Again, Rachel, page 11
‘We can afford it,’ Dad said.
‘Yes, but –’
‘And we’ve finalized the menu.’ Mum spoke over Margaret. ‘Asparagus to start, beef for the main course –’
Helen groaned long and loud. ‘Just how tragic can one woman be. Asparagus is the fanciest thing you can imagine?’
Hotly, Mum said, ‘Asparagus is a seasonal delicacy and if we don’t serve beef, they’ll say we’re poor or mean.’
‘We must serve beef,’ Dad echoed.
‘There are nicer things that cost more, if that’s your yardstick,’ I said. ‘Is there a vegetarian option?’
‘None of my relations are vegetarians.’
‘I’m a vegetarian and I’m your daughter.’
‘You’re not a vegetarian, you’re just a notice-box. Eat the potatoes and vegetables. Or bring a KitKat in your handbag.’
‘We should have a vegetarian option,’ Dad said. ‘I’ll ring them tomorrow.’
‘On your head be it. Now, girls, the dessert! We’re having a chocolate mousse with real gold leaf on it. I had it once in that restaurant in New York – remember? Where Dad got food poisoning –’
‘Which time?’ I asked. Dad got sick whenever he left Ireland – something always went wrong. We were such a neurotic family.
‘It was a lovely place,’ Dad said. ‘It wasn’t their fault.’
‘Well, if it was food poisoning, it kind of was,’ Helen said.
‘Maybe it wasn’t actual food poisoning –’
‘It’ll be gas,’ Mum mused. ‘Those bitches won’t know whether to eat it or bring it home!’
‘How about we have a special cocktail made for the night,’ Claire said. ‘We could name it after you.’
‘That’s a great idea!’ Dad said.
Mum considered it, then shook her head. ‘They’d say I was showing off.’
‘I suppose they would.’ Dad seemed disappointed.
God almighty, the world Mum inhabited had complex, illogical rules. I’d never understand them.
15
‘Off you all go now,’ Mum said. ‘Dad and I need to watch our show.’
‘Rachel, come to ours for dinner?’ Margaret offered. ‘Garv is making enchiladas.’
It was an attractive offer. Margaret, Garv and their two children, JJ aged fifteen and Holly aged thirteen, were a lovely family – very harmonious. A calm household where there was always homemade cake in a tin, armloads of wildflowers bursting from vases, and stacks of elderly Agatha Christie novels waiting to be read.
Of all of our homes, Margaret’s would be the best in which to recover from a nervous breakdown.
In the bleak days after I’d sold the apartment Luke and I had owned and left New York, I’d lived there for five months. In the most gentle way, that little household had kept me going. If ever I was flat on my back, staring at the ceiling, wondering about the point of anything, a light rap would sound on my bedroom door and somebody would ask for my help to make a casserole or walk the two elderly dogs or rake a flower bed.
It was where my love of gardening ignited. Margaret’s husband Garv had me out there every weekend, weeding, composting and planting. Obediently I was going along with it, half-heartedly enjoying myself, until one Sunday morning, he said, ‘Something to show you.’ Drawing my attention to an expanse of wildflowers pushing their way up through the soil, he said, ‘The seeds you put down seven weeks ago? This is what happens.’
To say I was impressed was an understatement. This, my first time to witness the cycle of life in such a fashion, was a revelation which affected me deeply, because we Walshes had grown up to shun the Outside, mostly because the lead on the telly didn’t stretch that far. The small back garden beyond our kitchen window was a frightening, unpredictable place, which we all agreed was best avoided.
But on that Sunday morning with Garv, I’d exclaimed, ‘Let’s plant more! What grows the quickest?’
He’d laughed and said he’d find out. Then I’d told him not to, that I really needed to work on my desire for instant gratification.
It was hard to believe there had been a time when I’d despised Garv, when all of us had – with the exception of Margaret, of course. But things change and these days Garv might even have been my favourite brother-in-law – it was between him and Adam. He was such a good man.
‘Enchiladas?’ Margaret repeated.
‘Thanks, but …’ I checked my phone. Still nothing from Kate. ‘I’ve to go home. Crunchie needs to be walked.’
