23

Since she had achieved her dream of having her feet under the directors’ table at High Res, Sam is getting home later than ever. Philip, too, sends her last-minute texts about meetings and blips that require his attention: ‘Under pressure again’. So, right through the summer, deadlines and the desire to climb higher surpass the sun-drenched promises they had made in Nice.

On the Thursday evening after her business trip to Kensington, she is driving home well after eight, when it dawns on her that she and Philip haven’t had a conversation or sat together at the table in almost a week – breakfast on the run, if either is at home. As often as not, one of them has an early meeting: Philip, like the other senior lending managers, is trying to salvage some equity from a defaulting client. Sam is off in London.

She swings into the cobbleblock front of La Salle, parks facing the party hedge, and sits to admire the house, while rubbing her finger along the suv fob. Her eye is drawn to the elegant front door, the double-hung sash windows perfectly proportioned and, beneath the roof, the decorative mouldings on the cornices.

While savouring the view, she becomes aware with a start that she has forgotten to make the booking for the following night. Dinner for the two of them at The King Sitric, another attempt at Philip and Sam quality time.

She continues to stare at the house that ticks all her and Philip’s boxes. Masters of our own destiny. The attempts they have made to rekindle the love they once shared have come to nothing, like the disastrous sessions they had taken with marriage counsellors when they were on the edge of separating; then, as a last throw of the dice, phoning Father Tom, who had just returned from Africa.

In his frugal kitchen, they chatted about college days and the soup run. ‘A lot of that died out after your time; study took over, and, I don’t know …’ He paused while taking down a tin of biscuits from an overhead cupboard. ‘Exams, I suppose, and getting a job. Anyway – as you know – I went Kenya side.’

Philip was the one who explained why they had come. ‘Sorry to trouble you with this, we thought that … Well, you know us for yonks.’

They went over the same ground as they did with the counsellor: great at the beginning, then the arrival of Dylan and Zara seemed to drive a wedge between them. Sam grew jealous of the attention Philip was paying to the children. ‘What’s for me here any more?’ she sobbed one evening after he had put them to bed. Still in her business suit, she was sitting up on the couch, her briefcase beside her, like a visitor who wasn’t going to stay long. They lost interest in each other: indifference became fault-finding and bickering, but when they managed a recon-ciliation of sorts, they put it all down to pressure of work. They were worn out every night, and then went their separate ways in the early morning.

When they had finished, Tom didn’t spare them. ‘I don’t have magic, nor am I a trained counsellor, but I’ll not mince words, and you won’t like me after this, but you asked for my opinion.

‘You’ve chosen to follow different drummers, ones neither of you is going to lessen your hold on. And until that happens … well, who knows?’

There was no trace of the eccentric cleric, who, a few years later, would mooch around La Salle at the house-warming, quoting Yeats to himself.

‘What are you talking about?’ Sam asks.

‘Gods, agendas – call it what you like. It has taken a grip: work, promotion, status – that’s a very crowded pitch. How could you meet each other with that mob taking up all your time and effort?’

Going home, they stare at the road ahead, and are in agreement about one thing: what the fuck does he know about married life?

He’s changed.

Not like he used to be.

No, he’s definitely not like he used to be.

Lost his sparkle.

The malaria.

That’s it. The malaria.

And did you see the poor state of the house?

Sam checks her BlackBerry, and downloads her social appointments. To her great relief, she sees that the Auburn fashion show is down for Friday, and is already forming an excuse: After the effort the girls put into it, just couldn’t let them down. Isn’t that a bummer?

Her BlackBerry on the passenger seat springs into life, causing her to stir. She reads Philip’s message. Loose ends 2 b tidied, grab something on my way home. C U later x. She closes her BlackBerry. They are both at the same game.

As she picks up her briefcase and makes to open the car door, she remembers that Dylan will be with his rock band friends: her golden chance to talk to Zara, whom she has been worrying about lately.

They have a lasagne and salad, and a fitful conversation, kept alive by Sam, but even then Zara is lapsing into silence, so that they are suffocating each other. To Sam’s relief, Zara finishes her meal.

The evening is warm, and once, when she glances at her daughter’s flushed face and the pullover with the Goldsmith Park crest, she says: ‘Do you need to wear your jumper on an evening like this?’

