Friends Like Us (14 page)

Rob went over and blew out a candle which was burning on the windowsill.

‘That's a gorgeous smell,' she said, focussing on him and trying to be normal. ‘The candle.'

‘Vetiver and amber,' he said. ‘Good for mornings… uplifting and energizing.'

‘It's very nice, anyway. Better than the whiff of hospital.'

‘Eau de disinfectant. I don't think Jo Malone does that one.' Rob laughed at his own joke.

‘Whoever
he
is,' said Eilis, but Rob didn't laugh back.

‘Right… so. I'm off.' But he didn't move, she caught him looking at her. Wistful, sad. Sorry. And then it was gone, and he was back to Rob again, calm and slightly cross. ‘Dinner's in the fridge. You can microwave it later for lunch.'

‘Thanks so much. You're amazing.' And he was amazing at so many things. He was a great doctor, she knew that. He was smart and intelligent and kind and thoughtful. A brilliant cook. He had a great eye for design and a passion for architecture. But she had begun to wonder if all these amazing things were the kind of things she wanted. ‘What is it?' she wondered.

‘Chicken and barley.'

She desisted in asking him if that was another candle. ‘Great. Can't wait.'

‘Scatter some of the parsley over it.'

‘Will do.' Secretly she was thinking that all she wanted was a slice of toast and jam. What's wrong with me? she thought. This kind of thing you couldn't just take for granted, not nice meals and scented candles. Other people arrived home to chaos, to shouting, to someone sitting in a vest and drinking beer. Not Rob, always so immaculately dressed.

But she didn't want immaculate. She wanted passion. And this house, so perfect and so sterile. She needed something more. Was it any surprise that she did so much gardening? She liked getting her hands dirty, to feel the soil, to watch things grow. This happened in the garden, things were alive. And when things died, it was okay. You got over it.

Steph was browsing in a designer shop. She was still reeling from spying Miriam and Rick in the garden the other night, but she hadn't told anyone, she had kept it to herself. She could have confronted Rick, she could have knocked on Miriam's door, but she hadn't and she knew she wouldn't.

She had come here because she didn't know what else to do… she didn't really want to be around anyone, not feeling so jittery.

She picked up a small yellow purse. It was lovely, the colour was bright and gorgeous, the leather soft and supple. She wondered if she needed a purse. No, the one she had was fine. But she found herself unzipping and checking for a security tag.

Nothing.

She suddenly felt the surge of adrenaline, heart pumping; she was going to take it. She didn't need the purse, in fact, if she had walked away right now she would never have thought of it again. She could have bought ten of them, if she wanted. She could have bought anything in the shop and made no dent in the family finances. But it made no difference, she wasn't going to buy it, she was going to steal it.

Holding the purse casually in her hand, she continued her browsing and when she pulled out a jacket to take a better look, she slipped it into her bag.

She had managed to turn her jitters into full-on seismic shocks, a way of masking the pain inside, a way of creating even more drama. She had no idea. All she knew was that she had to stop but she couldn't. She tried on more jackets, took her time and then, ever so nonchalantly, walked toward the doors, her insides about to explode. She felt like one of the Great Escapers… she was nearly in Switzerland. Come on.

‘Excuse me, Madam.' A man's voice. She turned around.

‘Would I be able to check your bag, please?' He was a large man, dressed in perfectly ordinary clothes.

This was it. Game over.

She had no choice but to follow the man to the back of the shop, heart thumping, pulse at her temple banging against her head. Steph looked straight ahead, just in case she saw anyone she knew. A fleeting thought: imagine if Miriam saw her. Would she laugh and point in horror?

She thought of Rachel and the shame she would bring on her, the girl with the mother who is a shoplifter. And her parents, they would never imagine in a million years that this was how low their daughter had sunk.

Her face was scalded, her stomach desecrated. The man brought her into a room with no windows and a table with a few dirty paper cups. There was a smell of the dead about the room. This was a far cry from the glitz of the shops. This is serious, she thought. There was no getting out of this. She couldn't just pretend to be forgetful or scatty like she had with Fintan. This is it. The beginning of the end. The architect of my own demise. And it's all my fault.

