Wishful Thinking (a journey that will change lives forever) (11 page)

Rosie stared out the window, watching the scenery whiz by as the train travelled towards Dublin.  She had brought a book with her as usual, but try as she might she just couldn’t concentrate – not today, and certainly not after the surprising phone call she’d received the night before. 

She wondered what Sheila would make of it all when she told her.  Sheila was brilliant like that – so perceptive and intelligent, always great for getting to the bottom of things.  Not that what her friend thought mattered that much really, Rosie told herself.  The decision had already been made.

She sighed, trying to feel a bit happier about it all than she did.  How had this happened?  She had thought that her job was done, and done well.  She had thought that her children were finally settled and happy.  How hadn’t she seen it coming? 

But then again, how
could
she have seen it coming?  It wasn’t as though she knew all that much about her children’s day-to-day lives other than what they told her, was it?

Thinking of Sophie, she sighed again, as a familiar sense of disappointment – no,
rejection
– swept over her. 

Since moving into her famous new house in Malahide a few weeks before, Rosie had barely seen or heard from her daughter.  Of course she understood that Sophie would be busy, and moving into a new house was bound to be stressful, but if she would just let
Rosie help!  Not by signing forms and visiting solicitors and the like, but normal everyday help like cleaning and decorating and keeping Claudia occupied while her mother tried to get organised. 

But no, Sophie had insisted that she was fine, that things were going very well, but couldn’t her mother understand that for the moment she just wouldn’t have the time to bring the child for a visit on Sunday afternoons. Instead, she’d need the time to visit furniture stores and garden centres and whatnot.

“But Mum, when everything is done, and we’ve settled in fully, you can always come and visit,” Sophie had said on the phone recently, while fobbing off her mother’s offers of assistance for about the fifth time. 

Rosie supposed she couldn’t blame her – moving into your first house with your husband and child was a huge occasion, and something for the family to savour, but wasn’t she family too?  And hadn’t she heard time and time again that she, Rosie, had made it all possible for them in the first place? 

She shook her head.  Oh, she was being silly, really.  It wasn’t fair of her to hold Sophie and Robert to ransom like that. The whole point of helping out wasn’t to get something back; it was to make someone else happy in the first place, wasn’t it? 

And that after all was what mothers were for.

Rosie snapped out of her trance, realising that the train was about to approach her stop at Blackrock.  She got up from her seat and smiled a brief recognition at the woman standing by the doorway, also waiting to get out here. 

Like herself, the woman usually got off at this stop at around the same time on a Thursday morning – in fact you’d often see the same people getting on and off at the
same station at the same time.  Rosie often speculated about where they might be going and what they might be doing.  Was this particular woman’s visit or errand specific to Thursday mornings, she wondered, or did she take this journey every day?

In Rosie’s case, Thursday morning was her morning for visiting Sheila and also for visiting the hairdresser’s, a lovely place in Blackrock village that, in her opinion, did the best blow-dry in the country. On Thursday mornings between nine and ten, the salon did a special half-price offer, which she usually availed of before heading down the road to Sheila’s for a short visit.  It was a nice morning out, and something she really looked forward to each week.

Her old friend had had a bad run of health in the last year or so, and as a result had moved away from Wicklow to live with her eldest daughter and her young family.  Rosie thought it was lovely the way Gillian had insisted on taking her ailing mother in and looking after her.  She smiled knowingly.  Somehow, she couldn’t quite imagine Sophie doing the same for her, should the occasion arise. 

Rosie would have preferred to visit her friend more than once a week, but at the same time she didn’t want to be annoying Sheila’s daughter, or getting in her way.  But between her own sisters and three very good children, Sheila was never stuck for visitors and, in all honesty, Rosie probably looked forward to these visits more than her friend did.

Today, Sheila looked fresh and well and was sitting up in the living-room reading a book when Rosie arrived.  Gillian let her in, and they all chatted easily together for a while before she left the two friends on their own. Then they settled in for a proper chat.

