A Gift to You (24 page)

On the day of his post-operative check-up, the Judge sits at his desk, writing in his neat, elegant cursive on expensive, embossed stationery. He slips the three notes he has written into cream
watermarked envelopes and drops each into a small gift bag. Humming to himself, he picks up his car keys and strides to the front door. His wife has offered to drive him to his appointment but he
wishes to make his own way. He has a small chore to do after he has seen his consultant.

‘All healing well. Watch the weight, no tea or coffee after six p.m., and take regular exercise,’ his urologist instructs matter-of-factly, having conducted the dreaded examination.
The Judge is so relieved the ordeal is over he almost skips down the steps of the clinic and makes his way to the private hospital adjoining it. Cognizant of the advice he has recently been given,
he takes the stairs rather than the lift, to the second floor. Panting somewhat, he turns right.

He hears her before he sees her. ‘Number 222 is givin’ out yards about been put on a reduced diet. He’s
demanding
a cooked breakfast for tamarra, Kate. Will ya deal
wid him?’

‘No prob, Janet,’ he hears his nurse say, as he rounds the corner and sees them standing by the ward kitchen. A sudden shyness overcomes him. He clears his throat. They turn to look
at him. It is Janet who recognizes him first.

‘Ah, tiz yourself. Howarya getting’ on, luv?’

Kate takes a moment longer. If he were in his pajamas, she’d probably remember him, the Judge thinks with a flash of humour.

‘Room 222, the judge fella,’ Janet prompts, glancing over her specs at him.

‘Oh, yes, Judge Harney. How are you keeping?’ The young nurse asks politely.

‘Very well, thank you. Very well indeed. I just wanted to er . . . drop these in to you both, to thank you for your kindness during my stay here.’ He knows he sounds pompous and
searches for something to add. ‘I was extremely well looked after, especially by both of you and I very much appreciate your care. And if you would be so kind as to give this to Fran I would
be obliged.’ He thrusts the gift bags at them.

‘There was no need for that, but thank you very much,’ Kate demurs.

‘Ahhh, Jayziz, now, isn’t tha’ very kind of ya to remember me too!’ Janet exclaims, delighted, peering at the box of chocolates nestled in the pink tissue paper that
lines the gift bag.

‘Well, now, Janet, how could I forget that tea – the nectar of the gods – and toast you made for me after my operation? I know I was somewhat grumpy but I hope you’ll
forgive me,’ he adds slyly, a rare twinkle lighting his hazel eyes.

‘You men, yer all the same when yer sick, but ye can’t resist me tea an’ toast in the end.’ Janet laughs and pats his arm.

‘Thank you again, ladies.’ He nods before turning on his heel to march away towards the stairs.

‘Well, I wasn’t expecting tha’. Sickness an’ old age are great levelers, luv, aren’t they, even for judges?’ Janet remarks sagely, taking out the box of
chocolates. ‘Oh, look, Kate, they’re posh an’ all. Handmade.’

‘
Chez Emily
,
very
posh!’ agrees the nurse, opening the envelope. ‘Ah, Janet, look at the way he signed it, after all his giving out. ‘I bet yours is the
same.’ She laughs, studying the embossed, headed notepaper of Mr Justice Frederick Harney, and the signature that ends the Judge’s note.

‘So you’re absolutely sure that you don’t want a surprise party for your fortieth?’ Liz, my older sister, asks, as we sit sipping vanilla coffee in the
trendy new café on the seafront.

‘I’m positive.’ I grimace. ‘It’s bad enough being forty without having to make a song and dance about it in public’

‘Life begins at forty, honey,’ she says airily, as our tuna wraps and salads arrive ‘Look at me, a half a stone heavier, eyesight failing, grey hair multiplying at a rate of
knots, everything going south and do I care?’

‘That’s because you’ve given up. You’ve gone all Zen-like with all that yoga and meditation stuff you do. Well, I intend to fight ageing tooth and nail.’

‘You do that, Amy,’ Liz soothes, munching on a slice of cucumber.

I’m dreading forty.

I’m thirty-nine years, eleven months, two days and forty-five minutes old. I’ve a husband, Steve, eight-year-old twin daughters, Molly and Daisy, all much loved. My work as a medical
secretary in a busy consultant’s clinic is varied and satisfying. Life is good.

