Being at the property coalface of divorcing couples is too instructive. Generally, the more money and prestige people have, the more enraged they get when one spouse ups and leaves. People frequently rely on their homes as barometers of their success in the world.Look at us: big house.Architect-designed extension withfloor-to-ceiling windows and a terrace overlooking the sea/mountains/Italianate gardens. We are fabulous!Until one of them falls in love with another person and packs a suitcase. Or an antique Vuitton steam trunk, whatever.
Jared Quinn and his wife live with their twocollege-going daughters in an exquisite Georgian house on a whole acre in Killiney. It’s a stunning property and hasn’t been on the market since they purchased ittwenty-five years previously. Jared would be leaving the cachet of his address to move in with my sister in hersix-hundred-square-metre apartment withsouth-facing balcony along the river. About three million euros less cachet. I have no idea of what Mrs Quinn looks like or how lovely his two daughters are, but that house is something special.
‘I know all those things,’ she says, as I wriggle into the car, ‘but this time it’s going to be different. He rang first thing this morning. He hadn’t slept, poor darling: he’d had a nightmare.’
Other people’s nightmares are generally boring, but the nightmares of your sister’s married boyfriend are in a class all of their own, particularly during your commute.
Poor April. I know I shouldn’t be on the phone in the car but I can’t face this at home: better to get it done now, so I half listen as I sit in lines of traffic to my turn off.
‘So he’s going to tell her tonight and then come over here.’
I tune back in. ‘Is he telling her before or after dinner?’
‘I, I don’t know. Should it matter?’
‘Before dinner makes more sense because then he can collect his stuff and leave. But after dinner implies everyone sitting down together and –’
There’s a silence and I fervently hope April is seeing the Quinn family sitting around whatever sort of table rich people who live in Georgian mansions eat their dinner on.
Nobody split up during dinner. ‘Pass the salt. By the way, I’m leaving you.’
Cue crashing of precious,lead-bottomed wine glasses. There are far too many items to fling at a departing spouse at meal times. No. I just didn’t see it.
‘Marin, you’re so lucky, you have everything but, this time, I’m going to have it too.’ She hangs up abruptly.
Given the newly organised dinner tomorrow, I should stop off and get some shopping for it, but I’m too worn out. I’ll get up early to shop. I want to go home and hug Joey, Rachel and even Nate, which is a plus, since I was so cross with him this morning.
I can’t help April. Not tonight, anyway. Tonight I have to pick up Joey’s birthday cake, finally ordered at lunchtime, and get the houseballoon-ready for theafter-cinema party tomorrow.
I want it all to beperfect.
15
Bea
There are so many SUVs crowded in the car park of the small cinema where Joey’s birthday will begin, that I think they must be breeding there.
Women with glossy hair, expensive clothes and perfectmake-up are dropping off children, while Marin and Rachel stand at the door counting kids off and putting stickers on their tops. There are some fathers too, which always hurts – imagine having a man to bring Luke places, to be a dad to him, to say: ‘You rest, honey – Luke and I are going off to discuss manly things while walking the dogs.’
I could have that, I think – have been thinking about it a lot lately. Nobody says I have to be alone forever. Shazz and Christie aren’t anymore. But it’s such a leap.
‘Mum, Mum, park there,’ says Luke excitedly, showing me a sliver of a parking space near the door that will fit my small Nissan perfectly and which would never have been big enough for one of the posh cars with their new registrations.
The puppies, Sausage and Doughnut, are in the back of the car, squeaking with the excitement with which they treat every trip out. They’re too little to actually go on a walk, not having had theirthree-month booster shots, but Luke begged me to bring them today, ‘so I can show Joey’.
Sure enough, amid the sea of faces and big cars, Marin sees us. I’ve told her about the dogs and she knows nothing will please Luke more than to show off his birthday present to his friend. Joey races over and is soon in our small car, with Sausage and Doughnut clambering all over him, their little puppy tongues licking as though their life depended upon it. The scent of them fills the car. There’s something about the smell of puppies. A smell of joy and happiness.
‘You’re so lucky,’ says Joey, hugging Sausage close and I see Luke’s face surge with pride. For once, he has something Joey does not, and I let myself breathe out. Who cares if I am cleaning up puppy poop for time immemorial? My son is happy.
Finally, Joey and Luke get out of the car.
‘Can we bring them in, Bea?’ begs Joey and he looks just like Nate – he’s going to be a heartbreaker for sure. Before Nate went out with me, he’d cut quite a swathe through the college. It was one of the reasons I’d broken up with him all those years ago. I never entirely trusted him, but then Marin came along and the rest is history: Nate finally hung up hisbad-boy spurs.
‘You can’t bring the puppies into the cinema, Luke, lovie,’ I say, ‘they’re too little. It’s not safe for them because they haven’t had all their vaccinations – the way you had to have measles shots when you were young. And they’d be bored in the cinema –’
‘– and do poos. They do them everywhere!’ interrupts Luke joyfully. ‘Squelch, poop, squelch.’
Both boys erupt into fits of giggles and I laugh.Hehas not been trying to wash the cream fluffy rug from in front of the fireplace. I swear, that puppy poop was green. It’s like having two small babies running aroundwithoutnappies. I am not sure how I’m going to manage to take care of them and walk them when they’re bigger, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Besides, and the fear hits my heart afresh, what if Laoise is right and there are job losses on the horizon in work? This is not a good hiring economy right now, particularly for lovelypart-time jobs where you share your job with a woman who hasgrown-up children and can help you out if your small son is sick and you can’t come in. Where would I get a job like that again?
