‘He’s not like us…’ was all she managed. And she was right. He wasn’t like us, at all. ‘He’s a Progressive Conservative.’ But I wanted a child and he wanted a wife.
And Nora got over it. Not enough to embrace Michael (he wouldn’t have actually embraced her, anyway, as he always said, with a slight shudder, there was the whiff of Oxfam off her), but enough not to go on about it. Anyway, we all had Rosie to think about now.
But whenever I walked on the pier in Dun Laoghaire, I’d look at the couples, the ones who looked like they’d been married for years and years, the ones brimming with love and lustre, chatting nineteen to the dozen, holding hands, and I would feel a tug of loneliness. I used to have that, once, but life had taken a different direction and Rosie was the centre of my universe. Michael and I, when he was home, didn’t share a bedroom and we had used the fact that he had the nasal capacity of a jet engine as the reason for his moving to the spare room. Michael and I weren’t perfect, but it wasn’t bad. Certainly not bad enough to leave.
‘Mum…’
‘Yes sweetheart?’ I said, looking up from the fridge from where I was putting the shopping away.
‘Nothing,’ she said, turning away. ‘Forget it.’
‘No, what is it? Is everything all right?’
This school year hadn’t started well for Rosie when her boyfriend, Jake, ended things. And now, with the pressures of exams, the light had gone out of her. It was awful to see. She had even retreated from her best friends, Alice and Meg.
‘Yeah, fine.’ She turned to go.
‘Have you eaten?’ I said, in an attempt to keep her with me.
She shrugged. ‘I had some granola earlier.’
‘Would you like something else? Poached eggs? I bought some nice bread.’
‘No, it’s fine.’
‘Do you fancy doing something? A walk? Or we could go the farmers market? Or into town? Do some shopping. Get you something nice?’ The bribe fell flat.
‘No, you’re grand. I’ve got to get back upstairs.’
‘Ro…’ I eyeballed her, parent face on. ‘You don’t go out. I can’t remember the last time you left the house… what about Alice, Meg… I bet they are still going outside…’ I smiled, to let her know I was still on her side.
‘So?’ Suddenly, she was furious, on the brink of tears. ‘I’m trying to work, okay? That’s all. I’m just trying to work.’
‘I know, I know,’ I soothed, quickly. ‘But don’t you think it might be nice? Why don’t you go and see Alice? I’m sure she could do with a break too.’
She held up her hand. ‘Mum, can’t you just give me a break. Leave me to it. Okay? Everyone’s doing it,’ she told me. ‘We’re all working away. Stop fussing.’
‘Stop fussing? I’m your mother. This is what we do. We fuss. And if mothers stopped fussing, where would we be then?’
‘Happier?’
I pressed on. ‘Have you even talked to Alice? Texted her?’
‘You should be pleased I’m working so hard. Not nagging me. God, anyone would think you would want me to fail.’
‘Of course I don’t want you to fail but…’ What exactly did I want? I liked the fact that she was a hard worker. This very fact had made my parenting so much easier. She was the kind of child you didn’t have to worry about. Conscientious, successful. She made me look good. But… but… something was nagging at me, something wasn’t quite right. It was too much. ‘You need a break,’ I said. ‘At least from time to time. You’ve shut yourself away like…’
‘Like what? A madwoman in the attic?’ She had her arms crossed, challenging me.
‘No…’ I tried to keep it neutral. These days all I seemed to do was upset her. I was losing her. ‘You’re hibernating, like a… like a…’
‘Squirrel?’ She almost laughed.
‘Like a hermit.’
‘Mum, hermits don’t hibernate. Maybe you should have studied harder.’
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘obviously, I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to say but I don’t want you to stop being you. Having fun. Seeing your friends. It’s like life is on hold. There’s no such thing as a pause button. Not when it comes to being alive. However much you might want there to be.’ For a moment I thought of the times when I wished I could press pause, when life seemed to move too fast for me. ‘What about seeing if Alice or Meg would like to go to the cinema with you,’ I persisted. ‘I’ll drop you. And collect. I’ll give you money for sweets.’
She rolled her eyes, defiance and anger had returned. ‘Mum, I’m doing my Leaving Cert. And you want me to go and eat sweets. Or press pause. Or be a squirrel…’ She was looking at me as though I was mad.
‘Forget the squirrel bit…’
‘Have you any idea how stupid you sound?’
‘No… I mean I just think you deserve a bit of a break. You don’t leave your bedroom. Surely, you know it all by now.’
‘You see! That’s typical of all of you. None of you get it. I can’t just take time off.’ She began to cry. ‘How else am I going to get to Trinity? To do Law.’ She spat it out. Up until this moment, I had thought she wanted it just as much as Michael. But maybe it was just pre-exams nerves, the fear of this huge culmination of 14 years of full-time education… the feeling of being out of control. Inevitably she was going to doubt herself and her choices.
‘You don’t have to,’ I said. ‘If you’ve changed your mind about Trinity or Law or anything, it’s not too late.’
‘Oh yes it is!’ she said. ‘But there’s nothing I can do.’
Chapter Two
I’d been principal of the Star of the Sea girls’ primary for the last five years. Every day as I drove in to work, I couldn’t believe that I was leading the school where I had been a pupil – as had Rosie and even my own mother.
Every single day our pupils made me proud, from hearing them sing in assembly, to just seeing them dressed in their uniforms, eager to please and to learn. The school had seen many changes since I played skipping games and wrestled with my times tables to when, years later, I was made school principal. So far, we were doing well. We retained our 100% approval rating from the local authority year on year and had several commendations, including those for our anti-bullying attitude and the green school scheme.
We did, however, have one problem. Well, two, if you counted the fact that Sixth class didn’t actually have a teacher, since Ms Samuels had disappeared after winning €50,000 on the lottery and was last seen heading for Departures with a copy of Let’s Go South East Asia.
But the other big, equally pressing, problem occupying my waking thoughts was cash flow. Or rather the lack of. We weren’t a private school and relied on the local authority, whose budget seemed to decrease every year. Instead, we were encouraged to do as much fundraising as possible. But however many cake sales, bring-and-buys, raffles or parents’ cheese and wine evenings we enthusiastically held, we never had enough money to fix the things that we really needed. The other local school, Willow Grove had recently presented each child with their own iPad. Willow Grove was a private school and the fact that the fees had recently been upped by a whopping €2000 a year might partly explain where the extra dosh had come for to pay for all this. Our parents’ committee had even held a whole meeting on this very subject, and the result had been retuned that we had to provide our children with the very same. We just had to keep on fundraising. More cake sales were prescribed, along with sponsored walks and swims and no school uniform days. Anything sponsorable was in. Except for the human pyramid idea suggested by one pupil which would definitely end in tears, broken bones and probably a barring order from never running a school again.