Mel was astonished to learn that Caroline had joined a national group who were lobbying for greater parental input in primary schools.
‘You’re so good to do that,’ said Val guiltily, stirring her White Cranberry Ice, a lethal concoction that slipped down too easily. ‘I should but …’ she looked at Mel as if they were in this together, ‘it’s so hard to find the time, isn’t it? I’m so busy with everything. I’m stil going to WeightWatchers, and I’ve only half a stone to go.’
Everyone raised their glass to her and told her she looked wonderful.
‘Thanks,’ beamed Val. ‘But I’ve got to fit in a long walk three times a week and what with al the extracurricular activities the kids are doing, like gymnastics - did I tel you Maureen’s taken it up? Twice a week it is - there isn’t the time for anything else.’ She flashed another gaze of complicity at Mel.
Mel didn’t return the look. She couldn’t. There was no comparison between her and Val. Val was a twenty-four-hour mother and if she didn’t manage to fit in the parents’
association because she was busily baking additive-free carob cookies and keeping herself fit, then it was hardly a crime. What was more, Mel was a non-mother during the hours of nine to five - or, more accurately, between half-seven in the morning and seven in the evening - and if Carrie or Sarah one day decided they wanted to do gymnastics, then how the hel would it be managed?
‘How are Carrie and Sarah?’ asked Lorna, turning her attention to Mel. ‘Sarah must be going to school soon. It’s such a milestone, isn’t it?’ She sighed. ‘One minute they’re babies, the next they’re in school.’
Mel waited to see if Lorna would make the usual remark about how she was so glad she’d given up work when Alyssa was born because childhood went so quickly and you had to be there for it. She did it every single time they were out. Sometimes, to add insult to injury, she mentioned how hard it
must be on Mel to have to miss al the important moments in her daughters’ lives.
‘I’m not getting at you, Mel, when I say this,’ Lorna said with al the inevitability of thunder fol owing lightning, ‘but it must be so hard for anyone who has to go out to work. You do miss so much of their lives. I read something the other day in a magazine about a childcare worker who admitted that they lie to parents sometimes.’
‘Lie about what?’ asked Mel, ready to do battle.
‘Lie about when the child has taken their first steps or whatever,’ Lorna went on blithely. ‘Apparently, they say the child has nearly done it, nearly walked, for example, so that when they do it at home, the parents think they’re witnessing it for the first time. Sad.’ She turned a fake smile on Mel. ‘Honestly, women have to cope with so much, don’t they?’ she said. ‘But it’s worth it. Children make it al worthwhile.’ ‘Absolutely,’ agreed Caroline.
‘You said it,’ added Val fervently.
Mel went through al the things she wanted to say to Lorna and thought she had better not.
The conversation whipped round to gossip about another friend of theirs who was about to get married for the second time and was having the wedding she’d always dreamed of on Australia’s Gold Coast. As the others talked about how they’d love to go but couldn’t, Mel felt herself sinking into the sort of self-berating misery that no amount of White Cranberry Ices could defeat.
Lorna’s needling got to her every time for one simple reason: because Mel was so terribly scared that Lorna was right. If only Lorna could be more sensitive … After al , not everyone could afford to stay at home with their kids.
Adrian was half asleep when Mel slipped under the duvet beside him. It was after twelve and she felt sick at the thought that she had to be up again in just over five hours.
‘Did you have a good time?’ he murmured, turning to put one arm around her.
Mel snuggled into his embrace. The heating was off and she felt cold. Adrian was always warm and it was a long-running joke between them that he wanted just a sheet and the lightest duvet imaginable on the bed in winter, while she wanted an electric blanket, about four heavy blankets and a flannelette, instant-turn-off nightie.
‘It was fine,’ she said, settling herself into the comfiest position against him. But it hadn’t been.
Lorna had been al set for going to a nightclub when Mel got up to leave, pleading exhaustion.
‘You used to be a wild woman!’ Lorna had said in the accusatory tone of the blind drunk as Mel pul ed on her coat and checked that she had enough money for a taxi to the train station. ‘What’s happened to you? Are we such boring friends that you don’t have time for us any more, is that real y it?’ After an entire night of feeling guilty for the fact that she no longer had enough time to meet up with the girls more than a couple of times a year, Mel’s patience snapped.
