Ordinary Miracles (16 page)

I’ve bought a book about visualisation. One of the things
it says is that visualising things as you would like them to be can help you clarify your life values and goals. So
I’ve been visualising piles of things, including life on the Mediterranean. It’s a really great fantasy – I can almost smell
the jasmine, like Mum must have when she was pregnant
with me.

She was on holiday in Greece. A man suddenly appeared
in front of her at a market and handed her a jasmine blossom. That’s how I got my name. Mum told me that
story so many times, and when she did a wistful, dreamy
look always came over her face. Sometimes it seemed as
though that man with the jasmine blossom was my real
father. He somehow understood my mother very well. How
she longed for the grand, unpremeditated gesture. How little
my father understood this, though he loved her very much.

I never quite worked out if she loved him but I do know
that, in later years, she hated to watch him eat. He had a
large, enthusiastic appetite and as he swept the food into his
mouth she averted her eyes and a pained expression came
over her face. When she did this I often wished she’d go
away for a while and find out what she wanted. I felt that
would be easier for us all than watching that expression on
her face.

My visualised Mediterranean hide-away is always sunny.
And the view from my visualised veranda is just gorgeous.
It stretches from the sunflowers in my garden to the orange
and olive trees dotted on the hills, and the shimmering sea
in the distance. My kitchen is made from wood and full of
nourishing things in jars and tasty things wrapped in foreign
looking paper. I buy them at the local shop. It’s a lovely shop.
Friendly and full of chat and totally without malice.

The icing on the cake is knowing that a gorgeous man lies
– at that very moment – in our big wooden bed covered with
a
fabric I have not, as yet, fully designed in my imagination. It may be rich and Indian or a light Liberty fabric – that has
yet to be decided.

I make us some coffee
–
I can drink rich dark coffee in th
e Mediterranean and it doesn’t affect my liver. And I cut
a large slice of cake without guilt because my thighs are now
cellulite-free.

He calls to me
–
my gorgeous man. And of course I go
to him. Happily. Unafraid. All of me. I don’t leave part of
me in my head planning what I’ll do when he says he’s not
ready, or I’m not ready, or he needs his freedom, or I need my freedom, or he’s married, or I’m married, or we’re both too mixed up, or something else that’s never said but feels
like greyhounds streaking through a wet Sunday in a Godless
world. The world isn’t Godless. Not here.

And I go into the bedroom
–
which is warm and full of
dappled sunlight
–
and I sit on the bed and offer him cake
and coffee. But he strokes my cellulite-free thigh instead.

His hands are big and gentle and climb towards my crotch.
And my mother’s voice doesn’t tell me he’ll ditch me when
he’s done with me. My mother’s voice doesn’t say – ‘You’re
married’ or ‘You should be married and living near me in a
devoted manner.’ Though my mother is dead her arms are
full of jasmine blossoms. My mother has better things to do
and is doing them.

My gorgeous man is a great lover. We try all sorts of
positions in a loving, passionate way. He looks into my eyes.
He wants to get closer – and closer – until we forget.

Forget that if we go too far, too deep down this road, we
may not want to get up at all. That we may want to remain
moored for ever, bathed in the soft slithery warmth of bodily
juices. That the world outside may seem even more humdrum
and cold and silly than ever. That we may want to grind against each other endlessly – hoping that our molecules will merge and we won’t ever have to say things like: ‘I need two planks of plywood and an electric drill,’ or ‘Of course friendship is what it’s all about in the end.’

But it’s okay here in the Mediterranean. Our love-making isn’t about forgetting. Or remembering. It just is. It’s like plunging into a great, powerful ocean and soaring back up again into the light. It’s like being moved and dragged by giant, friendly waves under a smiling moon and not once wondering why – or how you’ll get back to the shore, or if you’ll be all alone when you get there. Alone like on
Desert
Island
Discs.

‘I’d like “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor because it reminds me of this man I met.’

It’s not like that here. He’s not going to go and neither am I. We’re meant to be together and know it. Even if I were old and grey with wrinkles he’d still love me. He won’t have an affair. I prepare salads in a big earthenware bowl and I love to watch him eat them. I love his appetite for me – for life.

The nice thing about the life I have somewhere in the Mediterranean with this gorgeous man is that after we’ve made love we get up without dread. We get up and do the things we need to do, and they don’t drag us down. We know life’s not always cherry pie and cream. I get on with my things and he gets on with his. We have our own space, and we have our own enthusiasms. There are friends too – good friends. They come round for big meals which we both prepare. I’m a good cook when I’m in the Mediterranean. I can even make cheese soufflé and hold a conversation about water irrigation.

