The Art of Friendship

As well as making a significant contribution to the family income, the gallery was her insurance against empty-nest syndrome, the idea being that it would keep her too busy to miss the girls when they eventually left home. But her nest was far from empty and it looked like staying that way for the foreseeable future. She and Martin might never be rid of the girls! At least that was what she joked over a glass of wine in company. Truth was, she didn’t want them to leave home. She wanted them to stay right where they were.

Not that she would ever admit this, not even to Martin. She didn’t want to be seen to be holding the girls back in any way. But at the end of the day, all that really mattered to Patsy was family. And with her parents both dead, and her siblings living overseas, family meant Martin and the girls.

Sarah had gone off to do nursing at Queen’s in Belfast three years ago but, after graduation last summer, she’d been driven back home by low wages and the high cost of living. By the time she’d paid for her car (essential to commute to Antrim Hospital where she worked), clothes, entertainment and the rest of it – she paid no board at home – there was nothing left at the end of the month.

Patsy encouraged Sarah to spend, told her she deserved ‘treats’ and plugged the holes in her daughter’s shaky finances. In short, Patsy made sure life at home was very comfortable for Sarah. No girl in her right mind would give it all up to go and live in some grotty bedsit in Antrim where she would struggle to make ends meet.

So, just as Laura prepared to embark on a life outside the family home at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Sarah had come back to fill her shoes. Patsy knew she couldn’t hold onto the girls for ever, and she truly wanted the best for them – good careers, happy marriages and healthy children. But she made no apologies for trying to keep them with her just as long as she could.

The door overhead slammed shut and Patsy sat down at the table, calmly filled her plate and began to eat.

Sarah padded noiselessly into the room, wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a pair of battered, sand-coloured shearling boots on her feet. Her long auburn hair hung loose, framing a perfect oval face, delicate mouth and green almond-shaped eyes. She pulled at the sleeves of her hoodie, stretching them down her long arms to the knuckles, as though the backs of her hands were cold. At five foot ten Sarah towered over her mother and her figure was lithe like a cat. Nothing like Patsy at all, who had always struggled with her weight. She thanked God that both girls had inherited their father’s ‘slim’ genes. Sarah flopped into a seat and piled her plate with food.

Laura appeared soon after, dressed in tight jeans and a canary yellow angora sweater. She gave her sister a narrowed-eyed glare and sat down opposite her at the table. Laura was shorter and slimmer than her sister, blonde where Sarah was a red-head and her prettiness was of a different nature, emanating more from her vibrant personality than classical good looks. And while Laura hadn’t inherited Patsy’s frame she had inherited her mother’s bosom, giving her the most amazing Barbie-doll figure, with an incredibly slim frame and disproportionately large breasts. That chest could turn heads – Patsy had seen it in action on Ballyfergus High Street.

Laura sighed softly at the sight of the food. ‘This looks delish. Thanks, Mum.’

‘Yeah, thanks Mum,’ chimed Sarah.

‘You’re both welcome,’ said Patsy. ‘But I wish you two would stop fighting. It gives me indigestion.’

Immediately Laura, always the one to cave in first, addressed Sarah. ‘Can I borrow your straighteners, please?’

‘Course you can,’ returned Sarah, fast as a tennis ball.

Laura stared at her sister, her clear hazel eyes wide like saucers. ‘What was all the fuss about upstairs, then?’

‘You didn’t say please,’ said Sarah quietly, a sly smile creeping onto her lips.

‘You’re a big kid, Sarah. Do you know that?’ said Patsy, starting to giggle and soon the three of them were laughing uncontrollably. Patsy held her hand over her belly and, said, ‘You two crack me up, you really do.’

When they’d quietened down, Laura helped herself to some food and asked, ‘When’s Dad coming home?’

Patsy glanced involuntarily at the clock. ‘Don’t know. He’s going to be late again.’

‘He’s always late,’ said Sarah, her mouth full of food. ‘These days anyway.’

Patsy paused, considering this. Sarah was right. Martin had been getting in later and later, rarely making it home before eight. He blamed it on pressure at the bank in Belfast where he worked and the ever-worsening commuter traffic that clogged up the city’s arteries like cholesterol.

‘Is everything alright, Mum?’ said Laura, helping herself to more chicken. ‘I mean with Dad.’

