In twenty minutes, Scarlett arrives at the house and while she is still Scarlett, she is also not. This woman has hollowed eyes, is dressed in very warm clothing, even though it’s late June, and neither hair normake-up were a priority before she left. In short, she looks nothing like my beloved sister.
‘Don’t.’ She holds a hand up as I rush up to her to hug her, ask what happened, comfort her.
I stop.
‘Please. Don’t. I can cope if you are not nice to me or don’t ask anything. You didn’t tell Bridget?’
‘Heck, no,’ I said. ‘She’d cry for a week.’
‘Great.’
This automaton of a sister walks into the house and manages a reasonable performance for our grandmother, who is now into her Saturday evening viewing ofMiss Marple.
I follow Scarlett into the kitchen like a dog and she holds up the hand again.
‘Freya, I can’t talk about it.’
‘But when did he ...?’
‘Yesterday,’ she says tightly. ‘We started to row and he just packed and walked out. That’s it. I can’t say anything else. Go to Mum. Don’t tell her. Not yet. Please.’
I sigh. ‘Fine.’
Gathering up some bottled water and a couple of the energy bars my mother uses when she’s truly exhausted, I text Dan to check in and to tell him that I’m on my way to the hospital to take over and head off.
It’s midnight before I get Eddie back home with his broken wrist in a cast and plenty of medication to be doled out by someone else.
‘He asked could he double up on the tablets if the pain was really bad,’ says the lovely nurse who’s been taking care of him, and is one of the few people he hasn’t been rude to because she got his measure pretty quick. Plus, he appears to fancy her.
‘That’s very Eddie,’ I murmured back at her. ‘If in doubt, take two.’
‘And no whiskey, Mr Abalone,’ she adds sternly, after he’s already offered to take her out for a drink to say thanks, but only hard spirits, none of that girly shite with cocktail umbrellas in it.
Eddie, who is definitely slightly in love, but that could be the painkillers, smiles a very naughty smile.
‘He lives with my mother and she will be in charge of the drugs,’ I say.
‘Did you write down your phone number?’ roars Eddie to her as we head out the door.
‘Eddie,’ I say, ‘you’ve got fifty years on that woman.’
‘Plenty of tunes to be played on an old fiddle,’ he laughs.
I hope it’s the painkillers. It’s not that I’m even slightly against nonagenarian romance but I fear for any poor woman Eddie lusts after.
I finally fall into my own bed at one in the morning and my mind, free of Eddie and his problems, swerves right back to poor Scarlett. It’s so unfair, so sad.
If Life were to give my family any more lemons right now, I’d throw them right back and keep at it ferociously until Life got a black eye, serious bruising and a few broken ribs.
Atta girl, says Mildred.
Over the weekend, news of Jack’s departure filters through the whole family.
Mum, Maura and I, via phone, discuss it endlessly.
‘I would never have seen it coming,’ says Maura. ‘They love each other. They’re like that couple inLove Story– I swear it. Nothing could break them, nothing.’
‘Something did,’ I say and I think that sometimes, the pain of life can just be too much. Look at Eileen in my support group. She’s getting on with life but something has certainly died in her soul with the death of her beloved daughter.