The flash of alarm that shows on Zara’s face causes Sam to fear the worst. The talk – she’d heard it at wine-tasting nights: kids stoned at house parties while parents were at their villa in France. Ecstasy and worse. Needles.

Zara rattles on about Aoife: her parents promised her a new Toyota if she gets enough points for medicine when she sits her Leaving Certificate examination. Tara is working as an au pair in France next summer. And Keelin is the latest to have a trust fund, but it’s all tied up until she’s twenty-one and in Trinity.

It isn’t until Zara stretches for the coffee pot that Sam sees the reason for her daughter’s odd behaviour of the previous months, and her nervous chatter. The terracotta sleeve of her pullover has slid up to reveal tram lines scoring her daughter’s forearm.

Panic-stricken, she hears her child rattle on about her hockey teacher, and how she herself was so looking forward to going on the school outing to Paris.

That talk for parents in Goldsmith Park comes winging back to her. The psychiatrist at the podium, his glasses perched on his nose, taking questions from the audience. Clipped accents failing to hide the terror: ‘Why, doctor? Why is teenage binging becoming so prevalent?’

‘As a society we’ve no time for each other any more; consequently, there’s a lot of depression about. The World Health Organization puts the statistic at one in five. I estimate that one in every ten people may be on anti-depressants.’

A polite grumble spreads through the hall. A woman raises her hand: ‘An estimate but not cold hard facts. Wouldn’t you say so, doctor?

His voice grows more resolute: ‘Life is disposable; people are disposable in today’s world. You’re only what you have or what you do. This leaves young people very unsure about themselves. Thousands of young people are self-mutilating – slashing their arms with razorblades, piercing their thighs with needles to deflect from a greater pain. Psychiatry has lost the fight against mental illness.’

‘Thousands, doctor?’

‘Yes, thousands.’

Earlier, he had shown a piece of film. Ambulance sirens screeching, police in high visibility jackets trying to steady drunken young men outside a night club, garish lights flashing. Girls in skimpy dresses and high heels were swaying and staggering on a wet street in the early hours of the morning, their heads thrown back in drunken laughter. Barely able to stand, a young man with his shirt hanging out reaches for one of them, and just when she is falling into his clutches, she swings her handbag and hits him right in the face. The others are now in stitches as he crumples to the ground, blood pouring from his nose.

Sam knows she has to be careful here, and not make a bad situation worse. So it isn’t until they are filling the dishwasher that she makes another remark: ‘How you can wear a sweater on an evening like this beats me.’

Zara turns away, and looks out through the window in the direction of the bay. Seagulls are scavenging for food. ‘Oh, I just forgot. D’you think it’s, like, warm?’ With a wary look, she tugs at her sleeve. Sam then does what she will sorely regret afterwards: she swings around from the dishwasher, grabs her daughter’s arm and pulls up her sleeve.

‘That’s the reason!’ she flares.

With a look of terror in her eye, Zara manages to pull away and makes for the doorway, but Sam cuts her off.

‘You tell me right now. Right now!’ she is shrieking, ‘or I’ll have you down to Doctor Mullen in the morning. Fine gratitude after all your dad and I have been doing for you and for Dylan.’

When she recovers from the shock, Zara also flies into a rage at the way her mother has torn open her dreaded secret: ‘You do stuff for yourself, not for Dylan and me.’ She becomes like a trapped bird, dashing around the kitchen looking for an escape.

Her back to the door, Sam glares at her: ‘You thankless bitch! After all we’ve given you.’

‘Yeah, things you gave us. Things to make you feel good. You’re either in London or, like, some other place! Following your career, because that’s what counts.’ She is darting around the kitchen again.

Sam springs from the doorway, raises her hand, but stops; she lurches to the nearest chair and sinks into it. A row they’d had when Zara was about twelve flashes across her mind: ‘Yeah, go on, hit me, and I’ll be so on to Childline, you’ll be sorry.’

The doorway is now free, but Zara stands still for a moment, and then slips into a chair beside her mother. They are both frightened and drained of energy, and, like two combatants between whom a curious bonding has taken place, they rest in a silence, broken only by Zara’s sobbing and Sam’s heavy breathing. After a while, Sam shuffles to the counter and puts a box of tissues in front of her daughter. ‘There,’ she says quietly.