‘Of course it is. He’s just busy, that’s all,’ she said, the maternal instinct to protect them springing forth. Some habits were hard to shake.

She pushed her plate away, the food like a balled fist in her stomach while the girls ate in silence. Since Christmas, Martin had been withdrawn, uncommunicative. She’d put it down to the January blues and, if truth be told, she’d been so busy she hadn’t really paid too much attention. Was it just work, like he said? Or something more sinister? She glanced at the clock again. Could he be having an affair? Her heart stopped, started again. She shook the notion off energetically like water from an umbrella.

‘Where are you off out tonight?’ said Sarah to her younger sister, scraping her plate clean.

‘A crowd of us are going round to Catherine’s to watch a DVD.’

‘Tell me something, Laura,’ said Sarah. ‘If you’re just going to watch a DVD at Catherine’s what d’you need to straighten your hair for?’ Sarah winked at Patsy. ‘Will Kyle Burke be there?’

Laura blushed, still young enough to be embarrassed by a crush on the best-looking boy at St Pat’s. ‘He might be,’ she said casually, looking at her plate. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Leave her alone, Sarah, will you?’ said Patsy, standing up and carrying her plate over to the sink. ‘Come on. Help me clear up.’

Laura collected the glasses from the table and Sarah stacked the plates. Patsy said, ‘Aren’t you going out tonight, Sarah?’

‘No. I’m tired,’ she said, punctuating her sentence with a yawn. ‘I’m going to watch the telly and have an early night.’ She carried the plates over to the dishwasher.

If she’s tired at twenty-one, thought Patsy, what’s she going to be like when she’s my age? She rubbed the small of her back, achy from being on her feet all day. Sarah loaded the dishwasher and Patsy regarded her thoughtfully.

Her elder daughter was a self-contained, solitary girl who was a bit of an enigma. Patsy was proud of Sarah and she loved her, of course, but she did not easily identify with her. Laura she understood. Like Patsy she was fun-loving, gregarious, people-orientated, always in the thick of any social action. She hated even being in the house alone.

And Patsy had known, almost from the moment of her birth, that Laura was her favourite. She had accepted this realisation with equanimity; she didn’t love Laura more than Sarah, she just enjoyed her more. And because she was acutely aware of this favouritism, she took great care to make sure she treated the girls equally.

‘You can’t stay in on a Friday night,’ scoffed Laura, who had been out for the last three nights on the trot.

‘Not everyone’s like you, Laura,’ said Sarah pointedly, picking a cherry from a bowl on the island unit and popping it in her mouth. ‘Some of us are quite content with our own company.’

‘Oh, my God! Look at the time,’ cried Laura suddenly. ‘I’d better get ready. Louise is coming for me at eight.’ She dropped the glasses in her hands into the sink with a loud clink and ran out of the room.

Sarah opened the bin, spat the cherry stone into it, and let the lid slam shut. ‘She goes out too much,’ she observed. ‘She should be studying.’

‘Ach, sure she might as well have some fun while she can,’ said Patsy indulgently.

‘You’ll not be saying that if she fails her exams,’ said Sarah darkly.

‘She’ll knuckle down when she has to,’ said Patsy. She hung her apron on a brass hook on the back of the kitchen door and wondered how two siblings, raised the same way, could be so very different in nature and temperament. ‘So what’s on telly?’

‘NCIS and Numbers,’ said Sarah, moving towards the door into the hall. ‘Fancy watching them with me?’

‘No, thanks, love. I’ve got some work to do,’ said Patsy. ‘I might as well get it done before your dad gets in.’

Half an hour later, Patsy was engrossed on the PC, looking at dates for the Irish art fairs. Perhaps Janice, Clare and Kirsty could be persuaded to join her at the Art Ireland spring fair at the end of March – the perfect time for an overnighter in Dublin, a warm-up for their more ambitious trip to London later in the year.

‘Well, that’s me off,’ said Laura, bouncing into view at the door. She’d changed into another (even tighter) pair of jeans, with the over-priced and completely impractical grey knitted Ugg boots she’d so desperately wanted for Christmas. One good rain shower and they’d be ruined. Her face was shining with youth and vitality.

‘Well, you have a great time, love. And be…safe,’ said Patsy. ‘Tell Louise to drive carefully.’

