Chapter fourteen

Erin

My desk was my sanctuary – nestled in the corner of the office, close to one of the few windows we had. I didn’t go for the Zen workspace of some of my colleagues – I went for the this-is-my-space approach. I had a handmade clay desk-tidy which Jules had made for me at one of her night classes. I had a picture of Paddy and me, grinning like eejits at each other, in my direct eye-line. I had coloured Post-It notes with inspirational quotes scrawled on them. In my top drawer I had an emergency supply of make-up for touching my face up before any big interview and a spray bottle of Frizz-Be-Gone for particularly humid days. I kept a flat pair of shoes and a heeled pair of shoes in my drawer. My motto, I would joke, was ‘Be Prepared’. Of course Paddy would joke that my motto should actually have been ‘Obsessive Compulsive’ – but I liked to be in control. I liked to know what I was doing and when I was doing it. I liked things black and white. And most of all I liked things the way I liked things. I made no apologies for that. I just wanted a nicelife in perfect keeping with my inner control-freak tendencies. So my workspace was my workspace and when I walked in every Monday morning I liked to know that my pens would all be pointing downwards in the pen jar just as I had left them and that my notebooks would be sitting pointing in the same direction that they had been the previous Friday and that, of course, my drawers would contain the same in-case-of-emergencysupplies.

I smiled at my colleagues as I walked in – nodding towards Grace’s office which was to my right and seeing that she was deep in conversation with our editor in chief, Sinéad. When those two conspired, one of two things happened – something magnificent or something really, really bad. I could cope with the magnificence but not the something really bad. I sat down at my desk, looked atall my personal possessions surrounding me and switched on my computer. I decided it might just be a very good idea to throw myself into my work and not worry about whatever they were up to.

Paddy had still been sleeping when I’d left. He was tired these days – and that worried me as it was only a week till his next cycle of chemo and by this stage he was normally at the bouncing-back stage. Still, I reminded myself, we’d had a busy couple of weeks – the wedding planning was reaching fever pitch. Just the day before we had written out the invitations and, as I sat at my desk, I was aware of them resting in my bag, all stamped and ready to be sent out into the world. I was sure that if he just got a good few days, a bit of calm and quiet, he would feel better. Sure wasn’t I feeling a little bit tired myself?

I keyed in my password, listened to the computer whizz and whirr into life and opened the window beside me to let in some fresh air. I lifted the yoghurt and granola from my bag and tucked in, all the while dreaming of a sausage bap from the shop next door. But, you know, I had a figure-hugging dress to fit into and skin which needed to be glowing and not spot-ridden. I ate my granola while checking my emails and making a few appointments for interviews and then I downed the first of my requisite four bottles of water a day – and all the while Grace and Sinéad were still chatting.

My emails were not yielding a lot to get excited about – but then again it was a Monday morning and things tended to take a little while to get going on Mondays. As usual, everyone seemed to be in a haze of post-weekend lethargy until at least eleven and, had it not been for Sinéad and Grace and their council of war, I might have been inclined to ease myself into the day in the same way.

We were two weeks into the new magazine cycle – about now things should be coming together and the pages of Northern People should be filling nicely. I had a few things underway – our usual fixtures and fittings were done and I had a few features lined up – but I had a feeling I would have to pull something even more remarkable out of the bag now. After all, I was now an award-winning features writer. There was no room for a slack month. Now was not the time to rest back on my laurels. Feeling a headache building, I swallowed two paracetamol from my stash in my top drawer, smiled politely at colleagues who passed by, got my head down and went on with things.

The creak of the door alerted me to the fact that the big meeting was done – followed by Sinéad stalking out of Grace’s office. It wasn’t that Sinéad was scary – it was just that she was, and how can I put this without fear of losing my job . . . uber-efficient. To a point where she did not tolerate gladly anyone who was not as uber-efficient as she was.She smiled in my direction – a brief flash of white – as she passed on her way back to her office where she would shut the door indicating an absolute ‘Do Not Disturb Unless Absolutely Necessary’ policy.

She hadn’t closed Grace’s door, this much I had noticed. And I glanced up to see Grace standing in the doorway, peering out at me, a sneaky half-smile on her face.

“You two have been scheming, haven’t you?” I asked, forcing a smile on my face but feeling my heart sink to the bottom of my shoes.

“Can you come in a wee minute?” Grace said. “It’s nothing bad, I swear.”

Somehow I didn’t believe her. I lifted a notebook and pen – prerequisites for any meeting with your editor – and followed her into her office, feeling a little like a lamb being led to the slaughter.

“Sit down,” she said, smiling as she sat behind her desk and looked atthe notes she had obviously taken from her meeting with Sinéad. She glanced up at me. “You look shit-scared,” she said.

“I am shit-scared,” I laughed back. The thing with Grace was that you could say it like it was – to a point of course. She was still my boss and for that reason if nothing else she made me feel nervous.

“Look, we just want to run something past you and this is something you can absolutely say no to – but I think it would be good for you and for the magazine. We all know how tough things are in the magazine world these days and we can’t deny our circulation is taking a hit – so we are looking at spicing things up a bit.”

Images of me, dressed in lingerie, pouting from Page 3, sprang into my mind and I felt my face redden. I blinked several times, trying to regain my composure. Surely they wouldn’t ask me to go that far? Or anywhere near that far? Or evenanywhere in the vague direction of that far?

“You’re more of a name now. We want to capitalise on your recent success in the media awards. We get a good response to your stuff, Erin. When we put you on a story we know we can trust you to do a good job.”

This was starting to feel like a buttering-up exercise and I wondered where exactly it was going.

“We think we should make more use of you – make you even more of a name. Your opinion pieces get a good response and people are clearly interested in what you have to say.”

I nodded, wishing she would get to the point, but secretly enjoying a little bit of the flattery while she tried to get there.

“One thing that people always want to read about is, well, weddings. And people like you. So combining weddings and you – well, it could be good.”

“I’m already combining weddings and me, in real life,” I said, still not sure where she was going.

“But would you write about it? Would you share the details with your readers?”

“And tell them about the dress and the flowers and all the girly things?”

Grace nodded.

“And this will make me appear to be a more serious journalist how?” I was happy enough to do the human-interest stories. I was happy enough to write my opinions on a wide variety of subjects. I was happy to do almost everything Grace asked me to do in the name of the magazine and my profile, but did I want to show all my Bridezilla colours all over the pages of the magazine? Did I really want people to be reading about my meltdowns? It was embarrassing enough that I actually had them without publicising the fact.

“You could tell them it all,” she said, her face a little more serious now.

I saw her sit back in her chair and cross her arms. I saw a glimpse of uncertainty on her face.

“It all?” I asked.

“Look, I know this seems hard . . . to ask you to do this . . . but if you told the readers your story, if we brought them in . . . if we shared your strength of character . . .”

“If we told the world my fiancé has one testicle and cancer and that we are marrying in case he croaks it?” I felt the tears sting in my eyes. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Grace, but this makes me less of a serious journalist and more like a guest on the Jeremy Kyle Show – spilling the very intimate details of my life for all and sundry to read!”

She ran her hands through her hair and took a deep breath. “Shit, Erin. Look, I know this sounds scary.”

“With respect, Grace, you have no idea just how scary ‘it all’ is – and I’m not just talking about work. I’m talking about ‘it all’. And to put it out there? Jesus . . . I don’t thinkso . . . not to Paddy and not to me.” My voice was shaking as I spoke. I don’t think I had ever spoken so firmly to Grace in my life.

“I want you to think about it,” she said. “Just think about it. You might find it helpful. For you. It might help you come to terms with it all. It might raise awareness of what Paddy is going through – you know how men are. You know how lax they can be looking after themselves. You could make a difference.”

“There are other ways to make a difference – ways that don’t put every detail of my life out there for everyone to read.”

She nodded slowly. “Of course there are. But think about it. Talk to Paddy. Come back to me when you have considered it fully. I’ve done it, Erin. I’m not picking this out of the sky. I did the whole baring my soul in this magazine a few years back. It worked. It helped me. Christ knows it just about saved my marriage . . . Look, I won’t pressure you but I don’t want you to go with a gut reaction either.”

She stopped speaking and I couldn’t find the words to say what I wanted. Not without risking my job anyway. I nodded and turned to leave.

“Erin, I mean it when I say no pressure. Please believe me,” she said.

I returned to my desk and stared blankly at my computer screen. No, of course there was no pressure. My boss really wanted it. She believed telling our story could boost our ailing circulation. Telling Paddy’s story could help other men. Telling my story could boost my profile. No, there was clearly no pressure at all.

I picked up a bottle of wine on the way home from work. Paddy was unlikely to want to share it with me – he hadn’t been one for drinking much since he had started chemo but I certainly felt the need for a tall glass. Grace and I had managed to avoid each other perfectly throughout the rest of the day. Sinéad had walked past at one stage and whispered “Just think about it.” I didn’t think I needed to – but that didn’t stop me phoning Jules.

“So,” she had said, “supposing Paddy didn’t run for the hills at the very thought of sharing his very intimate bits for everyone to read about . . . do you think it might actually be a goodidea?”

I breathed out. “But it’s not what I want to do.”

“You want to write. This is writing and more than that it is writing your story.”

