Friends Like Us (19 page)

‘But you, you be happy. That's what I want. Happy. Not for anyone else, not for me, not anyone, but for you. Promise me?' Eilis remembered being surprised at the strength in her mother as she gripped her daughter's smooth hand. But it was to be the last time they held each other's hand, the last time they spoke. Eilis still thinks about it and wishes she knew and wonders would she have said anything different, anything more?

‘I will. I promise,' she did say. ‘Now, go to sleep. I love you.'

‘I'll miss you.'

Eilis couldn't speak. That night, as distant fireworks banged in the night, her mother slipped away, with Eilis sitting on a chair by the bed. She does know what she would say if she had a second chance of saying goodbye to her mother and that is this: thank you for everything, you were enough for me. You gave me all your love and that was enough.

But after her mother's passing, it was just her in the house. The doctor was in and out, the funeral directors came, the neighbour's all rallied round but there was no one to bring a cup of tea in bed before school and the house was utterly silent. It took her ages to work out what was different and then she remembered she hadn't wound the clock in the hall. It had stopped, as though the world had stopped. And for Eilis it had.

After the funeral, and once everyone had gone home, she remembered her promise to her mum and breathed in, picked up her bag and went back to school. She was eighteen. God knows, how she had managed to get on with her life, going to medical school, all that training, the competitiveness, the exhaustion, the exams… it was all going to be worth it, wasn't it though?

She didn't have much to show for the world… except for me, thought Eilis. Except for me.

‘Yes,' she said to Steph. ‘She was such a beautiful person.'

Later, after Steph had gone home, she went into her bedroom and took out Brigid's old cardigan. ‘Where did it all go wrong?' she wondered. She had worked so hard, done everything right, hadn't asked for too much or too little from Rob, and yet she was nearly 40 and was no closer to having the kind of relationship she had always imagined she would have, something fulfilling and deep and wonderful. She and Rob were close but not close enough. She was aware she was only living half a life but she wasn't sure how or why. Her mother was so wise, she would have known what she should do.

Eilis had arrived at university, traumatised. She had buried her mother, sat her Leaving Cert, and moved into a flat in town, all in the space of six months. She had not cried once.

She remembered looking around at all the other first-years in the Walton lecture theatre; the shiny-haired, fresh-faced, expensively clothed Gods-in-waiting. Not one of them looked like her. They were glossy and confident.

She'd thought of Melissa and Steph, over in UCD, wishing she was with them. They had begun the week before and were already full of stories of parties and clubs and new friends.

And here she was facing into a six-year course. She didn't know where she was going to find the energy for it all. She pulled the door open, ready to flee. And then she saw a boy, sitting by the wall, his hair was bushy, his jacket too big and too old for him. He glanced at her and he raised his eyebrows. Just that. And it was enough for her to think, to know, she wasn't alone. She turned around and walked up the steps and found a seat and sat down. She watched this boy after that. He would sit by himself, all the time. She didn't quite have the courage to speak to him.

His name was Robert – this was before he called himself Rob. He was up from the country and entirely opposite to all the other lads who all seemed to know each other from various schools. Over the years, she felt protective of him in the way that he was determined to remake himself, mould himself into something he wasn't quite. His ambition was impressive, and who was she to judge. His accent was moderated, family history subtly modified.

But when she first met him he was green around the ears, a farmer's son straight off the bus from Ennis. They spoke for the first time one evening when she was in the library, working. She was aware of someone standing beside her. She looked up.

‘Eilis?'

‘Yes.' It was the first time anyone from her class had bothered talking to her in the four weeks since term began.

‘I'm Robert. Rob. Howya.' Already she could see his hair had been cut since day one and the blazer swapped for a cord jacket.

‘I know.' She didn't know what else to say. His hands felt slightly clammy, but she liked the feel of him, strong. He had kind eyes, she remembered. They were the things that drew her to him.

‘So… how're you getting on?' he said. ‘How's the essay going?'

‘Yes, I handed it in this morning. Have you done yours?'