The doorbell went and Laura said, ‘Gotta go.’ She gave her mother a forceful hug and kissed her on the top of the head. ‘Bye, Mumsy,’ she said and Patsy laughed.

Laura bounded out of the room. Patsy got up immediately and followed her but only as far as the landing so that she could watch her daughter trip nimbly down the stairs, open the front door and slam it shut behind her. Coatless as usual. Patsy pulled her cardigan tighter and smiled, remembering the thrill of going out at that age. The feeling that the whole world was there to explore, that endless possibilities awaited you. The feeling of having your whole life ahead of you.

A few moments later a car pulled up outside. A door slammed and Martin came in, pushing the door to quietly. He did not see Patsy watching him. He put his keys in his jacket pocket, set his briefcase on the floor and then paused. He put both his big hands over his face and stood there for some moments, rocking back and forth, in a state of private grief. He might have been crying.

Patsy put her hand to her throat, shocked. Martin rarely showed emotion. She had never seen him cry. Not even when the girls were born or when his father died. Suddenly she felt like a peeping Tom, observing while herself unseen. She took a few steps back, so that she was out of Martin’s sight line should he happen to look up, and waited.

‘Patsy,’ came his voice after a few moments, sounding just like normal. ‘That’s me home.’

She took a deep breath and stepped out onto the landing again.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said brightly and descended the stairs. ‘Laura went out just now. Did you see her?’

‘I saw her in the car. With Louise,’ he said and attempted a smile. His face was tired, wretched even, but he acted as though nothing was wrong. ‘Where’s she off to, then?’

‘Oh, just round to Catherine’s.’

Patsy went over and put her arms around Martin’s waist, still slim but thicker than it had once been – but then he’d been a beanpole when she’d first met him. She rested her head on his chest and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m tired,’ he said, and he stiffened a little. He did not put his arms around her. ‘And I’m starving.’

Was this how people kept secrets? Using half-truths as diversions? Acting as though everything was normal when clearly it wasn’t?

Patsy swallowed the lump in her throat, broke away and said, ‘I’ll get your dinner. Do you want to change first?’

What on earth was he hiding from her?

‘No,’ he said, pulling roughly at the dark blue tie around his neck. It bore narrow green stripes and the bank’s logo, a gold harp intertwined with shamrock. He discarded the tie on a nearby chair. ‘I’ll just eat like this.’ He took off his suit jacket and threw it carelessly on the coat stand.

Patsy moved automatically to the kitchen followed by her husband. He went to the fridge, got himself a bottle of Becks, flipped the cap off and sat down at the table. He took a long swig as Patsy set his dinner in front of him.

‘Watch, it’s hot,’ she said, letting the plate slip gently from her gloved hands onto a wicker place-mat and removing the metal foil she had used to cover it.

‘Thanks, love,’ he said. ‘That looks great.’

‘I’m just in the middle of something,’ mumbled Patsy, laying the gloves and lid quietly on the granite worktop. She slipped from the room and left him there, eating at the table alone, because she could not bring herself to engage in meaningless chit-chat. Not when her heart was so heavy and Martin was lying to her.

She went into the snug and sat with Sarah, watching the television but seeing nothing, and thought of all the things he could be hiding. Drugs, alcohol, gambling debts – all the usual vices that people fell victim to, even people like Martin who were sensible and balanced. But none of them rang true. None of them seemed to fit the Martin that she knew. And neither did adultery. He must’ve received bad news of some sort. But, if so, why hide it from her? Was it his health?

At this thought she got up immediately and went back into the kitchen. Her timing was perfect: just as she walked through the door, Martin pushed his empty plate away.

‘That was good,’ he said with a smile and ran his hand over his face as though wiping away his worries. But whatever they were, they remained etched on his face.

Patsy sat down on the chair opposite him, rested her elbows on the table and clasped her hands together, as though she was about to pray. ‘Martin, I know something’s wrong. Are you going to tell me what it is? Or are you going to lie to me?’

Martin’s pleasant expression, placed there by a square meal and the beer, fell away. He looked like he’d been caught out, taken unawares. The corners of his wide mouth turned down and he stared at her for some moments, long enough to make Patsy uncomfortable.

