wonder who was this exotic creature with the flamboyant scarves and
sharp dress sense, who was as gay as Christmas. Nope, introducing Jonathan would be out of the question but there was nothing to stop him having a good time with Jonathan, discreetly, now and
again. Nothing at all, Leon decided, flinging his coins into the basket and gunning the engine, impatient for the barrier to rise.

Hilary glanced at her watch. She needed to get a move on. It had started to sleet again. She’d pick the girls up from school, nip in and have the promised cuppa and cake
with Gran H, drop the girls home and do her supermarket shop. She’d just go to Nolan’s in Clontarf. Driving out to Sutton to go to Superquinn on a wet Friday evening was not on –
she was too tired and she had too much to do. Her cleaner, Magda, had not come back from Latvia after Christmas and had sent a text saying that her mother was ill and she would not be returning to
Ireland, much to Hilary’s dismay. She needed to sort out getting a new cleaner too. She should have got the mini-maids in to get the house shipshape before Sophie’s friends arrived but
she wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting them at this late stage.

Her desk phone rang, and she dithered. It was someone who had her direct line number. She should answer it, she supposed. It might be her mother or Margaret.

‘Hello?’

‘Sweetie! It’s
so
good to hear your voice. I miss you!’ Colette chirruped down the line.

‘Colette, hey, what are you doing ringing me at work? You usually ring in the evening, what’s up? Is everything OK?’ Hilary asked, surprised at the call.

‘You’ll never guess, Hil, I had to tell you. Who do you think is working in Manhattan Eye and Ear, a couple of blocks away?’ Colette asked dramatically.

‘Who?’ Hilary asked, trying to pretend she was interested. Colette’s timing was the pits.

‘Rod Killeen!’ Can you believe it?’ Colette was giddy with excitement.

‘Who?’ Hilary wracked her brains. The name sounded vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place it.

‘Hilary!’ exclaimed Colette indignantly. ‘Rod Killeen, the skunk that
broke
my heart!’

‘Oh yeah, sorry.’ Hilary glanced at her watch. She needed to be getting a move on. ‘What are the odds of that? Did you meet him or something?’

‘God no!’ Colette shuddered. ‘Imagine the shock if I’d bumped into him unexpectedly. No, Janine Winthrope told me that her husband was attending an Irish eye specialist
in Manhattan Eye and Ear. She
adored
Dr Killeen’s accent, she told me. “Killeen?” I said. “Rod Killeen?” “Why yes,” she said. “Do you know
him?” Do I know him?’ Colette scoffed. ‘That lying, two-faced toad devastated my life. If only Janine knew. I wonder did he marry that red-headed dumpling?’

‘What differences does it make now, Colette?’ Hilary asked with as much patience as she could muster. ‘You’re happily married to Des. You have a fabulous lifestyle. So
what if he married that girl?’

‘I know,’ sighed Colette. ‘But I’d just love him to know how well I did in spite of him. Do you think I should inveigle Janine into throwing a party and inviting him? Oh
I could swan in in style and leave him standing there with his mouth open to see what he could have had!’

‘No, Colette! Not a good idea,’ advised Hilary firmly. ‘The past is the past. Leave it there. What’s the point, after all these years?’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ the other woman said dejectedly.

‘I
am
right, lovie, now I have to fly or I’m going to get stuck in the rush hour. Sophie’s having friends over for her birthday and I’m way behind schedule.
I’ll call you next week. Remind me to tell you about Sue and her carry-on. You’re so lucky you don’t have in-laws and elderly parents to contend with. Mind yourself.’

‘OK, you too. Are you sure you don’t think – you know, for closure – that I should—’

‘Positive!’ Hilary said sternly. ‘Bye, Colette.’

She shoved her diary into her bag, grabbed her mobile phone and stood up. She had a lot to do before she’d be able to put her feet up and flop in front of Graham Norton with a well-earned
glass of wine. Niall need not worry about waking her when he got in from his gig. She’d be dead to the world because she was absolutely knackered.