Kate was great at providing back-up but at the end of the day, Crunchie was my dog.
Still, I lingered, then heard myself say, ‘You know, I can’t stop wondering if Luke actually asked Joey to tell me?’
‘Maybe you should have gone to Justin’s lunch.’ Out loud, Claire uttered the thought that had been plaguing me.
Maybe I should have. It had been my one chance to get answers. But perhaps if I’d gone, I’d be even more conflicted than I already was.
‘Is it too late?’ Margaret, ever practical, asked. ‘To see him now, I mean. He’s probably staying with his dad; you could go to his house.’
‘No!’ Helen exclaimed.
But it was tempting. The full weight of six years of silence upended themselves and fired me with adrenaline. The fizzy possibility of knowing was so alluring!
But what if Joey had called me off his own bat? What if Luke had been horrified to see me in the church – because God knows, he’d looked it? What if I turned up on his doorstep and he treated me with the same callous indifference he’d displayed when he’d left me?
No. No way. There was zero chance I’d risk that scenario. Which made me glad. It meant I’d changed, that I was no longer a desperate mess but a solid woman who knew her own worth.
‘Don’t go anywhere near that asshole.’ Helen was fierce. ‘Come home with me and have a three-way with Artie.’
‘Now there’s an offer!’ Mum said, warmly.
‘Or we could get pizzas and watch stuff?’ Helen said. ‘Whatever you want. Just don’t start driving around Dublin looking for Luke Costello.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Everything’s been all stirred up by going to that funeral, but it’ll settle down again soon.’
At home, Crunchie tried to jump out of her fur with delight when she saw me.
Out we went, for a quick turn in the woods near our house, and even though it was nearly seven, it wasn’t fully dark yet. The clocks would be going forward in two weeks’ time; spring was definitely on the way.
Back at the house, I got my iPad, flung myself on the couch and clicked straight onto Luxury Exchange to gaze at the pre-loved Chanel shoulder bag I was currently consumed by. My life had no room for something so ladylike – or so shockingly expensive – but I kept zooming in on the beautiful blue calfskin, so soft and squishy that I wanted to actually bite it.
From there I went to the RealReal and found two similar bags, then to Vestiaire, where there were dozens of little leather beauties, all of them way out of my price range. Clicking and scrolling, I was suspended in the happiest state of loved-up longing.
I was never not prone to obsessions but thanks to the discomfort churned up by Luke, I was extra keen for the dopamine hits generated by those beautiful bags.
At least I know what I’m doing, I told myself robustly. Then, All the same, I’d better stop. Before I actually buy one of them.
Because it wouldn’t make the longing go away. Paradoxically, it would make it worse.
I suffered from the Disease of More – if one of something was good, then ten was excellent. If a recipe said half a level teaspoon of cumin, I put in a heaped tablespoon; if I bought one unbearably wantable bag, I’d want twenty more immediately.
So I forced myself away from the calfskin and popped over to Vulture, looking for new Netflix recommendations, and from there to Mr Fothergill’s Flower Seeds, where I bought ten packets of hollyhocks when two would have done, then onto the Atlantic, mixing culture and commerce in a way that was profoundly enjoyable.
Yes, I knew I was actually enslaved to my device, yes, I had lost literal weeks of my life to it, when I could have learnt conversational Tagalog or trained as a humanist minister, but I always had such a lovely time that it was hard to mind.
Before bed, I lit a candle and set the timer on my phone – I was giving meditation yet another go. Surprisingly, considering all that was going on, my mind actually stilled. I was delighted. Then, ruining it, a memory popped up, vivid and complete, of a July afternoon, in Connemara, over a decade ago.
Ah, for God’s sake!
Not long after Brigit and Colm had moved into their spectacular glassy home, Luke and I had visited.
Back then, the astonishing house was still partially under construction. As Luke asked, the moment we arrived, ‘How was it possible to build anything here at all?’
Beyond the giant windows of Brigit’s kitchen, it looked as if a perfect landscape had been torn apart and reassembled in any old fashion. Nothing was level out there, nothing.