‘Just finished.' He put up both thumbs. ‘It was a killer. So, what are you working on now? Don't you ever take a break?'

She shrugged. ‘It's relentless. I just find that if I read ahead, I can just about understand what is going on. Otherwise, it would all be a bit much.'

It was the first time she had opened up to anyone about how hard it all was. No one knew quite how much work it had taken to get there. And it seemed that everyone else on the course found it so easy.

‘It's tough, isn't it?' said Rob.

She nodded. ‘I feel so stupid all the time… like I shouldn't be here. I wish I was at UCD. Doing arts.'

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Arts? But, sure, that's not a course. It's a hobby.'

She laughed. ‘My friends are doing it. They sound like they are having fun…'

‘I rest my case,' he said, smiling.

‘Did many come up from your school?'

‘Not a soul,' he said. ‘So I can't leave. Because,' he spoke slowly, ‘my mother would kill me. The shame. She'd prefer me dead than a failed medical student.'

They laughed, knowing that it was a hair-breadth from exaggeration.

‘Mine too.' It just came out, but Eilis was so desperate to show Rob that he wasn't alone that she momentarily forgot her mother was dead.

‘They're all the same. Mothers.'

She nodded. ‘But mine's… mine's…'

He waited, curious.

‘Mine's dead.'

‘Dead?' He almost laughed from surprise. ‘When?'

‘In May.'

‘May just gone?' His mouth fell open.

She nodded and bit her lip.

‘And I thought my exams were hard work.' He stared at her. Eilis wished she hadn't said anything. It always made people embarrassed, telling them.

‘Well?' He changed the subject much to her relief. ‘What about something to eat. Medical students need to eat. Keep our strength up.' He spoke in the voice of an old Irish Mammy and Eilis laughed. ‘You on?'

‘Okay.' It was the first time since she had started at college that someone had reached out to her. She grabbed on.

They found a tiny vegetarian restaurant on Suffolk Street that did beans and rice, along with a glass of unspeakable wine for the princely sum of three pounds.

‘It's terrifying,' she confessed. ‘Everything. The work, the lecturers, the others, the fact that I don't fit in. The fact I don't have nice, swishy hair, which seems like a prerequisite to being on this course – male or female.'

Rob laughed. ‘And I haven't told anyone yet, but I have never played rugby in my life and I have no plans to take it up. I keep grunting in the manner of a rugby player. When they find out, I will,' he paused dramatically, ‘be asked to leave.'

‘The Mammy!'

‘Scandalised!' He drained the last of his horrible wine.

‘We just have to get through it…' She trailed off.

‘Well,' he looked at her thoughtfully, ‘maybe we could… help each other. We have six more years of this. Maybe we could be a support group of two? What do you think?'

‘I'd like that.' She spoke carefully and quietly. She felt something inside her dislodge as the pain she had been carrying around her seemed to react to his lifeline. ‘So… I'll be your friend and you'll be mine.'

He held out his hand. ‘Deal?'

‘Deal.' They shook on it.

‘Another glass of this wojus wine?'

‘Why not?'

They clinked and drank to themselves. ‘To happiness… may it be ours.'

And that was then, when she thought that maybe Rob would help her through life. And that maybe she might help him. But here she was, nearly forty, and things hadn't gone quite to plan.

‘What shall I do, Mam?' She brought the cardigan to her face, hoping there was a trace of her mother left. It just smelled of old cardigan. ‘What shall I do?'

She sat there, on the bed, with the cardigan pressed to her face, tears dampening it. Eventually, she slipped it over her shoulders and buttoned it up and went back downstairs. She missed her mother so much. But it was crazy. Wasn't time meant to heal? Weren't you meant to feel okay about someone's death after a few years; sad but philosophical? Bearing up, keeping on keeping on? She wondered how she could move on but she seemed stuck.

The next task on the reunion-reunioners was to find addresses for the girls, now women, who were in their year at school. The school had given old records of parent's addresses but, after twenty years, no one thought it was going to be easy.

The friends met in a wine bar in town.