‘I have a job, Lorna, a job where I have to produce results al day, and then, when I go home, I get to do al the work that you do but in about a quarter of the time. So forgive me if I’m not ready to party on al night but if I have a hangover, I can’t go back to bed when the kids have gone to school.
My job won’t wait like the shopping or the washing. I’m not my own boss, you see.’
She was being unfair but she didn’t care. Lorna had been unfair about Mel having to work: if she dished it, she should be able to take it.
‘And since you find my company so boring,’ Mel finished,
‘don’t bother to phone me next time you want a big night out where you get pissed and compare parent/teacher council stories. I don’t have time for that. I’m too busy missing al the milestones in my children’s lives.’
She’d left then, with Caroline, Val and Lorna staring openmouthed after her. In the taxi to the train station, Mel had cursed herself for letting Lorna goad her. Why hadn’t she held her tongue? It wasn’t even that she’d been horrible to Lorna that mattered - Lorna was plastered and wouldn’t remember any of it. And it was about time Lorna got some of her own medicine. Hurting Caroline, however, was different. Caroline was a true friend and now she’d think that Mel was one of those bitchy career women who looked down on stay-at-home mothers, when she wasn’t. It was al such a mess. ‘How’s Caroline?’ asked Adrian sleepily.
‘She’s OK,’ Mel said. There was no point bothering him with any of this.
‘We missed you,’ Adrian said, his voice muffled against the silk of her hair.
‘Missed you too,’ she said truthful y. ‘Go to sleep, love.
Sorry for waking you up.’
‘I couldn’t sleep properly until you were in,’ he said. In the darkness, Mel smiled and curled her body closer into the curve of his. She was lucky to have a husband like Adrian.
He told her he loved her and missed her. Not al men were able to be as honest. They made a good team and they’d get through the difficult times together, or so Adrian was always saying. It was just that the difficult times seemed to outweigh the good ones lately.
The next day, Mel didn’t phone Caroline until just before lunch, when she knew her friend would be at home after the morning school run and the inevitable grocery shopping.
For the first time in their friendship, Caroline’s tone was frosty. ‘You didn’t need to be so hard on Lorna,’ she said sharply. At her desk, Mel rubbed her tired face. Lack of sleep made her forget al the things she’d planned to say.
‘Lorna made a difficult choice to stay at home with her children and give up her career for the moment; that doesn’t mean
she’s a non-person,’ Caroline continued. ‘We’re fed up with people asking, “What do you do?” and then tuning out when you say you stay at home with your kids. It’s bad enough when men do it without another woman doing it too. I thought you understood why I gave up my job, Mel - that I couldn’t bear to leave my babies for someone else to bring up. If I’d known that you real y looked down on me, then I wouldn’t have kept in touch with you. I’ve got plenty of new friends who do what I do; I don’t need to cling on to you for old times’ sake just because we once sat at desks opposite each other and bitched about our boss.’
‘Don’t be like that, Caroline,’ Mel begged. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t. I don’t look down on you. In fact,’
she laughed without mirth, ‘I think the boot’s on the other foot.’ Why didn’t Caroline understand that working mothers like Mel felt that the stay-at-home mothers like Lorna looked down on them ‘I wish I could stay at home and look after Carrie and Sarah too,’ she began, and stopped in shock.
There, she’d said it. She’d told someone her deepest secret, the secret she’d only just recognised in herself. She did wish she could stay at home. She was tired of her life, tired of running on a treadmil like a caffeined-up hamster and never getting anywhere.
‘Of course, I know what you mean,’ said Caroline, sarcasm glittering in her voice. ‘You wish you could lounge around al day at home because that’s what you think it’s like, but it’s not. It’s not meandering round the shops and meeting other housewives for coffee and doing the odd bit of washing and ironing at home in between watching Oprah. It’s damn hard and very boring.’
‘I know, I realise that,’ stammered Mel. ‘You’ve got me wrong …’
‘You think I don’t remember what it was like to have an interesting job and have people look up to me? To earn my own money and use my talents to the ful ?’ Caroline went on shakily. ‘And now I’m just a stay-at-home mother, a housewife, dependant, and nobody respects that. Graham jokes that I’m the CEO of the household but this is the only CEO job where nobody places the slightest value on what you do. I thought you understood al this, and that occasional y it was nice for me to touch the old world again with you and remember what it used to be like, but I can see I was wrong. You just look down on me.’