“Putting my neurosis out there for everyone to see? I mean how much would I tell them? Where would it end? Would I mention Ian and the wedding which never was? Would I tell them how I sat in the hospital chapel when Paddy had his operation and prayed like I had never prayed before? Do I tell them I cried all over my wedding dress and took a panic attack?”

“You tell them what you want to tell them,” she said simply.

“I don’t know,” I said – and I didn’t know. I was very good at telling other people’s stories – their tales of woe, their tales of triumph over adversity. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell my own.

“Well, they don’t need an answer just now, do they? Did they not say to think about it? Take your time.”

I sighed, rubbing my temples and craving something more than the water I was drinking.

“I suppose. Thanks, sis. Love you.”

“Erin,” she said, “It will be okay, whatever you decide. But come to think of it . . . if you decide to go for it, if you decide to tell your story, make sure you write in a really gorgeous and totally irresistible sister.”

Smiling, I put the phone down and tried my very best to get on with my work.

“I’ve made some dinner,” Paddy called from the kitchen and I walked through, the smell of one his world-renowned chillies catching me square in the nose.

“I’ve brought wine,” I called back, sitting the blue plastic bag from the off-licence on the table and reaching into the cupboard to pull out a wineglass, kissing Paddy on the side of the cheek as I went. Opening the bottle, I poured a grand big healthy glass of red and sank a good quarter of the glass without stopping for breath.

“Tough day at the office,” Paddy asked, eying mesuspiciously.

I nodded and drank again.

“Would you like some?” I asked and he shook his head.

“I might try a beer later – last of the party animals, that’s me,” he smiled, bringing the wooden spoon laden with chilli to my mouth for me to taste.

Blowing on it, I tasted, made the appropriate yummy noises and went back to my wine.

“Are you going to tell me about it?” he asked, tilting his head to one side.

“About what? The chilli? It’s lovely. Best one you’ve ever done,” I said with a wink.

“About work – or whatever it is that is bothering you? Did Jules call you a Bridezilla again? Did someone eat the last Bounty bar out of the chocolate machine?”

He was smiling, which made me smile too – even though my bad day was about nothing as frivolous as a bar of chocolate or my sister being up to her usual shenanigans.

“You’re mad funny,” I smirked. “And as it happens – not one bite of chocolate has passed my lips this entire day. I’ve been very good. I’ve had my two litres of water and everything.”

“And you are now going for your two litres of wine?” He nodded towards my glass, which was down to the dregs.

“Pet, if you don’t mind. I don’t really want to talk about it. Not now anyway. I’ll just have my wine – eat my dinner and maybe I’ll have calmed down by the time that’s done.”

He looked at me quizzically again, shrugged his shoulders and turned back to serving the dinner.

I felt a stab of guilt. We didn’t keep things from each other. We told each other every little detail of our lives and when I had a bad day at work I usually came in and gave him all the details, both guns blazing, until he brought me round with a silly joke or a funny story – or the offer to go and see whoever had annoyed me and punch them square on the nose. Which was funny, of course, because I don’t think Paddy had ever punched anyone in his life.

I watched him busy himself draining the rice andsighed, but didn’t feel strong enough to broach the topic of how Grace and Sinéad wanted the very details of our life to be printed for all to see across a fewglossy pages.

“How’ve you been today?” I askedas he turned to set the two plates down on the table.

“Not too bad – tired, I suppose. But sure I’m always tired these days. I’m hungry though, that’s a good sign, isn’t it? A strong appetite and a desire for beer? Could be worse.”

“Could indeed,” I said, tucking into the dinner in front of me.

“Sorry I’ve nothing more exciting to report – but basically it has been a day of lying on my arse and watching trashy TV. Jesus, there is a lot of rubbish on the TV during the day. And it’s strangely addictive. I think I might need a 12-step programme for my growing Judge Judy addiction. If I’m not careful I’ll be talking like trailer trash and wanting to sue anyone who so much as looks at me sideways.Actually,” he said, putting his fork down, “I’m so bored I’m thinking of going back to work. Part time maybe, or from home. Just something.”

Paddy had not gone back to work since his operation, allowing himself time to recover. We had thought it would be only for a couple of weeks, but then we were told he would need more treatment and the more treatment left him exhausted and sick and not fit to spend his days in a busy graphic-design business working into the wee small hours on pitches. Some days, on the days after his chemo, he could barely lift his head from the pillow, never mind set about designing a masterpiece. But he was bored – it was part of the reason he had thrown himself so full-on into the wedding plans: it gave him something to do. That was fine, he could take that at his pace. Work would be tougher – and he needed all his strength if he was to beat this once and for all.

“Are you sure you would be able for it?”

“I’m willing to give it a go. I spoke to Dave. He said they would try and work something around me – around the chemo, which is nearly done anyway. They would build me up slowly and then, hopefully, after the wedding I’ll be back in full health and ready to get back to it full time.”

I allowed his positivity to wash over me for a bit. He was talking about being back in full health and God knows I wanted him back in full health more than anything.

“I won’t let this beat me,” he said. “I won’t let it beat us and I’m tired of my life being on hold because of it. I want to get on with things, not lie about watching Judge poisonous Judy and playing the Xbox. Life is for living.”

As he said this he shovelled a huge mouthful of chilli into his mouth and smiled back at me brightly. I smiled back. He was seizing life by the balls – if you’ll excuse the metaphor – and maybe it was time I did too.

“I think that sounds brilliant,” I said. “Really brilliant. You should go for it. And since you are going for it . . . can I run something by you about my work?”

Chapter fifteen

Kitty

It wasn’t that my mother and I had some big cataclysmic falling out. We just, at some stage, ceased to feel that we really had any place in each other’s lives. It was fair to say that probably started just about the time she walked out on us – and had been sealed around the time she apologised for not being able to make it to my wedding as she had booked a cruise and it was too good an offer to miss. And sure, wouldn’t I have Rose anyway, she had said with a sniff. I didn’t know if she had wanted me to beg her not to spend a fortnight in the Caribbean and instead walk me down the aisle with Daddy, or if she genuinely was the selfish person I had always pegged her as. Regardless of the reason, I had told her, brusquely, that was fine and that I hoped she would have fun. Then I had gone back home and cried all over Mark for three hours until it looked as if my face would be permanently blotchy and swollen and I would look like a very tragic bride indeed.

Mark had reacted angrily – telling me my mother didn’t deserve me. When it came to telling Dad, I had painted on the biggest smile I could and told him that seriously it was fine, I didn’t mind at all and that it wouldn’t at all put a damper on my day. It was strange, but no matter how bad I felt about it I felt a hundred times worse when I saw my father’s face – just that flicker in his eyes that he in turn tried to hide.

Rose stepped up to the mark beautifully. She did everything a mother of the bride should have done. She took me dress-shopping. She insisted on paying for my shoes and my veil, just as her special treat. She took me for lunch after we had done our shopping and she joked that she would buy the biggest hat she could find and then clatter it with flowers to make it even bigger.

Rose made sure Daddy went to his suit fittings – and wore clean underwear and socks for the occasion.

She helped me choose the flowers and loved every second of poring over the tiny details of the wedding until I was happy they were just right. “We should do this for a living,” she had laughed – and I had laughed, too, originally. Mark had laughed and Daddy had laughed and then Rose and I had looked at each other – both with that wicked glint in our eyes – and the idea for The Dressing Room was born. I would oversee operations – Rose would do as much as she felt able and we would work together.

We had already sourced our premises, plotted our colour scheme and started working on the renovation of the old building – thanks in part to a heritage grant and also to a whacking great business loan from the bank – by the time I walked down the aisle and saw Rose in her not-too-big hat, smiling at me and waiting to take Daddy’s hand as I took Mark’s.

I’m not saying I didn’t miss my mother that day – but it was more because I was hurt she didn’t see fit to be there than any sense that her presence would make the day feel more complete.

We didn’t speak much after that. We sent cards, the occasional text. There were a few awkward lunchesand one pretty disastrous Christmas dinner, that being the last time we had broken bread together. Shortly after, she had relocated toLondon and hadn’t seen fit to come back until now.

She may well have been my mother but that woman, who now stood before me in the shop Rose and I had built from scratch, was not my mammy.

“I’m busy,” I told her.

She looked around at the empty reception and back at me and I felt as if I was ten years old and having to justify my very existence.

“I have a client in the dressing room. I’ve just nipped out to check on something.”

“It won’t take long,” she said, walking towards me as my inner deflector shield shot up around me. I was feeling vulnerable enough at the moment – rejected enough – without having my mother come back into my life and trample all over my stomped-on heart.

“Mother,” I started, stopping as I heard Rose’s footsteps on the stairs behind me. This for some reason made me feel nervous – as if I was about to be caught cheating on my stepmother – even though Rose had never, ever in my presence said one negative thing about the woman who had actually given birth to me. I glanced behind me and back at my mother, like a startled rabbit stuck in the headlights of a very fast oncoming car. I made to speak but realised that I had completely lost the ability to form any kind of coherent sentence.

“Violet,” Rose spoke first, looking at me with a serene smile on her face and then back at my mother whose lip had curled in a most unattractive manner.

“What a surprise,” Rose continued. “Sure isn’t it lovely to see you. This is the first time you’ve been here – in Kitty’s shop, isn’t it? Isn’t it gorgeous? Hasn’t she done well?”