‘Well, we have to have some sort of a celebration now that you’re joining the club. I told Steve I’d try and find out what you’d
really
like to do. Will we have
a girl’s night in Wicklow?’ Liz asks.

‘Don’t you mean “ladies” or “women’s” night?’ I say dryly. ‘Girl’s we ain’t.’

‘Oh, get over it. We all had to go through it; wait until you’re my age. If you think forty is bad, try forty-five.’ My sister is unsympathetic to my trauma. Still, she’s
treating me to lunch and trying to help my darling husband, who knows my feelings about turning forty, organize some sort of birthday treat. I shouldn’t be so ungracious.

We finish our wraps and order more coffee and a selection of cream cakes. It’s my last fling, I promise myself. I’ve got to stop this comfort eating. I bite into a creamy
éclair, pushing away the thoughts of calories and cellulite and all those other horrible, guilt-inducing words that are starting to become part of my vocabulary.

‘We could go to The Tap for a slap-up and stay the night in the cottage quaffing champers in front of the fire. No children and no husbands,’ my sister suggests enthusiastically.

‘Sounds blissful,’ I agree. ‘I’d love to get down to Wicklow for a few days. But do you think it would be a bit mean leaving Steve and the twins out of it?’

‘Leave it to me. We’ll have our girls’ day and night on the Friday and Steve and the girls and Declan and my lot can come down on Saturday. We can have a barbecue if the
weather is dry.’

I laugh. Only Liz could suggest a barbie at the end of February.

‘The kids would love that. We can wrap up and drink hot ports on the deck. Jennie’s all on for it,’ Liz continues. Jennie is Liz’s sister-in-law and she’s a dote.
She owns the holiday cottage next door to Liz, who has the one beside ours. We’re like a little tribe in the small development of holiday cottages where we all decamp for weekends and
holidays.

‘You’re on,’ I say, enjoying the frisson of anticipation my sister’s plan generates. What could be nicer than a long, brisk walk on the beach and then to sit on the deck
of our small beachside haven listening to the roar of the surf with family and dear friends, easing myself into my new decade?

‘Great. That’s that organized. I’d say Mum and Dad will be happy enough not to have to travel from Cork, especially if the weather’s bad. We can have them to stay at
Easter and have an excuse for another cake. It’s so helpful of you to make organizing your birthday so simple.’ Liz is clearly relieved that I’ve taken the hassle-free birthday
route.

‘Barbara won’t be too happy that I’m not having a big bash.’ I lick the last bit of cream off my fingers. Barbara is my sister-in-law. She’s married to
Steve’s brother, Tom. She’s a selfish, lazy cow, to put it mildly.

‘And how
are
the Scroungers?’ Liz queries, as she pays the bill and shrugs into her coat.

I giggle. Liz shoots from the hip and always has. She’s constantly telling me that I let Barbara walk all over me and that I should draw my boundaries. I know she’s right. I’m
just not good at that sort of thing. But it’s getting beyond a joke at this stage. Scroungers are not far wrong when describing my in-laws. You know the type . . . the ones that arrive with
one arm as long as the other, eat and drink you out of house and home and, half the time, buzz off without even doing the washing-up. My in-laws, Barbara, Tom, and brats Roger, Barry and Vanessa
could give master classes in freeloading.

When Steve and I bought our small holiday cottage in Brittas Bay six years ago, we certainly didn’t envisage an invasion for two weeks every summer of the in-laws from hell. But
that’s what’s happened. Barbara, Tom and Co. have come to see it as
their
cottage too.

They started arriving for weekends, unannounced, the first year. In the beginning it was fun. We all had young children. It was nice for the cousins to play together but it started becoming a
habit. And Steve and I were doing all the shopping, cooking and housework.

Then Barbara started bringing the kids down for a couple of days during the summer holidays, and that was when I should have stepped in and nipped it in the bud. But I’m no good at being
assertive. It’s a huge personality flaw and I hate myself for my wimpishness.

Of course, I plan all the things I’m going to say, like:

‘
Barbara, I don’t mind you coming the odd weekend with the kids but my holidays are the only decent time I have with the girls and I want to be able to concentrate on
them
.’

Or, ‘
Barbara, we really don’t have the space, especially as the children are getting older
.’ This is not just an excuse. We only have two bedrooms in the cottage and
when the Keegans arrive, my pair end up on camp beds in the sitting room.

