9i

Chapter Three

Hilary Hickey caught sight of herself reflected in a

shop window and paused in shock. She was not only

very old-looking but she also looked quite eccentric.

Her hair stood up in spikes and her clothes seemed to have been thrown on at random. Is this the way people saw her?

Hilary was surprised. She had thought she looked quite different.

If she had been asked to describe herself she might

have said small, neat, trim, fit, with a nice broad smile, the smile that so many years ago had made Dan Hickey leave his wealthy fiancee at an art gallery opening and come to her side.

No one would leave anyone to come to her side nowadays,

Hilary thought ruefully. They might cross the street to avoid her. She looked into the shop further and realised it was a hairdressing salon. Perhaps this was a sign, a message saying that it was time she did something about her unkempt head.

She would go inside and see if they had anyone free to do her hair now. If they had, then it was definitely a sign. The young girl at the desk was called Kiki.

‘Sure,’ she said, ‘I can do you now.’ She looked dangerously young and rather over made-up for Hilary’s conservative

thinking.

 

‘But what about the … um … reception desk?’ Hilary asked nervously.

‘Oh, that looks after itself,’ Kiki said, getting towels and directing Hilary towards a basin.

Kiki talked incessantly about a new club that was opening next week.

‘My son may well be going to that,’ Hilary said cheerfully.

It sounded the kind of thing that Nick would like, noisy and colourful and opening its doors at midnight. She often met him returning home when she was heading off to the clinic.

But she had learned not to comment.

In many ways Nick was a perfect son. He was a talented

musician who gave music lessons in the afternoon when he taught the clarinet and kept an eye on his grandmother. In as much as he could. But of course if he had to go out to a school or to visit a pupil at home then there was no cover, no one to look after Hilary’s mother.

Hilary bit her lip and thought about it over and over again.

She didn’t care what the so-called experts said. Her mother Jessica was not going to go into a home for the bewildered. She would not put her mother away.

Hilary had been an only child with parents who had been

absolutely devoted to her. Her father was a very handsome man who sold cars in a showroom. He loved cars. Hilary

remembered how he had stroked them and almost purred at

them. He would promise that one day he would have saved

enough to buy them a beautiful car and all three of them would go driving in the countryside on a Sunday.

But before that could happen Hilary’s father met a lady

with very blonde hair and a black leather coat. The lady was buying a car and needed a lot of test drives. During one of the test drives it turned out that Hilary’s father and the lady in the black leather coat were meant for each other and would go and live in the south of England, and have their own family.

 

Hilary had been eleven at the time.

‘Will I be going to the south of England to see them and to spend holidays?’ she had asked. Her mother thought not.

Better not to build up any hopes. Better to work hard and get a good job. That’s what Daddy would have liked to see.

So why didn’t he stay to see it? Hilary wondered. Her

mother never answered this; and so her life was never quite the same afterwards. She only saw her father once a year; her mother went out a lot. She helped people in their gardens and she made cakes for her friends. She always encouraged Hilary to invite friends home on a Friday evening and they now had so much room in the house without Father that they let two rooms to paying guests. These were two mousey women called Violet and Noreen who worked in a bank and lived very

quietly. Hilary’s life fell into a routine. Home from school, glass of milk and a homemade biscuit, then homework.

Then Violet taught her bookkeeping, and Noreen taught

her to type on an old machine where the letters had been covered with sticking plaster. By the time she left school, Hilary had achieved what they apparently wanted for her, a good education and some steps down the road towards being a secretary. She would have loved to have gone to university like some of her school friends, but by the time she was eighteen she realised that the money just wasn’t there. Her mother wasn’t doing gardens and cake-making out of friendship for people. She was doing it to earn a living for them both.

Hilary went to a secretarial college and because the two paying guests had helped her so much, she learned everything she could in a very short time. She got the Certificate of Merit from the college and was ready to earn her own living in a few short months. She started in hospital administration and this is where she stayed. She had concentrated too much on her work to consider men and marriage. Until she met Dan Hickey.

 

All her friends warned her against him. He was too good looking, they said. He was unreliable. If he left his fiancee for her, he could do the same thing again. He didn’t have a real career. He was a gentleman. He needed a rich woman to support him. Only her mother agreed that Dan was wonderful.

Anxiously, Hilary ran her friends’ concerns past Jessica.

‘Suppose that he is too good-looking for me, Mother?’ she had worried.

‘Nonsense, Hilary, you are a fine-looking young woman, and you have a good career, and you have a house to offer him.’

‘He can’t come to live here.’ Hilary was aghast.

‘Where else would he live? I worked long and hard enough to keep this house for you. We have no paying guests now.

Make me a small flat beyond the kitchen and we are right as rain.’

‘But it’s putting you out of your own house …’ Hilary began.

‘No, it’s not. I’m not really able for those stairs anyway.

This way I have company and independence. What could be

better?’

‘But will we be able to afford to build an extension?’

