Maura lent us money and so did Pop. He offered it – I’d never have asked because if you asked Pop for anything, he automatically refused. He wasn’t a bad man, just innately contrary.
Trying to get the house sorted in time for the new baby while working long hours was insanely ambitious and I was still unpacking delivery crates when my waters broke. ‘It’s too soon,’ I cried. ‘Come on, let’s do one more box, while I can!’
‘No!’ Hugh was wild with panic. ‘No more crates. You’re going to the fucking hospital.’
Kiara was born after a six-hour labour, which was almost pain-free – starting as she meant to go on, always such an obliging child and nothing like Neeve’s entry to the world, which had been a thirty-four-hour torture-fest.
Then I was home from the hospital and, considerate though Kiara was, she was still a tiny baby, and Hugh was setting up the studio, and Neeve was confused and all was chaos. Nothing felt solid – the ground was like sand slipping under our feet, and we never managed the rigid routines of my fantasies.
I’d plan to draw up schedules, I even tried to schedule time to do my schedules, but it was impossible. We were short of everything – time, energy and money, especially money, we’ve never yet achieved financial equilibrium – but we did fine.
Hugh was properly hands-on with Kiara (and with Neeve, when she’d let him). He was obedient and good at following orders. ‘I’ll do anything you want, but I need instructions.’
He could cook, sort of, if you gave him a recipe, but when it emerged that he could sew it scared the daylights out of me. There had to be a catch, right? (I don’t mean sewing like the embroidery that hipster-men do, but he could attach buttons to shirts and name badges to Neeve’s school uniform.) ‘Mum taught me to sew so I could take care of myself living on my own.’ (His mum was ‘crafty’ and it was how she and I bonded. She was ‘a great knitter’ and my thing was sewing, but we did a felting course together and for a while every birthday and Christmas present from us was a peculiar felt hat or bag.)
It shouldn’t be worthy of comment that a man helps in the home, but Hugh fulfilled his duties so diligently that there were times I actually felt sorry for him. I remember stumbling down the stairs one night, it was gone two, and Hugh was in our kitchen, dolloping homemade puréed carrot into tiny Tupperware pots to be frozen for Kiara’s dinners.
‘What are you at?’ I asked.
‘You left a note to do them.’
‘I didn’t mean in the middle of the night, Hugh. They could have waited till tomorrow.’
‘But I’ll be gone first thing.’
‘Cripes. Okay.’ I started helping to snap lids on to them and I had to laugh. ‘Oh, Hugh, look at you! It’s not so long since you were a single man with all of Soho at your sexual disposal. Now you’re buried in Dublin suburbia, father to two young girls, one of them not even yours. Aren’t you great to “take her on”?’
The ‘take her on’ was our in-joke because Pop had actually said to Hugh, ‘Fair play for taking on another chap’s child. You wouldn’t catch me doing it.’
And even if no one else articulated it, it was alluded to every time they gave me the full-on heart stare, squeezed my shoulder too hard and said, ‘That’s a good man you’ve got there, Amy. A really good man.’
‘And here you are in the middle of the night, puréeing carrot – where did it all go so wrong?’
He looked up and smiled. ‘Babe, you and me, I’m all in. A hundred per cent. Both feet.’
13
‘Mum!’ Kiara sounds alarmed. ‘Get dressed.’
Blearily I look at her. What day is it? Monday? Time for work? No, it’s still Sunday – I’d fallen asleep, probably because I haven’t slept properly for the past week, but it’s always a mistake to sleep in the middle of the afternoon: it takes ages for me to wake up and then I can’t sleep that night.
‘C’mon,’ Kiara says. ‘Time for the cinema!’
Oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. I can’t go. Several Facebook people will be at the cinema, they’ll all have seen my post – I’ll be the centre of attention. ‘Honey, would you mind –’
‘I would,’ she says. ‘This is our last outing as a family for fuck knows how long so, yes, I would mind.’
I spring from the bed. Kiara never swears and she always puts others first. But her life as she knows it is about to be interrupted, maybe permanently. I lurch towards the bathroom.
‘Hop in the shower,’ she says. ‘I’ll make you coffee and choose your clothes.’
‘Thanks.’ My tongue feels too big for my mouth.
I stand under the hot water, glad Kiara has been straight with me. I’ve been given a loud and clear message: falling apart is not an option. I’m not the only person affected by Hugh going: my responsibilities to Kiara, Sofie and Neeve come before any responsibility to myself.
She’s standing by with coffee and two dresses – a vaguely steampunk midi-length dark blue one, and a vaguely steampunk midi-length dark red one. My ‘personal shopper’ in Help the Aged is a great woman for sourcing Victorian-style items, which is all good so long as I don’t over-accessorize. With a mini top-hat, for example. Or a medicine-bag handbag.
‘Which one?’ Kiara holds up both dresses.
I’d have been happy in jeans, but Kiara, intuitive as always, sees the power of good clothing.
In fact … ‘Fuckit, get my Finery dress!’
‘Wow. The heavy guns!’
Kiara pulls out an ivy-dark, high-necked, ruffle-bodiced midi, as sexy as a sack. Hugh has never minded me shunning slinky body-con. He’s actively steered me towards shin-length dresses with statement sleeves because he knows that’s what I’m comfortable in. Men like him are rare.
Yeah, I think, so rare that he actually doesn’t exist. After all, he’s leaving me to spend time with girlies who’ll probably be running around in cut-off shorts and teeny-tiny Lycra sheaths. Quite disconsolate, I pull on some tights.
‘Shoes?’ Kiara asks. ‘Your mary-janes?’
I hesitate. A while ago there had been some article saying that no woman over the age of seventeen should wear mary-janes, and ever since I’d felt apologetic about mine. Another article had said you should find your look and stick to it, which is what I’d been trying to do, but the mary-janes piece haunted me.
‘Or your Miu Miu boots?’ She has picked up on my hesitation.
‘The boots,’ I say quickly.
They’re the best boots in the whole world – stompy, chunky-heeled black lace-ups, they’d been a gift to myself to celebrate winning the Perry White contract and even then I’d had to wait for the 60 per cent off sale. In theory I’m at least twenty years too old for Miu Miu but these boots work so I ignore any shouts of ‘Oi, mutton!’
In fairness, apart from my internal voices, the only person who actually mocks me is Neeve and I can’t tell you how fortunate I feel that my feet are two sizes smaller than hers because she steals all my other good stuff. (Then Kiara steals it back and deposits it in my lap like a faithful dog.)
‘This bag?’ Kiara presents a small pretty clutch.
‘Too needy.’ Today calls for a bag that can take care of itself. My hands might be required – a sudden unwelcome image of me shoving my way through a throng, all clamouring to know the grisly details of Hugh’s holiday, flashes like a horror film.
‘This?’ She presents my sturdy satchel.
‘Perfect.’