Retreating to bed again Grace took in the familiar scene of her old bedroom in Pleasant Square. She felt as if she was ten years old and right back where she’d started. Back to being a kid. Lying in the warmth of the small single bed with its springy old mattress and heavy quilt with the faded denim patterned cover she felt safe. She could pretend that she had never grown up and messed up her life so badly and that Shane O’Sullivan had never crossed her path. She looked at the natural pine wardrobe, chest of drawers and shelves around her. As a stroppy teenager she had argued with her dad about getting rid of the old mahogany wardrobe in the corner; she had wanted everything new and fresh so she could create her own look. Leo Ryan had given in and the room had been kitted out with pine furniture and bright paint. She had bedecked the walls with modern art prints and later with photographs of the work of architects Frank Gehry and Santiago Calatrava. This room had been her bolt hole, with her desk and bookshelves and make-up and clothes. A sign to ‘Keep out’ pasted on her door had proved little deterrent to her sisters who constantly invaded her private space. Yet now, heart sore and feelings numbed, she felt comforted lying here, surrounded by the familiar sounds of the house, her mother moving around below in the kitchen, the radio on, the breeze blowing through the leaves of the tall sycamore tree in the back garden. She snuggled up, wishing that she never had to leave this bed or this room, never had to brave the outside world ever again. Sometimes she longed to be a little girl instead of a grown-up. Hearing footsteps on the stairs she rolled over, pretending to be asleep, holding her breath as Evie entered the room.
‘Sshh, your auntie is asleep.’ It was her sister’s voice.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ quizzed Evie. ‘Is she sick?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Did she get a tummy bug like Ashling? She puked on the floor in school today and it was yucky and Miss Roche had to clean it up.’
‘No, not that sort of sick,’ Sarah reassured her patiently, ‘it’s more that Grace feels sad about something. You’ll understand it better when you are older.’
Grace kept her eyes tightly shut and held her breath as the two of them stood over the bed. Why couldn’t they just feck off and leave her in peace?
‘Mummy, has she got a pain in her tummy?’
‘It’s a different kind of pain.’
Curious, Evie bent down to examine her closely, her face hanging over hers. Grace tried to pretend she was asleep but her eyes flickered, suddenly catching those of her little niece.
‘She’s awake,’ cried Evie, excitedly clambering on top of her in the bed.
‘Sorry,’ whispered Sarah, ‘no peace for the wicked!’
‘Come and give your poor aunty a big hug, I could sure do with one from my favourite girl.’
Evie, still in her school uniform, wrapped her arms tightly around her and squeezed.
‘That makes me feel a whole lot better,’ admitted Grace, realizing as she sat up that it was actually the truth.
‘How are you?’ asked Sarah gently, sitting on the side of the bed.
‘Bashed and bruised and pretty hungover!’
Sarah sighed. ‘Better to have loved and lost and all that.’
‘Mum’s favourite bloody saying,’ Grace groaned, leaning up against the pillows. ‘It drives me mad every time I hear it! She’s already had me down Dun Laoghaire Pier in a gale-force wind trying to blow my troubles away – would that it was so easy!’
‘Mum always walks the pier in time of family crisis,’ Sarah reminded her. ‘Don’t you remember we were up and down it like yo-yos when I was expecting and after Maurizio and I broke up!’
‘God, yes, I remember that.’ Grace suddenly realized that her crisis paled into insignificance compared to Sarah’s tumultuous love life.
Bored, Evie got up, playing with Grace’s things that were scattered on the dressing table, discovering her measuring tape with a fancy light.
‘Mummy, what’s this for?’ she asked, turning it over.
‘It’s for measuring things,’ explained Sarah, ‘and you should really ask Grace if you can play with it.’
‘It’s fine,’ Grace said, wishing that she would never have to measure or make calculations or work in close proximity with Shane ever again. She watched as Evie pulled out the tape and began to measure the drawers, the chair and the desk systematically.
‘Why don’t you go down to Granny and get her to help you measure some things?’ suggested her sister diplomatically.
‘OK.’ Evie grinned. She made for the bedroom door and went down the stairs.
