At a Time Like This (29 page)

There are a few shoppers here before me this morning. Not too many, as things tend to move slowly on Saturdays in Leitrim. Those who are here are recognizable by their uniforms of Day-Glo
rainwear, deck shoes and, more often than not, small children with large life-jackets. I hope their boats are centrally heated. The March sky might be blue, but it’s the blue that’s
forged out of of steel and wind and ice. I think of my oil-fired radiators back at the cottage and make a mental note to check the tank. It is an ugly-looking structure in the back garden, but
Anthony did a good job of camouflage, by securing a trellis all around it. Once the soil heats up properly, I’ll plant mile-a-minute-vine. There’s no point in doing anything like that
until the spring frosts have run their course.

My site – my site! – stretches to almost half an acre and I’m itching to get planting vegetables and flowers, some trees and shrubs. I bought myself a few coffee-table
gardening books a couple of weeks back, off Amazon. I’m also watching every gardening programme that comes on TV I heard someone remark recently that it used to be cookery, but now it appears
that gardening is the new sex. I’ll buy that. It seems to me perfectly reasonable that planting and tending, hoeing and digging, cutting back and nurturing something that responds is a lot
less trouble for much greater reward.

I take one of the small wire baskets that lie just inside the supermarket door. Today, I buy fresh peaches, cherries and apricots. It’s amazing the influence tourists can have on sleepy
villages. I put two Spanish tomatoes into my basket. The tomatoes of Andalucía have to be the best in the world. For my breakfast, even back in Dublin, I copy what the local café in
Mojácar used to serve.

I’d spent the whole summer there once I’d finished third year, polishing up my Spanish. Then, once I’d done my finals, I went back again. I was exhausted, unsure about my
future, sick of the gloom of Dublin. I craved the light and the feel of sun on my bones. My mother had given me the proceeds of some insurance policy that had just matured, one she had taken out on
me years back. I didn’t need to think twice. I packed a rucksack, divided the cash into three small bundles and hid it in my socks and a money belt that I wore under my T-shirt. Then I took
the cheapest flight I could get to Madrid, a train that took for ever to get to Almería and a series of local bone-rattling buses to tiny places like Agua Amarga, Carboneras, Aguilas, before
finally settling on the village of Mojácar. Small and whitewashed and Moorish, with a string of empty beaches and blue water, it captured me the moment I saw it. I rented a tiny apartment up
the hill from the beach and basically got lost for five months.

Georgie came to visit but the heat killed her. No matter how many fans we had, or how we positioned them, she couldn’t sleep. And that was only June, long before the Andalucían
summer really got into its stride. She went home after two weeks, fired up with plans for opening her own boutique in Dalkey That was the time, though, that she told me she had made up her mind
about Danny.

‘He’s out of control,’ she said, one day while we were sitting on the beach under an umbrella. We were both sipping a
café del tiempo,
a delicious brew of
espresso poured over ice cubes and wedges of lemon. It helped to cool us down. ‘He’s doing more and more drugs and lying about it.’

I wanted to be careful. I was hardly in a position to give advice about managing men.

‘You think it’s more than a phase?’ I asked.

She grinned. ‘It’s a phase that’s lasted more than four years. I’m not going to hang around to find out.’

‘Do you still love him?’ I asked. To me, it was always the only question that mattered.

She shrugged. ‘What’s love got to do with it?’

A lot, I thought. But I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say. ‘Well, maybe you can work it out together, if he gets some sort of help . . .’ I watched her expression.

She shook her head. ‘You’re too kind, Maggie, too trusting. Besides, I have ambitions, lots of ideas running around my head right now. I want to run my own business. How could I
possibly rely on Danny?’

I wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘Do you mean he’d hold you back?’ I asked.

She drained her glass. ‘He stole from me, Maggie, about a month ago. A hundred quid. That’s a hell of a lot of money’ She looked straight ahead of her. I don’t think she
even saw the bathers who dotted the shoreline, the toddlers screaming at the waves. Her eyes were fixed on something much farther away.

Are you sure?’ It was the only response I could think of.

‘Well, it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Claire and I certainly didn’t spend it. No one else has access to my bedroom. So yes, I’m sure. It’s the last straw. I need
to move on.’

