A Time for Friends (46 page)

Time had softened Margaret regarding the lack of a ‘proper’ wedding or marriage and her mother had pressed her constantly for news of a pregnancy. One day Sue had told her straight
out. ‘I don’t like children and babies. I wouldn’t be a good mother so I’m not going to have any.’

‘And what does Cormac think of that? Does he not want children with you?’ her mother asked, taken aback by her daughter’s vehemence on the subject.

‘He agrees with me,’ Sue retorted. She hadn’t told her mother that Cormac already had children from his previous marriage. That would have caused consternation.

‘Well the pair of you are well suited so,’ Margaret sniffed condescendingly. She had never really taken to Cormac and his dry sarcastic humour and his highbrow ways. Sue knew her
mother put on a façade of acceptance of their union but in reality Margaret felt that Sue had let down the family yet again by marrying a divorced man who had failed another woman. Cormac
was a freelance proofreader and it was Sue who made the money in their marriage, another no-no for Margaret. ‘A man should keep a woman, not the other way round,’ she’d jibed
once, after they’d had one of their periodic spats. Hilary might think that Margaret was all sweetness and light: Sue was the one that got the sharp end of her tongue more often than not.

And now her mother was dead. Each of them had disappointed the other, and it was too late to resolve their differences. And that she would have to live with, Sue thought forlornly, dreading the
thought of the next few days.

In Margaret’s small kitchen Millie and Sophie buttered slices of bread and placed ham, tomatoes and lettuce on them. Their grandmother was lying in a coffin in the
sitting room, and the neighbours were in paying their respects, then chatting, and having tea and sandwiches in the dining room. Niall and Hilary took turns to sit with Margaret, and later, when
everyone was gone, Millie and Sophie would share the intimate vigil with their parents.

‘It’s just so hard to believe that one minute you’re breathing and everything is normal, and the next minute you’re dead,’ Millie murmured as she cut the sandwiches
diagonally in dainty triangles.

‘It’s scary!’ Sophie declared, nibbling at a cut of ham. ‘I just can’t believe we’ll never see Gran again. I feel like my heart is like lead in my
chest.’ She started to cry.

Millie put her arms around her younger sister. ‘It’s a horrible feeling. I’ve been sad before but never like this. I know this is an awful thing to say, but I’m glad I
got my Leaving Cert done; I’d never have been able to concentrate if Gran had died before it. I keep trying to think what were her last words to me. And I didn’t even know they
were
her last words, whatever they were . . .’ She trailed off.

‘Me too. I
think
we talked about when Gran was young and she lived near the railway line and they used to walk along it to the dance hall when they were young, and how Granddad
used to bring her a bunch of roses every time they went to a dance.’

‘It was real old-fashioned then, wasn’t it? Like in those old films,’ Millie remarked. ‘If you walked along a railway line to a dance now you’d be brown
bread.’

Sophie giggled. ‘Fried! What a sight that would be. Your hair in a frizz and your eyes bulging. Imagine looking like that in your coffin! They’d all be screaming.’

‘Stop,’ Millie grinned, giving her sister a poke. ‘Get buttering – here’s another lot,’ she sighed as the doorbell rang and more neighbours and relatives came
to say their farewells to their grandmother.

‘She looks peaceful,’ Sue said, gazing down at her mother’s serene expression. ‘They did a good job at the undertakers’.’

‘Yes, they were very kind and helpful,’ Hilary said, standing up. ‘Here, take the chair and I’ll leave you with her for a while so you can be alone. I’ll keep
everyone out until you’re done,’ she offered kindly.

‘Thanks, I’d appreciate that. I hate having to do small talk. Mam loved you. You know that though,’ Sue said matter-of-factly. ‘I was a big disappointment to her. You and
Niall were the perfect ones. Cormac and I were the failures. He couldn’t come by the way, he has a strep throat.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Hilary said uncomfortably. Surely with your mother lying in her coffin you would try and make some effort to put bitterness aside, she thought.

‘Mam won’t mind – she didn’t really like him. She pretended to and was civil to him but she didn’t. I knew.’ Sue sighed. ‘I can almost hear her saying,
“I wouldn’t want him gawking at me in my coffin!”’ She caught Hilary’s eye. Hilary laughed, in spite of herself, and Sue gave a small chuckle. ‘Isn’t that
what she’d be saying?’

‘She would say something like that all right,’ Hilary agreed.

‘I know you’ll be shocked by this, but I won’t be staying long. We didn’t have a lot to say to each other in life. I don’t really have anything much to say to her
in death. That’s the way of it,’ Sue shrugged. ‘You think I’m hard, and maybe I am. But I am what I am and she could never see that and accept it.’

‘Sue, you had your relationship with Margaret and I had mine. It wasn’t a competition. I know being a daughter can be hard sometimes. I resented things my mother expected of me when
I was younger, and things she expects of me now, so don’t think I don’t understand that. Don’t be hard on yourself – it’s a difficult enough time as it is. I’ll
leave you in peace to say your goodbyes, and, when this is over and things have settled, you know where Niall and I are if you need us,’ Hilary said generously. ‘We
are
family
when all is said and done.’

‘Thank you,’ Sue murmured, touched in spite of herself. Hilary closed the door and Sue was alone with her mother. ‘What do you think of that, Mam?’ she said wryly.
‘You were right all along. Hilary
is
a feckin’ saint. No wonder you loved her. I could never in a million years be that good-natured if I tried.’