‘Certainly we will. I have been saving like a squirrel. I’ve been waiting for this day.’

‘It hasn’t come yet. He hasn’t asked me.’

‘He will. Just have an open mind,’ Jessica had advised.

Dan asked her to marry him the next week.

‘I’m not much of a catch,’ he apologised.

‘You’re the only catch I wanted,’ Hilary had said and he seemed delighted. He was also delighted that he didn’t have to think of finding a family home, and after their quiet wedding he moved in seamlessly.

Dan was always seeing someone about an opening or talking to someone about a possibility. But in the twelve years of

their married life he never earned one single penny. Instead, Jessica returned to her garden pruning and cake-making, and added dog walking as well. Hilary took on private bookkeeping jobs for clients, small companies or wealthy individuals, which paid well.

 

When Nick was eleven, exactly the same age as Hilary had been when she lost her father, Dan went out of their lives. But he did not disappear to the south of England with a woman in a black leather coat. He was drowned in a deep, dark lake when he had gone to the Irish midlands to meet a chap who might be able to give him a job. The Guards came to the door to tell Hilary and her mother and her son. They were very kind. They came in and made tea for the stricken family

and left knowing as little about the man who had drowned as they had before, except that he had left three broken people behind.

There had been a small insurance policy. Jessica insisted that they have an elegant funeral for Dan Hickey. He would have wanted it that way. Hilary was too shocked and angry to care. Why had he gone swimming in an unfamiliar lake? Why had he gone before his son grew up to know him properly?

Looking back on it all afterwards she was deeply touched at and grateful for her mother’s insistence the funeral be done right. The delicate sandwiches in the posh hotel, his many friends and acquaintances, none of whom had delivered a job, a contract or an introduction, but who were all happy to turn up for the reception. It had indeed been exactly what he would have wanted. She had not one moment of regret.

And after that Hilary had set about making Nick’s childhood as good and happy as Jessica had made hers. When he

showed an interest in music, she paid for private lessons. She never fussed. She knew that his friends envied him his crazy house with two old women in it. To boys of that age, Hilary

knew that she must seem the same generation as her mother.

And the years went by. Hilary never found anyone else

remotely attractive enough even to consider an involvement.

She wasn’t short of offers of company, a hardworking young widow with her own home, a good income, an easy-going,

grownup son who composed and taught music and a cheerful mother tidied away downstairs in a granny flat. She had a lot going for her. Or had, at one time.

But since her mother had become more frail, more forgetful and less able to cope on her own, Hilary had given little attention to her appearance. It was just to do with getting older - it was beyond belief that Jessica would lose her fine mind, her generous nature, her grasp on everything.

But in her own way, Jessica guessed what was happening.

Realising what the future might hold, she wrote a letter. It was a short, typed note:

 

As I am getting older I am becoming more forgetful; and it is possible that one day I might not know where I am or who I am and, even more importantly, who you are. So I wanted to say a nice, clear-headed goodbye and thank you to everyone while I still do have my wits, or at least some of them, about me.

I have had a very good life and I hope you won’t be

offended if I am confused later on. The real me, inside here, remembers you well…

 

Then she wrote a few words to each person. To Hilary she wrote:

 

You are simply the best daughter in the whole world. Never forget that. Do what you have to when the time comes. I’ll love you anyway …

Mum

 

Her mother was giving her permission to put her away. How generous was that? And how sane? There was no way Hilary could do it.

She looked at her reflection in the mirror without much

pleasure. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ she asked Kiki.

‘I’m going to give it some shape. You want it shorter and glossy, yeah?’

Short and glossy was what Hilary had thought it was until she had seen herself in the window.

‘Yes, not too short.’

‘Trust me,’ Kiki said and huge showers of Hilary’s hair

seemed to cascade on to the floor.

Hilary wondered why she had trusted this girl with huge, dark-rimmed eyes and green nail polish. There must have

been a reason.

 

Clara gasped with admiration when Hilary came back to the clinic. ‘Where did you get your hair done, Hilary? You look ten years younger. I’m going there at once.’

Hilary showed her the card. ‘Ask for Kiki. She’s got green nails.’

‘Well, there’s nothing wrong with the way she cuts hair.

You look terrific. I think you and I should go out on the pull one night.’

‘I’d hate to think what we might reel in,’ Hilary laughed, but there was a strain around her eyes.

‘No use asking how things are at home. It’s more of the

same, isn’t it?’ Clara was sympathetic.

‘No, it’s slightly worse. She was out in the street last night asking anyone who passed by what time it was.’

 

‘And what time was it?’ Clara asked.

‘It was 4 a.m. but she thought it was 4 p.m. and said I

would be home for my tea soon.’

Clara was silent.

 

‘Go on, Clara, say it.’

‘No, you say it, Hilary. You know what has to be said as much as I do.’

‘You think she should be put in care,’ Hilary said.

 

‘It’s not what I think that matters.’

‘I’m sure you know the perfect place for her. If I were to ask you, you’d have the name and phone number …’ Hilary bit her lip.

