‘Ro…’ I said, gently, ‘what triggers it?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘it can happen anywhere.’ She stopped for a moment and was still, as though she was summoning up something deep inside, as though she was drawing on a reserve of strength of inner power, I didn’t know. ‘I’ve just got to eat better and sleep better.’
She was working so hard. Always in her bedroom. She had stopped going out, meeting her friends. Anxiety was affecting teenage girls, I knew that. But for some reason, I thought that Rosie was immune. She was clever and confident. She had always sailed through life, always popular, always successful. She was on the hockey team, the school debating team, the drama society. Parents’ evenings had always been a joy; a fifteen-minute chat about how lovely my daughter was. She had been Mary, for God’s sake, in the school nativity play not once but twice. I had searched online for information; it all said the same. She needed help and support, she needed to take the pressure off, and she needed to stop trying to be perfect.
*
The next day, there was a knock on the front door. Red was standing there.
‘I hope I’m not intruding on a Sunday morning,’ he said. ‘But I’ve bought a book for Rosie. I was just going to leave it on the doorstep and then I thought I’d just try once…’ He looked at me. ‘I hope you don’t mind…’
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘It’s very good of you.
‘Hello.’ Rosie had joined us.
‘Hello,’ he said, gently. ‘You must be Rosie.’
‘This is Red,’ I said, realising that Rosie had no idea who he was. For all she knew, he was some random man who was now in our hall. ‘He’s an old friend. I used to know him years ago. He’s now a teacher in the school. And he gave me a lift yesterday.’ She nodded again, only half taking it in.
‘Listen,’ he went on. ‘For what it’s worth, life does get better, as you grow up. It’s really hard being a teenager. Too many pressures being heaped on you. But the thing is, exams don’t matter. You think they do and everyone around you is telling you they are the most important things on the planet. But they’re not. They don’t mean anything, they don’t say anything about you and they are no guarantee of future success. The most important thing you can be is true to yourself and find something that excites you, something that makes you happy, that you cannot wait to do each day. That is true success. That’s all you have to do, find that thing and, when you do, grab on to it.’
‘Thanks.’ Rosie tried to smile at him.
He smiled back. ‘I’ll go now,’ he said. ‘Before I start expounding my other theories on life. I’ve got a great one on food and lots on politics and football. Lots on football.’
She smiled again. ‘What’s the book?’
He handed over a well-thumbed copy.
‘The Road Less Travelled. It’s just one of those books that reminds you that everything you do is okay…’
Rosie was reading the blurb on the back. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after it.’ She looked at me, wonderingly, why wasn’t I inviting him in?
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I said. ‘We’re just having one.’
Well, if it’s not too much trouble…’
‘Actually, Mum,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m going to go upstairs, to start working again.’
He followed me into the kitchen. ‘How is she?’ he said. ‘Was she okay afterwards.’
‘I think so,’ I said. ‘She keeps telling me she’s all right but then this happens. I don’t know what to think. I wish she had better support. I think talking to someone might be a good thing to do. Or maybe not.’
He nodded, understanding. ‘I don’t have a child,’ he said, ‘but I do remember what it was like to be at an age where you don’t feel you have any control over your environment. You are being forced into situations that are incredibly challenging but you didn’t choose them…’
‘Exams?’
He nodded. ‘And everything really. When you are young, like Rosie is, or in your 20s, you aren’t really living life for yourself, not knowing what you truly want… you are just doing what everyone expects of you.’
‘I know… getting older is so much better.’
‘You know what you want,’ he said. ‘And even just knowing it, even if you can’t have it, is very liberating.’
‘How was the film?’ I said, changing the subject. Thinking of Red and Mary, I felt a bit put out by their friendship, childish of me, I knew, but I wanted to have that same easy relationship with Red. I wanted to be singing cheesy songs with him and going to the cinema. But I also wanted to be holding his hand and coming home with him. And that just wasn’t possible.
‘Dad says hello,’ he said.
‘How is he?’
‘Working on a new poem. Says he feels inspired by the protest.’
‘Oh God, really?’
A key in the door. ‘Yoo-hoo! I’m home!’
‘That’s Michael,’ I said to Red. ‘I thought he was in Brussels.’
‘Mammy! Mammy?’
Red was looking puzzled. ‘You?’
I nodded, helplessly, as Michael walked straight into the kitchen. ‘Ah, there you are Mammy…’ And then he spotted Red who stood up and held out his hand.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Red Power, a friend of Tab’s.’
‘Michael Fogarty, MEP. And what brings you here on a Sunday morning?’
‘Just had to drop something off,’ he said.
‘Red works at the school,’ I explained. ‘What brings you home?’
‘I wanted to see Rosie,’ he said. ‘I’ve managed to organise an internship for the summer in Brussels. Now, these are not easy to acquire even for one’s offspring. You can imagine how many of the MEPs and the thousands of people who work in the parliament want to organise them for their children, so I feel very lucky to have one for Rosie. This would be the making of her.’ He turned to Red. ‘She’s off to Trinity to do Law in September so a stint in Europe would be extremely beneficial. You see, she’ll eventually go into politics, just like her dear old dad.’ He smiled, happily, at us both.
‘Michael,’ I said, ‘we can talk about this later, ‘but Rosie is taking the summer off. She’s got a few things planned with her friends and I think she deserves a break.’
‘Nonsense!’ he said. ‘She’ll be fine. Stop fussing Mammy. What have I told you? Now, this is too good an opportunity to miss. Now, Richard…’ Michael’s famous never forgetting a name trick had failed him with Red, I noticed. Or probably deliberate dismissive tactic. ‘Do you like milk?’
Red nodded. ‘Yes…’
‘Drink it every day?’
‘In tea... coffee …’
‘But when was the last time you had a big glass of it?’
‘When I was about eight years old?’
‘Aha! You see?’ He looked up in triumph.
Red was puzzled. ‘You see what?’
‘It’s just a theory I’m working on… why masculinity, in fact, is in crisis.’
‘It is? It seems quite healthy to me,’ said Red.
‘No, it’s in crisis,’ said Michael definitely. ‘All the big thinkers are saying it. And I have developed a little theory which suggests that the crisis began when we stopped drinking milk.’
‘Right…’ Red looked utterly bewildered. ‘I don’t think milk has anything to do with anything…’
‘How can you say such a thing?’ said Michael. ‘Vitamins, minerals, protein… our country is built on the back of dairy cows… if we drank milk, Ireland would be an economic powerhouse… and that’s my plan. More milk, more money, more milk, more masculinity.’
‘Catchy.’
Michael ignored me. ‘So what do you think, Richard?’
‘I will have to think about it,’ said Red. ‘I’m not sure yet.’ He turned to me. ‘I’d better go. Thanks for the tea, Tab. I’ll see you in school in the morning.’
‘And I’ll go up and tell Rosie the good news about the internship,’ said Michael. ‘She is one lucky girl.’
*
‘Rosie says she doesn’t want it,’ said Michael when he came back downstairs. ‘She started crying.’ He looked utterly perplexed as though he had bestowed her wildest dream only for her to reject it.