My mother nodded and offered another cursory glance around the reception. “I’ve heard it’s very popular,” she said.

“It is,” I said, almost boastfully, at once annoyed with myself for feeling the need to impress her. “Rose and I have done a good job, even if I say so myself.”

I was surprise to see the slight hurt in my mother’s eyes but, as soon as it had passed she plastered a smile on her face and was agreeing, reaching her hand out to Rose’s to shake it. She hadn’t offered her hand to me. Or a hug. You would have thought after five years she might have wanted a hug. I looked at her. She hadn’t changed much over the last five years. Her hair was a little longer, and a little more blonde perhaps. She wore the same kind of eclectic floaty expensive clothes she always wore – the kind of clothes which Rose wore – only Rose would go for pastel colours while Mum would opt for sludgy beiges and grey. I should really tell her those colours did her no favours.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you,” I said.

“I should have called,” my mother replied, sitting down and leaving me under no illusion whatsoever that she was not about to leave any time soon. “But I didn’t know if I would be welcome, if the truth be told, so I figured that surprising you would be the best course of action.” She smiled that same strange, half-forced smile at the end of her sentence and I almost felt sorry for her. Of course I felt more sorry for me, who had experienced enough surprises in the last few weeks to last me a lifetime. A month or two, or a year or two, or even a decade or two of no surprises whatsoever would go down just nicely.

“Well, Violet, how about I make us a cup of tea while Kitty deals with our clients and then, sure, we can take it from there?” Rose offered as I stood with not a notion of what else to say.

“Okay,” my mother replied, slowly standing and following Rose up the stairs while I stood in the reception and resisted the urge to throw myself on the floor and have a full-on temper tantrum.

Stay calm, I urged myself, as I walked, my hands shaking, backinto my second-time-lucky bride and tried to make her experience memorable for the right reasons.

The conversation between my mother and Rose was flowing when I eventually joined them in the workshop. Rose was showing my mother the wall where we had pinned pictures of our beautiful brides alongside the various thank-you cards and notes we had received over the last few years. Beside the pin-board were a couple of framed pictures, images of us at the local business awards, grinning at our achievements.

“You really have done very well,” my mother offered, turning to look at me.

She still made no effort to hug me. Then again I made no effort to hug her either. I was all done with hugging.

“I don’t understand why you are here,” I said, perhaps a little too brusquely. I saw Rose give me that ‘calm down, dear’ look she did so well.

“I wanted to see you. Is that so hard to believe?” my mother sniffed.

“Actually, it is – given our history. You must know that.” She hadn’t asked how I was. She hadn’t asked after Mark. She hadn’t told me she missed me. I crossed the room and sat down behind my desk and lifted a paper clip, nervously uncurling it.

“Touché,” she said, that awkward smile on her face again. “But look, Kitty. The thing is . . . well . . . I know, I’ve been awful . . .”I snorted and she didn’t even blink, just carried on talking, “I’m only realising now how awful I was.”

As she spoke I was aware of Rose leaving the room. My place in hell was probably assured by the fact I was more concerned about where Rose was going than what my mother was telling me.

“But I’ve been getting things together. I know I’ve been selfish. I’m trying to make amends. And I’m making big changes in my life. Kitty, I’ve met someone. We’re very happy and we want to get married. And I’d love you to be there. In fact, I’d love for you to help me choose my dress – here, of course, in The Dressing Room. I’ve come home to tell you that I want things to be different between us. I want my wedding to be a new beginning – for me and you, and Ivy too of course.”

I thought of Ivy, how my anger towards our mother paled into insignificance against Ivy’s, and I felt my face redden. “Have you seen Ivy?” I asked, thinking that she couldn’t have. She would most likely have a black eye or at least a harrowed look on her face if she had.

My mother shook her head, the nervous smile gone. “No. No . . . I was thinking . . . if it wasn’t too much to ask . . . you could help me with that as well.”

I flicked the paperclip across the desk.Sweet Jesus. I had enough going on in my life without helping my mother build her bridges – bridges she hadn’t just burned in her wake but incinerated.

“I . . . don’t know.”

My mother pulled a chair over and sat down opposite me, across the table. The physical barrier between us was nothing compared to the emotional one.I rubbed at my eyes. Christ, it never rained but it poured.

“I’m not sure I have the energy for this right now,” I said, trying to stop my voice from breaking. It was around that point that I realised, even though this woman opposite me had become a virtual stranger, there was still a part of me that wanted so much for her to take me back in her arms and tell me it would be okay, that she loved me and that, indeed, I was worthy of being loved. But I looked at her – sitting there, thinking she could just walk in and we could pick up where we had left off – and I felt like screaming.

“In fact I know I don’t have the energy for this right now,” I said. “Mum . . . please. Just not now. Can you go?”

“Can we talk later?” she asked, her voice breaking, a pleading look in her eyes which made me want to scream.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

“Think about it,” she said, pushing a business card in my direction with her mobile number on it. “I’m staying with your granny. You can get me there if you need me.”

I nodded but couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I watched her leave, sat back in my chair, poured a glass of pilfered-from-the-fridge Prosecco and downed it quick enough to make the bubbles catch in my throat and make me gag.

Chapter sixteen

Erin

I wasn’t used to wearing much make-up. I generally wore only a quick slick of foundation and maybe some loose powder to stop the foundation sliding off my face by 4p.m. If I was going out for a very special occasion I might have added some eye shadow, mascara and lip gloss into the mix. I wore full make-up so infrequently I was pretty sure the Clarins eye palette in my make-up bag had been there for longer than the length of my entire relationship with Paddy . . . and maybe even a good deal longer than that. I did not own an eye pencil. And lip liners had no place in my world, never mind bronzers and the like. So I felt as if I had gained an extra two pounds in weight as Katie, our in-house stylist, transformed me from mild-mannered journalist to cover girl. Or at least picture-in-the-magazine girl. I looked in the mirror and thought my face looked strange – good-strange. Not really like me, or at least not like the me I was used to looking at every day. My hair had been tamed as well – sleeked with a slight wave, very 1950s glamour girl. Katie had poured me into a very figure-hugging outfit as well which I was worried wouldn’t pass the sitting-down-not-bulging-out test. Paddy had been primped and preened too although, with nothing more than a mild fuzz thanks to chemo and common-or-garden male-pattern baldness, his hair didn’t need much work. He had a bit of make-up put on him, which I knew I would tease him about later, and he had been dressed in a very fancy suit. Even though he was frail from his battle with illness, he looked edible, and I found myself distracted from the nerves of what we were about to do by thinking very much about what I would like to do later. He looked at me and smiled, a twinkle in his dark eyes, and I felt myself blush.

I would never have thought for one second he would have wanted to do these articles. But he had shocked me to my very core by reacting with enthusiasm while I had cringed and stuttered my way through recalling the conversation I’d had with Grace earlier that day.

“Why not?” he had said, sitting back across the table from me and grinning.

“Because, you know, it would get personal. I wouldn’t be in control of it. Not really. Grace and Sinéad, well, they know what they want and they want us to bare our souls.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to a bit of soul-baring,” he said, sincerely.

“Really?” It was hard to hide the shock in my voice. Of course I knew Paddy was the kind of man who wore his heart on his sleeve. He didn’t shy away from talking about his illness. He had even talked about it quite eloquently at his pre-op party – but that was in front of friends and family. People who knew. People who cared. People who were unlikely to laugh about it all behind our backs. People who were close enough to the situation to really care about what was happening to us and not just see what we were saying as some form of entertainment they read while waiting to see the dentist or while getting their hair cut. I know, by thinking that way, I was largely disregarding my own profession but this was personal. This was not telling someone else’s story. This was not being objective. Much as I wanted to be, I could not be objective about my boyfriend’s testicles and his battle with cancer.

“Erin, we both have to be on board with this. And we have to do it for the right reason. I’m not saying yes because I think it would do your profile good and put you in Grace and Sinéad’s good books. I’m not doing it because I think you would make a brilliant job of it because you don’t even realise what a good writer you are. I’m not doing it for any reason other than the fact I’m one of the lucky ones.”

I looked at him as if he was slightly mentally disturbed. The lucky ones don’t get cancer, surely. The lucky ones leave this world with all their bits intact.

He must have noticed the look of disbelief on my face as he reached his hand across the table and took mine. “I am lucky, Erin,” he said as I shook my head. “I have you, and I’m getting through this and we’re getting married. Jesus – I couldn’t be luckier. We caught this cancer in time.”

I had to resist the urge to shrug my shoulders or shake my head or give any indication whatsoever that perhaps things weren’t brilliant. And that we wouldn’t beat it. Chemo wasn’t just handed out willy-nilly, excusing the genitalia-related pun.

“Not all are lucky. Not all men have girlfriends who march them to the doctors, or stick by them, or agree to marry them not knowing what they might be facing –” His voice hadstarted to break and I could feel his strong, big, heavy, manly hands tremble just that little bit.

“So we tell our story. You tell our story. You get men to look after themselves. You show them that it doesn’t have to be the end. Tell them that we are going to have the biggest, best wedding we could hope for. Most of all, Erin Brannigan, tell the world I love you and you love me. What more could I want?”