“So, has the princess held court at her castle yet?” Sheila asked acerbically, referring to Sophie and her refusal so far to let Rosie visit, let alone help.  

“Ah stop it, you,” Rosie said with a slight grin at the ‘princess’ reference.  Sheila had known Sophie since she was a baby, and although her friend would never admit it out loud, Rosie knew that Sheila thought Sophie spoilt and a little selfish.  Despite herself, Rosie couldn’t help but begin to think along the same lines. “She’s just been very busy, and she doesn’t need me in the way.”

“Mmm, she wasn’t too busy to come and ask you to sign your house deeds over to her, was she?” Sheila shot back. 

In addition, Sheila didn’t approve of what Rosie had done for Sophie, holding a similar view to Martin’s in that “we all had to work hard and make sacrifices to afford
our
houses when starting out”.  But Sheila’s children were all well settled with nice places of their own, so she never had to worry about them in the way that Rosie did about Sophie.

Or the way she was worrying now about David.

“I got a phone call from David last night,” Rosie said casually, but her tone let Sheila know that this wasn’t just any call. 

They both knew that Rosie’s son wasn’t exactly the best for keeping in touch, and Sheila had made no secret of her annoyance at David when he’d swanned back to Liverpool immediately after his father’s funeral that time, pleading work as an excuse.  It was true that Rosie didn’t hear from him too often, but it was different with boys – he wasn’t going to be on the phone to his mammy every day of the week, was he? Anyway, as she’d told Sheila time and time again, David had his own life to live and was doing very well over in Liverpool.

Or at least that was what Rosie had thought.

“Oh? How is he?”

Rosie’s brow furrowed.  “He and Kelly are splitting up,” she said, as if admitting something shameful. “I just can’t believe it – they’ve only been married a few years and I thought she was such a lovely girl.”

“You
thought
she was? What happened?  Did she go off with someone else or –”

“I don’t honestly know, but reading between the lines I think so,” Rosie replied sorrowfully.  “All he said was that they’d had a trial separation, which is now looking like a full separation, and probably divorce.” She wrung her hands together in her lap.  “I never saw it coming, Sheila.  I thought they were so happy together, and Kelly was such a dote.”

David’s wife was a pretty, bubbly Scouser who rarely stopped talking and had a lovely warm way about her.  Everyone adored her. 

Rosie recalled her and Martin’s first ever visit to Liverpool a few years back when David and Kelly first got engaged.  While the men went to a game of football, Kelly and her mother – a woman the spit of Kelly in both looks and personality – had insisted on showing Rosie around the sights and taking her shopping.  Rosie had enjoyed herself immensely in the lovely friendly city where everyone seemed eager to chat in the same attractive lilting Scouse tones that Kelly and her mother had. 

Even the shop assistants, upon recognising Rosie’s Irish accent, wanted to know all about her, asking why she was visiting Liverpool and hoping that she liked it – instead of simply grabbing her money without a please or a thank you, as they tended to do in the shops here these days. “And be sure and come and visit us again, love,” they’d insisted, smiling and saying goodbye as she went away with her purchases. 

So touched was she by the genuine camaraderie of the Liverpudlians, that by the end of the trip she had almost felt at home in the place.  When Kelly heard this, she had laughed, gratified that her mother-in-law-to-be had experienced a little of her home city’s famous hospitality. 

Having liked her from the very beginning, it was hard for Rosie to reconcile her own image of Kelly with one of a woman who would cheat on her husband – cheat on David.  But then again, you just never knew, did you?

“Oh, Rosie, I’m sorry,” Sheila soothed, knowing well how much Rosie adored her daughter-in-law. “But if it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be.”

“I know, but that’s only part of the problem,” Rosie said, looking strained and recalling how, having explained that he and Kelly were splitting up, David outlined the rest of his plans.

“So, Mum, I’ve decided to come home,” he’d said and Rosie had almost dropped the phone.

“Home?  Home here to Ireland?”

