I’m in bed when Sophie calls unexpectedly at the door just after eleven a.m., springing me out of my dream in which I was tutoring children who were speaking a different language and I couldn’t understand a thing they said. Their words were right in my face as they spoke mumbo jumbo and they laughed at me with toothless grins, pointing and mocking, telling me how useless I was and how I’d never be a real teacher.
‘Thank God you’re here!’ I tell Sophie. I realize I’m shaking. ‘Oh Soph, I was stuck in the most horrendous dream! Why are you even here? It’s so good to see you. Come in.’
I say ‘Come in’ but by the time I say it, Sophie is already in the kitchen filling the kettle.
‘Nice pyjamas,’ she says. ‘Do you actually wear those in bed with Jack?’
I glance down at my Disney pyjamas, realizing they are now about nine years old and are as tattered and torn as my mind is at the moment.
‘Sentimental value,’ I say, ‘and no is the answer to your question. Of course I don’t wear these in bed with Jack! I sleep naked!’
‘Eugh,’ says Sophie as she flicks the kettle to boil. ‘Too much information.’
We take a mug of coffee each outside and Sophie lights up a cigarette, much to my bewilderment. She never smokes. It looks funny and doesn’t suit her at all.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ I ask her. ‘You don’t smoke. Give me a puff.’
She glances at me and shakes her head. ‘No, you can wait,’ she says. ‘I’m being rebellious. I’m never rebellious so I thought I’d take a drive out to see you and smoke a cigarette when I’m supposed to be working. And you don’t smoke any more either so don’t even think about it.’
We both sit looking out at the spectacular views ahead of us with only birdsong for company, when I let out a deep sigh that makes Sophie almost choke on her cigarette.
‘Do you think we’re having a mid-life crisis, Sophie?’ I ask her, in a very serious tone. ‘I mean, I feel like I’m cracking up a bit inside. Maybe I’m just bored. Can you crack up from boredom?’
Sophie lets out a noise that sounds a bit like ‘pfttt’.
‘I’m perfectly in control of my life,’ she tells me, blowing out a stream of smoke that tells me this isn’t her first taste of nicotine. ‘Plus, we’re too young to be having a mid-life crisis. You, however, really need to get your shit together and deal with what’s going on in your head, Char. Emily is worried about you, even your fair weather friend Kirsty is worried about you, and your mother is going round the bend. Tell me what’s going on with you, darling. You know you can tell me anything.’
I dig deep as I cradle my coffee mug but, no matter how much I try and search my mind for a deeper problem that might exist, I can’t find anything bigger than the actual truth, the trigger that started my low moods that have lasted all summer.
‘I just need to find my purpose again,’ I tell Sophie. She puts out her cigarette at last. ‘I just need to find out who I am and where I’m going because right now I can’t seem to find another teaching job, I can’t find it in me to write songs like I used to, I can’t do anything that makes me feel worthy. I just need to find my “reason to be” again.’
Sophie looks at me with great pity.
‘Just being yourself is a good enough “reason to be” if you’re not feeling up to much else,’ she tells me. ‘Sometimes we put ourselves under too much pressure to be this or be that. Sometimes we have to just “be”, to sit still and collect our thoughts. Don’t be so hard on yourself, please.’
I breathe out and lean back on my chair, wondering how much longer I can just sit still and think about things. That’s part of my problem. I’ve had way too much time to think.
‘You know, Sophie, when we were growing up in Loughisland, it was the happiest time of my life, even though it was simple and we didn’t have much,’ I say, not knowing where my words are coming from or where they’re going. ‘The sound of the ice cream van coming into our estate was like our own little version of Disneyland, a bit of snow in winter gave us a whole new playground and we’d use coal bags as makeshift sleighs to slide down hills, and we could tell what day of the week it was by what Mam was making for dinner.’
Sophie smiles but I know my childhood was several light years away from what she experienced. I’m not saying it was better or worse, it was just different.
‘I wore my sister’s clothes when she had grown out of them and I longed for the day when I could wear my own things, instead of depending on Emily’s growth spurts,’ I say with a smile. ‘I’ll never forget the time I saved enough money from picking strawberries at the weekends to buy a whole new outfit of my own. A denim jacket with patches on, a full-length floral tea dress to go underneath it and a pair of boots that made my mother’s eyes water. I was fifteen and it was my first sense of self, my first expression of who I really was inside. I’ll never forget that feeling.’
I know that Sophie is trying desperately to think of something to say, but she can’t relate at all, can she? From what she has told me, as a child she was showered with ponies, violin lessons, speech and drama tuition, designer clothes. Her weekend entertainment was the opera whereas mine was going for a bag of chips with my friends. She knew exactly who she was and where she was going in life from the day she was born.
‘Charlotte, you’re one of the sweetest, funniest, most caring and talented people I know,’ she says to me gently. ‘You’re an out-of-this-world teacher, but most of all, you’re my best friend in the world, even more than Harry sometimes. I’m serious about that.’
Her gentle words make me lose my breath.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ she nods. ‘I’d be lost without you, Char, and the laughs and words of wisdom we share. You’re such a special person, so unique that even my mother likes you – and that’s more than what she feels for me!’