Of course, even though I’m not a typical hyper-emotional woman, I had cried and told him I loved him too and then, when he had gone to bed exhausted, I had texted Grace to let her know that we would do it. This was followed by a call to Jules during which she veered back and forth from telling me it was a far, far better thing we were doing and telling me that we were clearly off our heads. “Your whole life, in a magazine!” she said incredulously before jumping almost seamlessly to a squeal of excitement that I would be getting a make-over and free new clothes for a photo shoot.

“I always wanted to get a proper photo shoot done,” she said, “but the only way I think it will ever happen is if I take to glamour-modelling or the like.”

I thought of my poor, flat-chested sister and laughed and she laughed too and then, because I really didn’t want to over-think things too much, I changed the subject and we spent a good half-hour debating the merits of McSteamy versus McDreamy and wondering why no doctor we had ever come within twenty miles of had ever, ever looked even half as sexy as either.

When I eventually went to bed I had one those strange pre-wedding dreams where I imagined things took a strange and disastrous turn. This time, I was sitting at the altar – my dress hitched up, peeling potatoes in preparation for the wedding breakfast. I woke at four, still delirious, shook Paddy and told him that we should ring the hotel and make sure they ordered in extra spuds just in case. He laughed, kissed me on the forehead and told me that particular dream would definitely need to make it into one of the articles.

And thus we found ourselves, dolled up and trying to take the whole photo-shoot thing very seriously while Grace looked on from behind the photographer urging us to channel our inner Posh and Becks.

“There’s no need to look so terrified of each other!” she called as I looked at Paddy who was trying not to laugh. “You both look fantastic. Sure, aren’t you madly in love?”

“Of course we are.” I grinned nervously at her. “It’s just that we’re used to being madly in love with each other in the privacy of our own home.”

“It’s not a porno shoot,” Grace laughed.

I heard Paddy lose the will to hold in his laughter beside me. I almost, almost elbowed him in the ribs but I was sure doing that to someone with cancer would be considered very bad form indeed.

“Your giggles aren’t helping,” I smiled at him, a bubble of laughter rising up in me. Christ, he looked handsome. So handsome that I kind of wished it was a porno shoot. Not that, you know, I’d do a porno shoot. I’m not that kind of girl, honest . . . but still, how amazing, how healthy he looked . . . with that smart suit and that touch of make-up . . . I realised how I wanted him. As my urge to laugh turned into a nervous giggle, Paddy reached across and kissed me lightly and suddenly there was no one else in the room – or so it seemed – and if there was a clicking of a camera, or more encouraging pep talks from Grace, I didn’t really notice. It was okay then. I was relaxed and I knew that the pictures would be stunning. To me, they would be perfect.

I felt a little overdressed and definitely over-made-up as Paddy took me for dinner when the photo shoot was done. “Sure, looking as good as this, we might as well make the most of it and hit the town,” he’d said.

Of course I knew by ‘hitting the town’, he meant dinner and then home to rest, but dinner and home to rest sounded good to me. We had become quite reclusive these last few months, which was understandable, and in recent weeks we had definitely noticed that people had stopped asking us to go out. It was as if we had put a “Please do not ask as refusal may offend” sticker in our social calendar and everyone was staying well clear.

The thought of dinner anywhere other than our kitchen table or living room had me almost dizzy with excitement.

“Champagne?” he said, with a smile. “It feels like some sort of celebration.”

I smiled. “Champagne sounds good. Champagne sounds absolutely perfect in fact.”

It would simply be the proverbial icing on the cake to what had been a pretty wonderful day. “Great,” he replied. “And you can have a dessert after and all – let’s push the boat out.”

I laughed. He knew better than anyone that there was never any question that I would not have left that restaurant without a dessert. A dessert was a must – an essential. A necessity. In fact, the first thing I did when I got the menu at any restaurant was check out the desserts.Even if I was on a diet. Even if I had vowed that nothing that did not contain at least two of my requisite five-a-day would pass my lips, there was always, always room for dessert. In fact, as we waited for the waiter to bring us our drinks I was already salivating at the prospect of a slice of Baileys Cheesecake.

Thankfully the cheesecake didn’t disappoint nor did the champagne. Although given Paddy’s general reluctance to drink very much I ended up drinking more than my fair share and tottering precariously out of the restaurant, fighting off a pretty serious dose of sugar-and-alcohol-induced giggles.

They didn’t ease up in the taxi on the way home and thankfully Paddy was such a lightweight these days he caught a dose of giddiness himself and we laughed all the way home until we walked to our front door and I fumbled for my keys. Even though I was carrying the smallest clutch bag imaginable I still struggled to find them and, as Paddy bent his head to look into the bag and help me, our heads collided and pulling apart we both stopped laughing and started staring.

I recognised that look on his face – even though it had been a while since I had seen it. I didn’t dare hope and then he leant towards me, taking my face in his hands and kissing me gently but fully on the lips. I barely wanted to move, apart from allowing my body to respond, kissing him back – holding back – allowing him to set the pace. This was not my move to make any more. This was where it got hazy. This is where I was unsure of myself. There was a time it wouldn’t have been an issue. I’d have been in like Flynn. He’d have kissed me in that way only he could kiss me and I wouldn’t need asking twice. We worked together. We fitted.We had good sex and we weren’t one of those couples who had to make an effort to make it happen. We wanted each other and it was really, truly wonderful. (Not to boast or anything.) But then, of course, there was the cancer. And the surgery and bits were taken away. And he was sore. And while we didn’t really discuss it that much, because I believed it was worth giving him as much time as he needed to come to terms with an altered body and what it meant, or didn’t mean for him, I kind of thought that of course he must feel self-conscious. I was a little scared too, if the truth be told. He hadn’t had his prosthesis fitted. I was afraid, I suppose, of how it would look down there. Would I hurt him? Would he be able to do things the way he had done things? Would we do more damage? He was broken enough and I didn’t really want to break him anymore. So I never pushed him. I didn’t show my frustration. I settled for cuddles and kisses and kept my hands to myself where appropriate. All the while I missed him – I missed the intimacy. Here we were planning our wedding, sending out invitations and choosing vows and living like brother and sister afraid to look at each other the wrong way.

So when he kissed me on the doorstep, when I felt the difference in how his lips touched mine, how his hand moved from my face, down my neck, down my arms until he was holding my hands and pulling me closer to him – I knew. When he took the keys from my hand and opened the door, pushing it aside before taking my hand again and leading me through the door, I knew. When he closed the door and kissed me again, deeper this time, with that urgency I had needed so much, I knew. When he pressed me against the door, pressing his body close to mine, I felt my heart soar.

It had been a long time – a time where I had been patient but desperate. Where I had understood but where I missed the physical intimacy which had been such a big part of our relationship. Where I had felt him want me. Where I had felt loved on a whole other, amazing level. And that night, after we had our photo shoot and a drink or two and a lovely day in each other’s company, I felt loved on that level.

We fell into bed, moving gently, carefully, taking our time and taking care of each other. I cried. I’m not afraid to admit that and after, although everything was brilliant, we lay in silence. I could hear Paddy breathing, I could feel that his hand was shaking a little as I threaded my fingers into his. I was scared to talk, scared to ask him if he was okay. Scared to break the moment. I’d let him take the lead.

We lay for a while, in silence – until he kissed me on the top of the head.

“Erin Brannigan,” he said, “I cannot wait to marry you. I will love you every day of my life. I promise you this.”

It was then that I cried again – and when he was sleeping I got up, crept to the sofa, opened my laptop and started writing my first article for Northern People – about the man who had taught me to love again.

Chapter seventeen

Kitty

Rose was cleaning even though the kitchen didn’t need to be cleaned. She was doing a great job of smiling brightly – perhaps too brightly – as she rubbed the same circular patch of worktop over and over again. I lost count at the thirtieth circular motion. Daddy was sipping from a mug of tea which had to be cold by then. He had been nursing it for half an hour and I had counted him ladling four spoonfuls of sugar into it when two was his usual limit. He had a fixed grimace on his face which occasionally morphed into a vaguely twisted smile when Rose looked in his direction. My daddy didn’t still love my mother. He didn’t feel anything much for her anymore, bar some strange feelings tied in with the fact she was the mother of his children. I know he had taken time to trust again and even when he had met Rose and they had fallen in love and married, it had been a good while before he could feel secure that she wasn’t going to suddenly announce she was bored, needed space and disappear leaving him on his own with little or no warning.

Even though a long time had passed, even though we had all moved on, to have my mother walk back into our lives, to walk into my shop as if things were just fine and dandy and announce she was getting married and she wanted to buy a wedding dress from me – well, that was always going to put the cat among the pigeons. And we knew, as we sat in uncomfortable silence in Rose’s floral kitchen, that there was one pigeon in particular who was due to arrive at any minute and whose feathers were completely ruffled.

Rose had called her. After I had a small session of hyperventilation in the shop wondering how on earth I would break this news to Ivy, Rose had said there was no point in working myself into a state about how I was going to tell my sister and sure wouldn’t it be better just to get it over and done with so that I wouldn’t make myself sick with the worry of it.

“You’ve had enough to be worrying about these days. Ivy is a big girl. She’s a grown-up. How bad could it be?”

Rose generally knew what she was talking about. She generally didn’t get things wrong but on this occasion she was spectacularly wrong. Ivy swore, slammed the phone down, and we went home where we waited for her to arrive. With Rose’s over-exuberant cleaning of the worktops and Dad’s sipping of his cold tea, I felt as if we were on the edge of anIvy-shaped earthquake.

