‘Try them on.’
Wobbling fawn-like, I waited for Rosie’s verdict. Her beautiful face frowning with concentration. How could I regret any decision I had ever made when I had Rosie to show for it?
‘There’s one thing missing,’ she said. ‘One moment!’ She ran from the room and returned with a pair of hoop earrings which she had borrowed from me and never returned. ‘And these.’ She stepped back while I looped themthrough my ears. ‘Right,’ she said with triumph. ‘You are perfect. Beautiful, actually.’
‘Really?’ I was pathetically grateful for the compliment.
She laughed. ‘One hundred per cent yes. You look like my mum, but different.’ She was the Rosie of a year ago, before this year of exam stress and the end of things with Jake. Smiling, delighted at her success in the fashion makeover.
‘You remindme of Rosaleen,’ I said. ‘I called you after her, you know. Little rose, Rosaleen and Rosie.’
She came over and hugged me and, for a moment, we held each other, as though she was still my little girl and needed one of my long hugs.
‘Rosie?’ I said when we pulled away. ‘Everything okay?’
She nodded. ‘Have a good time, Mum. You won’t be too late, will you?’
I shook my head. ‘Are you worriedabout me?’
‘No. I just… I just like you being at home, that’s all.’
‘I won’t be late, I promise.’
And she smiled as I waved from the front door, those Rosaleen blue eyes.
*
‘You look gorgeous.’ Clodagh eyed me approvingly, swiping two glasses of champagne from a passing tray and handing one to me. ‘I knew you were still in there, under the school-teacher exterior, the old Tabitha lurks.’
‘Shut up, Clodes,’ I said. ‘It’s easy for you. You don’t have to try. Tonight, I am the product of my daughter. Rosie was my stylist.’
‘Well, she did a wonderful job. What’s this?’ I had handed over her present. ‘Oooh…’ She tore off the paper. ‘Pride and Prejudice! Thank you!’
‘It’s a special edition. And read this…’ I said, pulling out a card I’d made.
‘You are invited to a Jane Austen weekendin Bath with your best friend, Tabitha, who, by the way, is paying for everything. Just say the date! Really?’ she squealed. ‘That is the best present ever. Are you sure?’
‘Totally. I can’t wait myself. I thought we could go to Bath for a posh weekend away and have treatments in the spa there and do all things Jane Austen.’ At college, Clodagh was obsessed with Jane Austen and wrote her finaldissertation on female empowerment in the novels of… etc. ‘I mean,’ I said, ‘we can’t not celebrate yourfortiethbirthday! Well, we did, two years ago and it was so good, we should do it all over again.’ Thinking back, that was last time I had had fun.
She laughed. ‘Tab, this is why you’re my best friend. No one in the world knows me like you do. Thank you!’ She clutched me hard. ‘Let’s go inthe autumn. Deal?’
‘Just say the date… my finger is hovering over the Ryanair confirm flights button.’
She smiled and dropped her voice. ‘It’s the perfect trip for two women in their mid-forties…’
‘Mid? Early, surely!’ I dropped my voice significantly. ‘We’re only forty-two.’
‘Whatever, it’s immaterial, really. Just remember, yesterday I was thirty-nine. Tonight I am a mere forty. It’s magic.’
‘Got it. Now, who’s here? Anyone famous, glamorous. I am expecting top-notch celebrities. Some scandal that will end up in the tabloids in the morning.’ I looked around and spotted a couple of famous faces. A few soap stars. A DJ was over in the corner playing music I had never heard before – it certainly wasn’t Johnny Logan. ‘Where’s Max?’
‘Somewhere over there,’ she said, waving a hand vaguely.‘On his mobile probably. Or having a fag.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘No one is meant to know he’s a smoker because I think he thinks it shows weakness. I mean, he isobsessedwith his health. He’s always drinking green slime and worrying about the lines on his face. He doesn’t want people to know his fallibilities.’
I laughed. ‘But he doesdrink, doesn’t he?’
‘Are you mad? You can’t work in themedia and be teetotal. You’d have your NUJ card taken off you.’ She paused. ‘He’s a man of contrasts. But that’s what makes him interesting.’ She paused. ‘Kind of.’
‘Clodagh! Loveen!’ In front of us was a vision of shimmering green. Long red hair cascading over her shoulders, voluptuous curves barely contained. Bridget O’Flaherty. She looked even more amazing in the flesh. Fleshier, really.