‘It’s your decision, but if you were actually asking about somewhere, there’s a very good place called Lilac Court. The woman who runs it is a sort of friend of mine, Claire Cotter.

I’ve known her for years. She makes a very pleasant life for the people there.’

‘Can’t do it. Not yet.’

‘Sure, sure.’

‘Don’t put me down, Clara. You don’t know what that

woman did for me. I can’t tidy her away.’

‘It might be kinder.’

‘It might be easier but it would never be kinder. Even if I have to give up working here and stay at home.’

‘You do, more and more.’

‘I know, you probably think that I take too much time

off …’ Hilary began.

‘No, it’s not that at all. You make up for every hour you take. Don’t I see you working through your lunchtime or

staying on after work if Nick is around. You do your full job here, believe me.’

‘If it were your mother, Clara?’

‘I’d have her into the first place that would take her and walk away.’

‘You say that.’

‘I mean that. My mother was and is a discontented, trouble making woman who sees the worst in everyone and every

situation. Your misfortune is that yours has been decent and

kind-hearted throughout and it’s blinding you about doing what’s best for her.’

‘It wasn’t a misfortune,’ Hilary said.

‘No, indeed it wasn’t, it’s the greatest thing that could happen to anyone who didn’t have it and I sure don’t think I’m giving it either. My girls are so pissed off with me, they haven’t a good word to say about me, I know.’

They were interrupted by Barbara, collecting for the ‘welcome back’ present for Declan. It wasn’t a tough job — Declan was very popular with staff and patients at the heart clinic.

The two women each took out large euro notes.

‘I went in to see him last night,’ Clara said. ‘He’s getting on fine. He’ll be into a convalescent home next week.’

‘I’d love to have gone to see him,’ Hilary said.

‘One day you’ll have time for the rest of your life, but not yet.’ Clara was comforting.

‘Ooh thanks.’ Barbara was pleased with the donations. ‘You know that nice guy Tim has just given me a big note too.

He said that good people like Declan should be made into national treasures. Imagine!’

‘Maybe he keeps a romantic poet’s heart in his tool bag,’

Clara suggested.

‘Do you think? Well, he certainly keeps a Polish phrase

book and he’s been practising some phrases, tak and Dzien dobry, over and over.’

‘What do they mean?’ Hilary was interested.

‘No idea.’

‘Maybe he’s interested in Ania,’ Clara wondered.

‘No, I think it’s her flatmate,’ said Barbara, who always made it her business to know what was what.

 

Ania was having her English lesson from Bobby Walsh’s son Carl in the waiting room. Their heads were close together as too

 

Ania struggled with giving somebody directions from this hospital to the centre of the city.

‘You go first along the main road and take the signs to

Trinity College and then you will see the university on your left. You keep walking on then you see a big bank that

was one time a parliament house. You could turn right here if you wanted to go into O’Connell Street. If you want to go shopping you should turn left past the front gates of the university and then you will find Grafton Street for the shopping …’

‘Just “shopping”, not “the shopping”,’ Carl corrected gently.

‘Why don’t I just say, “I’m Polish, I don’t know where

anywhere is!”?’ Ania asked, laughing.

‘Because it’s not true - you do know where everywhere is.

I’m only aiming for perfection!’ They laughed out loud when they realised that Barbara had observed the squabble, and they both gave a contribution.

‘Your father gave already.’ Barbara wanted to be fair to Carl.

‘No, no, I’m happy to contribute. Declan’s marvellous.’

‘I will make a big banner to say “Welcome Back”,’ Ania

said, and Barbara thought she’d caught Carl looking at the little Polish girl with affection.

 

Hilary knew that something was wrong as soon as she turned the corner into her street. A small crowd of neighbours had gathered outside her house and there was smoke coming from the kitchen window. At first she found herself almost paralysed with shock and certainly unable to move her legs. Then

she was running to the house shouting, ‘Mother, Mother!’

Neighbours and friends held her back.

 

‘She’s fine, Hilary. She’s fine, not a scratch on her. Look at her over there in a chair.’ And Hilary saw her mother IOI

 

surrounded by well-wishers drinking a mug of tea while neighbours went in. The fire was out by now but they had called the Fire Service just in case. As she approached her mother, Hilary glanced at the damage. The curtains were gone, just torn shreds hung down, the kitchen wall through the broken window looked black. Her mother could have been engulfed in

flames here. She could have burned to death in her own house.

Hilary knew that she must thank God that she had somehow escaped. Jessica was completely unfazed by it all.

‘I can’t understand the fuss,’ she said, over and over. ‘But, Mother, you could have been killed. You could have died in there!’ Hilary was so relieved she was shouting now.

‘But I did it for Nick. He said he would love a plate of chips like the old days. I said I’d make them. He went out somewhere and then the pan caught fire.’ Hilary knew that Nick

would never have allowed his grandmother near a chip pan.