The door opened with a thud and Ivy, her cheeks flushed, walked into the kitchen. She looked at all three of us and said, loudly and not so calmly: “What. The. Feck?”

“Language,” Rose said absently, without thinking.

“English,” Ivy said petulantly.

“Watch how you speak to Rose,” Daddy said.

If I had closed my eyes I would have been back in my teenage years and this would have been a typical evening in our house.

“I can’t believe she’s back,” Ivy said. “And she’s getting married. And we’re supposed to be happy about it? Or you’re supposed to be happy about it? Because I wasn’t even important enough to be told in person.”

“It’s not like that,” I started, wanting to tell her that Mum had wanted in some ways to protect her feelings (not caring too much about mine, it seemed).

But she wasn’t for listening.

“No, it’s not like that, is it?” Ivy asked. “I don’t own a bridal shop. I can’t offer a discount on a meringue of her choosing!”

“Ivy!” Daddy said as I felt her words hit me square in the face.

“It’s not like that,” I said again, trying to find the words which would say exactly how I felt. Words that would make it sound like I was neither covering for my mother nor sticking up for her. I felt a knot in my stomach. I didn’t know what to say, or how to react. It was like this every time Violet reared her ugly head. I would feel torn between the fact she was my mother and despite my best judgement there would always be a bond between us that I couldn’t deny, and the fact that she was perhaps the most selfish person in the entire universe and I actually disliked her greatly.

Ivy sat down – well, to be more precise, she threw herself down on a chair – and snarled in our direction: “Well, if she thinks I’m having anything to do with her and with this wedding, she is sorely mistaken.”

“I think she wants to make amends,” Rose said, trying to keep her voice bright and measured.

“She can want what she wants, but she sure as heck isn’t going to get it,” said Ivy. “Not from me. She can’t just sail back in and expect to play happy families – not after what she has done.”

“It was a long time ago,” Daddy said.

“No,” Ivy said, matter of factly. “It wasn’t. That first thing – that big old leave-your-family-and-clear-off thing – thatwas a long time ago. I could get over that.” Her voice was firm and quieter. “But not everything since. The lies. The disappointment. The not going to weddings. The excuses. The not caring. The refusing to acknowledge us beyond the odd card or reluctant phone call. The not wanting to be a part of our lives. The way everything she has ever done in relation to us has always, and every time, been on her say-so, when it suits her, never mind when it suits us, or we need her.”

“I haven’t needed my mother for a long time,” I offered and I saw Daddy flinch a little and Rose rub the worktop a little harder. I’d thought what I was saying would make them happy. I’d thought I was getting it right. I felt a migraine building and I couldn’t see how spending any more time in that kitchen, where everyone was glaring at someone who wasn’t even there and who was off planning her wedding and wondering just what kind of a discount I would give her on a designer dress, was going to resolve anything.

“I need to go home,” I said, standing up. “In case you aren’t aware, I have enough shit going on in my life right now without sitting here and rehearsing the whole ‘mother is a bad person’ argument again and I just can’t face it at this very moment, so if you’ll excuse me . . .”

“Kitty,” Rose started, “look, stay. Don’t leave like this.”

“Let her leave,” Ivy barked, crossing her arms firmly in front of her chest.

Daddy didn’t speak.

“I’m not leaving ‘like this’,” I said, in his general direction. “I’m just leaving because I don’t want to think about it anymore and my head hurts.”

“I’ll get Cara to call over to you,” Rose said.

“I don’t need Cara. I don’t need anyone,” I said, as softly as I could. “I just need a couple of paracetamol, a dark room and some oblivion for a while.”

“Just run off then,” Ivy said.

I couldn’t help but bite back with a “Grow up, Ivy!”

Rose sighed and Daddy looked atthe floor and my headache threatened to make the small vein in my temple actually erupt.

I got into my car, swore as I crunched the gears and put the car in reverse and pulled out of driveway, only narrowly missing ramming right into the car parked opposite. Clutching the steering wheel while trying not to think too much about just how close I had been to a mighty big insurance claim, I took a deep breath and realised how my mother had done what she always did best – yet again. She dropped bombs into our lives and waltzed off – on this occasion to plan a wedding which she somehow expected us to happily be a part of.I needed a lie-down, and quickly, and I needed to keep it all together until I could get that lie-down because things were tough enough without a car crash adding to my woes.

I surprised myself by making it home in one piece, in spite of another near-miss at the newly installed traffic lights on the roundabout. I was never so glad to see my own front door and to open it to that lovely familiar scent of home and the sound of silence. Kicking my shoes off I walked up the hall and into the kitchen where I poured myself a tall glass of water and rifled in the corner cupboard of my shiny white kitchen for a packet of paracetamol. Holding the cool glass to my forehead I took several deep breaths before taking the two tablets and assuring myself I had every right, if I so wished, to take to my bed and not get out of there until the following morning at the very earliest.

And that is what I should have done. I should have ignored the blinking of my answer machine, knowing that nothing good could come of it. I should have known, given how things had gone up to that point, that it was one of those days which would have been better to write off as a non-starter. The thumping in my head should have been one of those kinds of karmic warning-signs that I should go to bed, directly to bed, and not interact with another human being until the fug of the day and its ill winds had passed. But I was nosy. It was unheard of for me to leave an email or text unread, a call unanswered or a message unlistened to. As it happened, there were two messages. The first was from James which sort of warned me about the second message. Which was from Mark.

He could have phoned the shop. He would have got me there, until five anyway. But he didn’t do that. He didn’t do it because that would have been the one way he would have had to say what he had to say to my face. He could have texted me, even, but again the response time would have been fairly immediate as Mark knew my phone was an integral part of my being. No, true to form, Mark left a message where he knew I wouldn’t get it immediately, where I couldn’t confront him immediately, where he wouldn’t have to take my raw anger and hurt without giving me time to digest all that he said.

It was his way. Any time we had any kind of disagreement he would do something similar, leave a message or a note and disappear off the scene for an hour or two to allow me to process where he was coming from. He knew I was a soft touch, a romantic at heart. He knew I didn’t like to argue – that I didn’t like tension. It was in a strange way kind of comforting that he returned to that same form, leaving the message on our machine. Our old habits hadn’t been completely annihilated. But it was strange – and uncomfortable – to hear his voice. The cheeriness was gone – that “I’m out on my own in a bar without the missus” joviality which I got from him that time he had answered the phone not knowing it was me on the other end. He sounded, well, kind of lost and my heart thumped. Every part of me – every part of me that loved him – every part of me that had felt he was the most important person in my life for the best part of the last decade – the part of me which knew our secrets, those thingsthat were just ours and no one else’s, just wanted to reach through the phone and pull him close to me. Without hearing the words he was speaking, the tone of his voice – the neediness from him – just made me want to let him know it was all okay. It would be okay. I thought of him – the him I knew and loved – the man who showed me his vulnerability – his loss and his weakness – and I wanted to bolster him up. I wanted to do all those things I had promised for him on our wedding day and in the years since. I felt my head throb, along with my heart, as my mind raced so loudly there was no way I could take in what he was saying. Beyond that one word – the one word which I needed to hear – I could not have told you a single word uttered from his mouth. “Sorry,” he started and a part of me started, rightly or wrongly, and probably very wrongly, to consider letting him back into my life again without even knowing if he wanted back in. He had the upper hand – I realised – and that scared me.

My head was now spinning as well as throbbing and my breathing was rushed. I wished Cara was with me. Or Rose. Or even Ivy, though I hated her at that very moment. I just wanted someone there to hold me up because without them I felt myself sliding to the floor and looking at the phone accusingly as if it had just opened some big Pandora’s Box of emotions I couldn’t deal with. Not on the day the woman who claimed to be my mother had shown up at my shop looking for a dress fitting, and not after I had spent a week in a stinking festering depressive coma in my father’s house.

My mind tried to piece it together. I thought of the message James had left me. He had been almost apologetic that he was calling me. It was strange, I supposed, given that he was Mark’s best friend and the pair of them had been thick as thieves since the age of twelve, but I didn’t question it too much.

“I promised if I heard anything I would call you,” he said. “Well, I did hear something. He’s back. He called me earlier and he said he would be calling you too. I told him he was an arsehole. Just so you know. That he didn’t deserve you . . .” His voice had trailed off briefly at that point. I could almost hear the cogs in his mind turning. “He doesn’t deserve you, you know,” he said and then he had hung up and I had looked at the message indicator on the machine – the blinking light which let me know there was a second message.

Sitting on the floor, listening again, I smiled at James’ voice – at his concern. But I bristled at him calling Mark an arsehole even though the world and his mother could tell you that – Mark had indeed been a major arsehole. I pressed the button to listen to Mark’s message again – determined that this time I would actually listen to what he had to say. I would try and adopt my sensible head – and leave the reaction of my heart aside. I would force myself to listen to it rationally – to not think about how we had met, how we shared that first kiss on a moonlit beach in front of a fire he had built without the help of a lighter or a box of matches. I would not think about how he cried when he saw me walk towards him on our wedding day or how his smile would cause the corners of his eyes to crinkle. I wouldn’t think about the fact that even though he was eleven years older than he had been on the day I had met him, he looked as young and as handsome to me as he ever had done. More than that, though, to listen to him without my heart breaking entirely, I wouldn’t think about the fact he had left me, that he had walked away and that there had been someone else. I would just think about the man – the voice on the other end of the phone – and see if my gut told me what way to think and more importantly what way to feel.

