Authors: Marita Conlon-McKenna
‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ he offered Kitty, who was slightly upset that her husband Larry hadn’t come along. To Rob, Larry Connolly sounded a bore of a man, stuck in front of the TV all day and night, and he wondered how such a nice woman as Kitty stuck him.
‘What about you, Tessa? What would you like?’
‘I could murder a double vodka … but I’ll have a glass of white wine instead.’ She laughed. Tessa looked good. Different … She’d changed her hair, and instead of her usual black or grey trousers was wearing jeans which showed off her long legs.
Rob asked where Alice was, and was a bit disappointed when Gemma told him that she wasn’t coming because she had a previous dinner arrangement.
He hoped that she wasn’t trying to avoid him. He realized that he had tried to rush things too much … made too many assumptions … putting two and two together and getting it totally wrong. Just because they were both of a similar age, and both on their own, and shared a lot of common interests, that didn’t mean he had the right to a relationship other than friendship with her. He’d been talking to Bill Deering about it, and Bill had reminded him that sometimes it was much harder for those that had lost their partners through unfaithfulness and deceit and disloyalty than those who had lost their partners through death.
‘They often have more baggage of anger and hurt than we have,’ he explained. ‘Our loved ones are gone from us, whereas their loved ones may be only living half a mile away and with someone new!’
*
Rob spent a while talking to Paul’s neighbours, discovering that one of them was Frank Gallagher, who had been in school with him since he was twelve. It was nice to reminisce.
Gemma served up a great chilli and Rob had two portions of it, and also some of the lovely meatballs that Tessa had brought along.
‘Really tasty,’ he said, paying Tessa a compliment. Afterwards when the dancing started, Gemma pulled him up on the floor. Then he danced with Kitty and Leah and Lucy and Rachel, and eventually managed to persuade Tessa to get up.
He ended up dancing with her and chatting to her for most of the rest of the night, surprised by how easy she was to talk to. Like him, her background was in business, and she had her own theories about the current economic climate and the way various governments were handling it. She had worked in Bridgetown & Murrow for many years in London, and when he mentioned he was friendly with one of the partners there he could see she was a bit uncomfortable and changed the subject.
They danced a bit more and joined a few people out on the patio chatting, moving inside into the big sitting room where they talked to Leah and Rachel and their husbands.
‘God, look at the time! We’d better go as we’ve both got babysitters in,’ Leah said suddenly.
Rob hadn’t realized the time either, and decided to get a taxi home. The young crowd were singing in the kitchen, and he offered Tessa a lift as he knew she was living fairly close by in Mount Merrion. The two of them had definitely had
enough to drink and said their goodbyes to their hosts.
‘Lovely party,’ he said, as he helped Tessa into the back of the cab.
They were almost there when he realized Tessa had gone asleep, her head against his shoulder. He wasn’t exactly sure which road her house was on, but luckily she woke.
‘Sycamore Grove. Here it is, Rob,’ she said, waving madly and pointing out the white pebble-dashed 1950s-style house with the neat garden.
‘Will you be OK going in?’ Rob asked. ‘You do have your key?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She giggled.
The taxi man threw his eyes to heaven.
‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked, hiccupping.
As she got out of the cab she nearly stumbled and Rob jumped out and grabbed her arm, paying the taxi driver. She was just like Kate, couldn’t hold her drink. He didn’t want to frighten poor Florence. So he’d make sure Tessa got in safe and then walk back down to the main road and grab another taxi.
He put on the kettle and made Tessa coffee, two big cups of it, and then settled her nicely on the couch in the sitting room with some cushions and a rug over her. Tessa would be fine in the morning, right as rain. It really had been rather a good party, he thought, as he closed out the door gently behind him and went home.
‘Tessa, Tessa!’
Tessa groaned as she heard her mother calling her. Turning around, she realized that she was not upstairs in her bed but … hold on … she was on the couch, wrapped up in her mother’s big red and green check Foxford rug, lying in the sitting room. She was mortified as she suddenly remembered the previous night. Gemma and Paul’s party had been so much fun. She recalled drinking wine, and talking to Emmet and his friend, and dancing with Rob, and Paul finding a bottle of vodka near the end of the night and having two glasses of it in the kitchen, with everybody singing, before leaving and getting the taxi home with Rob.
