A Few of the Girls (2 page)

When they were young, they went to school together, their schoolbags on their backs, and their mothers smiled at them. They held hands as they went along the road. Solemn dark-haired Cathy and laughing blond Clare—they would be friends forever. And at eighteen, they went together to Spain to be nannies in nearby families. They struggled to laugh and joke in Spanish, but of course they drank strong black coffee and smoked and laughed together about the future. Cathy was going to study for a degree and get a great job. Clare was going to get a job, make money, and have fun.

Back in Dublin, everything changed. Clare's father died. Her mother, unable to cope without him, began to drink heavily. Clare's notion of having fun seemed a hollow promise to herself. The money she earned at her office went to keeping the house going. Her mother had looked after her for nineteen years—she couldn't abandon her now.

Cathy worked hard at UCD, but in her third year at the university things took a different turn and she found it hard to sit her degree examination since the morning sickness was very bad. Bad too was the pain in her heart because Martin said he was far too young to be tied down. He would, of course, acknowledge the child and pay what he could towards education or whatever. Martin got a First Class degree, Cathy got a Third. Cathy's parents were far from supportive; in fact, they were downright disapproving. Why couldn't she have been more careful? Why did she have to make a fool of herself?

And, as always, Cathy and Clare had each other.

There were too many cups of strong coffee, too many cigarettes, but long, consoling chats about the strange ways of the world. About the alcoholic mother in one house, the new fatherless baby about to be born in the other. The dreams they had talked about so confidently in the Spanish café were gone.

“We're too young to be falling apart,” Clare said, with one of her survival laughs. “We're only twenty-one. This is meant to be
our
time, you know, when people look back and talk about in
their
day. This is meant to be
our
day, for heaven's sake, and look at us.”

Cathy pushed her long dark hair out of her eyes; there were circles under them. She had never been able to laugh as much as Clare, whose face was set in a smile. These days, Cathy looked like the Mother of Sorrows in some painting; her mother was very annoyed about the new arrival. Nothing would console her. No, she did not look forward to being a grandmother.

Yes, she might have sometime in the future, perhaps, when she had a married daughter and a son-in-law, not under these circumstances. Nor was she pleased that her daughter's career had been cut short. Or that Cathy had been made to appear so foolish and abandoned. Let there be no belief that Cathy would find a built-in babysitting service. This house had to continue its own way and Cathy should consider herself lucky her father was doing up a room over the garage for her and the infant. They sighed, Cathy and Clare. It had turned out very differently indeed to how they had hoped.

“At least your mother remembers your name,” Clare said, looking for a silver lining.

“But she says it with such a sour taste in her mouth, I'd nearly prefer she didn't.”

“I bet Martin will go mad with excitement when he sees the baby.” Clare was always full of encouragement.

“Aren't you lucky you never loved anyone? It saved you a lot of trouble,” Cathy said enviously.

Clare puzzled about this afterwards. Why was it assumed she had never loved anyone? She had loved Harry at work for a year, but Cathy hadn't understood. Clare and Harry hadn't had an affair, so apparently this didn't count as love. Not in Cathy's book. And Clare sort of loved Michael at work now, but kept him at arm's length because it wasn't fair to involve him with all her problems at home.

Michael knew of her mother's drinking, but Clare's optimism kept telling her that perhaps it might all sort itself out, then she and Michael could meet as equals without all this drama hanging over them. Cathy assumed that Clare and Michael were just friends, mates, in fact. There had been no full sexual relationship: how could love be involved?

Cathy's waters broke in Clare's house. The timing could not have been worse. Clare's mother was singing rebel songs in the next room and cursing almost every race in the world including, rather illogically, the Irish race, which she was purporting to praise in tuneless song. She hurled abuse at the two girls as they left in the ambulance. Cathy's mother came to the hospital but managed to say to Clare in three different ways that if Cathy had a more reliable friend with a better lifestyle, all this would never have happened.

Cathy had a baby boy and, as predicted, Martin fell in love with the child and with Cathy all over again. They would marry soon, he said, as Cathy lay in bed, the child in her arms, her dark hair held back with a ribbon, a serene smile on her face. She looked like a contented Madonna. Everything was turning out all right, she told Clare, maybe they weren't all falling apart after all.

Clare tidied up the house, washed her mother's clothes, put the bottles in a box for the bottle bank. If things have to run amok, she would say, let them run amok ecologically. Look on the bright side, lots of bottles to be saved and recycled.

When her mother was asleep, she went in and trimmed her hair. It looked very bedraggled these days. It was better to cut it and remove the cut bits while she was asleep. Wielding a scissors in front of a flailing mother was not a good idea. Clare sat and thought about Cathy, the new baby, and Martin and the wonder in his eyes when he saw his son.

Would that ever happen for Michael and herself?

She looked at her mother's lined face. Clare turned off the light and left the door slightly open so she could hear the snores and know all was well. She had some work from the office. She was doing very well there in spite of everything at home, and Michael was so encouraging. She sighed and decided not to think about being twenty-two next birthday and having the odd feeling that her life was over.