“Sorry,” he started. “I’m so sorry. I messed it all up, Kitty. I don’t really know why or even really how. I didn’t really think about it – I was caught up in it. But I’m sorry. I realise I’ve no right to ask you or expect you to talk to me and I understand, really I do, if you don’t want to just now – but I want to talk to you. To tell you face to face that I messed things up and I’m sorry that I did. It’s true what they say, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I’m on the same mobile and I’m staying with Mum and Dad. You can get me there. I won’t torture you. I won’t keep asking. But please, just give me a chance to explain.”

He didn’t mention the other woman. He didn’t explain anything really but listening for a second time, the urge to call him, to ask him to come over was strong. Almost too strong. I thought of Ivy cutting his clothes up. I thought of Cara telling me that I didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I thought of James telling me he was an arsehole. I thought of my daddy holding me while I cried and of Rose’s pursed lips whenever I mentioned Mark’s name.

I couldn’t cope with this. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to be weak, but I didn’t want to let him go. And my head still hurt, which made me cry. So I left my mobile on the kitchen table, unplugged the phone and scrambled up to the bedroom where I hauled the curtains closed – thick, cosy black-out curtains we had bought at Mark’s insistence because he needed it to be like a coalhole to get a good sleep. I lay there in the pitch dark in the early evening and cried myself to sleep, thinking that just a few weeks before, my life had all been going along in a perfectly lovely and controlled way and now I was curled in a bed crying and not knowing what the hell I was going to do about the mess my life had become.

Chapter eighteen

Erin

I had a silly smile on my face the following day when I went to work. I couldn’t help it. It had been a while. And I felt deliciously satisfied. I had had sex. If it had not been a very personal thing indeed, I would have shouted it from the rooftop of the Northern People building. That would probably not be terribly professional, so I settled for sending Jules a quick text with just two words in it: Mission accomplished. Then I sent Paddy a text to tell him I loved him. I may have written something vaguely flirty and innuendo-laden as well but it wasn’t over the top. It felt a little strange, to even talk about it. Sex had been such a taboosince the operation that it felt strange to think that it was back on the agenda.

I switched on my computer, poured myself a cup of black coffee and opened the email I had sent the previous night, recounting how Paddy and I had met and fallen in love. It was a nice piece – it was honest but, I hoped, not overly soppy. I didn’t want the readers to think they were buying into a full-on boke fest.

I’d show it to Grace just as soon as she got in and hope that she liked it. And then she would show it to Sinéad, who hopefully would also like it and then we could look at sending it to print. I’ll admit I was nervous. There was something very different about writing your own story from writing about other people’s lives. I didn’t want to over-egg the melodrama with this. I didn’t want to make our story nothing more than a source of entertainment to our readers. But then, we did have quite a remarkable story to tell. And I suppose it looked as if we were finally coming out the other end.

Everything felt a little brighter that day. I had a message on my work answer-phone from Rose at The Dressing Room confirming my appointment that weekend for Jules to look at bridesmaid dresses. Fiona, the super-organised and mildly terrifying wedding planner from the hotel had sent both Paddy and me a detailed email outlining our requirements and how they would be met which, rather than making me want to vomit with nerves, as emails from Fiona normally did, made me feel as if everything was moving on just as it should. I even decided that I wouldmake sure to talk, that very day, with the band and the DJ we had booked for the reception after Fiona had taken weak at the mention of their names and said their language could sometimes be “colourful”.

“I don’t think ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ is appropriate wedding music,” shesaid with as much tact as she could muster, which was not a lot.

I had made a mental note on that occasion to smack my sister up, she being the one who had recommended the band and told us, in fact, that no other band in the entire world would be as cool for our wedding. Jules had sworn she hadn’t known that certain less-than-desirable songs were on their set list and then had paused and laughed and pondered whether or not she had actually known but had been too drunk the last time she had seen them to really take it on board. The whole thing had made Paddy laugh uproariously and had made me drop my headto my hands and wonder if the whole Big Day was doomed. That morning, however, as I sipped my coffee, edited my story once more and planned my day – all these little pre-wedding wobbles seemed surmountable. The band would be told, simply and firmly, that they would not be swearing at any stage during the festivities.

“The pictures are lovely,” Grace said, smiling as she walked past my desk. “You scrub up well.”

“Are you trying to say I’m not a stunner every day, boss?” I laughed – aware that my hair was particularly frizzy and my face particularly pale. Although there was still a while to go until the wedding, Jules had persuaded me to go make-up free as much as possible to try and give my skin a rest. As I had no plans to leave the office that day I thought it was safe to go bare. I hadn’t factored in the harsh lights making me look a little more like Ronald McDonald than a pale and interesting Irish beauty.

“Well, of course you’re a stunner,” Grace said with a wink. “But in the pictures you are extra stunning!”

I smiled and then because I was in a just-got-laid kind of a giddy mood I pulled the ugliest face I possibly could just as Liam, the grumpy photographer who had taken our pictures the day before, walked past and muttered, “Sweet Baby Jesus,” under his breath before adding: “I’m glad I’m not taking your wedding photos.”

Grace laughed and I laughed and it felt like one of those lovely days where you can see the bad in no one and where you think that just maybe there is hope for the human race after all. I guess I had really, really needed to have sex the night before and, having made that lovely leap, everything seemed a little brighter.

“Have you the first article done?” Grace asked, heading towards her office.

“Just emailing it to you now, boss,” I smiled and watched as she retreated into her domain.I saluted in her general direction and went back about my business, while hearing Liam mutter again – this time about being a lick-arse.

“You’d just love me to lick your arse!” I called, in a completely inappropriate move clearly buoyed by my reawakened sexuality.

We both blushed, which at least took the pallor from my face.

I was trying to recover from that, sip my coffee and get through to the dodgy wedding band who clearly didn’t do phone-answering in the morning, when a message popped up in my email from Grace, asking me to drop into her office when I had five or ten minutes. She’d had enough time to read the article and I imagined she was going to give me feedback and suddenly I felt a little nervous. Again, this was different from my usual pieces. This was my life. If she hated it, she wouldn’t just be judging my writing, she would be judging me too.

Nervously I lifted my notebook and pen and walked into her office, perching myself opposite her and trying to read her face for any hint of reaction.

“I like it,” she said slowly, sitting back, looking at her computer screen and then looking back at me again. I could hear the ‘but’ forming in her head and I wasn’t wrong.

“I like it, but . . .” she said, looking at me. “I feel you’ve held back in this piece, Erin.”

Held back? I’d described the discovery of a tumour in the man-I-love’s testicle – for anyone to read about.

My eyebrow must have risen to a whole new level because Grace looked at me and sighed. “Don’t get annoyed. Listen to me.”

I nodded. I would not get annoyed – not on a day which had been going so well – and I would listen to her. That was not to say I would agree with her, but I would definitely listen.

“The piece is well written. It’s even funny in places,” she said. “The strength of your feelings for Paddy really comes through, as does your trepidation about the wedding, your fears about the future and how you are coping together with what you are going through.”

“Yes, I thought so too,” I said, wondering where exactly in any of that I had held anything back. Jesus, I’d even written a section about my concerns about over-underwear-buying when going to try on big frocks. I’d had a whole big-knickers-will-hide-my-tummy-but-make-me-look-like-a-ninety-year-old internal dialogue as I dressed that morning – deciding in the end to stop off at M&S for some new sensible midi-briefs before the fitting.

“I know . . . but the thing is this. The intro, it intrigued me. You know the bit where you say you were one of the cynical people who had given up on love? Like a heroine in a chick-lit novel who had been hurt before and had built up huge walls around her heart?”

I cringed. It sounded cheesier when read back. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I was in a bit of a romantic mood when I wrote that.”

“Don’t apologise. I’m a romantic at heart myself. Just because Aidan and I have been married for ever doesn’t mean I don’t still remember those first few months and years of falling in love –”

“But?” I pre-empted.

“Well, I know this is a magazine article. But I’d love to know more, you know. I’d love to know about why you lost your faith in love. Why it was so important that Paddy brought down those walls.”

I swear to God, I thought I could almost see a tear form in her eye – but it wasn’t as big as the lump that was forming in my throat at the very thought of revisiting the whole Ian/abandonedwedding/great depression of 1999 scenario.

“I’d like to know more,” she repeated, shrugging her shoulders.

“As my friend or my editor or as a very nosy person?”

“A combination of all three. This piece is good, but it could be better. There is more to tell and our readers would like to know. Hell, I’d like to know. I’ve worked with you for four years now. I’ve driven to Dublin with you – that’s three and a half hours in the car, five if you take my driving into consideration. I’ve been drunk with you. I’ve handed you a tissue to mop your tears after Paddy’s diagnosis and handed you tampons over the cubicle door. I consider us fairly close, and yet I’ve never even had an inkling there was a life before Paddy – not a romantic one anyway. I’d like to know more.”

I looked at her. She had a strange, animated expression on her face – a mixture of intrigue and annoyance. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to spill my guts right there and then.

