It had been an awful week. Matt had barely spoken to Kerrie since coming home late on Sunday night. They had avoided each other at breakfast, and on Monday he had texted her to say he was working late and not to wait up for him. She had her cookery class on Tuesday, and afterwards sat in her car crying for an hour eating the melt-in-your-mouth shortbread slices that Alice had showed them how to make. Matt was, by the way, asleep in bed when she eventually went into the apartment. She lay on her side of the bed wide awake for hours, listening to his breathing and wondering what was happening to them.
He was out on Wednesday, and on Thursday she met Ruth and they went around the shops looking at possible bridesmaid dresses.
‘You OK, Kerrie?’ asked her friend, concerned.
‘Fine,’ Kerrie lied as she despatched Ruth into the changing room to try on some more dresses.
On Friday when she came home she found Matt had left a note for her to say he was heading down to Moyle for the weekend. This time he hadn’t even bothered asking her to accompany him.
She couldn’t sleep all night and knew somewhere deep inside that their relationship was starting to unravel, spinning out of control. She was losing him … losing Matt.
On Saturday she couldn’t settle to anything. She felt sick and scared, and, after trying to waken herself with an invigorating shower, found herself pulling on a clean pair of jeans, a white knitted ribbed sweater and a jacket, and getting into her car and driving home.
She passed the massive new high-rise developments of apartments and hotels in Tallaght, many empty, some now at least let to students at the local college. She gazed at The Square shopping centre and the hospital. They’d all been built since she was a kid. When they’d moved there, their estate had been surrounded by green fields. The green fields were long gone, replaced with more and more housing.
She had loved the freedom of it, the wildness of the place where they could run and roam with gangs of kids, all playing together. Slowing down at the traffic light she turned into Forest Road and took a right into Riverfield Grove. A group of five small boys were kicking a football, and her little nephew Jamie was among them. He gave her a shy wave. This road had been home for so long, a place of security and comfort, with the Murphys and the Kennedys next door, along with the Griffiths and the Conroys and a whole host of families that had all grown up together. Their mothers had kept an eye on them all, and their fathers had worked hard to put food on the table and pay off the mortgages they’d taken on to buy the three-bedroomed semi-detached houses.
She stopped outside Number 248. Nothing ever changed. The red painted gate hanging from the pillar, the big palm tree in the front garden, and her mam’s sparkling clean net curtains in the window.
‘You should have told me you were calling today, Kerrie, pet, and I’d have got something in.’
‘I just felt like coming home,’ Kerrie said, trying not to cry as her mother hugged her. Her dad was out the back, pottering like he always did, fixing a bicycle.
‘Mike’s young one nearly came off it the other day going to school. It needs a new chain,’ he said, greeting her. She watched as he checked the tyres on the bike.
‘Is everything OK?’ he asked.
‘Dad, can I not just call home like everyone else?’ she said, wishing he wasn’t so perceptive.
‘Sure you can, pet,’ interjected her mam. ‘This place is like a railway station at times with all the comings and goings. Martina’s gone off into town shopping for a few hours, and little Max is upstairs having a nap, and Jamie is somewhere outside.’
‘He’s fine, he’s playing football.’
‘Come on then, and we’ll have a cup of tea while things are quiet.’
‘The place looks great.’ Kerrie admired the kitchen which had been painted a fresh creamy white, and there was a new silver fridge standing in the corner.
‘Your dad and Mike painted it two weeks ago and it looks so much better now. The poor old fridge gave up the ghost last week so we went down to Power Electrics and got a new one!’
‘Well, it all looks great!’ Kerrie said, noticing the tumbling mass of petunias and geraniums in her mother’s window boxes and planters and tubs.
She sat at the big pine table, where she had spent so much of her life, as her mother made a pot of tea and produced some of Kerrie’s favourite Club Milk biscuits.
‘How’s everyone?’ she asked.
Claire O’Neill began to give her the weekly rundown on the family. Mike’s wife Nicola was expecting again; Andy’s little girl Emma might need to get her tonsils out; Tara was getting on well in England, and loved the London hospital where she was working; Martina’s husband Darren had just been taken on by an electrical contractor in Walkinstown, which was great news; and Kerrie’s little sister Shannon was studying so hard for her Leaving Cert exams that her ma was worried she’d make herself ill.
‘Where is she?’ Kerrie asked.
‘At the library. She says it’s quieter there for her to study at the weekends.’
