‘Up your game?’
‘Just a bit. Not enough to win Wimbledon or anything, but enough not to embarrass myself by tripping over the balls or getting tangled in the net…’ my metaphor drifted away, exhausted. ‘Listen, I know it’s stupid and it goes against everything I’ve ever taught you about being yourself and not trying to fit in. I know that it’s not feminist or empowering, but for one night, just one night, I don’t want to look like a principal of a suburban national school. I want to look like… like utterly unlike me. I want to look nice.’ I didn’t want to tell her about Red. How could I explain that one? That I wanted to look nice for a man that wasn’t my husband and someone with whom I shared a secret past.
‘You do look nice,’ she said, loyally. ‘You always look nice. But if you want to look a little bit more glamorous, then I’ll help you.’
‘But I don’t want to take you away from your books.’
‘I need a break,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get you out of the house and then I’ll go back to them.’
‘Or go and see Alice and Meg?’ I suggested. ‘It is Friday night after all.’
‘They’ll be working too,’ she said, quickly. ‘Everyone is. Anyway, I’ll give you a hand.’
‘I don’t even know what’s fashionable anymore. I don’t even know how to get dressed. I mean, are jeans still even a thing? Or is it something else entirely. Dungarees or spacesuits. I have no idea.’
‘No, jeans are still a thing,’ she reassured. ‘But you can’t wear them with that.’ She eyed my blouse. ‘Take it off…’
‘But…’
‘Off.’ She scanned the contents of my wardrobe with the eye of a personal shopper. ‘Right then…’
I felt almost giddy with delight, sharing this moment with her. I missed her, I had been so worried about her, yet here she was, bossing me about, being my daughter again, the one I loved with all my heart.
‘What about this?’ She held up a top on which I had spent a ridiculous amount of money and it had hung, reproachfully, in my wardrobe for three years. A daily reminder of my profligacy.
‘It’s not me. Too low-cut,’ I said. ‘And too tight. It might be okay if I was a yoga teacher, living in LA, existing on nettles. And had an entirely different personality. And face. And body. Then, then it would be gorgeous on me. But there’s not enough time. I mean, I can’t even touch my toes…’
‘So? Try it on.’
I didn’t argue and pulled it on.
‘Now the jeans.’
I did as I was told, wriggling in. They were tight but not insurmountable or un-get-in-able.
‘Good,’ said Rosie, narrow-eyed, with an air of Henry Higgins, surveying and scrutinising. ‘Now the shoes.’
‘I thought I could wear my flats. They’re comfortable and…’
‘Comfort?’ She looked at me as though I had suggested wearing a pair of novelty Garfield slippers. ‘Oh no, tonight is not about comfort…’
‘Who are you?’ I said. ‘What kind of creature have I raised? I thought high heels were a symbol of male oppression?’
‘Mum,’ she said. ‘It’s one night. Wearing high heels is not going to kill you. You wear those flat shoes every day. They’re like slippers.’
‘Which is why I wear them.’
‘These.’ She produced another vast waste of money. They weren’t me, respectable teacher, mother and politician’s wife. I had worn them only once and never again. ‘These are perfect.’
‘They are ridiculous,’ I insisted.
‘Try them on.’
Wobbling fawn-like, I waited for Rosie’s verdict. Her beautiful face frowning with concentration. How could I regret any decision I had ever made when I had Rosie to show for it?
‘There’s one thing missing,’ she said. ‘One moment!’ She ran from the room and returned with a pair of hoop earrings which she had borrowed from me and never returned. ‘And these.’ She stepped back while I looped them through my ears. ‘Right,’ she said with triumph. ‘You are perfect. Beautiful, actually.’
‘Really?’ I was pathetically grateful for the compliment.
She laughed. ‘One hundred per cent yes. You look like my mum, but different.’ She was the Rosie of a year ago, before this year of exam stress and the end of things with Jake. Smiling, delighted at her success in the fashion makeover.
‘You remind me of Rosaleen,’ I said. ‘I called you after her, you know. Little rose, Rosaleen and Rosie.’
She came over and hugged me and, for a moment, we held each other, as though she was still my little girl and needed one of my long hugs.
‘Rosie?’ I said when we pulled away. ‘Everything okay?’
She nodded. ‘Have a good time, Mum. You won’t be too late, will you?’
I shook my head. ‘Are you worried about me?’
‘No. I just… I just like you being at home, that’s all.’
‘I won’t be late, I promise.’
And she smiled as I waved from the front door, those Rosaleen blue eyes.
*
‘You look gorgeous.’ Clodagh eyed me approvingly, swiping two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and handing one to me. ‘I knew you were still in there, under the school-teacher exterior, the old Tabitha lurks.’
‘Shut up, Clodes,’ I said. ‘It’s easy for you. You don’t have to try. Tonight, I am the product of my daughter. Rosie was my stylist.’
‘Well, she did a wonderful job. What’s this?’ I had handed over her present. ‘Oooh…’ She tore off the paper. ‘Pride and Prejudice! Thank you!’
‘It’s a special edition. And read this…’ I said, pulling out a card I’d made.
‘You are invited to a Jane Austen weekend in Bath with your best friend, Tabitha, who, by the way, is paying for everything. Just say the date! Really?’ she squealed. ‘That is the best present ever. Are you sure?’
‘Totally. I can’t wait myself. I thought we could go to Bath for a posh weekend away and have treatments in the spa there and do all things Jane Austen.’ At college, Clodagh was obsessed with Jane Austen and wrote her final dissertation on female empowerment in the novels of… etc. ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘we can’t not celebrate your fortieth birthday! Well, we did, two years ago and it was so good, we should do it all over again.’ Thinking back, that was last time I had had fun.
She laughed. ‘Tab, this is why you’re my best friend. No one in the world knows me like you do. Thank you!’ She clutched me hard. ‘Let’s go in the autumn. Deal?’
‘Just say the date… my finger is hovering over the Ryanair confirm flights button.’
She smiled and dropped her voice. ‘It’s the perfect trip for two women in their mid-forties…’
‘Mid? Early, surely!’ I dropped my voice significantly. ‘We’re only forty-two.’
‘Whatever, it’s immaterial, really. Just remember, yesterday I was thirty-nine. Tonight I am a mere forty. It’s magic.’
‘Got it. Now, who’s here? Anyone famous, glamorous. I am expecting top-notch celebrities. Some scandal that will end up in the tabloids in the morning.’ I looked around and spotted a couple of famous faces. A few soap stars. A DJ was over in the corner playing music I had never heard before – it certainly wasn’t Johnny Logan. ‘Where’s Max?’
‘Somewhere over there,’ she said, waving a hand vaguely. ‘On his mobile probably. Or having a fag.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘No one is meant to know he’s a smoker because I think he thinks it shows weakness. I mean, he is obsessed with his health. He’s always drinking green slime and worrying about the lines on his face. He doesn’t want people to know his fallibilities.’
I laughed. ‘But he does drink, doesn’t he?’
‘Are you mad? You can’t work in the media and be teetotal. You’d have your NUJ card taken off you.’ She paused. ‘He’s a man of contrasts. But that’s what makes him interesting.’ She paused. ‘Kind of.’
‘Clodagh! Loveen!’ In front of us was a vision of shimmering green. Long red hair cascading over her shoulders, voluptuous curves barely contained. Bridget O’Flaherty. She looked even more amazing in the flesh. Fleshier, really.