‘It feels… peaceful, I think,’ Naomi says. Sadness and gladness wrestle for dominion over her facial features. She wipes her tears, looking at them on her fingertips. ‘God, I hope she comes back soon.’
All I can do is smile at this. ‘You deserve it, Mama,’ I tell her. I want to talk to her so much about what really happened with Johnny and me. I can never find the words, and Naomi never pushes, probably believing that I will talk in my own good time.
I just about make it back to my room before my own tears come. I lie down and screech into a cushion, biting down on it until the fabric has teeth marks and my mascara all over it.
An hour later, I’m all cried out, cleaned up and refilled with resolve. There’s a table in a vegan restaurant in Kensington, by all accounts a favourite haunt of Ted’s, with my name all over it.
20
Jodie wants to meet for a coffee in Yorkville, near her office. The early December snow is starting to fall, making the rows of cute Victorian redbrick buildings seem even prettier. I love breathing in the air, which seems colder and crisper than in London.
The cafe is full of trendy breastfeeding mums who wrangle toddlers and sip coffee over the heads of their sleeping BabyBjörn kids. My skin itches with irritation. Jodie doesn’t seem to notice them.
Jodie is all business, talking about her agency, and the boss she eventually plans to overthrow, whom she calls ‘Dryballs’ for some reason. I didn’t have her down for a blue-sky thinker underneath the hipster haircut and rockabilly shirts, but here we are. I’m only half listening because one of the young top-knotted mums at the table next to us has put herNew Yorkertote bag down on the chair in between our tables. She smells, arrestingly, of Body Shop Dewberry. Something snaps. I want out of this simmering envy.
Before I can engage my brain fully, I hear my mouth in action. ‘Sorry, would you mind moving your status anxiety symbol off that chair? A friend of ours is coming soon.’
There is no friend coming soon. The top-knot woman is so serene, she either doesn’t hear me, or is choosing toignore me. And then, of course, I am envious afresh at precisely how few fucks she has to give around the likes of me. Part of me hates myself for it, for stooping so low.
Jodie is looking at me as though I’ve just sicked a fully formed walrus up out of my throat.
‘What the heck was that?’ she whispers.
It’s only afterwards that my synaptic pathways fuse together, after years in rusty decrepitude, and I remember. The fucking Dewberry.
Just as we do every Saturday, and like every other thirteen-year-old in Northside Dublin, Jilly and I take a bus to Grafton Street to our personal mecca, the Body Shop. This is what amounts to a hobby for us. While the shop assistants aren’t looking, we grab handfuls of Dewberry body lotion and smear it on our arms, our stomachs. We feel the bath pearls and the soaps that look like oversized jewels under our bitten-nailed fingers. We huff the Blue Ice shampoo and Fuzzy Peach perfume oils. We even, on occasion, manage to get some handfuls of body lotion down our baggy jeans and on to our bums. ‘Surely that’s four pounds’ worth of cream on me now!’ Jilly squeal-whispers. I buy a kiwi lip balm for my pencil case, and a can of Japanese washing grains. Not having to use my mum’s Aapri pads any more already feels like a big, grown-up step.
I arrive home, swinging my little green plastic bag as I walk through the front door, to an unfamiliar scene. The first thing I notice in the sitting room is the whiskey bottle and mugs in the middle of the coffee table. The room has a blanket of cigarette smoke hanging weightless and imposing in the air. My mother is crying. Mrs Carson’s arm is around her shoulder. Patrick, my dad’s boss, stands in the fireplace,hands behind his back. They all stiffen at the sight of me and my little green Body Shop bag.
‘Esther, love, we need to have a talk about something,’ says my tearful mum as the room tilts a bit. I see myself from the outside, a child star playing a role in a serious, adult drama.
‘Your dad was in an accident at work,’ Mum is saying. ‘There was a heart attack, we think. We won’t know everything for a while. But he’s gone. He’s died.’
‘What dad…’ I say, trying to piece it all together.
‘What fucking dad,’ my mum laughs sadly, mockingly. ‘How many do you have?’
‘Joanie, she’s just trying to take it all in,’ Mrs Carson says gently. I can’t bring myself to tell them that my insides are flush with gladness. No more shouting! No more times where Dad hits Mum and Mum sometimes hits Dad back but mainly doesn’t.
Almost immediately, I turn the evil thoughts of relief inward, shamed.
Christmas has now come and gone with blessedly little fanfare in this house: 25 December is a regular day on the calendar– Naomi visited David’s parents to observe Hanukkah a few days prior– but even though the Holidays are happening right outside the door, the lack of Christmas chat is giving me little time to wonder about what my mother, or Johnny, or Carrie are up to. Every so often, the pang of guilt about mum spending Christmas on her own surfaces. I vow to make it up to her next year.
But as Naomi and I ease into the afternoon, chatting about where to buy clothes and nice shoes, I can’t bat away the thought that in another life, this very normal day weare having would have been my baby’s second Christmas. Santa stockings and baby elf costumes. All those gurgles and smiles, lit by fairy lights. Is Johnny thinking the same way? Maybe he and Melanie are having the time of their lives somewhere in London, cosy and content and not giving me a second thought.
Naomi doesn’t notice the sadness, or ask about Christmas. For that, at least, I am grateful.
Naomi does want to know more about living in London.
‘I’ve never lived anywhere but here,’ she admits. ‘I always thought when I was a kid that I’d like to go live in New York, or maybe Seattle, but that never happened. I was always just OK here.’
‘“OK” sounds pretty good to me,’ I tell her. ‘I wasn’t OK though. I was restless. Couldn’t wait to get going.’
I tell her about my very first night in London with a shudder. ‘Wet behind the ears doesn’t even begin to describe it. It was this hostel in Bayswater, with four bunk beds in it,’ I tell Naomi. ‘It was a brutal couple of months. The loneliest time of my life.’ I swallow back down the next words: ‘until recently’.
‘There’s a lot to be said for fresh starts though,’ I tell her. ‘I mean, I feel like Benjamin Button, just by being here.’
Naomi stiffens. ‘I thought you were here on vacation? For a couple of months?’
