Authors: Grace Wynne-Jones
I start to hunt. Under a big crocheted blanket I find the hummingbird feeder we had up in the big eucalyptus tree in our garden in California, and an old Sierra Club calendar full of pictures of American nature at its most photogenic. My mother
has also kept a pair of very old leather sandals. She always used
to wear bright-red nail varnish on her toes back then, and long, full cotton skirts.
It’s not here. I realise this after half an hour. The music box has
gone. I take a deep breath and prepare to go downstairs. Then my mobile phone rings. I take it from my pocket. It’s probably Fiona
reminding me to wear good thick boots for our hike.
‘Sally?’ It’s Diarmuid. He sounds as if he’s been drinking. ‘Sally, are you there?’
‘Yes.’ I stare at a cobweb.
‘I won’t see Becky again if you don’t want me to. We’re just friends, but if you don’t want me to see her again I won’t.’
I look at the hummingbird feeder. Hummingbirds fly huge
distances every year on their annual migrations. They looked so
beautiful in the garden, iridescent and small and full of life.
‘Sally, did you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘I’m sorry, Diarmuid. I’m in an attic.’ I don’t know why I
should use this as an excuse. ‘That’s very… good to hear. But if
you want to see her, you should. I wouldn’t want to stop you.’
What I mean is that if he still loves her I want to know it now, not
later.
‘I don’t want to see her.’
‘Really?’ My heart lightens.
‘I want to see you.’
I smile with relief. ‘I want to see you too.’
‘Becky isn’t even in Dublin any more.’
‘Oh. Has she gone back to New Zealand?’
‘No, she’s in Galway with her new boyfriend.’
I wonder if Diarmuid can hear me smile.
‘I can’t meet up for a few days, I’m afraid,’ he continues. ‘I
promised Mum I’d help her with some tiling in the bathroom. I’ll
phone you.’
After the call, I realise something. I realise that Diarmuid is getting used to being alone. He’s not just waiting around for me
to make up my mind. He has his own life and his own plans – and
that’s just how it should be. I have changed the way he loves me,
diluted it by all this questioning.
He has learned to live without me. I can hear it in his voice.
Chapter
Six
F
iona and I are
walking briskly along a pier; she changed her mind about trekking through the hills, thank goodness. It is a bright June evening – the same bright June evening on which
Diarmuid said he wouldn’t see Becky again, and I realised I wasn’t
pregnant.
My period arrived after Diarmuid’s phone call. I didn’t know
if I was happy or sad until I found myself sobbing in my parents’ toilet. The tears arrived before I knew why I was crying. But, as I
felt the tight twist of fear loosen inside my heart, I realised I was
relieved. It didn’t seem like the right time. It wouldn’t have been
the right kind of answer. But what would be? Had I even been asking the right questions?
I managed not to be lured into Fiona’s house before we started
this walk. She wanted to show me some new baby clothes, but I
knew I would end up eating leftover cheesecake or moussaka, so
I said we should meet at the pier. This would have been a good solution if an ice-cream van hadn’t been located directly beside me as I waited – and I had to wait a quarter of an hour, because
Fiona was late. People were queuing, walking past me licking the
creamy cones, and it seemed to me suddenly that ice-cream was
one of life’s compensations. Buying one was seizing the day. Everyone died eventually, and perhaps one of the things they’d
regret was all the ice-creams they hadn’t bought. I virtually ran up to the van and ordered a large cone with a piece of chocolate flake
stuck into it. Then I ate it as if I’d never had an ice-cream in
my life.
When Fiona arrived, she looked unusually untidy. There was actually a small tomato stain on the front of her turquoise
sweatshirt, and her hair was tied back with a shoelace. She looked
like she had had the baby already and had succumbed to the tender, exhausting chaos. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to walk very far,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m so bloody tired. And it’s so
hot!’
It wasn’t all that hot, actually, but naturally I didn’t say this. ‘Are you sure you really want to go for a walk?’ I asked.
‘Of course I do,’ she said, somewhat brusquely. Then she
added, ‘Look, when the baby is born, don’t go on about whether
it looks more like me or Zak. I hate that kind of stuff.’
‘OK,’ I said slowly. Fiona can be a bit grumpy, very
occasionally, but this was a whole new level. She was scowling furiously.
‘So let’s start this walk, shall we?’ she announced, striding
ahead of me. ‘And don’t get pissed off if I suddenly have to pee.’
She was in such a foul mood that I expected her to pee in the
middle of the promenade if she felt like it. It must be the
hormones.
‘I hate it when people start comparing noses and eyebrows,’ Fiona hissed. ‘A baby is just a baby. He or she doesn’t have to look like anyone in particular.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ I agreed, deciding to let her get on with it. I also
decided not to tell her about the dream I had last night, in which
I was giving birth myself. I was panting and groaning and heaving, and sweat was coming off me in buckets. At last it was over. ‘What
is it?’ I asked Diarmuid, flushed with exhilaration. ‘Is it a boy or a
girl?’ He held my hand tenderly, his eyes brimming with tears of
joy. ‘Oh, Sally, darling, it’s a mouse. A beautiful white boy mouse.’