‘Oh my God, stop!’ Brigit said. ‘I cried every day for seven months. Every. Single. Day. Living with my in-laws, going round the bend. A miracle Colm and I survived.’
Five sheep, coolly chewing grass in a field that was almost vertical, watched us without curiosity. Small, gnarled trees, their ancient branches spotted with moss, sprouted from the land at head-meltingly unlikely angles.
‘Your bedroom is actually finished,’ Brigit said. ‘But, as you can see, the rest of the place …’ She gestured around at the raw concrete walls. ‘… which is where you come in.’ Solemnly, she gave me a paint roller.
‘Anything for me?’ Luke asked.
‘Oh yeah! How does laying floorboards sound? We’ve hired an electric saw.’
Luke’s eyes lit up. He loved electric tools.
It was a magical week, toiling alongside Brigit and Colm, their two little boys trying to get in on the act. The work was hard, but gloriously rewarding, every day punctuated by a ten-minute walk to the stony beach for a reviving dip in the Atlantic.
Evenings were passed hanging out in the ‘garden’, talking, laughing, watching swifts circle overhead, black against the otherworldly Connemara summer light, where it never got fully dark.
‘So what’ll you do when the house is finished?’ I asked one night after dinner. ‘What’s your next project?’
‘Another baby,’ Brigit said.
‘And I suppose we’d better get married,’ Colm said.
‘Is that … a proposal?’ Brigit asked.
‘Well … why not.’ Colm shrugged. ‘Be easier for the kids when they go to school.’
‘Now that’s a story for the grandkids.’ Luke was highly entertained.
‘What about you two?’ Brigit nodded at Luke and me. ‘Any plans to …?’
‘We’re fine.’ I was brief.
A couple of times, Luke had asked me to marry him and I’d talked him out of it. My excuse was feminism, but really it was good, old-fashioned superstition. My life was as good as it could possibly get – what Luke and I had was too precious to risk by looking for more.
On our last day of that perfect week, Colm, Brigit and the kids had to go to the bright lights of Galway city on some official business. Luke and I decided to walk the boundaries of the property.
At the far edge of Brigit and Colm’s eight acres was an expanse of limestone, shaped like a shallow bowl, perhaps ten metres by twenty. With the strangled trees and the total absence of signs of human life, it was almost too much for me. ‘It’s like being on another planet.’
A sound interrupted us. A splash. Startled, we looked down. Water was gushing up from the cracks between the rocks, as if from a burst pipe.
‘What the –’ Frightened, I moved away, as water spouted from a wider expanse of the land, then from all around us. We seemed to be in the centre of whatever this was. ‘Luke! What’s going on? We’d better …’ What? Ring the authorities? But this wasn’t anything as civilized as a burst pipe. Was it natural or … supernatural? I couldn’t be sure.
‘It’s okay.’ Luke seemed excited as he moved us to higher ground. ‘I think I know what this is.’
Bamboozled, frightened, I watched as a pool began to form.
‘It’s a disappearing lake.’ Luke sounded full of wonder. ‘Colm told me about it. Beneath us is a source of water.’
‘Right underneath us?’ Quickly, I stepped back.
‘The rock is porous. Sometimes enough water bubbles up to fill the hollow. It creates a temporary lake.’
‘What if it doesn’t stop? And we all drown?’
He just smiled.
‘We should get Colm,’ I said.
‘He’s in Galway. Babe, there’s nothing to be afraid of. This is … miraculous.’
Astonishingly quickly, the hollow became a pool. Before long, it was deep enough, if you’d wanted, to swim a few strokes in. Reflecting the sky, the water was an intense turquoise, with a strange opaque quality.
‘Why does it look milky?’
‘Sediment,’ Luke said. ‘Minerals. Calcium.’
It was too logical an explanation – all of it – for this very strange event.
‘It’s years since this last happened,’ Luke said.
‘Why is it happening now?’
Again, he just smiled – beguiled by it all. Slowly my fear turned into awe.
‘It’s weird,’ I admitted. ‘But … it’s good weird?’
He laughed in delight. ‘It’s amazing. You were right earlier. We could be on another planet. I could be the last man on earth.’
‘In that case, lucky me.’
