Wishful Thinking (a journey that will change lives forever) (26 page)

“Unblemished?”

Pulse racing, she lifted down the waistband of her trousers to show him the beginning of the scar on her hip.  “It’s not very attractive,” she finished guiltily.

“Louise,” Sam said gently, “did you honestly think that your scars would bother me? I’m more worried about
you
– about what happened to you afterwards, how you coped, how long you spent in hospital, things like that.”

Relief flooded through her.  “Don’t mind that, it was ages ago and I’m over it,” she said as flippantly as she could. W
ell, at least until the court case –
but there was no point in going into that now. “The thing is, I just wanted to let you know – just in case you get a bit of a shock if,” she reddened, “you know.”

“Louise, believe me, I’d never think that.  I’m interested in you because of who you are, not what you look like.”

Again, she tried to appear off-hand about it.  “Well, if I could afford it, I would probably get it all sorted in one of those cosmetic surgery places, but in the meantime I just have to put up with it.”

“Would you really?” he asked.

“Would I what?”

“Would you really think about getting more surgery just to cover it up? You must have been through a lot of operations since …”

Louise rolled her eyes to heaven.  “You’ve been through one, you’ve been through them all,” she said airily.  “At this stage, I don’t think it would make that much of a difference.”

“You’re very brave,” Sam said shaking his head.

“I’m not brave – it was just one of those things,” she shrugged.

“And do you have any lasting damage, any problems walking – things like that?”

Louise shrugged again, not prepared to admit that she could very well end up crippled with back pain when she got older.  This wasn’t a very attractive prospect to someone who she might very well end up getting older with, was it?

“I often get the odd twinge in my back, but not much,” she replied. Then she put her arms around him again. “So, now that you know about my flaws,” she began, and kissed him again.

Sam kissed her back briefly, but Louise sensed that the mood had changed.

He sat up straight.  “Thanks for telling me that. I’m sure that took a lot of courage and I respect that.”  He ran a hand through his hair.  “I respect you too, you know.”

“I know,” Louise said giddily, delighted she’d finally let him into her confidence.

He took a deep breath. “That’s why I have something to tell you too.”

“Oh?”

He looked guilty.  “When I met you a few weeks ago, I hadn’t expected to meet anyone. I certainly hadn’t expected to meet someone I’d fall for … fall for –” he wouldn’t meet her eyes, “so quickly.”

Louise’s heart melted.

“I should have told you right away of course, but to be honest, I didn’t know how things would go, and I wasn’t sure if you’d be interested. After all, you might not feel the same way …” He trailed off hesitantly.

Louise wondered where this was going. What did he want to tell her?

“The thing is Louise …” Sam took both of her hands in his, “the thing is, I need to go away for a couple of weeks, with work.”

“Oh.” Louise was genuinely disappointed.

“I was going to tell you but I didn’t know how you’d feel about it, and I didn’t know if you’d be interested in a long-distance relationship – long-distance for a little while anyway.”

She couldn’t believe it.  Sam wanted to keep going out with her; he wanted her to wait for him until he got back. How wonderful!

“Where are you going?”

“The States for a training course.  It’s such bad timing really but I had no idea … Louise, I had no idea I’d meet someone like you.”

She smiled.  “I’m glad you told me now, rather than just head off one weekend never to be seen again.  And that’s no problem at all.” In fact, it would be a great excuse to spend a few nights sitting in actually. This could be a blessing in disguise.  Now that she had a boyfriend, the girls wouldn’t expect (or want) her to go out on the town while they went
on the pull.  So she might end up saving a few quid in the meantime.  “But when are you leaving?”

“The weekend after next,” he replied, surprising her.  “I know it seems a bit sudden, but it’s only for six weeks, and it’ll be no time at all until I’m back.”