And the weird thing was, I wasn’t even that surprised.
‘They always say the baby has someone’s smile,’ Fiona
continued. ‘I hate that too. The baby has his
own
smile. The baby
is an individual.’
‘Indeed,’ I agreed. All this was reminding me rather too clearly
of April’s arrival and how we all gawped at her.
‘I’ve told Erika she has to stop this thing with Alex,’ Fiona is
now telling me. She’s sitting on a bench and panting. Her legs are
sprawled out in front of her. She is making absolutely no attempt
at decorum.
‘It’s hard to know what to say to her,’ I sigh, sitting down beside her.
‘No, it isn’t,’ Fiona snaps. ‘She’s being idiotic. He’ll never leave
his wife. They never do.’
‘But they behave as if they might,’ I say. ‘And he does seem to
have a lot of the… the qualities she’s been looking for.’
‘I won’t talk about him any more when she phones,’ Fiona says. ‘I simply won’t encourage it.’
I look at some chewing gum on the ground. I thought
pregnancy was supposed to make women placid. What’s hap
pened to the sweet, understanding Fiona – the Fiona who knows
that people can want all sorts of things they shouldn’t?
She gets up, arduously, and places a hand on her back. We set
off on our walk again. It seems to me Fiona shouldn’t be walking;
she should be at home, watching something silly and escapist on
the television. Maybe she sometimes takes this self-discipline stuff
just a bit too far. I assume she’ll get round to my marriage at any
moment. Heaven knows what she’ll say, but it is unlikely to be
flattering. If Diarmuid were to be as bolshie as Fiona’s being just now, I’d find it far harder to forgive. Why do we expect so much
more from lovers and husbands than from friends?
The pier is suddenly full of brisk walkers, people who do this
kind of thing regularly and at a certain time; people who know
the benefits of sea air and exercise. Dublin’s proximity to the sea
is one of its greatest comforts, especially now that the city has got
so sleek and modern and uppity. There is still this space where things are as they have always been; this great expanse of water, w
ith the tall, striped towers of the Pigeon House in the distance.
We rely on so many things to remain unchanged, but so few of them do. We so often base our lives on things that are bound to alter.
Fiona sits down on one of the benches again and says, ‘I think
I’ll just take a breather.’ She is puffing and panting. I smile at her.
Suddenly I hope with all my heart that her baby is healthy and
bonny and doesn’t drive her demented by screeching at all hours
of the night. I feel protective of her. I wonder what I would do if
she started her contractions here, now, on this pier. I would
probably mutter something about deep breaths while I sum
moned help. Just for a moment, I feel a small surge of panic.
This subsides when Fiona gets up again and we resume our
walk. She seems unusually preoccupied this evening. I almost ask
her what’s on her mind, but another look at her face tells me she
isn’t quite ready to speak about it, whatever it is. It’s probably normal worries, worries that anyone who is expecting a baby might have. Any minute now the calming baby hormones will kick in again, and she’ll be serene and smiling and glowing.
A young couple walks past us. They are so close together, pressed against each other’s bodies. His arm is around her back
protectively. She has a daisy chain in her hair. She is laughing, and
he is watching, drinking in the look and the smell of her – the shape of her mouth, the goofy, incomparable sweetness of her gummy teeth. She is everything to him in that moment. The diamond on her finger sparkles.
I cannot bear to watch them. It is petty and miserly of me to
turn away; but it’s just that I’ve never had that. I’ve never had that
closeness with anyone. I don’t even know how it’s done. How can
people become so unselfconscious – lost to everyone except each
other, sealed so blissfully in that sweetness? It’s what I always wanted most, and what I grew to know I’d never find.
And the thing is, I never knew I wanted this icing so much until
I
married Diarmuid. It loosened something inside me – all the dreams I thought I’d tucked away and sensibly forgotten. I will
have to forget them again somehow. I must find a way. Because
then I will be the Sally I knew again, and not this bewildered stranger.
Fiona seems to be gulping. I look at her with consternation.
We’re not even near a bench. ‘What is it, Fiona?’ I take her arm.
‘Oh, Sally…’ Her eyes are wide and plaintive. ‘Did I make you
marry Diarmuid?’
‘Why on earth would you say that?’ I exclaim. ‘Of course you
didn’t!’
‘But you caught the bouquet at my wedding. I wanted you to catch it. I threw it in your direction.’
‘Erika made a grab for it too.’ I smile. ‘This is nonsense, Fiona.
Surely you must see that.’
‘But you felt left behind when I married Zak. I know you did.
You said, “All our friends are married now, apart from me and
Erika.” You sounded so lonely. That’s why I said I was sure you’d
meet someone soon – and you did. I planted the idea in your head.’
‘Stop it, Fiona,’ I scold. ‘My marriage is not your responsibility.
Believe it or not, I made the decision myself.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ I pat her back. We are approaching another bench.
‘Let’s sit down for a while,’ I coax. ‘And then let’s go to your house. I bet you have some scrumptious moussaka or chocolate cake just waiting to be devoured.’