Kerrie felt guilty. Shannon was eighteen, and a lot like her. The teachers said she was very bright, and she was aiming to get into college and study science. Why hadn’t she tried to help her little sister more, encourage her?
‘She’ll be home at teatime … you can talk to her then,’ said her mam, as if reading her mind. ‘How’s Matthew?’ asked her mother. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Matt’s fine, Mam, he’s gone down to stay with his parents for the weekend.’
‘Down to that lovely big house of theirs? Why didn’t you go, too?’
Kerrie didn’t know what to say, and could see the concern in her mother’s eyes, and found herself blurting out all about Matt’s family’s troubles and Matt’s involvement in trying to fix things.
‘Matt’s a good boy,’ her mother said, pouring more tea. ‘Maureen and Dermot seemed fine types of people. A bit different from us, I’ll give you, but they must be finding this all very hard. Imagine losing your home or business at our age! The poor things, Kerrie. Is it any wonder your Matt is trying to help them?’
Kerrie stared at the photos on the kitchen wall. They were family photos of herself and her brothers and sisters when they were younger, and now there were also the new grandchildren. Her mam had a heart of gold and, instead of being angry at the Hennessys, pitied them.
‘Thank God, your dad and I own every stick and stone and tile in this house. No one can touch it, as our mortgage was paid off four years ago!’ she said proudly. ‘We paid off the car last summer, and we’ve a bit of money put by for our pension and holidays and emergencies like the fridge. You know your dad! He wouldn’t have it any other way. That man is as straight as they come!’
‘I know that, Mam, you and Dad are the best,’ Kerrie said, jumping up and hugging her.
‘Kerrie, what about your wedding plans?’ her mother said softly. ‘How are they coming?’
‘Everything is a bit up in the air at the moment,’ Kerrie said. ‘I’ve the church booked for the ninth of September, and Father Louis, the priest who’s going to marry us, speaks English, so the mass will be in English. I’m trying to find someone to sing in the church. And the restaurant is all organized, but I’m trying to sort out the menu. You and Dad need to book your flights, and there is a lovely hotel overlooking the water. I’ve provisionally booked twelve rooms there. The church is only a few minutes away …’
‘Kerrie, is everything all right?’ pressed her mum.
Kerrie had been rabbiting on about the wedding arrangements, unaware that tears were running slowly down her face.
Her mother passed her some tissues from the box she kept in the kitchen.
‘Matt and I have had a fight … we’re barely speaking. He hates me … He’s gone down to his parents again this weekend, and he barely even told me that he was going.’
‘Did he ask you to go with him?’ quizzed her mother.
‘Yes, he did last week. I just didn’t want to go down. His mother is such a snob, she hates me … hates that Matt and I are getting married. She thinks that I’m not good enough for her precious son.’
‘I see,’ said Claire O’Neill quietly, her hands resting on her patterned apron, her brown hair flecked with grey, her eyes sad. ‘Is that why your father and I and your brothers and sisters, well, those who can manage it, are being dragged off to France, Kerrie, for this wedding of yours?’
Kerrie stopped.
‘No, Matt and I love France. We want to get married there. We—’
‘Are you ashamed of us, Kerrie? Ashamed of your family, where you come from?’
‘No, I’m not. It’s just that his family are so different from ours,’ Kerrie trailed off lamely.
‘Matt is a nice boy,’ her mother said firmly. ‘What his family are like makes no odds to your father and me, once he is a good kind husband to you and a good father to your children. That’s what makes a man. Not the money in his bank account, though that can ease things a bit, or where he did or did not go to school, or whether he grew up in a big house or one of the council flats like where Darren came from.’
‘I know that, Mam. It’s just that the Hennessys are used to different things from us. I love Matt, but sometimes I feel I don’t really fit in with them.’
‘Lord rest your Granny O’Neill, but she was a right rip. When I married your father she thought I wasn’t good enough for him. Told me to my face! She made my life a misery with her sour face and ways. My father worked in Guinness’s brewery and she was always going on about it. I only found out after she died that her husband John had been turned down by the brewery. She held a right old grudge about it, as John got a job in the Swastika laundry then, but sure, that had none of the benefits Guinness’s had! There was no widow’s pension when he died and he left her with a young family.’
‘That’s different!’
‘Don’t you think your daddy and I think it strange that Matt has never been to this house? All the other boyfriends and girlfriends practically lived in the place. Your dad used to have to throw Darren out at midnight when he and Martina were going steady.’