“Yes … and I was thinking,” and, instinctively, Rosie knew what was coming, “I was thinking I might stay with you.”

“With me?” Rosie parroted.

“Yes.” There was a trace of irritation in David’s tone.  “I’ve just split up with my wife, Mum.  I don’t exactly have anywhere else to go.”

“No, I don’t mean you’re not welcome, or anything like that,” Rosie said quickly.  “It’s just … I’m sorry, love. It’s just come as a bit of a shock to me, that’s all.”

“It’s been hard going for me too, Mum, believe me, but I’ve had a chat with Sophie and she thinks –”

“Sophie?  You’ve already spoken to Sophie about this?”

He cleared his throat slightly.  “Yes, she’s known about it for a while.”

“Oh.” This surprised Rosie.  David and Sophie weren’t close – in fact, they didn’t get on well at all – never had. And Sophie hadn’t said a word about it.  Not that Rosie would have expected her to really. After all, David had probably told her in confidence, but still, this was all coming as such a big shock to her now, it would have been nice to have been more prepared.

But thinking of it now, well, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have David back home and staying with her?   She didn’t see enough of him as it was, and had really missed him when he moved away to Liverpool. 

It really was the perfect solution, she decided then.  David would have a bit of time and space to get back on his feet without having to worry about starting all over again here in Ireland.  God knows, it wouldn’t be easy for him either to buy a place of his own in Dublin, should he decide to stay for good. 

And it would be brilliant for Rosie too, to have another person in the house, someone else to worry about whether the door was properly locked at night, or if the upstairs window had been left open.  Silly little things that Rosie had taken for granted when Martin was there, but were most important while on her own. 

And having David around to chat to would stop her from feeling restless during the dark winter evenings, when she mightn’t get out for as many walks as she did now.  Winter that first year was when Martin’s death had hit her the hardest.  Until then, Rosie had been able to keep busy, going out and about and meeting people down the town and or along the seafront.  But, come winter, it had begun to hit home that she was well and truly on her own.

Still, she thought fondly, she’d managed to get through it – thanks in no small way to a little cocker spaniel called Twix.  The dog had come into Rosie’s life quite by accident.  One evening not long after Martin’s death, Rosie had been feeling very down, and in order to get herself out of it, she’d decided to pop down to the shop and pick up a few bits and pieces – and maybe a bit of chocolate while she was it.  She’d just seen an ad for a Twix bar on the telly and decided that this would go down very well indeed – especially with a nice cup of tea.  On her way down the road, she’d thought she spotted a small animal peeking from behind the bushes but didn’t think too much of it, until, upon reaching the shop, she turned around and spied a little lump of golden fur close on her heels – tongue out and tail wagging vigorously.  The dog was female, obviously a young pup and an adorable little thing.  But she was very likely lost and obviously belonged to someone, seeing as she was clearly purebred and much better-looking than most of the other mongrel-type scamps around the estate. 

The pup waited outside while Rosie was inside the shop, and then accompanied her on the way back to the house, all the time jumping up on Rosie and and nipping playfully at her feet.

The dog looked hungry and, her heart going out to the little thing, Rosie brought her inside and gave her some leftovers from her dinner.  Then, with a wistful goodbye, she put the excitable spaniel out the front and sent her on her way.  No doubt her owners would be frantic looking for her.

But when the next morning Rosie opened the door to the postman and nearly fell over the little dog, it seemed she’d found a new friend.  Over the next few days, she pored over the newspapers in case anyone was looking for her, and put up a few notices in local shops, but no one came to claim the playful doe-eyed spaniel, who by then Rosie had tentatively named ‘Twix’. “It was the first thing I took out of my shopping bag that night, and seeing as it was what brought us together in the first place, I thought it would suit,” she informed her next-door neighbour, good-humouredly.  At the time, little Twix had been a godsend, particularly throughout those long dark evenings after Martin’s death. Without her little friend, Rosie didn’t know how she would have coped.