And I knew that the subject was now closed. I lit a cigarette for her. We smoked together in silence. She left a few days after that and I missed her. But I knew that she needed to go home. I
managed to survive the soaring temperatures, but that was only because I was doing nothing, not even thinking. I spent most of the day in the water.

Leitrim weather couldn’t be more different from Mojácar, of course, but being here reminds me in so many ways of Spain. It feels as though I’ve been given another chance to
live my youth. Maybe it has something to do with the newness of possibility after all these years in the doldrums.

Claire will love it here and I’m looking forward to inviting her. Georgie’s absence has meant that Claire and I have moved even closer together. Our friendship has teetered on the
brink of collapse, more than once, over the years. Now, at least I can feel that it has begun to pull back from the edge. Claire doesn’t know this, but I knew about her abortion a few years
after it happened, long before she told me. Keeping that secret from her was not easy, but Paul had made me promise not to tell. He confided in me the day of our father’s funeral, and at the
time, it made so many things fall into place. Claire’s face at Nora’s wedding, his running away to Australia, the suddenness of their split.

‘I’m really sorry, Paul,’ I said to him. ‘It explains so much.’

We were sitting downstairs in our old home, having made sure our mother was settled in bed. My father had been ill for so long that I was sure his death would be a happy release for her. But the
depth of my mother’s grief had taken me by surprise. It just goes to show. You never can tell what goes on between two people.

We were both smoking up a storm. Paul had earlier produced a bottle of whiskey. Now he topped up my glass.

‘Can’t have a wake without whiskey’ he said.

I was glad everyone was gone. The house was now silent, familiar. It was as though it had just let out a long sigh and settled itself more comfortably around us. I’d missed Paul, more than
I could have imagined. His abrupt departure to Australia had left a gap in my life, a gap that had not been filled, despite husband, children, friendships.

‘I blamed you, you know,’ I told him. ‘For the split with Claire.’ I wouldn’t have dared bring her name up. He did it for me, asking where she was. I told him she
had had to go on business to Dijon, although Claire’s face as she’d told me made me doubt it. She was never a very good liar.

He nodded. ‘Blaming me might be more true than you think.’

I waited.

‘I was hard on her, Maggie. Probably too hard. But I was young and idealistic and I couldn’t handle it.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and then reached for another. I understood
the compulsion. ‘I told her it was because I couldn’t trust her, because she had lied to me.’

I looked at him in surprise. ‘And it wasn’t?’

‘Not totally. In fact, hardly at all, if I’m honest. I was filled with the Hippocratic Oath. I felt guilty by association.’ He shook his head. And she was tainted for me. I was
a fool, Maggie. I’d no idea then just how complicated life can be.’

I could see Claire’s face swim before my eyes, watched her pinched reflection in the hotel mirror as she repaired her mascara.

And now?’ I asked. I had the feeling that I was stepping on to very dangerous territory, that something was about to give way beneath my feet.

‘I make the best of it.’

‘Marlene? And the kids?’ I knew I was prying, but I couldn’t stop.

‘The kids are great,’ he said. He drained his glass. ‘It’s not Marlene’s fault. I was looking to replace Claire.’ He shrugged. ‘Can’t be
done.’

I held out my own glass for more. What the hell.

‘You sure?’ Paul asked. ‘Whiskey can give you one mother of a hangover.’

I just nodded. I didn’t want to speak.

After a while, he said: ‘It’s all so black and white when you’re young, isn’t it? Anyway, that’s between you and me. I don’t want Claire to know that
I’ve told you. Ever.’

So that the night in the restaurant when Claire confessed to the abortion, when she told me about her feelings of guilt and responsibility, I couldn’t stop her, couldn’t betray
Paul’s confidence. Instead, I had to pretend. It wasn’t hard to appear surprised, to be overcome by emotion. After all, there was the incident with Ray to be got over, too. But at least
I was able to comfort her on her childlessness. Or rather, I was able to attempt to do so without feeling compromised. All in all, though, it was a tough meeting for both of us, Claire and me. I
have never told her of Paul’s confidence. But it saddens me, that two people who could have made each other happy instead drove each other farther and farther away.