He’d be back just before Christmas then, which was good timing really.  By then, her court case would be done and dusted, she’d be able to pay off her loans, and hopefully in the meantime would have saved some money too.  Although she’d really miss him, this was pretty good news.  But she’d better not mention anything about the case, or he’d feel awful about not being here to help her through it.  She was thoroughly glad now that she hadn’t mentioned anything about it earlier.  No, better to say nothing and wait until it was all over.  Then she could get on with the rest of her life.  She grinned happily.  Things were really looking up.  She had great friends, a fabulous apartment, an even more fabulous boyfriend who loved her so much he could hardly bear to leave her, and in a few weeks’ time there was a very good chance her money worries would be over!

She snuggled happily into Sam, who tightened his grip around her. Things were looking good.

Rosie and Stephen became firm friends after the night he dropped her home, and often met for coffee and a bit of a chat, sometimes after class and other times in Wicklow whenever he was in town.  They talked about everything and anything, and he was so easy to be with that Rosie found herself looking forward to their little chats.

Sheila teased her mercilessly about him.  “You’re some woman for the men, Rosie Mitchell!” she’d said, when Rosie told her about her new friend. “But fair play to you – you’ve still got it!”

“It’s not like that, Sheila,” Rosie assured her. 

And it
wasn’t
like that.  Stephen was a lovely man but he was only a friend.  And although she knew well that Sheila was only teasing, in a way she felt a little bit annoyed that her friend would even suggest something like that.  Surely she knew that there had been, and
would
only ever be, one man for Rosie and that was Martin. 

She still missed him desperately, even more so lately since David had begun to cut her out of his life altogether.

One day recently, she had arrived at the house to find that he had taken down the plates and ornaments in the kitchen – as he’d said he was going to do – and painted the room a horrible greeny colour.  The new decor did nothing for the kitchen and if anything made it look dark and cold. 

Since he’d finished, there was no sign of him replacing Rosie’s bits and bobs in there, and she wasn’t too surprised to find that by putting his own stamp on it, David had begun to make what had once been her favourite room very much his own.  So she found that
lately she wasn’t too bothered about sitting in there the way she used to, relaxing and reading her books.  And then of course, Twix wasn’t allowed in the kitchen now, and with all the hair the spaniel shed and her so-called ‘germs’, Rosie knew she could forget about having her in the living-room.

Soon after that, David started re-decorating the hallway, this time choosing another dark and dreary colour which Rosie hated.  But, fearful of aggravating him, she said nothing and just let him get on with it – let her son get on with stripping down and painting over the walls of her house – and the remnants of Rosie’s old happy life there. 

So, bit by bit, Rosie found herself spending more and more time upstairs in her bedroom.  It was the only place she felt at ease lately, the only place that was still truly her own.  She’d moved Twix’s basket up there too, and although the little dog seemed a bit put out for a while, she eventually grew used to her new ‘spot’ in the house and Rosie knew she enjoyed being able to hop up on the bed at night-time.  Rosie liked having her there too as then she didn’t feel quite so lonely.

Nervous that David would, as threatened, dump her and Martin’s old armchairs, she’d asked him to move them upstairs, but so far he hadn’t done that, and Rosie dreaded the day when she would come home and see the two chairs thrown out on a skip or something.

But staying in the bedroom in the evenings wasn’t too bad, and now her books were slowly but surely beginning to taken second place to her painting.  Even though there wasn’t much of a view from her front window, Rosie enjoyed losing herself for hours in her pictures.  With all the practice she was getting, she could see that her technique was greatly improving, and despite her initial doubts about her talent, she began to believe that Stephen might have been right when he said she had an eye for it.

It was a lifeline really and it prevented her from having to think too much about her situation.  She knew that she shouldn’t let David come in and take over like that, but what was she supposed to do?  He was her son and rather than face a big argument, wasn’t it easier just to let him get on with it?

There were, of course, times when Rosie actually considered moving out and getting a small flat of her own down the town or something, because she was pretty much living in one room as it was.  Still, having to pay rent on a flat would put a big dent in her nest egg, and Rosie didn’t want that.  You just never knew when you’d need a few euro, and there was no point in handing all that money away to someone else when she had a perfectly good house here.