The poignant strains of ‘Nearer My God To Thee’ drifted down from the gallery while the mourners sat after communion at Margaret’s funeral before the final
blessing. Out of the corner of her eye, Hilary saw Sue reach down to her handbag and then she was dabbing a tissue at her eyes, and the sound of an unmistakable sob broke the silence.

Thank God
, Hilary thought with relief.
Thank God there’s grief because where there’s grief there’s love and someday she’ll realize that
. Beside her,
Millie and Sophie cried quietly, and Niall had tears streaming down his face. She squeezed his hand in silent comfort and he squeezed back. Hilary raised her face to the sun pouring through the
stained-glass window behind the altar. The rays bathing the coffin in ethereal red and blue and green.

Margaret’s fears and worries about her future were all behind her now, and she’d been lucky the way she’d passed.
And
she’d orchestrated it.

Hilary had noticed that all her mother-in-law’s tablets for the previous five days had been untouched in the blue receptacles. Hilary always did the weekly tablets with Margaret, popping
them into the receptacles for her, because she found it difficult to do with her arthritic fingers. Hilary knew what she was taking and what dosage she was on.

She’d been shocked at the discovery! Could it be said that Margaret had committed suicide? Could not taking tablets that kept you alive be considered in the same way as taking an overdose?
Hilary agonized. Should she tell the doctor and Niall? But what difference would it make now, she argued with herself. It was very clear that Margaret had made a decision to stop taking her
medication. She’d had a few days to reverse the decision. She hadn’t. Death was the required goal. Death was the result. Margaret had chosen her way to go. If Hilary hadn’t known
anything about her mother-in-law’s medication she would have been none the wiser.

Hilary kept the knowledge to herself. Niall did not need to be troubled by it, or indeed Sue. Because troubled they would be. Guilt would come knocking on their door. Margaret would not have
wanted that. There was nothing they could do now to change the way of their mother’s passing.

You did it your way, Margaret. That’s all that matters, and I respect your wishes
, she silently saluted her mother-in-law, and it seemed that the beams of light shone even
brighter as the music faded and the priest stood up and bowed over the coffin and called them all to prayer.

Sue read the letter a second time
.

‘Ah Mam! If only we’d had this conversation before you died, how different it might have been,’ Sue murmured, holding the letter to her heart. She’d never known about her
mother’s miscarriages, or the grief they had caused Margaret. No wonder Niall had been the apple of her eye when he’d been born. No wonder Margaret felt that children were a blessing,
having lost her own much longed for babies.

She slid her mother’s wedding ring onto the fourth finger of her right hand and saw how snugly it fitted. She rubbed it gently with her thumb. ‘Always with me now, Mam, always with
me,’ she said, folding the letter carefully and putting it back in the envelope with the other items of jewellery Margaret had left her. She would go to the grave with forget-me-nots, her
mother’s favourite flower, when all the fuss was over, Sue decided. And there she would try and reconcile the past and make her peace with her mother.

‘She went the way she wanted, Niall. She didn’t end up in a nursing home or hospital; she went gently in her own home. Take comfort from that,’ Hilary said
consolingly as she and her husband sat drinking mugs of tea in the quiet of their kitchen that evening.

‘I know. And I’m grateful, and Hilary . . .’ He reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I can’t thank you enough for your goodness to Mam. I’m really
sorry I took advantage of you and your good nature and didn’t pull my weight – either with her or in the house.’ He choked up, tears glistening in his eyes.

‘Well there were times when it was difficult and I was fraught, I won’t deny it, Niall, but I loved Margaret like my own mother. We were lucky, she and I, that we got on very well.
In-law relationships can be hell sometimes,’ Hilary said quietly.

‘I know that. And I know that I expected far too much of you regarding Mam . . . and everything else.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Look, I’m sorry that I was an idiot and I
know I often made you feel that my job was more important than yours.’ He shook his head. ‘Mam used to give out to me about it. But I didn’t want to hear,’ he admitted,
shamefaced. ‘I’m sorry, Hilary. Can we start over and stop rowing, and be like we used to be?’

‘Oh Niall, I’d love that,’ Hilary said vehemently. ‘I hate all this sniping that goes on between us. I hate resenting you and feeling that you aren’t supporting
me—’

‘I’m sorry, Hil. I never meant you to feel like that.’

‘Well you did, Niall. And I turned into a nag and I hated that, and you wouldn’t speak to Sue about Margaret, and I was really stressed sometimes.’ She didn’t hold
back.

‘I just missed the way things used to be before you set up the company with Jonathan. I missed having you around. Selfish, I guess,’ he said sheepishly.

‘Yeah, I won’t argue with that. But now you’ve admitted it, and you’re turning over a new leaf, we’ll put it behind us and you can wait on me hand and foot,’
Hilary joked, reminding herself that Niall had buried his mother only hours ago and that it wasn’t really the time to have a go at him.

‘I’ll bring you tea in bed in the morning,’ he smiled at her. ‘And I just want you to know that I think you’ve done a fantastic job of the company. You should be
really proud.’

‘Thanks, I am, actually, and I’ve enjoyed it very much.’ She smiled back at him. ‘But the truth is, I know many women working outside the home are pulled from every
angle, and depleted most of the time. I know I got roped in to doing more projects, but look, we’ve bought the apartment on the seafront for the girls—’

‘And spent a fortune on it. Imagine, it cost five times as much as this house did when we bought it,’ he interjected, grimacing.

‘I know but at least they have a place because they’ll never be able to afford to get on the property ladder with the prices here.’ Hilary sighed. ‘So now that we have it
rented to pay the mortgage, I really am going to cut back at work.’

‘You don’t have to. I’ll muck in a lot more,’ Niall said earnestly. ‘Honestly.’