And what was going to happen? Court, prison? What would Rachel say then?

Prison? Who would have thought that her life would end in prison? The shame would be stratospheric. She couldn't put Nuala and Joe through that. They wouldn't be visiting, bringing grapes to see her. No, that's hospital. What did people bring to prison? God only knew.

‘Why would you like to check my bag?' she asked, quavering but trying to remain dignified.

‘I think you may have put an item into your bag that you have not yet paid for, Madam.' He looked at her, right into her eyes.

‘Really?' she managed. ‘I don't think so.'

‘Well, may I check?'

She slid her bag towards him on the table, as accepting of her fate as Anne Boleyn on the scaffold. It was to be. Prison awaited. Her life over.

‘May I?' he said.

She nodded, tears brimming in her eyes.

He poked around. And then poked around some more. The bag wasn't that big. What was the problem?

‘I can't see anything there,' he said, finally. ‘I must have been mistaken.'

‘Oh…' she was unsure what to do.

‘I am terribly sorry, Madam. Will you accept my apologies?'

‘Yes, yes of course.' She couldn't believe it. Trembling they walked out of the room. She had no idea what had happened but she just wanted to get away.

‘We've had terrible problems with shoplifters, you see,' he explained, all chummy and matey now. ‘They are the bane of my lives. And sometimes I get a little trigger-happy.'

‘You mean you shoot them?' Her voice was shaking.

‘Just a turn of phrase,' he laughed. He bent down to whisper in her ear. ‘I would though,' he hissed. ‘I fucking would. Those little feckers. I would blast their fucking little heads off.' His eyes were bulging and his teeth gritted in a most alarming way. ‘Now you madam, you don't look like the type to pilfer, to pinch things. You wouldn't do anything so low-down as that, would you?'

Steph shook her head hard. ‘Absolutely not!'

‘You are free to go.' He swept his arms out into a princely gesture and she walked towards freedom once more. This time, chastened and appalled. I must never, ever steal again, she repeated. I can't do this, I can't live like this. It's going to get me in trouble. Think of Rachel, she hissed to herself, think of Rachel if you can't think of yourself.

By the jackets, she noticed something on the ground. The canary yellow purse was lying on the floor. She hadn't managed to drop it in to her bag. This was a sign. She was ready to re-find God, anything. She would never steal again. She had been given a second chance.

I am sorry for everything, she atoned. I promise, never again. Thank you for this chance. I have been weak and stupid but I promise I will sort this – sort me – out. I just don't know how yet. I just don't know how.

This time, Melissa had invited them around to her tiny flat in Portobello for a take-away curry and wine.

Steph thought twice about coming. She was still trying to recover herself after the incident in the shop… and seeing Miriam and Rick in the garden. Images of them kept flashing into her mind, all the time. She knew she looked and acted normal, but inside she was shaking, permanently. And then after the shop-lifting near-miss, she wasn't quite sure how she was managing to get out of bed every day. Surely someone must see she was a zombie and on the brink of craziness, but no one seemed to notice. It's a nightmare, she thought, this lack of control. She was petrified about what was going to happen next. She was so determined to turn over a new leaf, to start again but even if she got the shoplifting under control, there was still Miriam and Rick to worry about.

She sat down next to Eilis on Melissa's sofa.

‘This is nice,' said Eilis, ‘really comfortable. I could fall asleep on it.'

‘Sometimes I do… and that's never a good idea,' said Melissa. ‘Here have a poppadom… Steph?'

She took one. ‘The flat is gorgeous,' she said. Tiny, she thought, compared to her house in Dalkey, but perfect for her and Rachel. She imagined living somewhere like this, her own place, just her and Rachel, not just a tiny corner of it and never having to flinch when she heard the key in the door. She could have all her things around, make it her own. Being single looked so easy.