“There’s not a lot to tell.”

“Except that you were once hurt so badly you built up a big wall around your heart that only Paddy could ever knock down?”

Jesus, she was getting soft in her old age and she was obsessed with walls and knocking them down.

Thinking on it, Grace had always been on the soft side. She was definitely good cop to Sinéad’s bad cop. But still, it surprised me to see her go so gooey.

“It was a long time ago. I was twenty-two. His name was Ian. We ran away to Gretna to get married, which is much less exciting than it sounds. He left me at the altar andI haven’t heard from him since.”

“Left you at the altar? Jesus – how?”

“Well . . . basically . . . he left me at the altar. I imagined he walked away. He may have got a taxi. I don’t know.”

“You are being facetious.”

“You are invading my personal emotional space,” I said, and instantly cringed because that was truly the most wanky sentence I had ever uttered in my entire life.

“If you ask me, you have unresolved issues.”

Grace was all about the unresolved issues. She had undergone counselling a few years back after the birth of her first child and now she believed wholeheartedly in the power of counselling, dealing with your past and if necessary telling the whole world about it. Because as much as she was my friend, she was also a damn fine journalist with a killer instinct for a story. If the truth be told, if the shoe was on the other foot or the pen in the other hand, I would be asking an interviewee the same awkward questions and wee-ing myself with excitement if I was able to break beneath the surface and reveal a little bit of juicy back story. Much as Ian was my personal emotional space, he was also my juicy back story.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was a long time ago and I’m over it and surely revealing the deep secrets of our battle with cancer is good enough? I mean, I know how to write a tear-jerker. And I’ve cried writing this. I think it’s good.”

Grace looked at me sympathetically, but not sympathetically enough that I still couldn’t see the story-mad twinkle in her eye.

“It is good,” she said. “It’s one of the strongest things you have written. But it could be even better. We expect a lot of you now, Erin. The readersexpect a lot of you. You’re the Feature Writer of the Year. This could solidify that position. This could get you noticed.”

She wasn’t going to let up. When Grace got a notion stuck in her head, she was like a dog with a bone.

“I’m going to have to think about it,” I said. “And I’m going to have to talk to Paddy. This involves him too. But seriously,Grace, I don’t really think about Ian any more. I don’t necessarily want everyone to know I was left at the altar or that I made a complete eejit of myself in my early twenties. I don’t class anything about the entire Ian situation as positive.”

“Just think about it. That’s all I ask,” Grace said.

I nodded before standing up, walking back to my desk and sitting back down, feeling slightly less of a shiny happy person than I had been before.

Paddy looked tired when I got home – and told me he hadn’t done too much that day.

“You tired me out yesterday,” he said with a smile as I kissed his forehead.

Seeing him looking a little pathetic – tired and weak – I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. Had the photo shoot and the evening out taken too much out of him? Had I pushed him too much the previous night?

I sat down beside him and took his hand.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“How do you know anything is wrong?” I asked, turning to look at him.

“I’m not stupid, my lovely lady,” he said with a smile. “You didn’t call me this afternoon. You walked in here like the Mother of Sorrows and before you sat down you went straight to the fridge and opened a bottle of beer. And, to top it all off, you have sat down beside me and not immediately told me to turn Deal or No Deal off and I know you reserve a special kind of hatred for Noel Edmunds – so something is obviously wrong.”

I looked at him again, tired, with a blanket over his knees and looking pale, and I felt a lump form in my throat.And I didn’t want in that moment to talk to him about Ian and whether we should tell the world, or talk about the article and work.

I cuddled into him, fighting back my emotions and simply whispered. “I can’t wait to marry you, Paddy. I love you with all my heart.”

He kissed my head and we sat there for a while and I watched the entire episode of Deal or No Deal without saying a single word or calling Noel Edmunds a pain in the hole.

Every couple has the talk. Everyone has that “Well, tell me all about your past” chat – and we were no exception.We had been together around two months and it was aboutfive in the morning. We had been up all night, chatting, laughing, drinking wine and getting completely lost in each other. We had talked about everything from favourite films to our first memories of school. We had told each other about our families. I had told him about Jules – and how we were best friends as well as sisters but how we used to murder each other when we were teenagers. He had told me how his mother could be a bit stuffy, but that she was a lovely woman at heart (not that he was a mammy’s boy, he stressed). He had told me about a three-year relationship he’d had with a woman called Caroline which had ended fairly painlessly after they just drifted apart. He had told me how he loved her once – genuinely – but that it was just one of those relationships that was never going to work long-term because ultimately they wanted different things. That was when I told him about Ian and about how, ultimately, we wanted different things as well (me wanting to be married to him, him wanting to be a million miles away from me).

Of course I had been full of bravado when I told him – hindsight being wonderful and me having realised we would never have worked anyway. But at that stage – when we were in the process of falling in love with each other – I didn’t dare tell him how I fell apart. How I almost became a modern Miss Havisham. How I wore my inexpensive cotton dress for four solid days and how the flowers wilted in my hair as I lay in my hotel room and tried to make sense of what had happened. How I cried all the way home on the plane like a big eejit, still with my flowers in my hair which by that stage was greased off me. I drank three small bottles of wine on the forty-five-minute flight, and given that I hadn’t eaten for four days I got off the plane at Belfast pissed as a fart and ran into my mother’s arms sobbing while she tried to tell me it was okay. She didn’t tell me until a week later – when I was coherent again and not quite so suicidal – that she had been apoplectic with rage and disappointment that I had run off and not told her about my plans. She decided then to tell me how she had never liked Ian anyway – and even though at that stage I didn’t like him much myself I still told her to frig off. I will never forget the shame of it. I had never sworn at my mother before and have not sworn at her since and yet that day in our living room I told her in as strong a voice as I could muster to frig off. In fact, I believe what I may actually have said was “Frig away off”. Even now I could still see the expression on her face if I thought about it.

So no, none of that was something that I wanted to share with Paddy, especially not a few months into a relationship when I wasn’t quite sure where we were headed.

I saved those revelations until after proposal number two, when I decided to tell him how I was allergic to weddings. I told him how I had always detested the idea of a big wedding but how Ian had convinced me there was something wild and very romantic about eloping to Gretna Green. We were just out of college – feeling like we were standing on the edge of our futures. It was a strange time – there was so much we wanted to do and that we felt we could do. But I suppose I was a little scared of all the change. I had come into my own at university – it had been a time free of any real responsibility besides making it to lectures and getting my assignments in on time. The rest of the responsibilities centred around making it to the Union bar on time and spending time with Ian. We had become inseparable and obsessed with each other in the way you can only when you are nineteen and think you know everything. So, when he slipped the ring-pull off a can of Harp on my little finger (it wouldn’t fit on my ring finger) and said, on graduation night, that we should do something wild, I agreed.

And I found myself, scared of changing and scared of staying the same, buying a cotton dress in M&S and sneaking away to get married without telling a soul.

Chapter nineteen

Kitty

The part of me that wanted to phone Mark was overrun by the part of me that hated him and wanted to make him feel even a tenth of what I was feeling. I came to that conclusion at around 3.45a.m. when I couldn’t sleep and had wandered out to the garden to sit on the decking. It was a cool night and I wrapped my dressing-gown tight around me.

Just a few weeks before, Mark and I had sat out here until the wee small hours, drinking andtalking. We’d had The Baby Conversation (which we always referred to in a deep, serious voice before laughing at each other).

We would consider it in the following year, we decided. But I’d start taking folic acid there and then, just in case. If we decided to leave the condoms in the drawer now and again that would be okay. We felt, we decided, secure enough to take the next step in our relationship.

My business was well established and had survived the worst of the recession so far. I’d brought in a few less exclusive lines which met pinched budgets, but I still gave every bride the star treatment. Mark had said work was going well – he was pretty sure he would survive any cull which might or might not come. I didn’t realise as he talked that I was the one who was going to be a victim of a cull in the very near future.

Having kids had been one of those things we’d just kept putting off. Whenever we had The Baby Conversation we would both inevitably say we didn’t feel ready just yet. I didn’t feel old enough. I enjoyed my life. I suppose I kept waiting for that one morning when I would wake up and just know it was the right time. That time hadn’t come – but I was starting to become increasingly aware that I wasn’t getting any younger. The day I found a stray grey eyebrow-hair was the day I finally freaked out and the day we had the big conversation. It was hard to think it was just a few weeks ago.

I had called Mark at work and, because he is a man, he didn’t seem to get why one stray eyebrow-hair would have turned me into a screaming harpy, but there I was, my normally cool and calm exterior all but gone, telling him that we absolutely and completely had to talk that evening.

I had stormed about that day in very bad form, if I remember correctly. Rose had bought me an emergency Flake and a hot chocolate from Starbucks and I had glared at them. A stray grey hair was one thing.Middle-aged spread was another step further.

“I think I want a baby,” I had said to Rose, as calmly as I would have said ‘I think I’ll have a tuna sandwich for lunch’.

She didn’t miss a beat but carried on working at the sewing machine, just glancing up. “That’s nice,” she said. “A baby would be nice.”

“How do you know you’re ready though?” I asked, thinking of the grey eyebrow-hair and the wrinkles which were starting to appear around my eyes. When I looked at myself in the mirror these days I was often shocked to see a proper grown-up staring back.