Was it just her that was finding it hard to cope? Other women seemed to manage their juggling much better than she did, Hilary mused as she edged cautiously out into the already heavy Friday
traffic. Was she just not good at coping with stress? Women were bombarded with images of designer-dressed career women in skyscraper heels breaking through corporate glass ceilings, juggling
career, motherhood and home-making with apparent ease. Carrie Bradshaw and Co. were far removed from ordinary women, although in fairness, the portrayal of Miranda the lawyer in
Sex and the
City
when she’d had her baby was real enough. But a noughties-type character from a TV programme she certainly was not, Hilary thought, suppressing a yawn. If any of her friends rang
right now and suggested a night out on the tiles, drinking cocktails, they’d get short shrift. Women could
not
have it all, no matter how much feminists liked to believe it. Women
were spread too thin. She couldn’t give her all to her family
and
her job and there was certainly no room for downtime for her.

Andrea Keirns’s baby had ignited a surge of unexpected longing in her that surprised her. What on earth would she want a baby for at this stage of her life, fifteen years after having
Sophie? Madness, she thought, as she crawled along in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Her life had been much less stressful when the girls were babies. She had enjoyed being at home with them, enjoyed bringing them to visit their grandparents, enjoyed picnics and walks on Bull
Island, or Sutton Beach. She’d even had time to read. She’d been an avid reader once. If she had a baby now she certainly wouldn’t be jaunting off for picnics and the like and as
for reading books . . . ha ha!

Colette was something else, she reflected, amused at her friend’s phone call. How lucky was she if the only thing she had to worry about was trying to show an ex-boyfriend that she had
done well for herself? Sometimes Hilary thought Colette had married Des on the rebound. Rod had been her first love and she had fallen for him hard. Hilary had listened to a lot of crying and
ranting in those days. She grinned, remembering how she’d even been involved, against her better judgment, in a stakeout of Rod’s flat, one wet December afternoon.

Time had not healed the wound of rejection in Colette’s breast, despite the fact that she’d had a hectic social life in London. It only seemed like yesterday that Colette had come
back to Dublin on a Christmas visit and had spent an hour griping about her ex, Hilary reflected, her thoughts drifting back to their early twenties when the trauma of a broken love affair had
knocked Colette for six.

‘I wonder, is he still living in that flat in Ranelagh? Will we drive over tomorrow and check it out?’ Colette had suggested, eyes glittering with anticipation.

‘Why? What’s the point? You don’t want him to think you’re running after him. Forget him, Colette,’ Hilary retorted.

‘Please, Hilary!
Please
! Let’s drive over and see if he still lives there?’ Colette begged. Knowing she would get no peace until she agreed, they had set out on a
wild, late Saturday afternoon in December, in Hilary’s ramshackle Toyota, driving through the wet suburbs on the Northside to the tree-lined, narrow street of red-brick houses on the
Southside of the city. They’d parked a few doors across the street from where Rod lived, in a ground-floor flat, with two other medical students.

As rain lashed against the car windows, they had sat with hats pulled low over their faces and scarves up to their noses. ‘Just in case Rod sees us,’ Colette fretted. The downstairs
of No. 27 was in darkness. Upstairs in the window of a first-floor flat the lights of a bushy little Christmas tree twinkled gaily, casting sparkles of light into the gloom. Pools of orange light
radiated from the street lamps, reflected in the puddles of water around their bases. People came and went into their warm, lamplit homes, doors opening, light spilling out into gardens, then
closing on the dark, damp night where Colette and Hilary kept their lonely vigil fortified by a flask of coffee and Twix bars.

‘I think we should go,’ Hilary said gently an hour and a half later, as she wriggled uncomfortably in her seat, pins and needles shooting up her leg from her cramped position.

