‘I can drop Laura home, or to pick her car up,’ Niamh says, ‘but only if you really, really don’t want us to stay because I think I speak for us both when I say we really don’t mind doing so.’
‘I love you both for it, but go and get some rest. I don’t know how much I’ll need you over the coming days…’ I don’t finish the sentence. There are too many variables right now and I don’t want to investigate any of them too closely.
Finally they agree to leave, but only when I promise to keep them updated regardless of what hour of the day or night it is.
As we hug, a part of me wants to be that sixteen-year-old girlagain. The hopeful, optimistic eejit who dreamed of living a wonderful, happy life and never really thought about all of the scary stuff that no adult can avoid. Part of me wishes I could click my heels together (a pair of ankle boots from Next and not a ruby slipper in sight) and mutter that there really is no place in this whole world like home. But instead of being a place, home would be people. Three friends yet to go out into the world and take all it threw at us.
30
THE LAST STRAW
Laura
‘Well this sucks absolute arse,’ Niamh says as Laura gets into the passenger seat of her car and they set about driving back to McDonald’s to retrieve hers.
‘It’s not how I was expecting this evening to go,’ Laura says, clicking her seatbelt on. ‘Poor Becca. And Ruairi. And the boys. And Mrs Burnside, of course.’
‘It can’t be easy for you either,’ Niamh says. ‘Being so close to your mum’s anniversary. I’m sure emotions are pretty raw right now.’
Laura feels tears prick at her eyes and her throat tighten. She nods, not trusting herself to speak. No doubt whatever she said would come out in the vocal range of a teenage boy whose voice was breaking. Laura O’Kane is not a dignified crier.
‘I hate it,’ Niamh says. ‘I hate everything about it.’
Laura just nods again, as tears spill down her cheeks. She’s cross at herself for crying. It’s not like it’s her mother who is inthe hospital right now. She isn’t the person deserving of sympathy.
To her surprise, Niamh switches off the car engine and unclicks her seatbelt. ‘C’mere, Laura. I think you need a hug.’
I do, Laura wants to scream.I really do. But instead she just turns in her seat and lets Niamh hug her while she sobs until she is not sure she can sob any more.
‘You know we love you, don’t you?’ Niamh asks her, but doesn’t wait for a reply before continuing. ‘I know you’re feeling all over the place and trying to work out your place in the world, but we love you very much. That doesn’t seem enough to say, but we want you with us. I know Becca feels the same.’
Laura nods. She does know. She thinks. But this is about so much more than that.
By the time Laura gets home, it is fast approaching midnight. Exhausted, she is so beyond ready to climb into bed that she even considers being a complete slattern and not brushing her teeth or taking her make-up off. She’s even tempted to sleep in her clothes and not change into her pyjamas, but Aidan would be absolutely horrified to find her like that in the bed beside him.
Expecting to find that everyone else has gone to bed, Laura is surprised to find all the lights on downstairs, the TV playing a vintage episode ofLaw & Order SVU– which is Robyn’s current binge watch. There is no obvious sign of her daughter though, so Laura wanders through to the kitchen sure she will find her making toast or raiding the biscuit jar.
The lights might be on but the kitchen is empty. It’s a bomb site, mind. Robyn clearly has been making toast, as the butterand jam lying on the worktop along with crumb-covered knives and toast sweat indicate. An open loaf of bread spills its contents with no concern to losing its freshness. There is a soggy teabag plopped on the dish drainer, tea seeping from it onto the shiny white enamel. The sink is full of unrinsed, never mind unwashed, dishes stacked up as if a modern art take on Jenga, and there are two of Laura’s best non-stick pots still on the hob – both bearing the marks of whatever overcooked dish her loving family had cooked in her absence. As her mother would’ve said, the arse is burned out of them.
Laura starts, instinctively, to tidy up, burying the rage that is growing within her. This is something she has to do with increasing regularity. It’s impossible not to worry she is turning into one of those angry mother characters that appear in TV sitcoms, or on TikTok skits. The shows and skits that lampoon the craziness of menopausal women, gaslighting them all into believing they are unreasonable, borderline insane harridans rather than looking at all the bullshit women of a certain age have to contend with.
So much is expected of women – so very much – and most of it taken for granted. Is it any wonder, Laura thinks, that women are angry? Is it any wonder she is angry and increasingly so? Why she is questioning the people in her life and what they bring to the table? Because it feels, in this moment, that the only thing her family bring to the table is dirty dishes.
When she spots a note on the kitchen island, in her daughter’s handwriting, she tenses. This, she knows before looking at it, will not be a note to tell her how much she is loved and appreciated. It will not be asking what can be done to help ease her burden.
She considers ignoring its very existence but can’t help but look anyway.
Mum! I need my PE gear clean for the morning. I forgot to leave it out for you last week and it absolutely stinks. I’ve put it beside the washing machine. I didn’t know what wash to put on. Can you do it for me please? And hang them up to dry?
Love you!
PS: Dad said he left a couple of shirts there too and if you could just pop them in for him that would be great! Xxxx
Okay, Laura thinks. O-fucking-kay. Until this very moment she had not known what her limit would be but it appears she has just reached it. She stops tidying, leaving the toast sweat and crumbs for whoever will next come into the kitchen. She empties the water she had filled the pots with down the sink. Someone else can take responsibility for soaking them and cleaning them. Yes, she does go to the utility room but only because she knows there is clean laundry there that she hasn’t managed to put away yet. Picking a couple of changes of clothes from the pile that of course no one else would think to carry up the stairs, she puts them in a Tesco Bag For Life retrieved from the storage cupboard. There is no way she is risking going upstairs to her own room to retrieve an overnight bag from the wardrobe. Reaching up to the shelf in the storage cupboard where she, and only she, keeps a stock of toiletries so that her family never runs out, she takes some shampoo, some toothpaste, deodorant and a new toothbrush – and throws them into the Bag For Life too.
She pays no heed to the PE kit by the machine or the shirts her husband has left for her on the floor. They are quite simply not her problem. She refuses to allow them to be her problem.
Instead she gathers together her university files and books, takes the full packet of chocolate biscuits she had hid in theback of the cupboard. She grabs a pen and scribbles a quick message on the back of Robyn’s note. Just two words but they get the message across.