She tried to piece the journey together, and realized that Rob must have brought her in home. She took a sip of the big glass of water left on the coffee table, and saw that her black boots had been placed neatly near the couch. Shit … what had she done? What had she said?
Florence Sullivan appeared in the living room in her pink dressing-gown, concern on her elderly face …
‘Are you all right, Tessa? I was worried when I woke up and saw that your bed hadn’t been slept in.’
Groggy and nauseated, Tessa sat up, praying the sitting room wouldn’t spin.
‘It’s OK, Mum. I was out very late, and just didn’t want to wake you up by clattering about upstairs, and I must have come in here and sat down and fallen asleep.’
The last time she had done this she had been sixteen, and she and Suzie Corrigan, her best friend, had got drunk in Suzie’s parents’ house testing out bottles of gin and vodka and whiskey from the drinks cabinet. They had both been violently ill. She had managed to crawl home and on to the couch before the rest of the house had woken up, and had lain there for hours praying for death.
‘Was it a good party?’ Florence asked.
‘The best,’ Tessa said.
‘I thought I heard voices downstairs,’ murmured her mother, ‘someone in the kitchen.’
‘One of my friends came in briefly, we’d shared a taxi.’
‘Would you like some breakfast, pet? I’ll make it.’
If she was paid a thousand euros, Tessa couldn’t have cooked her mother’s regular Sunday breakfast of bacon and scrambled egg and toast today.
‘I’m not very hungry.’
‘Then I’ll make you a nice cup of tea before you go back up to bed for a proper sleep.’
It was two o’clock when Tessa woke up. She felt so much better and jumped in the hot shower to freshen herself up.
She scrubbed herself with a revitalizing blue shower gel and got dressed into her navy tracksuit bottoms and her white zip-up jacket. She needed to get out, go for a walk and get some fresh air.
In the kitchen she poured herself a glass of orange juice and ate a slice of plain toast and butter, recalling Rob Flanagan making her coffee and getting her to drink it. He’d been so kind.
She was tidying up when she noticed he had left his expensive mohair scarf on the back of the chair. She would return it to him when she saw him at class on Tuesday. Suddenly she realized that she didn’t want Rob thinking badly of her, and phoned him to thank him for what he had done. She had the number as Alice had given everyone a list of their fellow classmates’ numbers, in case they wanted to text about a recipe, or share ingredients.
‘Hey, Rob, it’s Tessa. I just wanted to say thanks for last night, for looking after me.’
‘Are you OK today?’ He laughed.
‘Thanks to you, yes. And I guess I’ve slept the worst of it off. And I just need to get a bit of fresh air.’
‘Me too,’ he admitted. ‘I’m just going to bring the dog for a walk.’
‘You left your scarf. I’ll give it to you on Tuesday.’
‘I’m heading down the West Pier in Dun Laoghaire,’ he said. ‘If you fancy it.’
‘Give me about twenty minutes and I’ll bring the scarf.’
Her mother was asleep on the couch having her after-lunch snooze.
Casablanca
was on the TV later this afternoon, and Florence Sullivan had put a big ring around it in the TV
section of the Sunday paper. She loved planning her TV viewing.
Tessa parked her Mini near the old ferry terminal and walked briskly. The day was bright and sunny, and as usual crowds of walkers and families had descended on Dun Laoghaire to enjoy the seaside. She was trying to see if she could spot Rob, and was just about to phone him when she noticed the man with the big golden Labrador on the lead waving at her.
‘Down, Bingo, down.’
Tessa loved dogs and the big Labrador was excited to meet someone new.
‘Bingo likes you,’ said Rob, as they fell into step together, talking mostly about last night’s party as they walked the pier.
At the end they got a bench and sat in the sunshine, and Tessa found herself telling Rob about her time in London.
‘Rob, last night you mentioned you knew one of the partners in Bridgetown & Murrow, the firm I worked in. Well, I was involved with another of the partners, Grant Armstrong. I met him when I started working there. He was divorced and charming, and I suppose we fell in love. We’d all kinds of plans to marry, but it always seemed not to be the right time. Grant worried that it would upset his teenage kids and that we just needed to wait a bit longer till they were older … less jealous … gone to college. Because I loved him, I went along with what he wanted. I kept working, and at weekends we went down to his place in Surrey, and for holidays went to the villa he had in Majorca. I was happy, and if time was passing I didn’t really make a big deal of it. Grant had made it clear that he already had his kids, and when we got married he wouldn’t want any more!’