I manage to laugh at that one but it is true. I’ve gone way up in Sophie’s dragon mother’s estimations since I walked out on Miss Jean Brady.
‘Maybe you don’t see it now, but you are so special, and being a teacher at Holy Trinity doesn’t define you – in fact I didn’t like to say it to you before, but you’re so much more than that place,’ she continues. ‘You’re deeper than the people associated with places like that, you’ve got more soul.’
‘Ah, thanks Soph. That’s nice to hear.’
‘Believe me,’ she continues. ‘I’ve known Jack Malone for a very long time now and he doesn’t suffer fools. He never did. Everyone who meets him salivates when he walks into a room and yet he only has eyes for you, Charlotte. You’ll get your mojo back, babe. Give your head a break and hopefully you’ll see the bright side again soon.’
Sophie is right but I wish it was easier to get my head out of this tangled mess I’m in. I know I need to switch off, or at least control the noise that’s battering me from inside, to calm the claws that are dragging me down, telling me I’m just a girl from Loughisland who doesn’t deserve to be here in Ardara with a handsome husband who I adore.
The words in my head whisper that I don’t deserve Jack Malone and the beautiful life we have together. A part of me still dreams of a life on the road making music like I could have with Tom, even though I know nothing now about him. All this confusion makes me worry that someday, very soon, I’ll mess all I have up in style and then I’ll lose Jack too.
‘I hope my mojo comes back to me soon,’ I whisper.
Sophie reaches across and takes my hand, swinging it slowly and closing her eyes. Maybe she is having a mid-life crisis? Maybe we both are. Can you have a mid-life crisis at the age of almost thirty-one?
‘You’re going to be fine,’ she tells me. ‘You’ve got a great team around you, everyone loves you. This is just a phase.’
‘Or a phrase, as my aunt Bridie calls it,’ I laugh lightly. ‘She always gets her words so terribly mixed up and it used to get on my nerves, but now it’s just funny. She once told my mam she had Matthew up on a peddle stool.’
Sophie laughs her head off. ‘A peddle stool!’ she repeats. ‘Oh I’d love to see her again, dear old aunt Bridie. She was such fun at your engagement party. You do make me laugh with your stories, Charlotte. Don’t ever lose that spark. I’d miss it terribly if you did.’
I smile sincerely at that. Sophie and I are opposites in so many ways yet we just work together as friends. Maybe I am where I’m meant to be after all. Maybe I do deserve this beautiful life I’ve been given, even if I did pack in my job and throw my whole reputation up in the air.
‘Look, I don’t know if you’re even up for it, but on a totally different subject, I’ve got some tickets for September twenty-third to see that band we all seem to like in Dublin,’ Sophie tells me, her eyes brightening with excitement.
A band? That does get my interest actually. Maybe hearing some live music would shift me up a gear and perhaps help me get the courage to start writing again. I loved hearing live music in Galway with Martin and Matthew. It lit a spark in me, even if that spark went out again like a damp squib as soon as I got into bed when we’d left the pub.
‘Maybe it will be something to look forward to instead of the usual seafood restaurant or hanging out here when we get together next month?’ Sophie says. ‘What do you think? You don’t have to answer now, but have a think about it, talk to Jack.’
I let go of Sophie’s hand and tie my hair back up into a loose bun, already decided that whoever it is or wherever it is, I’m going, hands down.
‘Who’s the band?’ I ask her, and then the penny drops in my head as I realize exactly who the band is. My stomach does a somersault. Oh no.
I’d seen posters around the city, in fact I’d seen them everywhere, even in Galway when I was visiting Matthew.
‘You mean, Blind Generation?’ I squeak, not even recognizing my own voice when I speak. ‘Is that who you mean?’
‘Yes, that’s them,’ says Sophie, and then she goes off in another ramble as to how she still can’t remember their name no matter how many times she’s told it. ‘One of the girls at work says her husband has some sponsored tickets to give away and she asked if I fancied it. She’d heard me singing their song one day, bless. Anyhow, no big deal but I have them if you want to go. Ask Jack.’
‘I will,’ I mutter, feeling rushes of energy surge through me like I’ve haven’t felt in a long time. ‘Sophie, would you mind if I had a quick shower? We could go for lunch?’
She turns right round to face me.
‘Well, that perked you up no end!’ she says, with sheer delight on her face. ‘If I’d known the suggestion of going to see Blind Generation would shake you up, I’d have told you the minute I got here. You go do your thing, Char baby. I’ll have another coffee, this time without the cigarette. What on earth was I thinking, smoking? I actually feel a bit sick now.’
But I don’t hear a word she’s saying. I make my way to the bathroom and, as I stand under the hot streaming water, all I can think of is that I’ve just agreed to go and hear Tom Farley sing live, in actual person. What the hell am I thinking agreeing to such a mad notion? I’m going to see him in the flesh for the first time in three years. I’m bringing my husband. And I’m going with my best friend who has absolutely no idea that I even know him – or knew him, should I say – in the first place.
It’s just a night out, I tell myself. It’s just a concert. And Tom Farley is just someone I used to know. It’s not going to change anything. Is it?