‘No, Caroline,’ begged Mel, ‘I don’t. It’s just that Lorna real y gets at me …’
‘Mel, I don’t have time to talk to you right now.’ Caroline spoke crisply. ‘I have things to do. Oprah’s going to be on TV any minute and I’d hate to miss it. Goodbye.’ And she hung up.
‘Caroline, no …’ How had they got themselves in this mess? Just when Mel suddenly understood why Caroline had given up her job in favour of taking care of her three little boys? Because now, final y, after years of trying to keep al the bal s in the air, that’s what Mel wanted too.
Hardly had Mel a chance to put the receiver back in the cradle, when the phone rang again.
‘Mel, I’m sorry, I know it’s lunchtime but I’ve got a journalist from the Echo on the line,’ said Sue, the department assistant, ‘a Peter Glennon and he’s phoning about a statistic on the website about heart disease and how they aren’t the right figures for Ireland.’
‘Put him through,’ said Mel pleasantly, as if she hadn’t just got off the phone from a horrible conversation with one of her oldest friends. Lunch, like thinking about her row with Caroline, could wait. Everything had to wait for work, didn’t it? Her life, her family, her friends. Work ruled.
The Wil ow Hotel had been a part of Carrickwel as long as anyone could remember. Other, grander establishments had come and gone, bringing variously nouvel e cuisine, Zen-like simplicity and chic modern style to the area, but only three hotels remained in the town: the Carrick Park, a motel on the main road to the city; the Townhouse, a smal business establishment near the cathedral that did a roaring trade in office lunches, and the Wil ow, a big, rambling Georgian country house hotel that was crammed with shabby antiques, was hel to heat and had managed only to stay more or less solvent in the thirty years since Cleo’s parents had taken it over.
Harry and Sheila Malin had been newly married then and thought the Wil ow would be a great place to rear a family, what with its enormous overgrown back garden and the big house for children to tear around in, and they’d thrown themselves into running the place with great gusto, even though they hadn’t a smidgen of experience between the pair of them. Somehow they’d managed it, and thirty years and three children later, the Wil ow was stil there: a landmark building on five valuable acres of land on the outskirts of the town.
It featured in guidebooks in the country house category, the sort of place where guests could feel they were visiting a friend’s large, old-fashioned, comfortably down-at-heel home rather than a hotel. There were sixteen bedrooms, each one different, two suites, and a tiny bal room where smal , intimate wedding receptions could be held.
The Wil ow Hotel was the same as it had always been. It was Carrickwel that had changed over the years. No longer a sleepy town, it had become a busy part of the commuter belt where property prices rocketed and where other hotel-owners were always trying to set up shop.
The most recent bit of competition had come from the large Victorian rectory on the Glenside Road, where al the bedrooms were done up like a Parisian brothel, complete with mirrors and an abundance of plum-coloured velvet and leopardskin. Cleo’s father had surreptitiously checked it out and was able to report back that the breakfasts were bad -
continental instead of the good solid fry-up that most people wanted, high cholesterol notwithstanding - and that the owner seemed more keen on having the place photographed in style magazines than attending to the daily routine of a hotel.
The leopardskin palace was a source of great amusement in the family quarters of the Wil ow, where the carpets were threadbare and the wal paper hadn’t been changed in aeons. Harry Malin thought that its closure after only a year was reassurance that people liked solid home cooking and a cosy atmosphere instead of great style and expensive new furnishings. Given that nothing at the Wil ow had been updated since she was a child, Cleo thought this was al just as wel , but she didn’t say so. Sheila said it was proof that the Wil ow was part and parcel of Carrickwel , and didn’t people drive out from the city just for Sunday lunch in the big dining room? People booked the wil ow’s Christmas Day lunch months in advance, and wasn’t the waiting list for Christmas cancel ations a mile long? Barney and Jason, Cleo’s older brothers, said the Wil ow could be a little goldmine now they had cut a deal with the tour company taking people to see the Cistercian monastery and the round tower. And as it was al going so wel , what was the point of shel ing out lots of money to upgrade the heating system just because the plumber mentioned that the pipes were beyond their use-by date? That was plumbers for you - of course any plumber worth his salt was going to say the pipes were in need of work. Sondra, Barney’s wife, said that the family could always sel a bit of the land at the back of the hotel to developers, who’d whip up a couple of apartment blocks before you could whistle, and then, wouldn’t everyone be in clover?