There’s not a lot I can do about that, but I can now draw her closer as a friend. Georgie’s absence has made that easier. I know that Claire’s eyes will light up when she
visits me here in Coillte and sees the size of the garden. I know how delighted she’ll be that I want her to design it, and I think that she’ll approve of what I’ve done with the
interior of the cottage. I hope so. No fuss, no frills. Just open plan, white walls, solid wood floors. And maybe Nora would like it here, too.

After breakfast, I go for a walk. Sometimes the mornings are bright and cold and just right for walking, other times they can be a bit rough. It rains a lot here and the grey
skies can make things look desolate. But as I am still a weekender, these changes in the weather mean nothing to me. I’m not condemned to ‘a winter of discontent’ –
Georgie’s words. Well, not hers specifically, just ones quoted by her. She reminded me that I can up stakes and go back to Dublin and cinemas and theatres and fancy restaurants any time I
want. But the point is, I don’t want. Not since the first night I was able to sleep here. Anthony had promised me that the cottage would be habitable, even hospitable by mid-January, and he
was as good as his word.

Georgie came with me that weekend, to celebrate the end of the renovation. God, it was freezing. Sleeting. Snowing. We stopped off in Liffey Valley on the Thursday evening and bought a couple of
duvets, bedlinen, towels, crockery – just enough to keep us going in case we didn’t have time to shop once we got to Leitrim. Just as well we did, as things turned out.

Karen and her daughter had agreed to look after the shop. We all knew there would be very little business done. Georgie and I have never believed in January Sales, so there would be no stampede
at our boutique. At the very most, we’d offer 10 per cent discount to select customers. That’s how we’ve always retained our niche on exclusivity. That weekend, we’d told
everybody who needed to know that we were taking a few days looking at premises in midland towns. Why not? Dublin and Cork and Belfast weren’t the only places that women spent a fortune on
clothes. Prosperity now runs in broad, deep channels from the coast down towards the dead centre of Ireland, irrigating all the places in between. It was natural that Georgie and I would be looking
to expand again. Even Karen was convinced that that was what we were up to. So all bases were covered. Besides, mobile phones make it that much easier to lie, these days.

‘Good luck,’ Karen had called, as Georgie and I emerged together from the back room. I had gathered up the last of the cheques and the cash and Georgie had filled in the lodgement
slip. We always went to the bank together on Thursdays and for a coffee afterwards. That’s something else I’ll miss, just another one of the small routines of our friendship.

‘Thanks, Karen,’ I said. ‘Bring yourself and Dee out for a meal on Saturday night. There’s an envelope in the till with your name on it.’

‘Try out that new Indian in Blackrock, will you?’ said Georgie. ‘Then you can give us a report when we get back.’

Karen waved her thanks and called out, ‘Drive safely’ I opened the passenger door of Georgie’s car. She was rubbing her hands together as she sat in the driver’s
seat.

‘It’ll heat up in a minute,’ she said. A Mercedes A140 – a recent purchase of hers, another new pride and joy. She’d told me in passing, very casually as I see now,
that she had just insured Carla and Lillian to drive it. A perfect car for around town, she’d said. I remember being taken aback at that. It seemed a lot of car for two young women. Now I
think I know what she was doing. Was a fancy car to be a compensation for her daughters? Georgie has always cared too much about money.

We sat for a few minutes until the windows cleared. She said, ‘I feel like we used to feel at school when we mitched for an afternoon. Do you remember? That thrill of sneaking away while
everyone else was in class?’

I looked over at her. Was it selective memory or did Georgie really not remember that punishment follows crime as night follows day?

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I do. I remember getting caught, too, and being grounded at the weekend for a month.’

She laughed. ‘Well, who’s going to catch us this time?’ She pulled out into the traffic. A swift, confident movement that made other drivers slow down for her. Georgie always
drove like her personality. If that was me, I’d hesitate just a fraction too long, afraid to take chances. Then World War Three would erupt with blaring horns, flashing lights, shaking fists,
all the component parts of Dublin road-rage.

It was about six o’clock when we pulled up outside the cottage, wheels crunching on gravel. Anthony was standing at the front door. He was lit up by our approaching
headlights. Everything else was pitch black.