‘No, Mother, you can’t have understood him properly,’ she began and then she saw the figure of her son running down the road carrying two portions of chips. He had gone to get them for his grandmother who said it would bring her back to the old days. Only then did Hilary let herself cry.

Later that night, when the window had been replaced and

most of the burned shelves and scorched utensils thrown out, Hilary and Nick sat down to talk.

‘I suppose we’ll have to decide what to do,’ Hilary said.

‘Well, the carpenters are coming in the morning. I’ll take Gran for a walk while they’re here …’

‘No. I mean long term, Nick.’

‘How long term?’

‘Well, she’s not really able to cope, is she? She thought you meant her to make chips!’ As if.

‘You’re always the one who says she’s perfect, Mam. You go for anyone’s throats if they dare to say otherwise.’

 

‘Yes, well, maybe I’ve dug my head up from under the

ground.’

‘My mother, the ostrich.’ Nick was affectionate.

‘I know. I wonder why no wise young ostrich didn’t tell the older ones that it just didn’t work as a policy.’

‘They probably tried but the elder ostriches said, “Nonsense, nonsense,” so they gave up in the end.’

‘Have you wanted to say something to me about Gran?’

‘No. I don’t see a thing wrong with her. You’re the one who is always whining and shuddering when Gran says something off the wall. I love it. I think it’s cool.’

‘You didn’t know her when she was as sharp as a stick.’

‘She still is in lots of ways. Here she is in bed with a mug of drinking chocolate and you and I are in here fussing ourselves to death over her. Who’s sharp here, I ask?’

‘I hate to see her losing it.’

‘She’s a really old ostrich, Mam. She’s entitled to lose bits here and there.’

‘At work they tell me that I should—’

‘We can manage, Mam. I’ll take more home tuition and go

out less.’

‘I can’t ask you to put your life on hold.’

‘Is it on hold? I have a great life at night.’

‘Do you meet any nice girls?’

‘I meet lots of girls, certainly, Mam, whether they are nice or not … now that’s the question.’

‘But is it a good place to meet them, in late-night clubs? I only ask out of concern for you, not because I’m interfering.’

‘You never interfered, Mam, you were always terrific’

‘But you still can’t spend all your daylight hours looking after your grandmother,’ she said.

‘Not all daylight hours, but a few more of them than I have been. I wouldn’t walk away from the house and leave her

 

on her own again.’ He looked ruefully around their burned kitchen.

‘Will we get any insurance, do you think?’ Hilary wondered.

‘Don’t

know. Those insurance companies are monsters

about defending their own. They’ll say Gran is a liability. I don’t think we should even think about approaching them, to be honest, for fear of what we might draw on ourselves.’

‘Like your gran being put into care, you mean?’

‘Well, that’s up to us to decide, not some faceless insurance company to insist on. And the time hasn’t come yet.’

Hilary felt flooded with relief. She had been so afraid that Nick would turn on her and ask her to be realistic, tell her that for everyone’s sake Gran should be looked after properly. And now it appeared that he was just as desperate as she was that Jessica should stay at home.

Hilary looked around the kitchen and smiled. What was it really but a few cupboards here and a lick of paint there. She could take on some extra bookkeeping work to pay for it. The main thing was that Mother had not been hurt or frightened.

She felt like jumping up and giving him a great clinging hug, but he would have said, ‘Get off me, Mam, you’re mental you are.’ Instead she kept the conversation light. ‘You see your generation is so lucky. You can more or less do what you like.

We were all buttoned up and peculiar. Everything you ever read about us all back then was true.’

‘It was just different.’ Nick was forgiving. ‘You were obsessed by sex because you didn’t get any. Now that it is all

round the place, people are much more easy-going about it.’

‘And it is all around the place, I imagine?’ Hilary asked mildly.

 

Hilary bought Ania a bright-coloured scarf as a thank you gift.

‘Why do you thank me, Hilary?’

 

‘Because you are doing so much of my work for me and you never complain. You are so bright, you know, you could do anything.’

Ania was pink with pride as she stroked the scarf as if it were the finest fabric in the world. ‘Tonight I write to my mother. I will tell her all about this gift,’ she said.

‘You write every week?’

‘Yes, I tell her about the new land where I live and all the people I meet.’

‘And do you tell your mother about your love life?’ Hilary wondered.

‘No, but then I don’t have any love life. I had too much love life when I was in Poland, but not now. Now I work so much I have no time for love.’

Hilary smiled. ‘That would be a pity. You know the expression about love making the world go around.’

‘Yes, but it turned my world upside down. I think perhaps I am wiser without it. Make money now and find love later.’

‘But suppose he came along. What would you do? Ask him

to wait ten years?’ Hilary asked.

‘Not ten, surely. Five, maybe. I want to buy my mother a little shop with a place to live up the stairs and a place to work down the stairs. She is a dressmaker you see. If she had a name over the door and some garments in the window then she

would have respect, then the people in the town would not pity her.’

‘I am sure they don’t pity her now, Ania.’