And I thought, If you asked me now, I’d say yes.
I turned, about to tell him – but he saw whatever was written on my face and laughed softly. ‘Really?’
‘Ask me. Say the words.’
‘Rachel Walsh, will you marry me?’
‘Yes, Luke Costello, I will marry you.’
16
‘Hi,’ I said to the perfectly groomed young woman, ‘I’m here to pick up Nick Quinlivan.’
‘Of course! I just need to see your ID. Perfect! I believe his plane landed a few moments ago. Valeria will take you through.’
Valeria was even more alluring than her colleague: radiant skin, shiny hair swept up into a heavy bun and such a dazzling smile – almost too much beauty for this early on a Sunday morning. Although I was guessing that in the rich-person, private-plane universe, it was always 2.45 a.m. in a nightclub.
‘This is your space.’ It was a small, tasteful sitting room, the kind they have in boutique hotels. ‘What may I get you? Champagne? Mimosa?’
‘Erm … no thanks, I’m fine.’
‘Or something to eat? Seriously, our chef can make you anything. She’s just itching for the chance.’
When I shook my head, she laughed. God, she was a doll.
‘Loving your willpower,’ she told me. ‘Mr Quinlivan should be with you shortly.’
I sat on a beautiful low armchair. Lovely. Then I swapped to the couch. Even lovelier. A bowl of fresh fruit – perfectly ripe bananas, lustrous grapes and giant, shiny apples – sat on the coffee table. It would be okay to eat whatever I wanted but I’d feel bad about disrupting the perfect proportions.
Even more tempting were the boxes of handmade chocolates stacked on a shelf. But if I started on that lark, who knew where it would end? With me trying to break into the Cadbury factory in Coolock, probably. (I could do nothing in moderation. Nothing.)
I eyed the fridge, wondering what was inside. Milk, maybe. And butter. Boring basics. All the same, it continued to exert a draw. I love other people’s fridges – they’re often exciting places, much more so than, say, store cupboards (chickpeas and their dull ilk).
The thing was, I was very nervous. Sometime yesterday, I’d gone hot-cold at the realization that there was a chance of bumping into Luke today. A small chance, admittedly, because only rich people or their lucky employees used this private terminal.
Also, I’d no idea when he was flying home. But they got so little time off work in the US, even for bereavements, that I couldn’t imagine him sticking around for much longer than today. Tomorrow at the very latest.
Which meant that by tomorrow night, I could exhale – even though I knew I’d also feel disappointment and a devastating sense of anticlimax. That’s feelings for you. Irritatingly contradictory.
To calm myself, I listed out the good parts of my life, things that I knew to be facts. I was drug-free and well, had a job I loved, good friends, a peculiar but loving family and I was in a healthy relationship with a good man.
Quin and I were quite different people but we had such fun. Even when we disagreed, it was always good-humoured.
He was interested in me – my opinions, my thoughts, everything. He was in my corner, in a major way.
And I fancied him. Unlike Brigit, Claire and Brianna at work, the suggestion of sex didn’t make me exclaim, ‘Jesus Christ, isn’t my life shitty enough! I collapse into bed after an absolute arse of a day and then he shows up, jabbing his lad at me! He’s nearly fifty! Can somebody please tell me, when does it stop?’
Mind you, I was far from smug about this. My libido still flickered with regular life because Quin and I didn’t live together. But if I moved in with him, I knew that the very second I’d lined up the last of my trainers on the floor of the wardrobe, I’d start yelling, ‘Birthdays, Christmas and our anniversary! Any other night of the year? Don’t even think about it!’
I was fairly sure that I loved Quin but I hadn’t – yet – told him, because those words shouldn’t be thrown around until I was absolutely certain I meant them.
The thing was, the way I felt about Quin was very different to how I’d felt about Luke. After Quin and I had been seeing each other for maybe four or five months, he’d pinned me down about it.
‘What’s the difference between me and your ex?’ he’d asked. ‘Be honest, Rach. I want to know what I’m dealing with here.’
‘Luke was like …’ Carefully, I picked my way through the words, trying to be accurate. ‘… a French sauce that’s been reduced and reduced.’
