‘Very,’ said Mary. ‘It’s getting the eggs right, they need to be exactly three days old and at room temperature. It helps if you are making them in a French farmhouse kitchen because of the thickness of the stone walls creates the perfect ambient temperature. And then it’s all in the wrist action...’
Red whistled, impressed. ‘How do you know this?’
‘I did a cordon bleu course in Paris,’ she confessed modestly. ‘Years ago. I do know how to make a few classic French dishes.’
‘Johnny Logan and soufflés. You are quite the catch Mary Hooley,’ he said, teasing her.
‘I just happen to be a Europhile,’ she said. ‘I’m quite envious of my young cousin Lucy, living in Brussels, being at the centre of Europe,’ she said.
‘I think you might be getting Eurovision mixed with the European parliament,’ said Red, ignoring the reference to Michael. I wonder what he thought of him when they met. ‘Easily done.’
Mary laughed. ‘Did you know that Red eats sweets in the cinema?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’ Red was laughing. ‘Anyone would think that there was something wrong with a small sweet now and then. Mary, however, frowns at anyone who dares to rustle a wrapper or crunch their popcorn. I bought some pick-n-mix and Mary almost fainted with shock.’
‘I never had you down as a pick-n-mix kind of person,’ she insisted, laughing. ‘I didn’t know that grown men ate sweets.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Mary,’ he said. ‘Real men do eat sweets.’ He turned back to me. ‘Anyway, so I had to eat each one so slowly and carefully so as not to make any noise. I was terrified that I would be subjected to the Mary death-stare. In the end, I was sucking on them as if I had no teeth.’
They were both laughing now, behaving like two old friends. He was always good for a laugh, was Red.
‘A Bout de Souffle, next Saturday.’ Mary gathered up files and went to leave. ‘Don’t forget. Now, I must be off, and stop all this gassing.’ She turned to me. ‘Tabitha, I wonder would it be possible if I made a long-distance call? Just with the time difference and everything, I have to make it now. I can leave the money. I wouldn’t like all our fundraising to go on phone bills.’
‘Would you like to use my office? For privacy?’
She hesitated. ‘No, no, it’s all right. It’s not a big deal. It won’t take long.’
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Oh yes.’ She smiled her bright efficient smile. ‘Everything’s fine. Just something I need to do… that’s all. I’ll be quick as quick.’
Before she left my office, I noticed that Red gave her a look, an encouraging ‘go on’ kind of nod. She gave a short tilt of her head and she was gone. Red knew what was going on, I realised.
‘So,’ I said, ‘what did you want to talk about?’
‘Annie. I was hoping we could perform some of the songs at the last school assembly.’
‘That sounds good. Who’s playing Annie?’
‘We’re working on it, everyone wants the lead role. I think I might share it out a bit. Have lots of Annies. Just need to buy a job lot of red curly wigs on eBay.’
I smiled, feeling better already. ‘Annie is theatrical catnip to girls. Annie is their Lady Macbeth, their Medea.’
He laughed. ‘Totally. I remember at school, we all wanted to be the Artful Dodger. All of us, practising our cockney accents in the playground. It was given to someone who didn’t want it. He wanted to be Fagin and was furious. The rest of us had to be nonspeaking urchins. Hours of accent-practising wasted.’ He grinned at me. I found myself grinning back.
‘How’s your cockney accent now?’ I said.
‘As bad as it was then. No wonder I didn’t get the part. Dick Van Dyke’s was better.’
I laughed. I wondered if he and Mary would mind if I asked to go to the cinema with them. Maybe they would. Maybe they wanted it to be just the two of them. But… I couldn’t just be friends with Red. It wasn’t that simple.
‘By the way,’ he said. ‘I was wondering about Rosie. How is she?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘She keeps saying she’s okay and for me not to worry. I don’t know what to think.’
‘She’s obviously under a huge amount of stress. Have you talked to your… your husband about it?’
‘Well, he’s very busy. Very busy. He’s very rarely around and…’ I looked at Red. I wanted to tell him everything about Michael. But it was all so pointless. Red wasn’t just some friend I could confide in. ‘Michael is… well, he’s determined that Rosie will do Law in Trinity, like he did… but I am starting to wonder if it’s what she wants. Or is she just doing it for him. And for my mother-in-law.’
‘Well…’ There was nothing he could say. He couldn’t pass judgment on any of us. He’d only briefly met Michael, but Celia not at all. ‘I hope,’ he said, ‘she’s feeling better, soon.’ He went to go. Oh, but I wanted him to stay. There was so much I wanted to chat about, innocuous things like cockney accents but seismic life-altering events as well. Everything.
‘Listen,’ he said, pausing, gratifyingly, at the door. ‘I know it’s none of my business, I know that. I’m just a supply teacher who is pushing my nose into places where I shouldn’t and I have no right. None whatsoever. So please tell me to butt out or whatever. But…’ He stopped, and looked at me, right into my eyes. ‘I was just wondering if you were all right. I’m worried about you.’
‘Worried. About me?’ I said, swallowing. ‘I’m all right. What makes you think I’m not?’
‘Listen, forgive me if I’m overstepping the mark. You look so different, Tab. I mean, you look the same, as though not a day has passed, but I can see it in your eyes, how much you’ve got on your plate. There’s a lot going on. And you keep on going…’
For a moment, I thought I was going to cry. When was the last time anyone cared how I was doing? ‘I’m fine,’ I said, sounding just like Rosie. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’
He took a pen out of the inside pocket of his jacket. And ripped a corner from a little black Moleskine diary. ‘Here’s my number,’ he said, writing it down. ‘Call me if you need a friend.’ He handed it to me. ‘I’m still that, you know.’
‘Thanks.’ I didn’t trust myself to say anymore.
‘She’s the image of you,’ he said. ‘Rosie.’
‘Really…’ I suddenly felt embarrassed. ‘I can see Rosaleen in her but I thought she was like her dad, but maybe… maybe she isn’t as much as I thought.’
‘There’s a definite look of you in her, it’s like going back in time,’ he said. impassively, betraying no emotion.
And then he smiled, the kind of smile that makes you feel as though someone is on your side. Encouraging you, cheering you on. And there he was being nice to me, when I hadn’t been nice to him.
Chapter Eighteen
Rosie had been upstairs, as usual, but I brought her up a cup of relaxing tea.
‘Sweetheart?’ I called gently through her door. ‘How’s it going in there?’
Silence. I pushed open the door.
‘Rosie, I have some nice camomile…’
She was asleep on the bed, her breathing light and steady. For a moment, I just gazed at her. The poor girl. Fully dressed, her long hair falling over the pillow.
I remembered when she was a little girl and we’d walk to school together, knowing so clearly that this was a golden moment in my life. You, as their mother, define their world, you shape it and make sense of it for them, sharing the life so intimately with your small child. I stayed in my marriage for her, I became a teacher because I thought it was more family friendly, I wanted to make the world perfect, or as near perfect as was possible, for her but it seemed it was never quite enough.
I hovered for a moment with the cup of camomile tea. Should I leave it or bring it downstairs? Leave it. I went to her desk to place it down.
One notebook was open, the pen lying across it, as though she’d been writing and, overcome with tiredness, had fallen asleep. It was just a glance, but something made me take a second look. It was the uniform look of the writing, the fact that it looked so unlike a piece of revision work or an essay of any kind. It was Rosie’s handwriting, though, her loopy biro, the way she did her a’s, the slightly embellished f. But it was the same sentence, over and over again, the same phrase, over and over.