‘Let's split the names up and we can start contacting them. Is that all right?' said Steph, seeming quite normal.

‘I've got an idea,' said Melissa. She took out a pair of tiny nail scissors from her bag and started cutting the list into three. ‘That's for you, Steph… and there's yours Eilis. And this is mine. Done. Let's contact them all when we can. Right, business part of the evening sorted. Let's relax and enjoy ourselves.'

Steph collared the waiter and ordered a
glass of red wine. He asked her what type. ‘Just red is fine,' she smiled. ‘
Large
, please.' She looked back at the other two who were watching her closely.

Eilis and Melissa glanced at each other. ‘It's medicinal,' Steph explained. ‘Heart and stuff. Red wine is good for you. You should know that, Eilis.' The waiter returned and placed a huge glass of wine in front of her. She had begun to rely on the medicinal qualities of wine too much she realized, knowing that she would have to knock the extra glasses on the head very soon. But just this one glass would sort her out, change the fluttery feeling inside her to something warmer, more soothing.

‘No one needs that much medicine,' said Eilis. ‘Unless you are a whale.'

‘Everything all right, Steph?' said Melissa.

‘Never better!' she announced smiling manically. She picked up the glass like a priest with a chalice and drank deeply. ‘And now,' she said grasping it with both hands, ‘even better than better.'

Finally, she put the empty glass down.

‘Now I feel human,' she announced. ‘And I don't need anymore. I'm fine now. Just took the edge off a few… things.' She drank some water. ‘Melissa, how has your week been? Eilis, any news to report?'

The two of them had been sitting there silently watching her. They shook their heads.

‘Have
you
anything to report, Steph?' asked Melissa, suspiciously. ‘How was Rome?'

‘Great… Rome was… you know, umm…' What to say? It was a nightmare and I am mortified beyond what a normal person could stand. And I have to leave my husband, but I am not sure how that will happen or if I can actually do it. She had kept out of Rick's way since returning from Rome and ducked back into the house whenever she had heard Miriam's front door opening. She was living the life of a fugitive. In her own house. It was crazy.

‘It was… beautiful,' she said. ‘Apart from the rain.'

The only light in the entire weekend was when she went to collect Rachel from her parent's house. Box sets had been watched and Rachel was now an expert in various card games and Nuala was teaching her granddaughter to knit and the two were surrounded by wool and patterns, Joe snoozing in the armchair. Nuala looked tired, though, paler than usual. She just needed a few walks on the Wicklow Hills thought Steph, get some colour in her cheeks. Would do us all good, she said to herself, wondering if she was too young to join the Wanderers.

‘So… how was Rome?' asked Nuala, getting up with difficulty so that Rachel helped pull her up, and giving Joe a shake.

‘Oh it was lovely… all the gang. Miriam and Hugh, of course. Buckets of wine. You know, the usual.' She beamed at them. The smile of the convicted. A woman facing the executioner's axe. A look passed between Nuala and Joe, fleeting and almost imperceptible, but Steph caught it.

Nuala made her a pot of tea and Steph could feel herself trembling as she handed out the spoils of the trip – a purse for Rachel from a scary designer, which she'd had to converse in broken Italian to buy. Rachel loved it, she could tell, but her daughter just said, ‘Oh, thanks Mum.' And for Nuala, she had bought a pink silk scarf, from a less scary shop, one she was allowed to go in and actually touch the merchandise. And for Joe? She had gone into a shop which sold clothes for the clergy and had bought him a pair of bright red cardinal socks. He was delighted. He was so easy to buy for, always pleased with everything.

‘I'll wear these to Mass,' he said. ‘When we next go.'

‘And when is that going to be?' asked Nuala.

‘Ah, you know… sometime. Or maybe I'll wear them now.' He put them on and walked around in his socks, wiggling his toes, so everyone had to keep admiring them.

‘Ready to go, Rach?' said Steph, standing up, eventually. ‘I don't think I can say how good those socks look once more.'

‘Already?' said Nuala. ‘But we've got used to having Rachel here…'

‘It's nicer living here than home,' said Rachel.