‘What about what you wanted?’ Rob asked, puzzled.
‘I suppose what I wanted didn’t really come into it!’ she admitted, staring out at the waves. ‘I loved him, I was happy with him. Then the company opened another office in New York. Grant was involved in setting it up, and was away more frequently for longer and longer stints. I guess our relationship had run its course, because he didn’t miss me the way you should miss someone you love. I didn’t know what was going on for a while. Office politics: no one likes to tell you these things, but he was seeing one of the junior associates. Pretty little thing! She was involved in the set-up, too. Suddenly he was openly involved with her. They moved in together, and got married about six months before I came back home to Dublin. Louisa had a baby last year … so the irony is that Grant, despite all his protests, is back to being a family man again. Why I ever listened to him, I don’t know,’ she said, staring out angrily at the water and the small dinghies flying by. ‘How could I have been so stupid?’
‘I’m sorry, Tessa. It’s awful losing someone you love. But maybe coming back home is a good thing. It gives you time to think, do different things …’
‘Too much time … too many regrets,’ Tessa said, patting Bingo.
‘Everyone keeps telling you time heals,’ he said slowly, ‘I’m not sure how much time it takes. It seems an eternity when you are caught up in it … when you lose the person you love the most in the world and are left on your own.’
‘Tell me about her,’ said Tessa softly, and Rob haltingly told her about losing Kate and finding himself alone for the first time since he was nineteen years old.
‘I met her the first day I started college. We both signed up to join the debating society. I know people say it’s crazy to fall in love with the first stranger you meet, but that was exactly what happened, and Kate was part of my life for every day after that! That is, until last May when she just collapsed while she was shopping and died. They did an autopsy – the report said Kate had some kind of aneurysm in her brain and that nothing could have saved her. It was like a small balloon burst and Kate was gone! Taken from the boys … taken from me.’
Tessa could see he was fighting to control his emotions.
‘It’s been so hard without her. The first few weeks I could hardly get out of bed. The physical ache for her was so painful. I know life has to go on … Kate would want that … but it is so bloody difficult.’
Tessa automatically found herself reaching for his hand and squeezing it. It was so hard for Rob. Her loss was nothing compared to his.
They both sat in silence for a while as people walked up and down the pier, Bingo barking at one or two dogs; he was bored and wanted to continue his walk. Getting up, they began to stroll back, stopping for a coffee and a bagel on the open-air terrace of the Pavilion. Bingo sat with his head on his paws under the table as they chatted. Tessa was glad she had made the effort to come for the walk with Rob.
‘I’d better get going. I don’t like leaving Mum on her own for too long,’ she explained, standing up. ‘Anyway, I’ll see you in Alice’s on Tuesday.’
‘Maybe we can do this again,’ he said.
‘What?’ Did he mean her getting drunk and disgracing herself?
‘I mean the walk.’ He grinned, laughing. ‘I’ve enjoyed your company.’
‘Me too,’ she said, surprised by how easy she found Rob to talk to. ‘Any time.’
‘Great film,’ teased Joy. ‘Husband has an affair, husband and wife break up, husband and mistress break up and husband and wife get back together again! Honestly, as if that is ever going to happen!’
‘Never. Agreed,’ said Alice. ‘Unless you are Jennifer Aniston; it always works out for her on screen.’
They both had ordered frothy cappuccinos in Coffee Heaven, the coffee shop near the cinema, and were trying to decide about sharing a portion of cheesecake.
‘Half the calories!’ promised Joy, as they got two forks.
‘How is it going with you and Fergus?’ quizzed Alice.
‘Great. I can’t believe that we are still going out, and still loving being with each other. He wants me to go to Italy for a week with him during the summer. Travel around a bit.’
‘Are you going to go?’
‘Yeah, I guess. Fergus is such a great guy … so different from everyone else I ever went out with. It’s such a change to have him around. He makes me feel safe and wanted and loved, and besides that, Beth really likes him.’