“Oh, I don’t know, darling,” she said. “I only knew I was ready when your daddy asked me to marry him and I knew I was inheriting you and Ivy. And you were mostly reared. It’s a different set of circumstances. I’ve never had one of my own – never really felt the need. Do you feel the need?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I’m just afraid that if I don’t I’ll miss out on something?”

“Have you and Mark talked about it?”

I nodded and told her about The Baby Conversation – how we had it first time after we were married and seemed to have it every six months or so – always granting a stay of execution to the stock of condoms in the drawer beside our bed. There was always a reason. The business was taking off. We had a holiday planned. We wanted to buy a bigger house. We were too tired. We had stuff we wanted to do. It was just so heart-stoppingly scary.

“But we can’t keep putting it off forever,” I mused.

“But don’t just do it because you think it is something you should be doing. That’s no reason to become a parent. I love you and your sister very much and I’m glad I had my parenting experience with the pair of you – but it wasn’t just something else I ticked off a list. When I first met your daddy, I had to think long and hard about whether or not I wanted to take on two teenagers who, from what he told me, were prone to teenage tantrums.”

I grimaced and stuck my tongue out at her, remembering the first time we had met and how I had refused to acknowledge her presence in anyway.

“But you are glad you did, though, aren’t you?”

She smiled. “Of course I am – but there was a time when I wondered if I was wise . . . Look, pet, all I’m saying is, being a parent changes your life forever. So be sure your life is ready for a change – both you and Mark.”

“You’re right,” I had said and that was how the conversation followed that evening.

I had felt calmer when I got home. I had stopped and bought our favourite bottle of wine and cooked steak and garlic potatoes for tea, which we ate on the decking in not too uncomfortable silence. Mark hadn’t asked how I was when he walked through the door. I think perhaps he was afraid to, considering the fact I had screamed at him down the phone earlier and ominously demanded a talk. He had simply commented on the delicious cooking smells and thanked me for the wine while offering to pour me a glass. I nodded and smiled and for some reason I hadn’t launched right into the big talk either.

In fact we had talked about home improvements and a holiday (Italy, we decided) first before the silence kicked in properly and we looked at each other, each waiting for the other to start.

“I’m not getting any younger,” I started.

“None of us are,” he said, sipping from his glass and topping mine up.

“But remember that scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Sally tells Harry how Charlie Chaplin had babies in his seventies or something? It’s different for men.”

“I don’t want to be changing nappies when I’m in my seventies,” Mark had smiled.

“Do you have any feelings about doing it in your thirties?” I asked.

He paused, a small smile creeping across his face as he looked at me: “I think I would like that.”

So we had talked on – and planned that once we got the Italy trip over and done with – which we were dubbing our final fling – we would start on the baby-making proper.

We never even booked the holiday. And we sure as hell didn’t get as far as the baby-making.

Sitting on the decking now, in the very early morning, listening to the very rare car pass by and watching the first streaks of light start to rise in the sky, I wondered was that what broke us?

When he had smiled as we talked about having a baby was he really thinking about his other woman? Was he already planning his escape route? Did he really forget those holiday brochures in work, or had he never really picked them up to begin with because he knew he would be leaving. When he was quiet – those few times I had noticed him staring into space and reckoned he was probably thinking of something very mundane like how Jeremy Clarkson is a twat – was he thinking of her? Was he thinking of leaving me? Was he wondering what clothes he would take with him? What he would write in his note? Where he would go and who he would go with?

I wanted to know the answers, but at the same time I didn’t want to know. And that sympathy I felt when I had listened to his phone message – that sympathy which had made me want to run straight to him and tell him I loved him and no matter what we would be okay – well, that sympathy just disappeared into the shadows.

When the sun rose, and I woke on the sofa in the living room looking out at the garden, things seemed a little clearer. I picked up the phone and first of all called Rose to tell her I would be a little late. I lied, which made me feel guilty, saying I was still feeling the after-effects of my migraine and needed a little space to myself and she didn’t question it.

“Of course, pet,” she said. “You know, you shouldn’t take it all to heart. Your mother can be insensitive at times. And Ivy always was one to fly off the handle.”

I hung up, feeling guilty that in the hours since Mark’s message had registered on my family-crisis radar – I hadn’t given a flying fig or even thought about my mother or Ivy.

Then I took a deep breath and lifted the phone again and dialled another number, impatiently waiting for the man on the other end to answer. His voice sounded sleepy, but not so sleepy that he didn’t immediately wake up on hearing my voice.

“I was hoping you’d call,” he said.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call last night. My head was turned. I just didn’t know what to think.”

“You’ve called now,” he said pausing, waiting for me to make the next move.

“Can we meet up?”

“Of course we can. Starbucks in an hour?”

“Please,” I said, hanging up and feeling myself shake. I’d grab something to eat. That would bring me round. Then I would go and have a shower.

And then I would go and meet my husband’s best friend and ask him what the hell I should do about the husband who wanted to ‘explain’.

James got it, I suppose. He knew what it was like to feel abandoned. Not that he had been in love with Mark. Not even slightly. But he had been his friend and he had been left without proper explanation too and he was just as confused about the whole situation as I was – albeit in a more dignified manner.

I’m pretty sure he had never lay about the floor sobbing to sad songs and that he didn’t look at old photos of them together and wonder where it all went wrong.

Then again, things would be different for James and Mark, wouldn’t they? I was pretty sure, now thatMark was back, that he and James would pick up exactly where they had left off, maybe after a cross word or two. James would probably call Mark the “c” word (you know, the bad one) and Mark would offer to buy him a pint and they would be back to their usual selves by last orders.

But even though that thought made me feel quite jealous, and if the truth be told a wee bit sick at times, at that precise moment James was the only person who could truly empathise with what I was going through.

I showered and dressed, grabbed my bag and keys and left.

James was sitting at the back of the coffee shop, stirring his coffee with one of those little wooden sticks they give you. A second coffee, which I assumed was mine, sat opposite him. I sighed. I wouldn’t have the heart to tell him that coffee was not my thing and really I only ever went to Starbucks for the chocolate coin.

He looked nervous. It was a warm morning but he was wearing a jumper and a heavy jacket and was hunched over the table. He looked tired as I watched him sit back and sip from hisdrink. Sitting down opposite him I noted the look in his eyes and realised I must be looking equally tired and nervous.

“So has he been in touch then?” he said, pushing the second coffee towards me.

He looked so nervous I decided to fake it and drink the coffee like it was my favourite thing ever – taking a short sip and putting it back down, lifting my own little wooden stick and stirring it.

“I’ve not spoken with him, but he left a message.”

“And you didn’t call him back?” James sounded surprised.

“I didn’t – don’t – know what to say to him. I don’t know what I want to do at all. I don’t know whether to kill him or just beg him to come home.”

James shrugged his shoulders.

“Have you seen him?” I asked, thinking of the pint-and-bad-word-and-best-friends-by-closing scenario.

“No. I did speak to him though. He is sorry.”

“Sorry mightn’t be enough – not for me.” I felt the tears spring to my eyes and I was mortified. Glancing down I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt James’ hand on mine. Was it wrong to feel it comforting? Was it wrong for it to send a shiver of . . . something . . . through me? It could be that it was just the warmth and weight of his hand – a man’s hand – on mine, but I felt myself inhale sharply and look back at him.

“I can’t imagine what you are going through,” he said. “To trust someone, to be in love with someone . . .”

I allowed his words to wash over me – to soothe me. It wasn’t as if he was doing a Cara and telling me that Mark was a shithead. He wasn’t doing anIvy and telling me I had to pull myself together. He wasn’t doing a Daddy and looking personally wounded and haunted – as if all this was bringing back horrible memories for him. He wasn’t doing a Rose and telling me that if you love someone you should let them go, or that everything happens for a reason or that God never closes a door without opening a window. He was just holding my hand and sympathising and not trying to push me one way or another.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said.

“Go with your gut. Kitty, you know that I love Mark as a brother, but go with your gut. Don’t let him hurt you again. Make sure you can trust him. You’re worth more than that.”

I looked at him again and back to my hand where I realised his hand still rested – and it still felt okay. I looked at him and saw the words forming in his mouth. A tiny voice in my head screamed ‘Don’t!’ but the bigger part of me – the part that liked the warmth of his hand on mine willed him to say it.

“If you were mine,” he said, “I would never have hurt you like this. I wouldn’t even look at another woman, never mind sleep with her. I’d never leave – never run away. I’d be proud to come home every night. I told Mark as much. I told him that he was a lucky bastard. I told him that before you were married, when the pre-wedding jitters kicked in. I told him you were amazing and I told him he was lucky to have you. Kitty, you know that, don’t you?”

I looked at him, his eyes wide and sincere. As the words washed over me, as the compliments sank in, my heart sank with them.

When he told Mark.

When Mark had pre-wedding jitters.

When James had to tell him to marry me.

When Mark wasn’t sure.

When he didn’t talk to me.

When he didn’t let me know how he was feeling.

Maybe it had all been a lie all along. I looked into James’ eyes again – and I realised that nothing made sense any more except for that one moment with him, there, and his hand over mine and him telling me I was amazing. I didn’t know what to believe about anything else in my life any more – but I knew I could believe that James thought I was amazing.

And nothing else mattered.