Zara takes a fresh tissue from the box and blows her nose; and, in an abstracted way, her fingers work at a second tissue until it falls to pieces on the cream tiles. She is all clogged up when she speaks: ‘I won’t do it ever again, Mum. Sorry.’ They look at each other, and Zara falls at her mother’s lap, and embraces her. ‘For the thing I said about – like – you and Dad.’

Only occasionally is Sam open and natural in her expressions of affection to her children, and this inability has hardened over the years, as if life, or the cut and thrust of business, has annulled her womanly instinct. Both children had been born with the help of an epidural, and, much to Philip’s surprise, Sam decided against breast-feeding, so that they would take to the bottle and Philip could get up in the middle of the night to feed them. He also did much of the nappy-changing, and tried to get them to sleep by casting funny shadows of laughing foxes on the wall with his hands, and telling stories, just like his own father did with him and his brother when their mother was downstairs correcting her pupils’ homework.

Sam now clings to Zara out of fear of what is happening to her and the family: out of fear that it’s all unravelling before her eyes. ‘It’s ok, lovey, it’s ok,’ she keeps reassuring her. They are both crying. ‘Promise me, lovey, that you won’t do that again.’

‘I promise.’ And her grip tightens around her mother’s neck.

‘Our secret, Zara lovey, our secret.’

They sit back. Zara draws her feet beneath her and begins to rock, forgetting that the scars she had hidden are now visible through the soft hairs of her forearm. Sam’s anger falls away also; she remains seated next to her daughter and again, tentatively, puts an arm around her shoulder.

‘What’s it about, lovey?’ Her tone grows soft. ‘You can tell me. I won’t go to Doctor Mullen, but please tell me.’

‘A few of us.’ Zara removes her thumb from her mouth; she is still sobbing, ‘we just, like, heard about it on the internet and went down to the grove behind Robin Hill, and – ’

‘You went … oh, Zara, darling, why?’

‘I’m sorry. We were only, like, experimenting. Just the once.’

Zara is lying. They had been going to the grove for a few months, and also taking Solpadine for the buzz; the group has been able to get a supply by stealing from their parents’ medical chests, or doing the rounds of chemists as far as Clontarf, Fairview and beyond. Whenever their parents were away for weekend breaks, they texted around in haste: free hse Fri nite. Bring ur own.

Sam and Zara lapse into silence again; Zara stops rocking. ‘Right, lovey. We’ve been missing each other. You know, your dad and I have to work hard for all this.’ Her arm sweeps over the cream tiles, the basalt stone top of the island, and stops at the French windows leading out onto the garden.

‘I know, Mum,’ says Zara, leaning her head towards her mother again.

‘Well, we’re going to put all this behind us. Right? And we’re going to have more time for each other.’

Zara forces a smile: ‘We are.’

‘You and I are going to have ourselves one great day out on Saturday. It’ll be our women’s day.’

Frightened now at the enormity of what she has been doing, Zara is willing to go along with her mother’s suggestion; she puts an arm around her shoulder and snuggles into her.

‘Our secret, lovey,’ says Sam. ‘Our secret.’

No sooner had Zara gone upstairs than Sam receives a message on her BlackBerry from Ciara Bell, her boss. She phones her back, and learns that Volvo had seen the work Sam has done for Arrow in New York and wants to talk about a shoot in Stockholm. ‘We need you to go to speak to them; André won’t be back from London until Wednesday. Big fish, Sam. They’re not in the habit of being kept waiting, so it looks like you’re the only one with the experience. Consider this a favour that will not go unnoticed.’

‘When?’

‘Has to be tomorrow afternoon. I’ve got your flights booked.’

Sam and Bell had started together at High Res, and had got on well until Sam began to climb the ladder. From then on Bell no longer invited her to Searson’s or The Lansdowne for the Friday evening drink, where they occasionally met up with clients and business contacts. She knew Bell had pushed André’s bid for the Creative Director’s job, but when Sam pulled off another highly acclaimed advertisement that was displayed in Marie Claire, it was impossible to hold back her claim.

Sam sinks into a chair and, her elbows on the table, joins her hands in front of her face, like someone in the act of praying, and remains like that for some time, puzzling over the best way to make an apology to her daughter for heading off to Sweden the next day.