‘It’s just that Matt’s busy … with his job and …’
‘When you went to college, we were all so proud of you, Kerrie. You are the first person on both sides of the family to not just get a university degree but to do a Master’s. Why do you think young Shannon is working so hard? She wants to be just like her big sister! I see her looking at the photo of you in your cap and gown on your graduation day, and I know it spurs her on. Why would you be ashamed of what you are, what you have achieved? We are all so proud of you. But I’m proud of all our children and their achievements.’
‘Do you love Matt?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then be honest with him. You can’t hide things in a marriage, it never works.’
‘I know,’ Kerrie said, feeling a huge pang of regret for what she had done. All the deception! Things couldn’t go on between Matt and herself the way they were. They had to be honest and open with each other. If he didn’t want to marry her, he had to tell her!
Little Jamie came in from playing football. He’d cut his knee, and Kerrie wiped his tears, found a big plaster in the medicine box and stuck it on. Later she gave baby Max his bottle and changed him. His chubby fingers grabbed on to her blonde hair as she played with him.
Her sister Martina came back laden with shopping bags from town, and did a fashion parade for them, showing off her new outfits and shoes.
‘These are the first new things I’ve bought since Max was born,’ she said, giving a twirl around the kitchen in her new red dress. ‘Now that Darren’s got work again things are looking up!’
‘You’ll all stay for tea,’ insisted Claire O’Neill. ‘I’ll make my meatballs in tomato sauce for everyone. Jamie loves them.’
Kerrie jumped up and offered to help, cutting up the onions and helping to shape the seasoned balls of minced beef.
‘I don’t believe it!’ teased her mother as Kerrie told her all about her cookery classes, and the kind of things she had learned to make.
After dinner, when Martina and the kids had gone, Kerrie stayed in the kitchen talking to Shannon while her mam and dad sat on the couch together and watched a DVD.
‘Mam says you are working really hard!’ Kerrie smiled. ‘Good girl, that’s exactly what you need to do for the next few weeks … get through the exams and get what you want.’
‘If I want to go to Trinity College or UCD I’ll need to get at least four hundred points,’ her younger sister, with her long dark hair and skinny face, explained. ‘I’m hoping to pick up an A or two in maybe physics or maths or even chemistry. My teacher, Miss Hanratty, says that I’m on track, but I just need to keep going. I want to be like you, Kerrie, and do well!’
Kerrie looked at the big brown eyes and long dark lashes; her sister was so beautiful and so focused.
‘If you need any help with anything, Shannon, I’m here for you. Any help I can give you with revising or going back over things, let me know. I’m still pretty hot at maths, you know.’
‘I just hope I make it into bio-medical science,’ Shannon confided. ‘I’d love to be doing research and finding out things the whole time … it would be a cool kind of job to have.’
‘What about the rest of your subjects, how are they?’
‘OK, I guess. My French is a bit ropy, but I should pass it, and I like Irish, believe it or not!’
‘Do you need any help with the French?’ Kerrie pressed.
‘Maybe.’
‘Well, how about for the next few weeks we get together and go over your French until the exams? It’s one of my favourite languages,’ offered Kerrie.
‘That would be great.’ Her sister grinned.
‘I’m staying here tonight, so maybe we can go through some work after breakfast.’
Wearing a pair of Shannon’s pyjamas, Kerrie slept in her old bedroom, which now contained a baby’s cot and changing gear, and a cardboard cut-out of Dora the Explorer stuck on the wardrobe door.
‘Night, pet,’ said her mam, creeping in to give her a kiss. ‘It’s nice to have you here. Sleep well.’
She had slept well for the first time in weeks, and woken clear-headed and refreshed. Going home after a massive family Sunday lunch, she had taken some of the family photos, promising to make copies and return them to her mam the following week. There was a photo taken on holiday in a caravan park in Wexford, with them all running into the waves grinning in the sunshine in their swimming togs; a photo taken in the back garden when Shannon made her first Holy Communion, and one of Kerrie’s mam and dad on their wedding day. She had also discovered Fred, the old black and white teddy bear she’d had since she was about two, on the top of the wardrobe, and had shaken the dust off him and taken him home, sitting proudly in the front of the car with her.
Matt would be home later tonight. She needed to talk to him. They had to sit down and be honest with each other. She had been so stupid, so scared of losing him! Hiding things! Pretending. It was pathetic. But now there could be no more pretending, no more lies. She’d had enough of it!