She looked around at the pictures on the wall, the framed posters from different plays Melissa had seen over the years, a photograph of herself and Cormac.

‘Cormac looks particularly handsome in that one,' said Steph. ‘Is he getting more attractive or am I imagining it?'

‘No, you're not imagining it, it's true,' said Melissa. ‘I'm like his Dorian Grey portrait. I'm getting older and he is getting younger. Very, very annoying.' They all laughed. Melissa looked at the photo. The two of them were on a boat in France, one of the holidays they had taken together. The sun was glinting off the sea, the two of them, their arms around each other. They'd given Cormac's expensive Nikon to the sweetest old lady to take the photograph. She remembered his whispering, into her ear, ‘That's the last time we'll see that camera.' And she giggled just as the shutter closed. And she remembered his arm around her and the feeling she had when he took it away, the emptiness she felt when it wasn't there and how natural it was with his arm around her, their bodies pressed together. The photo is there, her laughing, him grinning. She loves it. It's them in a nutshell. She took him for granted all these years and it is suddenly dawning on her that maybe she made a mistake. By keeping him at arm's length she might have wasted too much time, that life was for living and taking risks but her fear of failure had meant she would never know what it was like to have that arm over her shoulders, to hear him laugh at one of her jokes or to hold his hand or eat an ice cream on the pier ever again.

‘By the way, Steph,' she said, changing the subject before she thought too much about it, ‘I passed Mrs Long's gallery on Molesworth Street and thought of you. Remember her?'

‘Of course! How could I forget? She was wonderful. I should have stayed there. It was such a lovely job.'

‘And then Rick would always come and drag you off somewhere…' said Eilis.

‘Yes… that's a long time ago,' she said, smiling her fake smile, as though she was adrift in happy memories. That was when she was in love with Rick, when she thought life was going to be easy. Ha! ‘Shall we eat first and then start making the lists,' she said, ‘I've got some invitations from the designer – it's a guy in the paper – for you to look at? We can email them to everyone.'

However brilliant Steph might have thought her acting was, Melissa was again receiving the message loud and clear that all was not right. She had never seen her quite so tense before, her jaw clenched and shoulders hunched.

When Steph first met Rick, Melissa was witness to the whole thing. But even then, Melissa had found him rather intimidating, had always wondered what Steph saw in him. He was just so… so Alpha.
So bloody male.
He had never had much to say to her and Eilis and, initially, Steph was torn, living two separate social lives. But that soon becomes exhausting and when your husband doesn't particularly like your friends, then you have to choose.

Melissa had turned up to some of their parties. She did it for Steph, and tried to mingle and mix and meet everyone, but she felt like a sore thumb. Rick was bloody terrifying, and those friends of theirs were quite, quite mad, especially that Miriam. She had always wondered how Steph, who was so normal, stood it all. But then, Melissa really didn't understand how marriages worked.

She herself had lied so blatantly about her miserable time in Paris. And Steph obviously telling porkies about her life being okay. She looked over at Eilis… she never really spoke about anything either… Here we are, she thought, such old friends and yet we lie to each other, as though we don't trust the others.

How could you be friends without full-disclosure? Suddenly, she was possessed with the need to tell the truth. She was exhausted by living in the shadows, scared that someone might actually know the truth about her, that things weren't perfect in Melissa-land.

‘Listen, I've got something to say. It's my Mam…' Here we go, she thought, warts and all, here I am. ‘Well, she's not like other mothers…'

Eilis and Steph exchanged glances. They knew what she was going to say.

‘My mother… Mam, is an… an alcoholic. And it's the hardest thing in the world. It's had the most awful effect on me and I need to tell you so I can start to deal with it.'

Melissa looked at them, feeling vulnerable, exposed. She willed them to understand. She wished she hadn't said anything. She hated this feeling of being so alone. Steph was the first to put her arms out and hug her and then Eilis joined in.

‘We know,' she said. ‘We've known for years. You poor thing… you poor, poor thing. Why don't you start at the beginning?'

And Melissa did and told them everything.