 

‘They do. They pity her because of me. I was so foolish. If only you knew. I made her such a disgrace in our part of the world. She could not lift up her head and look people in their eyes.’

‘Lord, what did you do, Ania?’

‘I believed a man who told me lies. You see I thought if he said “I love you” he meant it.’

 

‘There’s women all over the world doing that all the time.

Men too,’ Hilary said.

‘But in your case your husband didlovt you.’

‘Yes, yes, but that was different, years and years ago. The world has changed so much now. You know, last night I was talking to my son about how much sex there is all around the place. Imagine!’

‘I imagine you would be a good person to talk to about such things. My mother never mentioned sex. Never once to me.

She was much too upset.’

‘And your sisters, did they talk to you?’

‘No, because when it happened they were all so ashamed of me. They had married when they were seventeen or eighteen, both of them. They married the children of neighbouring

people. I had to love a man who came from miles away. A

man who had come to our town to start a business.’

‘And did he?’

‘For a while, yes. But he needed money, so he married the daughter of a rich man.’

‘Instead of you?’

‘A dressmaker’s daughter with no father alive? But I

thought he loved me.’ The girl’s eyes were very sad.

‘Possibly he did, in his way. People love in different kinds of ways.’ Hilary was trying to console her.

‘No, Marek never loved me. He told me that later. He said he had been laughing at me and his friends had laughed at me.’

‘My friends thought I was mad to marry Dan. Several of

them told me. Even on the night before the wedding.’

‘But you were sure?’

‘Yes, I was sure. And what’s more, my mother was sure,

which is why I can never let her go into a place with strangers.

You do see that, don’t you?’

 

‘Of course you can’t. And I will do all I can to help you,’

Ania promised.

 

As Hilary went home at lunchtime she wondered how she

could take Ania up on her offer. Maybe the girl would come one evening a week and sit with her mother. Or possibly go and make her lunch from time to time. Hilary could find the money that Ania badly needed to buy the little house with her mother’s name on it. The business premises which would give her respect.

When she got home a carpenter was already installed in the kitchen, sawing and hammering. Nick and Jessica were in the front room going through a photograph album.

‘That was your mother’s wedding day, Nick. Look how well he looks. It was one of the best days in our lives. In fact it was the best day until you arrived.’ There they sat companionably turning the pages, her mother making sense and Nick content in her company. Hilary breathed more easily. What was she worrying about? Her mother was fine. She didn’t need Ania or any carer. She certainly didn’t need to think about residential care.

Four days later her mother packed a bag and phoned a taxi to take her to the railway station. Nick had left just as Hilary came in so there was nobody to ask what had brought this on.

There was a lot of confusion when the taxi arrived and had to be sent away again.

‘Where are you going, Mother?’

‘To the south of England to get your father to see sense and come home to us. He has a fine son here, Nick. It’s time he got to know the boy properly.’

‘Mother, Dad died. You remember. It was ages ago. He

died and she married her next-door neighbour.’

‘He must come back to his son.’

‘Nick is his grandson, Mother.’

 

‘No, that’s not so. Don’t you think I know my own family?’

‘Nick is Dan’s son. You remember Dan? My lovely Dan

who died in a lake.’

‘Stop telling me about all these people who are dead. I never heard of Dan.’

‘You did, Mother, you loved him. You were great to him.

You told Nick that the day I married him was the second best day in your life.’

‘You’re very emotional, Hilary, I don’t think this job suits you.’

‘Don’t leave me, Mother, please.’

‘Well, I can’t very well, can I? You’ve dismissed the taxi.’

Her mother looked very put out.

‘Hold on a bit, Mother. I have to make a call.’ She went into her bedroom and found Nick on his mobile phone.

‘What happened, Nick?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your grandmother. Did anything happen to upset her?’

‘No, she was fine when I left. Is anything wrong?’

‘She’s completely confused, she was going to go to England in a taxi.’

‘That would have cost a bit.’

‘Be serious for a moment. She’s babbling. She thinks you’re her son, not her grandson.’

‘Do you want me to come home?’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m in a coffee shop having a cappuccino with a friend of mine. We were going to catch a movie and then I’m going to play in a club.’

Hilary suddenly realised there was nothing Nick could do.

He had done enough. She was flooded with guilt that she had bothered him.

‘Listen, Nick, I’m sorry,’ she began, ‘have a good time.

Everything here is just fine.’

 

Back in the kitchen, her mother was sitting watching her.

Her eyes were far away.

 

Hilary didn’t sleep a wink that night. At breakfast the next day she apologised again to her son.

Nick shrugged. There was nothing to apologise for, he said.

He would be at home all day with his gran. Of course Jessica was now absolutely calm and all was as normal.

At work in the clinic, Hilary knew she looked tired and

indeed Clara mentioned it, in a roundabout way.

‘I think everyone’s tired these days, it must be the weather and the thought of all that Christmas fuss ahead,’ she said conversationally.