Well, a perfectly good
room
here anyway, she thought wryly. 

There were times though, when she wondered how it had all ended up like this – with her tucked away in a small room upstairs, while her adult son took over her house.  Had her mistake been in letting David simply come home without question – or had she made a mistake with him long before then, somewhere in his upbringing perhaps?

She and Martin, like the majority of parents she supposed, had muddled along between them over the years, and up until a few months ago, Rosie had always believed that they had done a good job in raising David and Sophie. 

From an early age, they had tried to instil good manners and good behaviour in them, and ensured that they knew the difference between right and wrong.  They didn’t give them too much leeway when growing up, and although there had been a few rough patches –
particularly when they were teenagers – she really thought they had done OK and, in terms of worry and trauma, had got away quite lightly really.

Unlike some of the other families in the estate, none of Rosie’s children had ever been in trouble with the law, or had stayed out till all hours drinking or smoking and hanging around with the wrong crowd.  No, both David and Sophie had had nice respectable friends, went on to have nice respectable jobs, and as far as Rosie was concerned would undoubtedly go on to have nice respectable lives.  So what had happened? 

Did bringing a child into the world, doing your best to raise them properly and going to the ends of the earth to make them happy automatically mean that you should get something from them in return? 

Should she really expect David to fall at her feet in gratitude for letting him come home?  Or should she just try and understand that he needed his own space and that there was no reason why he should have his mammy involved in the day-to-day goings-on in his life.  Maybe that was just the kind of person he was and Rosie couldn’t or
shouldn’t
change that.

Even so, Sophie seemed to feel the same way about her and that hurt.  It hurt Rosie that her children didn’t seem to want her involved in their lives – in fact, it seemed that they no longer needed her.  Not that she wanted to be in the middle of everything – she knew that David and Sophie needed to do their own thing – but after all she had done and all she had sacrificed for them over the years, surely she deserved some consideration, didn’t she?

Or did she? Was she being unreasonable in believing that her children owed her something simply because she was their mother?  Perhaps so, she mused. But still, whatever about appreciation, the very least any mother deserved was a little bit of respect, wasn’t it?

And David didn’t respect her, obviously he didn’t, because if respect to him meant having his own mother afraid to simply say hello when he came home from work in the evenings, then there was something very wrong. 

And of course, because he became so annoyed by the smell of Rosie’s cooking, and particularly her fondness for red meat (mince was the worst) she’d taken to making her own dinners a good hour or so before he arrived home, just so she could be sure the cooking smells were gone.  She’d even gone so far as to hide the abhorrent meat in one of the under-compartments of the fridge, so fearful was she of offending her son’s apparently delicate sensibilities.  Anything to keep him happy – or more aptly, she thought wryly, anything for a quiet life.

But never mind her cooking, what about the smells of that soya stuff or whatever it was
he
used?  It stayed around the place for days!  Now, Rosie had nothing against it – in her opinion everyone was entitled to their own preferences. But she found it difficult to understand how someone who was so obsessive about vegetarianism could treat a harmless animal like Twix with such disdain! 

She sighed.  David had turned out a strange one, that was for sure, and thinking of it now, she could understand well why poor Kelly had left him. 

If he behaved towards his wife even a percentage of the way he behaved towards his mother, then of course she’d have no choice but to walk away.  In the beginning, they seemed to have such a happy marriage, but somewhere along the line it seemed that David had changed.  He had changed from a reasonably well-adjusted ordinary man into someone who now made a person fearful and jumpy whenever he was around.  Someone who seemed to have no regard or no appreciation for anyone but himself, someone who believed that he had a god-given right to do what he pleased, and to hell with the consequences for anyone else.  Sure, who could cope with a man like that?

But unfortunately, Rosie thought sadly, she had no choice but to cope with a man like that. 

