For Once In My Life

Chapter 45

‘Sharon’s working on a story,’ said Janet, on the reception of the Sandycove Newsletter, peering through the shop windows of her giant blue-rimmed spectacles. ‘She’s exceedingly busy.’ Janet was a combination of guard dog, special protection officer and Deirdre Barlow, but today Kitty was not to be dismissed so easily.

‘It won’t take long.’

‘I’m only to allow people in if it’s a matter of life or death or they come armed with cake.’

Kitty didn’t hesitate. ‘It’s the former, but I can also arrange for the latter…’ She had her hand on the handle of the office door. ‘Thank you…’

Shazza was sitting at her desk, her feet up on another rolling chair, and she was doodling her name on her notebook. She looked up, startled. ‘I am in the middle of a very important story,’ she said. Kitty could see she had been doodling flowers and hearts and her name in block letters with some seriously impressive shading and 3-D effects.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ said Kitty. ‘But this is important…’

She stood in front of Shazza, hands on hips. For a moment, she felt as though she was in someone else’s body, as though she was being dragged around by another far more self-confident woman, like in primary school when you were adopted by the bossy girl in the playground and you discovered the slightly frightening elation of being with someone who barged through life.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Me,’ said Kitty. ‘I was wrong. And I need you to forgive me… Because I miss you and because you’re my best friend. And no one else in the world has a better best friend. And because I was stupid and I am sorry. I don’t want to have another week without my best friend…’

Shazza was still looking at her, and then she smiled… and then she started to cry. ‘I’ve missed you too,’ she said, flinging aside her notebook. ‘Horribly. Which made it worse. I couldn’t understand why you said those things to me…’

Kitty held open her arms. ‘I think I was scared and overwhelmed and… angry at myself for not standing up for myself and somehow finding myself engaged to someone I didn’t want to marry?’

‘Maureen?’ said Shazza.

Kitty laughed. ‘Exactly.’

‘She’s monstrous,’ said Shazza. ‘I don’t blame you for being angry with yourself…’

‘But I’ve told Dave I don’t want to marry him, Annie’s in the hospital, so is Romeo… Dad’s taking him to the vets…’

‘Are they okay?’

‘Annie’s going to be fine, just exhausted. And hopefully Romeo will be…’ Kitty paused, hoping at this precise moment Romeo was being seen.

‘And you dumped Dave?’

Kitty nodded. ‘I finally found out what was missing. Heart and soul. I’m never going to do anything without heart and soul again. And anyway, I just wanted to say how much I admire you. You’re so strong and brave and you put yourself out there and you live life…’

‘Too much…’ Shazza had a wry look on her face.

‘I didn’t understand what you said about you being too much and me being too little, but I do now… it all makes sense. And you’ve been getting on with improving yourself and I have gone all squiggly and all over the place, not understanding that I’ve been hiding all my life…’

‘While I’ve been showing off,’ said Shazza, laughing.

‘Kind of, yes… but I need to be in charge of my life a lot more. All I’ve done is enough to get me through… kept everything neat and organised, but that’s not living… life is messy…’

‘Especially this office…’

Kitty smiled at her. ‘So, I’m asking you to forgive me…’

‘On one condition…’

Kitty felt nervous suddenly. ‘What’s that?’

‘You forgive me for all my criticisms and one-liners, for always getting at you…’

‘You’re forgiven.’

‘So are you…’

They hugged, smiling at each other.

‘It’s been horrible without you,’ said Shazza. ‘I have had no one to talk to, not properly. No one to worry about, no one to nag or to try to make laugh. I’ve really missed you.’

‘Me too.’ They grinned at each other. ‘Look,’ continued Kitty, ‘I don’t suppose you want to help me today… Janet said you were busy.’

‘She always says that,’ said Shazza. ‘It’s her training. She used to work for Alan Sugar back in his Tottenham days and she was trained to always say he was ferociously busy even when he was off watching football, or whatever he did. But I’ve done my report on the parish council meeting, written up a few planning objections, reviewed St Joseph’s national school performance of Oliver! and got tips on the perfect cup of coffee from Man The Van at the harbour for our Sandycove Secrets page…’ She shrugged. ‘So not that busy.’

‘Well, I need to come up with a campaign to sell Sandycove for Welcome Ireland,’ said Kitty. ‘I am going to be giving a presentation tomorrow morning and I need to take photographs, I will write the copy and Hughie can design it all.’

She didn’t have to say any more because Shazza was already retrieving her massive handbag from the coat hook. ‘We’ll go for coffee in Alison’s café and discuss everything,’ she said, pulling on her denim jacket. ‘We’re off for the day, Janet,’ she said. ‘Hold my calls.’

‘Of course, Sharon,’ said Janet. ‘Meetings all day, is it?’

‘Absolutely!’ Shazza and Kitty laughed.

In the café, Kitty took out her notebook, trying to clear her head and focus on the vision that she knew was there. The story she had wanted to tell about Sandycove… she hadn’t known what she wanted to say, but it was about how she felt about life and what was needed to live a good one, and it was love, heart and soul. She’d been living without really thinking about any of them, but they were essential. Everything she had done over the last few weeks was about connecting the three of those elements. Perhaps she had been scared of fully connecting with the world, seeing how raw and vulnerable you could be when you embraced them, but Shazza was still standing, and smiling. The happiest people she knew were the ones who weren’t afraid of loving fully and connecting with their hearts and feeding their souls.

‘So, tell me what you are planning on doing…’ said Shazza, feeding herself the foam from her cappuccino with a spoon.

‘We’ve been asked to sell the whole of Ireland to visitors and to locals,’ explained Kitty, sitting back on her chair. ‘It’s a microcosm of a campaign that can be widened out to include the whole of the country. We’ve been working as a team and haven’t got far and I couldn’t work out what was wrong with it. There was no heart or soul. That was the problem. We forgot about heart and soul… and that’s all you need in life, when you have them, everything works. Everything!’ Her face was shining.

‘Ah…’ said Shazza, screwing up her face in concentration. ‘So you’re going to mention the words heart and soul and bingo! A campaign. Who knew advertising was so easy!’

Kitty laughed. ‘About as easy as journalism…’

‘Oh, but that’s hard…’ said Shazza. ‘Us, nurses and brain surgeons, hardest jobs around…’ She put down her coffee cup.

‘Wait right there,’ said Kitty, taking out her camera phone. ‘Just head in your hands, and look straight down the lens… that’s it… smile? Don’t smile… eyes bright… lovely…’

She kept the background blurred, but Shazza was crystal-sharp, her face as beautiful as ever. Right over her would be the phrase ‘Follow Your Heart’.

Right, to the haberdashery next, to Edith Waters.

But Shazza was already running. ‘Come on,’ she shouted. ‘We don’t have a moment to lose! Heart and soul, we’re coming for you!’