‘I

know, Clara, you don’t have to play games with me.

There isn’t enough under-eye concealer in the world to wipe out the lines and blotches on my face.’

‘Is it your mother?’ Clara asked.

‘Of course it is. She has periods of complete confusion and then long days of perfect sanity. It’s a nightmare.’

‘What about a day centre, Hilary?’

‘Nick and I can manage.’

‘Just take her to the doctor for an assessment - Hilary, you know that’s what you should do.’

‘Offload my problems and decision-making to someone

else? I don’t think so.’

‘Look, I was telling you about my friend Claire Cotter and her place, Lilac Court. The residents there are very happy—’

‘You mean they don’t know where they are?’

 

‘Not so. It has a lovely garden and very good food. The

people who stay there feel safe.’

‘Even if they do know where they are.’

‘They do indeed. Have a look at it, Hilary, before you dismiss it completely.’

 

‘I’m only dismissing the idea that I’d put my mother anywhere.’

‘This time I’ll write down the address,’ Clara said.

 

Two days later, Hilary arrived home from the hospital to find her mother behaving very oddly and apparently trying to get Nick out of the room. Nick realised, and left without protest.

‘What is he doing here?’ Jessica hissed.

‘Who? Nick? He was getting your lunch ready while I was

at work.’ Hilary’s heart felt heavy.

‘But who is he? What’s he doing in this house?’

‘He’s your grandson, Mother, he’s Nick, my son.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Hilary, you have no son. But what’s that tinker boy doing here?’

‘Mother, don’t you remember Nick?’

‘I’ll tell you what I remember, I remember that he slit a hole in my handbag and took out all my money. There’s hundreds of pounds gone.’

‘Mother, we use euros now and in any case, you don’t have hundreds of pounds or euros,’ Hilary protested.

‘I don’t now,’ agreed her mother.

 

So Hilary pulled out the address and phone number of Lilac Court and arranged to go and inspect the place. It looked fresh and clean, as she was greeted at the front door by Claire Cotter. She was smartly dressed and full of warm smiles as she took some details; she put Hilary at ease straight away.

‘I want the families to feel every bit as happy and secure as our residents,’ she said. ‘Please look around, Mrs Hickey, and go and see our facilities. We’ll show you an empty bedroom, you’ll see what we have to offer and then you can come and talk to me.’

Hilary passed a big, airy dining room where a number of

elderly people were already having lunch. The tables had vases no

 

of flowers; some of the very elderly or infirm had helpers to assist them with their food and there was a cheerful atmosphere and a buzz of conversation. She inspected a couple of

bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, then toured the

bright sitting room, large enough to hold concerts but full of little alcoves where friends and family could sit and chat in privacy. There was even a small gym where they held exercise classes …

Hilary went to have a cup of tea with Claire Cotter. Again, she was put at her ease, though she noted that while Lilac Court was comfortable for the residents, Ms Cotter’s own office was very simple. No smart furniture, no luxury carpet, just a practical place with filing cabinets and bookshelves.

Claire Cotter saw that Hilary was taking it all in. ‘We prefer to spend what we have making our residents comfortable and reassuring their families,’ she observed.

Hilary allowed her first real smile of the day to escape.

‘And we do know that it’s never easy, Mrs Hickey, there’s never what seems a right time.’

‘How do other people know?’ Hilary was honest.

‘When they know it’s better for the other person,’ Claire Cotter said gently. ‘No one else can tell you, and no one else should put any pressure on you.’

‘You see, most of the time, she’s perfectly fine.’

‘And what does her doctor say?’

‘I haven’t really discussed it with him yet. It’s only come on significantly over the last few months, you see,’ admitted Hilary.

‘I see. Why don’t you let him talk to her? It might make us clearer about where we are.’

‘Thank you, I will,’ Hilary agreed.

This woman had calmed her down. It was possible to deal

with this terrible business. She wasn’t alone in the world.

 

in

 

The next day, her mother was calm and doing a jigsaw when the doctor arrived. He’d see no symptoms and would probably think she was as sound as a bell.

Jessica thought that Dr Green had come to see Hilary.

‘She fusses too much, Doctor,’ Jessica confided. ‘Worries about work and about me and about things that will never happen. She was always the same.’

Hilary looked up sharply. Something in her mother’s voice had changed and she was slipping out of her normal, rational self. She knew the signs now.

She was right.

Hilary sat and listened as her mother told the doctor how sad it was that Hilary had never married. Too choosy, she had been, and too serious.

‘And what about young Nick?’ Dr Green asked mildly.

‘Nick? Nick? You mean that young traveller, the tinker? Let me tell you what he stole from me — I don’t know why Hilary gives him the run of the house …’

 

Dr Green’s report was clear. Hilary’s mother had severe

dementia and was going to need round-the-clock care.

The following weekend, Hilary took her mother to visit

Lilac Court. Claire Cotter was there, as reassuring as ever. She read the doctor’s report, then the three of them toured the premises.