‘Just five more minutes,’ pleaded Colette miserably and so they sat for another half-hour until their patience was rewarded and Rod’s motorbike roared up the street, with a
black-helmeted pillion passenger, arms wrapped tightly around his waist.

‘Fat cow!’ Colette burst into tears as Lynda climbed off the back of the bike and Rod chained it against the railings.

‘She’s not
tha
t fat,’ protested Hilary, who was feeling particularly plump having demolished two Twixes, and whose jeans were digging into her waist due to a
combination of PMT fluid retention and a week of Christmas parties that had ruined her pre-Christmas diet.

‘Yes she is,’ sniffed Colette. ‘Look at the wobbly arse on her. If I had an arse like that I’d shoot myself.’

‘Oh stop it,’ snapped Hilary. ‘I have a fat arse too. Think how that makes me feel hearing you go on like that.’

‘
Oh!
Well at least you don’t have a bust like the Dublin Mountains.’

‘Wow, that makes me feel a million dollars,’ Hilary snorted.

‘Oooh look! Bastard! Bitch!’ Colette burst into tears as her Rod switched on the Christmas tree lights and enfolded his girlfriend in a loving embrace. Their silhouettes etched
against the twinkling glow of the multicoloured light, the pair snug and warm from the deepening rain that was now hammering down on the top of the car. The little tableau of domestic bliss was
almost cinematic, Hilary thought, wishing she was at home in front of the fire with her book and a glass of wine. But her heart softened as Colette’s whimpers turned into full-blown sobs, and
she started the car engine and said kindly, ‘Come on, we’re getting out of here. There’s no point in prolonging the agony.’ Colette had cried the whole way home.

And to think that now, years later, knowing that Rod Killeen was working in a hospital a few blocks away from her could send Colette into a tizzy. It surprised Hilary. Her friend was a strange
girl where men were concerned. Every man was subject to the famous O’Mahony charm. Even Niall, Hilary thought wryly, having witnessed Colette’s flirty behaviour with her husband on
numerous occasions. Colette
had
to be the Belle of the Ball. Rod had ditched her, and that had been a first; Colette usually did the dumping. Clearly she had never got over it. What did
she want to return to the past for when she had made a very good life for herself with Des? Why open up old wounds? If that was the greatest of her troubles she was doing very well, Hilary sighed,
swinging right onto Vernon Avenue.

She parked on double yellows outside Thunder’s and raced in to buy a selection of gooey cream cakes. She deserved a treat after the hectic week she’d had, she thought, damping down
the guilt when she bought a creamy coffee cake as well. She’d need a sugar lift to keep her going – it would be ages before she had her meal.

A motorist shook his fist at her as he manoeuvred past her car and she muttered, ‘Ah shag off!’ She hadn’t blocked him or anyone. She’d half parked on the pavement
– it was the car on the far side of the road that was causing the problem.
You’re the very one who’d be giving out if it was the other way round.
She acknowledged her
double standard, twisting the key in the ignition, relieved that the lights were red and she was able to scoot out in the gap in the traffic.

Her daughters were standing under an umbrella, scowling, when she finally drew up as near to the school gates as she could. She tooted at them and they hurried to the car, grumbling as they
threw their bags in and climbed in. ‘We were waiting ages, Mam!’ Sophie reproved, flicking raindrops off her blonde ponytail.

‘My shoes are leaking,’ moaned Millie, plonking herself into the front seat beside Hilary.

‘I’ll give you the money to get a new pair,’ Hilary sighed. ‘We’re going to Gran H’s to have a quick cuppa and a cream cake. I didn’t have time to go
for coffee with her this morning after her warfarin.’

‘Cream cakes, yummy.’ Millie cheered up, twiddling the knobs to change the radio stations until she heard Whitney Houston belting out ‘My Love Is Your Love’
.

‘Aw turn off the radio and play Christina Aguilera – it’s in the deck,’ Sophie protested, starting to hum ‘Genie In A Bottle’.

‘No, I’m listening to this,’ Millie retorted.