As her footsteps receded, Grace turned to her sister. ‘Sarah, what am I going to do about work? It’s going to be a nightmare having to see Shane all the time.’
‘You love Thornton’s. Don’t let seeing that so-and-so stop you working there,’ her sister declared fiercely.
‘I can’t believe I’ve been such an absolute eejit. I should have guessed that there was something going on. Even the night of his birthday he couldn’t go for dinner! I should have suspected he was seeing someone else but I didn’t. I genuinely thought that he was obsessed with his career and working far too hard. Big fool me.’
‘You trusted him, Grace. We believe the people we love; we trust them.’
Grace wondered how it was her youngest sister had become so mature and grown up and unselfish. Having Evie had changed her totally, making Sarah so protective of the small baby that she had to raise without a father that she had become wise and reflective beyond her years.
‘He’s been such a shit, lying to me, hiding what was going on with Ruth.’
‘Well, then it’s better for everyone that things are out in the open now.’
And so the conversation went on. Grace cried and cried for what seemed an age, Sarah sitting beside non-judgementally, handing her tissues and soothing her, putting her snotty hankies in the bin and passing her glasses of water.
‘Grace, it’s going to be OK. We’re all here for you. Mum and Anna and me. Shane wasn’t good enough for you. You deserve better.’
‘That’s what Mum keeps saying.’ Grace sniffed. ‘She’s like a broken record about it.’
‘Plenty more fish in the sea and all that!’ Sarah risked a joke.
Grace smiled wearily. ‘Honestly, I’ll kill her if she says it one more time!’ she sighed. ‘Mum has no idea just how hard it is to meet a decent guy! I’m going to be thirty soon and the fact is that I might never meet someone.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Grace, guys always fancy you,’ said Sarah loyally. ‘You’ve your career and an apartment of your own and a car! I’ll never be able to afford even a banger of a car at the rate things are going.’
‘Sarah, you’re the lucky one,’ said Grace, suddenly feeling guilty. ‘You have Evie. She’s the most beautiful little girl in the world. I’ll probably never even have a child, and end up a sad old maid living on my own.’
‘Somehow, I doubt that.’ Sarah tossed her long fair hair back off her shoulder and snuggled up on the bed with her sister. They curled up together like when they were kids.
‘Mum’s making a stew,’ Sarah warned her sister.
‘Stew!’
‘Beef with all the works. She was cutting up carrots and parsnip and onions down in the kitchen.’
‘Oh God!’
‘Got to feed a broken heart. You know Mum. She’ll fuss and feed you and force you to get back on your feet. The thing is I’ll probably end up doing the same with Evie when she gets dumped by some awful boy.’
Grace found herself actually laughing. ‘That’s scary.’
‘You’re going to be OK, honest,’ Sarah reassured her, serious again. ‘Listen, I’d better go down before Evie has Mum demented with the whole house measured.’
The smell of onions and the meaty stew wafted up the stairs. Grace had forgotten how hungry she was. Maybe she would get up and have dinner with the others. She checked her phone; all day long she’d been getting missed calls and texts from her friends. There was absolutely nothing from Shane. Deciding that he was no longer relevant in her life she deleted his number from her address book. But her hand had hovered over the number before she had firmly pressed the delete button.
Anna had called over after work armed with a giant bottle of Lucozade and a big bag of wine gums, Grace’s childhood favourites, and insisted she give a blow-by-blow account of the disastrous dinner.
‘Salmon cakes, pork with Calvados, cake!’ Anna muttered fiercely. ‘What a waste!’
When Grace got to the part where she had hurled the stone lizard off the balcony into the water, she suddenly found herself laughing out loud at the absurdity of it as her mother and sisters tried to control their own giggles.
‘You should have thrown Shane in the bloody river!’ teased Anna, her blue eyes blazing.
Sitting around the kitchen table later with Mum, Sarah, Evie and Anna, eating floury potatoes and plates of her mother’s warming stew with its soft chunks of vegetables and rich sauce made her realize that even though one part of her life was a total screw-up her family were the best . . . the very, very best!