Jessica, in a voice as clear as it had ever been, said that she was grateful for the tea and the tour, but could she go home now, please, because she’d seen enough of this place and its strange old people. She wanted to go home now.

From that day onwards, Jessica was never in the house

alone.

Between them, Hilary and Nick and Ania were on duty at

all times. And Gary and Lisa, the nice couple who lived in the

house next door, also kept an eye out for her. Nothing could happen to her now.

Hilary began to breathe easily again. She didn’t have to do what so many other people did, put a much-loved mother into an institution because there was no place for her any longer at home.

 

Two weeks later, Hilary woke to hear a door banging. She got up to investigate: her mother’s door was closed and the bathroom door was closed also.

It was the hall door, wide open and hitting off the heavy marble door-stop. Her throat narrowed. Mother couldn’t have opened the door, surely? They always locked it at night and the key was always kept in a vase on the hall table. With a shaking hand she picked up the vase. The key was gone.

She opened her mother’s bedroom and bathroom.

 

Empty.

‘Nick, Nick! Your gran has got out!’ she called. But Nick wasn’t home, it was only 3 a.m. He had a gig and a club and it would be in full swing now. Hilary flung on a pair of warm trousers and her coat. Please God may her mother not have got too far.

She was nowhere in the street, so Hilary ran through the freezing night air towards the main road. Who were all these people driving around at this time in the morning? As if it were a normal time to be out. She stood still and watched the traffic. Which way might her mother have gone? Impossible to know: she looked up and down the street, bewildered.

Then she saw it in the distance, the flashing lights and the Guards out on the road waving traffic past. There had been an accident.

She felt dizzy and leaned on a parked car for support. It didn’t have to be Mother. There were accidents all over the place.

 

She began to walk with leaden feet towards the scene.

A crowd had gathered and the ambulance was expected.

A middle-aged couple were sitting in chairs that had been brought out of someone’s house. The man was shaking all

over.

‘She came from nowhere, just stepped out in front of me in her nightdress. I saw her eyes, they weren’t focused. She didn’t know where she was. My God — can someone tell me if she’s still breathing?’

The faces of the people around were offering no consolation.

Hilary moved silently forward.

There was a rug over her mother’s body but she could see the familiar slippers peeking out the end. She held a Guard’s arm to steady herself.

‘It’s my mother,’ she said. ‘I know it is. Those are her slippers.’ Then she felt herself slipping down to the ground.

 

When Hilary came to, the crowd were still there. The ambu-I lance had arrived and she saw her mother’s body being lifted inside. Then a variety of hands helped Hilary in as well. She was to be treated for shock, they said.

Before they drove away Hilary said, ‘Could someone please tell that poor man it wasn’t his fault, my mother has been1

suffering from dementia, he has nothing to blame himself for …’ Then she took a seat in the ambulance beside the lifeless body of her mother.

They had driven along this road two weeks ago to visit Lilac Court. Why had she not listened to everyone and put her

mother in there? Jessica would have been alive and safe and none of this nightmare would be happening. It was all Hilary’s fault.

She knew that she would by haunted by the thought for the rest of her days.

 

Declan’s father organised a welcome home party in St Jarlath’s Crescent on the day that his son was eventually allowed home.

They had painted the outside of the house in his honour, although Fiona knew that Declan would hardly notice all the hard work that had gone into it. She would be sure to brief him properly; he must admire the window-boxes that Muttie Scarlet had planted, the smart new curtains that his mother had been sewing every night for three weeks.

‘You’re very good to go round there so often.’ He held her hand as they walked the hospital corridor together. He was off his crutches now and only needed a stick.

‘But don’t I love it, Declan? Your ma and I are the best of friends. I mean it — we are.’

‘She fusses so much, I was afraid she’d drive you crazy.’

‘No, how could she drive me mad? Haven’t we one thing in common — we’re both mad about you!’ laughed Fiona.

‘She means so well, but I go crazy when she tells people how important I am.’ Declan was struggling to be fair.

‘Oh, I put her wise on that ages ago, I told her you were a great useless waste of space at the centre.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘Of course I didn’t, you eejit. I told her the truth, which is that you are a great doctor and they are all aching for you to get back.’

‘My successor hasn’t stolen your hearts away then?’ Declan asked, knowing well that this was not the case. The locum had been a smart aleck of a fellow whom none of them liked much.

‘Stop fishing and walk straighter, you’ll have to make an entrance tomorrow. Oh, and don’t forget to notice that your mother has a new outfit in honour of the occasion.’

‘She actually spent something on herself’?’ Declan was

astounded.

 

‘Well, I got it for her, actually, in a thrift shop, she gave me the money.’

‘You didn’t go to a thrift shop?’

‘I did too!’ But Fiona wasn’t a good liar. ‘Oh, all right, I went to a shop but there was a sale on. It looks terrific on her.

She wouldn’t take it unless I said it was from the Vincent de Paul.’

‘Who else is coming?’