I keep saying I’m going to do something about it, but all I end up doing is moaning to Liz. I know she’s sick of me. She’d have no problem putting the skids under Barbara.

Steve is ambivalent about it. He feels we’re lucky to have a holiday home and should share our good fortune. I wouldn’t mind so much if she pulled her weight, but honestly, Barbara
is so lazy that I end up doing everything while she chills out on the deck reading and drinking wine and I just feel
so
resentful because it’s my holiday too. Her kids are allowed to
run riot and the poor twins invariably end up getting into trouble when it’s Vanessa and the boys I should be shouting at.

It’s all right for Steve, to be so magnanimous. It’s not his holiday that’s ruined. We split our hols so that the girls can have the maximum time at the beach. Barbara
invariably arrives for my two weeks. I feel my husband should back me up and speak to his brother about it, but he doesn’t want to cause bad feeling.

‘What about
my
bad feelings?’ I ask resentfully, every summer as I prepare to go back to work after another ruined holiday. It’s the one issue that causes conflict
between us and I’m weary of it.

This year,
definitely
, I’m putting and end to it, I decide, as I emerge from the café into a howling gale that whips my hair from around my face and assaults my cheeks with
its icy, stinging fingers. We don’t linger. Liz has to pick up my twins and her youngest boy from school and I’ve to get back to work. I’m so lucky to have her. If it
weren’t for Liz I’d have had second thoughts about staying at work once the girls were too old for the crèche. She’s like a second mother to them. Barbara would never offer
to help out if you were in a fix. She’s one of life’s great Me, Me, Me people and that’s probably why I feel so resentful.

The Keegans go on a foreign holiday every year. Barbara and her girlfriends jet off to Boston or New York for pre-Christmas shopping weekends. She’s never once asked me to join them. She
always had some excuse on the rare occasions when I asked her to mind the twins when they were younger. I stopped asking but it took me a long time to realize that Steve and I were being used.

I know it’s childish and silly but part of me is glad that I’m not having a big party just so that I don’t have to invite them. What is it about the Keegans? They press all my
buttons and bring out the worst in me.

Fortunately, I’m so busy when I get back to work, I forget all about my in-laws and they are far from my mind until I get a call from Barbara a few days before my birthday.

‘Hi, Amy,’ she trills. My heart sinks to my boots. The only time Barbara rings is when she wants to moan or has something to boast about.

‘So!’ she demands. ‘What are you doing for the big 4-0? Is Steve bringing you away? Tom took me to Prague for mine.’

We’re sick of hearing about the trip to Prague. ‘No, it’s going to be very low-key,’ I say offhandedly. If she gets wind of the weekend in Wicklow I wouldn’t put it
past her to muscle in, so I say nothing.

‘Oh, come on, no party, or even a meal out?’ Barbara is incredulous.

‘Just a cake with the kids. It’s all I want, honestly. You know me, I hate fuss.’

‘But it’s your fortieth,’ she protests. ‘Steve should push the boat out.’

‘I didn’t say he wasn’t, Barbara!’ I can’t keep the edge of exasperation out of my voice. ‘Look I’m up to my eyes here today. I’ll catch you
again,’ I fib.

‘Oh . . . oh! OK, I’ll pop a card in the post for you, then.’ She’s clearly disappointed.

‘Lovely,’ I say, insincerely. ‘Bye, thanks for ringing.’

Phew! I think, as I hang up. Then I start to worry. What if she hears of my night out with the girls in Wicklow? I resolve to warn them not to mention it to her if they see her in the summer.
Bad humour wraps itself around me like a dark murky cloud. So what if I’m having a girls’ night. It’s none of her business. Why can’t I just deal with it and say it to her
straight out? Why am I such a wuss? Or am I just a thoroughly horrible person?

I try to forget about it, but it niggles and I bring up the subject with Liz that evening. ‘Am I being a wagon. Should I invite her?’ I grumble.

‘Absolutely
not
!’ Liz is emphatic. ‘We are not spending our precious night listening to her wittering on about her new conservatory or her trip to New York and all the
rest of it. Forget it.’

‘Fine,’ I capitulate happily, glad of my sister’s authoritative stance. I don’t feel such a heel after all.

My birthday dawns, dark and windy. I’m smothered with hugs and kisses from the girls, and Steve’s gift of a sapphire and diamond pendant brings gasps of
appreciation from his three women.