Chapter 3 #2
‘Listen, Al, I was just thinking about you the other day . . . A single friend of mine has just bought herself a two-bed place – why don’t you sell your little one-bed apartment and upgrade to a two-bed, and then you can rent out a room?
It’d be a sacrifice in the short term but you’d have a more valuable asset going forward.
I mean, there’s a lot of building going on so there’s availability and nothing’s going down in price any time soon. ’
They’ve given up on me, she thought. They want me to at least have a gaff I can grow old in so they can stop worrying. I’m the unclaimed treasure left as a warning to twenty-somethings everywhere. And that was without knowing about the Celtic Concrete debacle. Crikey.
‘Oh, I don’t know, Maeve, I think that sounds very stressful.’
She was conscious of Mum looking at her with her head on one side and tutting.
Oh God, everybody please stop focusing on me.
‘Would you not think of doing an MBA?’
‘A what?’
This was pure Damo A-type go-get-’em logic.
Damo eyed her diagnostically as he shovelled a forkful of roast beef and brussels sprouts into his mouth after his fourteen-hour shift spent looking after the dodgy middle-class hearts of South Dublin.
‘You know, it might make you more marketable, help you climb the career ladder. And you never know who you might meet . . . though my mate Terry says they’re all married by now,’ he added crushingly.
She did realise Damo had no notion of upsetting her – it was just that his mindset as a surgeon was geared towards complete objectivity, which made it worse.
Are you crazy? she wanted to yell at them. The career ladder? I’ve just landed on the fucking biggest snake on the board and now I’m flat on my arse at rock bottom. I can’t even imagine getting started again. I couldn’t get started if I was clipped to a set of jump leads.
‘Yeah, well . . . maybe, you never know,’ she muttered and jumped up to start clearing the table, at which point everyone made appreciative noises, though nobody actually offered to help.
In fairness, Damo had started chatting to Dad, who adored keeping up to date about the politics of the cardiac department, and they were both happily engaged in their own bubble.
Ally loitered in the big kitchen, where the range was still throwing out heat and the racing-green cabinets and track lighting gave the space a rich, homely feel.
She was peeling the greaseproof paper off the sides of Mum’s stunning baked American cheesecake made from a Mary Berry recipe.
The golden top had cracked slightly to reveal the creamy texture underneath; sprinkled with glistening strawberries, it would have graced the most professional setting.
Mum really was a stellar housewife and Dad adored her for it.
It felt like every single person in the family was wonderful at their lives, except her.
She could feel the tears brimming and awkward snot began to drip, making her sniff loudly.
Mum had slipped into the kitchen unnoticed.
‘Oh, darling, Daddy doesn’t mean anything when he’s going on about Francis. He’s such a man, he just thinks it’s all over and forgotten.’
‘It’s not that . . .’
It was a bit.
An uncontrollable whoop, like that of a desolate child, rose up in her chest.
‘Come here to me.’ Mum put her arms out and hugged her, as Ally sobbed into the dainty, cashmere-clad shoulder.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . . I was mean.’
For a moment Ally was on the verge of blurting out the whole saga but knew that she might as well set up a public address system, with speakers facing in all directions. Mum was empathetic, but God, discreet she was not.
‘There, there. Tell Mummy, what’s the matter?’
‘It’s . . . it’s . . . just everything,’ she gasped.
‘Would you not give Francis another chance, Ally? He’s the right kind of chap, you know – you could have a good life with him.
Daddy says he still hasn’t found somebody else, but you know, I wouldn’t hang around.
It’s a sad fact, but after the early thirties, girls .
. . well, they have to be sensible . . .
time is marching on. You see, I think that’s the problem with you millennials, you expect so much from life and then wonder why you end up disappointed. ’
‘It’s not that.’
‘All this stuff about who’s your soulmate and who can find your G-spot. That’s all a load of old rubbish. It’s who’ll take out the bins on a rainy January night and who you can look at across the table after forty years and still be glad they’re there.’
G-spots hadn’t even crossed her mind until Mum had mentioned them, which kind of gave the game away. How was it that someone could be trying so hard to be kind but might as well have stuck the cheese knife in her guts and twisted it.
‘I’ll think about it, Mum, thanks. Look I’m going to split . . . please, just say I’m not well.’
And without waiting for a reply, she grabbed her coat from the hall and fled.
* * *
Outside her apartment, she pulled up the car and blew her nose into a tattered fragment of tissue she’d fished out of her pocket.
It wasn’t that she wanted Francis back – or did she?
Had she actually been the idiot and was everyone able to see it but her?
Maybe Mum was right. Had she simply not tried hard enough?
I mean, he was attractive, objectively speaking.
He went to the gym four mornings a week and told her all about the weights he could bench-press – 150 pounds, apparently – which she suspected he was doing to please her, though he never said.
She thought back on sex with Francis. Be fair now, she warned herself .
. . his Tesco underpants (no point in spending money where it won’t be seen), his .
. . restraint (apart from that one time).
But maybe she was the fool that had watched too many episodes of Game of Thrones, full of savage warriors who flung girls to the ground and ravaged them without a by-your-leave.
But that was a dreadful, private fantasy – one you wouldn’t dream of saying out loud to anyone, except Rosemarie, for fear of being cancelled.
Obviously. It wasn’t literally what she wanted .
. . It was just . . . were those the only two options?