‘Are you ill?’ she asked softly and blinked. And when he did not answer immediately, she stretched her hand out and put it over his. ‘Are you, Martin? Because whatever’s wrong you know I’ll face it with you, don’t you?’

He laughed nervously and made a tutting sound. ‘Of course I’m not ill. I’m perfectly well. Just tired, that’s all.’

He slipped his hand out from under hers and went and got another beer. He prised the cap off and stood there drinking it, in front of the open fridge door. ‘The share price fell again today.’

‘Again?’ said Patsy and she put a hand to her throat. Almost all of their hard-earned savings were in bank shares – they’d planned to sell shares to fund Laura through uni, just like they’d done with Sarah. But they’d had to watch helplessly these last few months as the markets fell and the value of their investment plummeted.

‘They’re now worth less than a pound, Patsy. From nearly six pounds just a few months ago.’

‘The value of shares can go up as well as down.’ Patsy reminded herself, as much as Martin, of this mantra. She removed her hand from her throat. ‘All we have to do is hold onto them and they’ll go up, won’t they?’ she said, optimistically. ‘Maybe the worst is over.’

‘It’ll be years before they recover.’ Martin shook his head and took another reckless swig of beer. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid, Patsy,’ he said angrily and stared at her, his face tight and pinched. ‘We shouldn’t have put everything in the bank’s shares. It’s such a fundamental error – not to spread the risk. I don’t know what I was thinking…’

‘Please, Martin, don’t beat yourself up about it. It was a…a joint decision,’ said Patsy, limply. ‘Who could have foreseen this happening to banks?’

‘I should’ve.’

Patsy did not refute this. Martin was the financial expert – she’d always left these things up to him. What did she know of investments and shares and stock markets? But even she knew not to put all your eggs in one basket. She relied on him and he’d got it wrong. Her resentment took her by surprise – she bit her lip and tried to focus instead on what this meant in practical terms.

‘Well, what’s done is done,’ she said, trying not to sound like she blamed him. ‘There’s no point fretting over it now. We’ll still be able to put Laura through uni, Martin. That’s the most important thing. We’ll just have to cut back on luxuries for the time being. It’ll be tight but we can do it out of our income. And, if worst comes to worst, she can take out a student loan.’

Thanks to careful management of their finances, Sarah had graduated unburdened by debt. And even if Laura had to take out a loan they would repay it for her – eventually. The situation was disappointing but not desperate.

‘Hmm,’ said Martin dully.

‘Cheer up, love,’ said Patsy. ‘It’s not the end of the world. All we have to do is weather the storm and the shares will eventually recover their value. Other people are much worse off. Other people are losing their jobs.’

She took Martin’s plate and cutlery over to the sink where she rinsed them. She hummed loudly and thought nervously of the deposit she’d laid out for the safari. She glanced at him. He was seated again, long legs splayed apart, with a third bottle of beer, already half-drunk, in his hand. He was staring at the black-and-white poster of the Eiffel Tower on the wall opposite. A place they’d visited with the girls when they were in their early teens.

Twenty-five years they’d been together and they’d never had a holiday like the one she’d planned, just the two of them. They’d no money in the early days and then, when the children came along, holidays were always family-focused – Disney, Eurocamping and, lately, packages to the Med where they’d all squeezed into too-small apartments so the girls could spend a fortnight topping up their tans. If ever they needed a holiday like this, it was now.

She thought of Martin’s thinning hair, her own recurrent backache. They were getting older faster than she liked and they weren’t as close as they used to be. She longed to rekindle their romance – she wanted to feel the way she did when she’d first met Martin and truly believed she could not live without him.

It probably wasn’t prudent to take a luxury holiday in the midst of economic uncertainty but, if they didn’t go this year, when would they go? It would never be the right time. There’d always be something else to spend money on – in a few years it would be weddings and grandchildren. She had saved hard for this holiday – her own, hard-earned money Martin knew nothing about – and it meant so much to her. It was now or never.

‘You need a holiday, love,’ she said, into the sink.

‘The way things are looking at the moment, we might not be taking any holidays for a while,’ said Martin glumly and took another swig of beer.

‘Now, now,’ scolded Patsy, coming over and sitting down in the chair beside him. She patted his bony knee and gave him a sparkly smile. ‘I thought we’d agreed not to be pessimistic.’