Martin's parents put a lot of obstacles in the way when he said he wanted to marry Cathy. Too young, not started in his career, too much responsibility. And anyway, the girl seemed quite happy to bring up the baby herself. So Cathy had many a long tale to tell of how the world had treated everyone so badly. Poor little baby Dan, poor Martin, and, most of all, poor Cathy herself.

During all this, Clare worked on and minded her mother. Michael said he couldn't wait forever so Clare let him come home. Somehow her mother sensed this was dangerous, something that might change things. So she behaved worse than usual and insulted Michael to his face while also telling him that Clare had brought home a string of strange men to stay the night and all they needed these days was a red light over the door.

Then Cathy rang up to say she and Martin would marry on baby Dan's first birthday, wasn't that wonderful? Would Clare be bridesmaid?

She had to pay someone to look after her mother that day. The thought that Clare was going to a wedding made the older woman uneasy. It was as if she feared Clare might want to get married herself once she was at such close quarters to a ceremony. Michael came to the wedding. He asked Clare to marry him that evening.

“You know I can't,” she said with all the regret in the world.

“I just know you won't,” he said, turning away to hide his hurt and disappointment.

“I can't throw her into somewhere, I couldn't live with myself.”

“We wouldn't throw her; we'd
put
her and visit her often, that way she might get better.” This had been pleaded so often, so persuasively, but it had never worked.

“Michael, I'm the worst person in the world for you to get involved with. I beg you don't,” she said.

“It's too late, I am. I love you.”

“And I love you…”

“No you don't, Clare. If you did, then you'd…”

Clare looked at him in despair.

It had been a long day; she had been coping with Cathy, with baby Dan, with Martin, with Martin's mother and father, and Cathy's mother—now she was going home to her own mother and she knew not what situation. It was just unfair to be told that, if she loved him, she would turn her back on all this. People were always being blackmailed this way. If you loved me, you'd sleep with me. If you loved me, you'd give up your job for me. If you loved me, you'd lock up your mother and throw away the key.

“If you loved
me,
Michael, then you'd either wait until things sorted themselves out or you'd move in with me as they are.”

“I can't move in! She orders me out of the house, she is hysterical if I come near the place. And things will
not
sort themselves out,
we
have to,” he said.

Funnily, Cathy had said that to her the night before when she had called round to the bride's house for the last-minute fuss and preparations.

“You'll find someone too,” Cathy had said to her.

“I have someone, I have Michael,” Clare had protested.

“Of course you don't. You can't love him, otherwise you'd have done something about the situation,” Cathy had insisted.

She had not thought it worthy of discussion. They had gone back to the speeches, the seating plan, the flowers in the church. Now, on the night of Cathy's wedding, Clare was turning down a proposal.

“Everything's falling apart,” she said to Michael, tears in her eyes.

“Only because you're allowing it to,” he said.

He drove her home. His eyes were very hard. He kissed her on the cheek and didn't even look up at her mother's bedroom window to see the figure sitting at the window, her hand on the curtain, waiting.

“How did the farce go?” her mother asked.

“The wedding was fine, Mother. Cathy's father is a bit long-winded, but, you know, it was nice. Everyone seemed very happy.”

“What's happy?” Her mother sneered.

“I don't think I really know, Mother. Would you like a hot water bottle before I change?”

“Change?” her mother asked suspiciously.

“I have two hours' work to do, Mother. I don't want to do it wearing lime green satin,” Clare said.

She knew her voice was lifeless. But she had not the energy to put on an act. Even though she knew her mother was less drunk than usual tonight, she would not allow herself to have any hope. Perhaps it was the presence of the retired nurse, who had looked after her, perhaps it was just anxiety to ensure that Clare had returned to her.

Clare would hope no more. Michael was right: if things fell apart, it was because she had let them fall. Funny Clare, thinking everything would somehow get better.

Michael was always nice in the office but he did not ask her out anymore. They sometimes had lunch and talked about work. Once he had reached across and laid his hand on hers.

“I wish things were different,” he'd said.

“God, so do I,” Clare had replied. She tried to grin the old grin but it did not quite work. She felt the muscles of her face twist awkwardly. She must be becoming as peculiar as her mother.

Cathy rang that evening. Clare was pleased. Cathy, at least, had remembered. Nobody else had acknowledged that Clare was twenty-four today. Her mother had not known about birthdays for five years. Michael probably did not think it appropriate since they would not be sharing birthdays from now on.

“It's great to have friends, Cathy,” Clare said, a genuine smile coming back to her face.

“Hey, that's my line,” Cathy said.

Clare was surprised. “No, come on, you rang me, you remembered, no one else did.”

She could hear Cathy fumble.

“Remember? Well yes. Yes, sure.”

Then Clare knew her only friend had not remembered at all. She felt an ache of self-pity. She had remembered Cathy's birthday every year since they had been seven. Two long decades of sending cards and gifts; she sent things to baby Dan, she prepared feasts for her mother, which largely remained uneaten, she had bought thoughtful presents for Michael. She felt a strange coldness come over her. Like being numbed. Instead of chattering on, Clare remained oddly silent. Cathy spoke, of course.