‘She’s under a huge amount of pressure,’ I said. ‘She just needs a break over the summer. Hang out with her friends. Eat pizza. Go somewhere nice. Be a teenager.’
‘But she is a teenager.’
‘A proper teenager,’ I said. ‘Not one who is having to pretend to be an adult, wearing a suit and scurrying around after some MEP.’
‘It’s the opportunity of a lifetime,’ he said. ‘I worked every school holiday for Dad, learning the ropes. I used to do carbon copying, heading up to the train station for deliveries… it’s much easier these days. She’d only have to take notes and see what it’s like. One day, she’d be hooked. That’s all it would take.’
‘Maybe just leave it awhile,’ I said. ‘I should go and see how she is.’
Wait a moment,’ he said. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about.’
‘Oh yes? Did I leave the immersion on again?’
He looked up, alarmed. ‘You haven’t, have you? All that hot water, being wasted.’
‘Michael, we don’t even have an immersion. It’s all on a timer.’
‘Don’t we? When did that happen?’
‘About three years ago, an electrician did it.’
He looked visibly relieved. ‘Well, that’s okay then. Now…’ He looked at me, seriously. ‘You’re not going to like this… but after great consideration, and soul-searching, I have decided that…’
Was Michael about to end our marriage, I wondered. What on earth would cause him to look so grave? I felt a feeling of admiration. He’d had the guts to do it. He was better than I was.
‘It’s Brussels. I am going to spend even more time there. I know I get to come home every few days or so but I have to make a bigger commitment to my role there. I know you miss me around the house, I know that it must be hard to do things such as source electricians and the like… I know it must be hard for the man of the house to be absent.’
I wasn’t sure what to say. ‘Okay…’
‘Will you be all right?’
‘I think so.’
He nodded. ‘That’s the attitude. Sacrifices have to make for our country, for Europe. This is your little bit.’
‘Thank you.’
He smiled. ‘Some people stay at home and watch daytime television. Others waste their lives on picket lines and protests. Others play their part.’
I pretended to be puzzled. ‘And which one are you?’
‘The latter! Mammy! Were you even listening?’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Will you sign this letter to the parents?’ said Mary, as she came into my office. I’d been staring out at the protestors and wouldn’t have been surprised if a few tents were erected and this went on for years. All the things we could do with the money kept flashing through my mind. The new surface for the playground, all the bits and pieces that the school needed. But my heart was saying no. But sometimes the head had to rule the heart. And I was, after all, the Head.
‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ said Mary, letter in hand. ‘But that Bridget last night said it might rain. But she also said it might not.’
‘That’s useful,’ I said, turning round from the window.
‘She said it was an Irish summer and we all knew what to expect. The unexpected. Whatever that means but she has a point. More a philosophy on life rather than a weather forecast, though…’ She passed me the letter. ‘So, will you sign it?’
I nodded and took it from her. ‘Mary, what do you remember about school? Did you feel stressed at all?’
‘I hated it,’ she said. ‘For all their talk of love, the nuns didn’t show one ounce of compassion to any of us girls. It was a horrible place to be, and it made us girls suspicious of each other. They created an atmosphere where you didn’t know who you could trust. You didn’t know who was on your side. I used to take the bus into Cavan town every day. I was petrified that someone who knew Mammy would see me. But I couldn’t stop myself, I had to do something to prove to myself that the world was bigger than the school, than home, than Ballyjamesduff. Cavan town was as far as I got.’
‘Did you get caught?’
‘Of course I did! You couldn’t breathe without someone spotting you and telling on you. Mammy went, as expected, quite mad. Bulging eyes, the usual.’ She shrugged. ‘She thought I should join the Sisters of Charity. She was that worried for me. She thought if I was capable of deceiving her, my own mother, then she was terrified about how I’d get on when left to my own devices. She’s calmed down now.’ She laughed. ‘Only took her 30 years.’
‘And you headed off to London…’
‘Anywhere was better than the twitching curtains of home,’ she said. I knew I was gay back then. But wasn’t out, you know. London gave me the confidence. But everyone back home thought I’d gone off with a man. But he was gay too and so we both looked after each other,’ she said happily. ‘Australian, he was. Lovely fella. Martin from Alice Springs. He’d been working in Cavan Town. Took pity on me and was horrified when I told him about having to become a nun. Said he was heading off to London for a bit and told me I could come with him. Helped me find somewhere to stay and I found a job in a pub in Kentish Town. Time of my life it was. There were so many Irish girls, just like me, running away from home. We became quite the gang. Eight of us in all and all still in contact. Two of us turned out to be lesbians. What are the chances?’
‘And what happened to Martin?’
‘Back in Alice Springs. We still email at Christmas. I will go and see him one of these days…’ Her sentence drifted off. ‘Life is a series of unending possibilities, Tabitha, you just have to see it as that.’
Was it though? I thought of Rosie, in the four walls of her bedroom. There wasn’t much she could do about it. This was the system and it decreed that you must break your arse studying for two years or so and then… then only then was life was a series of unending possibilities.
I wondered what she was doing now. Working, I knew. In her room. I vowed, as soon as the exams were over I’d get her out of there. We’d go to Paris. Mary, I realised, was someone who was still adventurous, still a dreamer. I used to be like that, years ago. But along the way, I’d stopped dreaming. I felt something prickle inside me. I wanted some of that wanderlust for me too.
‘Tabitha?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s it like being a mother? Have you ever regretted it?’
‘Regretted it?’ I said. ‘Never. Not for one moment. I don’t think any mother regrets it. Why?’
She shrugged. ‘Just wondering. It must be a worry having a little girl…’
Mary was obviously thinking of her own mother and the grey hairs she’d acquired when Mary bunked off school and all her other adventures. No wonder she wanted her locked up in a nunnery. It would make life easier if all our daughters could be protected in such a way.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s hugely worrying and you never stop. It gets worse, if anything…’
Mary had gone pale. ‘Are you all right?’ I said.
‘Quite all right, just haven’t much to eat yet… go on…’
‘Well, I was going to say, there is nothing which can bring you more pleasure than a daughter – or a son, I imagine. The deep, real joy of just watching them grow up… well, there’s nothing like it.’
There was a knock on the office door.
‘Busy?’ It was Red. ‘I just wanted to talk to you about… oh, hello Mary,’ he said, smiling. ‘A Bout de Souffle this Saturday, you still on?’
‘Is that about soufflés?’ I said, giving Mary a wink, ‘because if so, your Dad will want to come along.’
‘Is he still going on about soufflés?’ said Red. ‘Honestly. He’s always fancied one but has never had one.’
‘Never?’
‘He doesn’t go to restaurants that are posh enough for a start,’ said Red. ‘And I can’t make one. I mean, I could try but I’m not into precision cooking.’
‘I could make one for him,’ I said. ‘I mean, I wouldn’t mind having a go…’
‘Really?’
‘How difficult can they be?’