‘I’m not,’ he said and the corners of his handsome mouth turned up in a laconic smile. ‘I’m being realistic.’

‘Well, you have to take some time off, don’t you?’ said Patsy.

‘I guess so.’ The corners of his mouth fell as he shrugged and looked away. Took another swig of beer.

‘Well, look, why don’t you book the last three weeks in September?’

‘Why three weeks? Why September?’ he said, sounding slightly irritated.

‘Oh,’ said Patsy. ‘No particular reason. Just that Laura should be off to uni by then. It seemed like a good time.’

‘It’s the worst time if you ask me.’

‘Maybe we could book a nice holiday, just the two of us,’ she ploughed on, ignoring his last comment.

‘I dunno,’ he said, uninterested, and a little knot formed in her stomach. Did he not want to go on holiday with her? And had he completely forgotten it was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in September? She tried not to let his indifference hurt.

‘Don’t let’s make any rash decisions just yet,’ he said. ‘Let’s wait and see how…how things turn out with the economy.’

Patsy got up and busied herself with tidying away the supper things. She thought back to the image of Martin standing in the hallway earlier, wracked with grief. Sure, he’d made an error of judgment about the shares, but it wasn’t that big a deal. They would adjust their finances, work round it. She couldn’t imagine that was what was upsetting him so much. No, there was something else. Something he wasn’t telling her.

When Martin got up to leave the room she went over to him and put her arms around him. She raised her face to his but, before she could speak, he stiffened and turned his face away. ‘I need to get changed,’ he said and simply walked out of the room.

Tears pricked Patsy’s eyes. She put her hands to her face and blinked fiercely to prevent them flowing. Something was wrong, seriously wrong. She knew it in her heart. Was he lying about his health? Had he done something stupid he was trying to hide from her? But what? She wracked her brain. And then the cold hand of fear settled on her shoulders, causing her to sink into the nearest chair. Had her first instinct been right? She thought of all the nights he’d been late home from work. And much as her heart told her it couldn’t be true, her head told her it could. Was he, after all these years, having an affair?

She thought of the vows they had taken all those years ago – vows she had believed in then and still did. The question was, did Martin? She’d hoped the safari might help them re-connect, inject romance back into their lives, help them find each other again. Now she needed it to do much more. She needed it to save her marriage.

Chapter Six

‘Dorothy,’ said Kirsty. ‘It’s really good of you to have David and Adam overnight. Again.’

‘It’s no trouble, love,’ said Dorothy, a comfortably rounded woman, with jet-black hair from a bottle and bright red lipstick. She smelt of face powder and Chanel No.5 and was well-dressed in a smart black skirt, patterned blouse and scarlet cardigan. She wore a set of pearls round her neck and discreet diamonds twinkled in her fleshy earlobes.

They were standing in the hall of Harry and Dorothy’s handsome Victorian three-storey home on The Roddens – the house in which Scott had grown up. The boys had been here since lunchtime – Kirsty had been grocery shopping and called in on her way home to deliver their overnight things.

A grandfather clock tick-tocked at the foot of the stairs. The bold floral wallpaper, now fashionable again, dated back to the first time Kirsty had visited this house nearly eighteen years ago, when Scott had brought her home to meet his parents. The collection of china plates, each one depicting an agricultural activity of a bygone age, which covered the walls and snaked up the stairwell, had been in its infancy back then. And Kirsty had gone back home to Scotland with the impression that Dorothy and Harry had not approved of her.

The wallpaper might be the same, but everything else had moved on. Grief had a way of changing people. Now she felt accepted by her in-laws, loved even. And every birthday and Christmas since had seen a new addition to Dorothy’s plate collection – it certainly simplified the task of buying presents for her – until every inch of wall space was covered.

David and Adam ran in from the garden where they’d been kicking a ball about and shouted, ‘Hi Mum!’ in unison. Then they threw off their coats, hat and gloves, kicked off their mud-coated shoes and left everything in a tangled heap by the front door.

David was well-built with ears like question marks, sandy-coloured hair, grey eyes that were a little too close together and highly coloured cheeks. His little brother had inherited more classically handsome looks – he had a pretty cupid’s bow mouth, china-blue eyes, darker hair and a slighter build. Neither child looked much like their father but Dorothy was never done rooting out family resemblances on the Elliott side of the family.