They’re much better than my fantasies about Mell Nichols – these hours I spend in the Mediterranean. Quite a bit of the time I’m on my own, wandering through my scented garden, s
wimming in the sea, weaving, sun-bathing. I don’t have to
slurp Factor 18 all over myself here either. The ozone layer is
just fine. I use natural dyes in my weaving – I make lovely big
woven pictures that sell well in the big city, which I have not
named. I haven’t named my gorgeous man either. I haven’t
even really seen his face. I know it’s a nice face, but the image
is never clear.

It’s all a dream anyway. A dream, that’s all it is. People
don’t live like that. People don’t love like that. Love…we only have a few paltry linguistic labels for
that thing; the thing that hurls us
like a bob-sleigh into the depths of our own hearts.

Susan thinks my Mediterranean man sounds great. I think
she may snitch bits of him for her novel. When she isn’t
going on about every man on earth being married, she’s
very romantic. Deep down she’s sure she’s going to meet
Mr Right, rather than Mr Right Now. I myself am beginning to doubt this because Susan is very fussy. But how can I tell
this to a woman who still believes that ‘Things Happen’ after
a Badedas bath?

Susan’s just phoned. Hilda, the hunt ball woman from
the home, has just escaped. She says I must help find her
before the police are called. If the police are called Hilda’s movements will be even more restricted, but if we find her
fast maybe no one will notice her bid for freedom. The home
is only down the road from Charlie’s house. She must be
somewhere in the vicinity.

We spend over an hour in Susan’s car checking the roads
and the local pubs and hairdressers. ‘She can’t have gone
far,’ Susan keeps saying. ‘I hope she’s all right.’ We’re just
about to give up and call the boys in blue when Susan spots Hilda sitting in a large Mercedes talking to an extremely
handsome man. He seems to be enjoying the conversation
i
mmensely. Every so often they both throw their heads back
and laugh.

‘Hilda! What on earth are you doing?’ Susan shouts at
the car window. It turns out the man, who’s called Liam,
spotted Hilda staggering along on her walking frame and
offered her a lift into Bray. They were just about to go into a pub for a quick gin and tonic and wonder if we’d like to
join them. Susan fumes and fusses for a while and then, since her nursing shift is over, she says okay. She’ll have to ring the
home first though and explain that Hilda has been taken out
by ‘a friend’.

Two hours later we’re taking Hilda back to the home in
Liam’s posh car. Susan and he are talking away like they’ve
known each other for years. Hilda is telling me about the
time she swung from a chandelier in Dromoland Castle. Liam comes from Ireland but lives in France. He’s divorced and has
a business in Provence.

‘Where did you say your business is?’ I need to have the
information repeated.

‘Provence – you know – by the Mediterranean.’ Then he
turns to Susan and says, ‘You’d really like it there.’

Susan and Liam keep turning towards each other at the exact same instant. One minute Susan is shy, the next she
pats his hand as she gives directions. They’re going to go
to bed together one day soon
–
maybe even tonight. And
it won’t just be for sex. The attraction between them is
making even me feel giddy. He’s warm, is Liam. In fact he’s
not at all unlike Susan herself. It seems entirely fitting that Hilda should have brought them both together. Susan could
only love a man who could care about someone like Hilda.
Someone who it’s all too easy to forget.

We must cut quite a dash as we crunch our way up the
gravel of the home’s driveway.

‘I must change. I must change,’ Hilda announces as we
help her out of the car.

‘Why Hilda? You’re fine as you are.’

‘No I’m not. I can’t go to the Duhallow Hunt Ball like
this!’ Hilda protests. ‘I want my velvet dress. And I don’t
like the hotel where they’re holding it this year. The staff
have a very arrogant attitude.’ Hilda time-travels sometimes
when she’s tired.

‘I tell you what,’ says Susan, ‘why not have a little nap in the hotel first? You must be tired after your walk and you’ll
need your energy for the dancing. You can change later.’

They’re still discussing this as they disappear through the
front door.

When I get back to Charlie’s I find that he’s upset because
Rosie has peed on her rug. There’s a message to call Katie.
I call her. She believes she may have left a bottle of massage
oil by Sarah’s bed.

Chapter
12

Since I was an
only child myself I thought it would be nice
for Katie to have a brother or sister. Bruce and I tried for
another baby for years, but it never came. We never really found out why. I went through an unsettling time of having
thrush and cystitis, and then my periods decided not to follow
the calendar and came and went as it pleased them. This
naturally led me to believe I might be pregnant many times when I wasn’t. Katie’s pram and buggy and baby clothes and cot are still stored in the attic. I’m going to have to give them
away one of these days.