Because that man just happened to be her son.

                                                           ******

Many weeks after the family moved in, Rosie finally got a chance to pay a proper visit to ‘Graceland’ as Sheila jokingly called Sophie’s new house.

She was really looking forward to having a good chat with her daughter.  She wanted to tell her everything that had happened since David’s return, and get her opinion on what she should do about it all. 

Sheila strongly believed that Rosie should confront David and tell him that she wasn’t going to stand for being walked over in her own home, but Rosie knew she couldn’t do that without some sort of back-up.   She was sure that once Sophie heard about what was happening she would be horrified by David’s belligerent attitude and would have no hesitation in giving her some measure of support, should Rosie decide to say something to him. 

So it would be nice to be able to get it all off her chest, and try and make some sense of the confusing feelings she was experiencing since his return.  Sheila was a great listener, but in fairness all she did was insist that she tell David where to go. 

“There is no way you should have to put up with that kind of carry-on, Rosie.  Don’t forget that you did that fellow a huge favour by taking him in.  Just make sure that he knows it!”

That was easy for Sheila to say though; she had always been straight and upfront and would brook no nonsense from her children or anyone else.  But for Rosie, who was much more mild-mannered, this was very difficult, even more so because she hated any kind of confrontation.  

Anyway, there was the small matter of David being her son, and as a good mother surely she had to give him a little bit of leeway – particularly considering everything he’d gone through?

So, it was with great anticipation that she took the early train as far as Connolly Station and then the DART out to Malahide to Sophie’s house.

In fairness, the house was truly spectacular, but totally over the top, and Rosie still couldn’t understand why the family needed so much space when there were only the three of them.  Then again, Sophie did say that they were planning on having another child soon, so who was she to say what size of house they should or shouldn’t buy?  Still, she did wonder how they managed to keep up with those huge mortgage repayments, particularly when trying to run two cars, pay a childminder and still have enough to clothe and feed themselves. 

Pushing the intercom button at the imposing front gate, Rosie shook her head.  The young people really did have it tough these days, working like slaves trying to keep up with it all.

“Helloo – Morris Residence?” came the voice through the intercom, and Rosie wondered if her daughter had recently caught a really bad cold, as she didn’t sound like herself at all.

“Em, hello, Sophie, it’s me Rosie … em, your mother?” God, Rosie hated these things. You’d swear she was looking for an audience with the queen rather than visiting her only daughter, and as the gates swung backwards, she almost expected to have to pass a line of stony-faced uniformed guards on her way to the front door.

She rang the doorbell, idly wondering why getting into this house was like trying to get into Fort Knox, what with all the chains and bolts Sophie seemed to be unlocking behind the door.  This was a nice respectable area, wasn’t it? Rosie was feeling a bit nervous all of a sudden.  Maybe there was a good reason for all this security. 

“Hi, Mum!”

Sophie greeted her mother with an effusive hug, and immediately Rosie felt relieved.  All this time she had thought her daughter didn’t want her help once she had got what she wanted, but no, Sophie seemed genuinely delighted to see her now.  Poor thing, she really must have been up to her tonsils between moving in and getting the house organised.  She had taken a few weeks off work to do this, which was lovely for little Claudia of course having her mother around, but probably very tiring for Sophie.  She just wished Sophie could have let her shoulder some of the burden, at least until they got themselves settled.

“Hello, love,” Rosie warmly returned her daughter’s embrace.  “The place is looking gorgeous.”

“Isn’t it?” Sophie stood back and excitedly waved a hand around as if to say: ‘Look – all mine!’

And indeed, Rosie thought, Sophie was looking very well too, dressed in a delicate dusky pink lambswool sweater, expensive-looking black satin skirt and a pair of high-heeled boots.  Where did her daughter get such great taste? Certainly not from her anyway, she thought, feeling rather shabby all of a sudden in her good winter coat and ordinary skirt and top.