‘People from the clinic, some of your mates, your father’s friend Muttie, his wife and those children or grandchildren who speak like aliens.’

Declan laughed. ‘They were always great kids. They must

be about sixteen now.’

‘They’re seventeen. They are saving up to go abroad during the spring break; they offered to be waiters and Muttie nearly beat the heads off them asking your ma and da for money. So they’re going to help for free now.’

‘We can’t have them doing that. I’ll slip them something.

They’re a great pair those two, they’re no relation of Mutti’s and Lizzie’s at all, you know.’

‘I didn’t know. What are they doing there then?’

‘God knows - lost in the mists of time, somebody couldn’t keep them and they were cousins of Cathy’s first husband …

I think.’

‘Cathy?’

‘Now she is Muttie and Lizzie’s daughter, I know that

much. Is she coming to the party?’

‘No, she’s doing a big catering job for some boy band

somewhere. Let no one say that St Jarlath’s Crescent isn’t the heart of the universe!’

‘I’m exhausted already and I’m not even home yet,’ Declan said.

‘Then let’s get you back to bed,’ Fiona said.

‘I wish …’

 

‘Not at all - you’re as frail as a day-old chick. You’d be no use to me,’ she said. But she said it affectionately and as if she thought the days of total recovery were not far away.

 

Ania had made a great banner with Welcome Home Declan on it and it was strung between the two bedroom windows. The neighbours were all at their gates looking on and Paddy waved them in.

‘The lad would love to see you,’ he begged.

Declan’s mother was resplendent in a dark purple dress

with a lace collar. Her hair looked different and for once she didn’t seem to be fussing. Declan could hardly take it in.

There was no racing around asking people to sit here or there, she was relaxing with a glass of wine. He shook his head in disbelief.

Maud and Simon were like a courteous committee, almost

as if they were representatives of another civilisation. Fiona was spot-on to say they spoke like aliens: that was exactly what they did, with one starting and the other finishing every sentence.

‘Everyone in St Jarlath’s Crescent wants you to feel very welcome …’ Maud beamed.

‘Back to your home after your great ordeal,’ Simon continued.

‘And

to say how much the accident was regretted …’

Maud added.

‘Particularly by the family that owned the cat …’ Simon looked very solemn.

As people often did talking to the twins, Declan felt increasingly disconcerted.

‘The cat?’

‘The cat that attracted Dimple’s attention and made him

run away from your father.’ Maud spoke as if Declan might be now deranged as well as limping.

 

‘I’d forgotten the cat,’ Declan said truthfully.

‘Oh well, she will be pleased to know that,’ Simon said.

‘She was afraid to come in to welcome you back …’

‘The lady who owns the cat, that is. The cat herself has no memory of it at all,’ Maud explained.

‘Listen, I gather you’re giving a bit of a hand with the party.

I wanted to thank you.’ Declan rustled for some euros in his pocket.

‘Oh no, Declan, thank you but the matter of finance was

raised …’ Simon said.

‘And turned out to be very inappropriate,’ Maud finished.

‘No, no, we can’t have you working for nothing, everyone gets paid for their work,’ Declan protested.

‘It’s a neighbourly gesture, not a job,’ Maud said firmly.

And that was that.

 

Declan looked around the small house in St Jarlath’s Crescent in bewilderment. His mother seemed quite at ease entertaining the people from the clinic. She seemed to have had a

personality change in the time that he had been in hospital.

He listened as his mother told Clara Casey all about how hard Declan studied when he was young, but there was no fantasy about his being senior cardiologist any more. Molly was nodding her head eagerly with Lavender the dietician about the

amount of protein there was in good lean meat, and she was offering Ania some hours in the launderette if she needed them.

Everything had changed since Mother and Fiona had got

to know each other. What he had been trying to do for years, Fiona seemed to have achieved in a matter of a few short weeks. He looked at her proudly across the room, laughing and at ease, her curly hair tied up with a green ribbon that matched her eyes. Her friend, Barbara, helping her with

 

everything including keeping Paddy Carroll’s pint glass well topped up.

He wished he could spend some time alone with her, but

Fiona had put her finger on his lips and said there was plenty of time for all that.

 

Later, when most of the guests had left and Maud and Simon were busy clearing up, Declan and Fiona asked them about their plans. They explained that they were going to Greece for the spring holiday; they hoped to get jobs in bars or restaurants.

‘Do you know any Greek?’ Fiona wondered.

‘Not yet but we were sort of thinking …’ Maud began.

‘That we could pick it up as we went along,’ Simon finished.

‘I

have a booklet I could give you, it’s a help to know a few basics in advance,’ Fiona offered.

‘What did you work at when you were there?’ Simon asked.

‘Well, I didn’t really work there …’

‘It was a holiday?’ Maud said.

‘Sort of …’ For once the confident Fiona looked less than comfortable. ‘Here, you don’t want to go through all the silly things I did. What you do want is a bit of advice and even a couple of introductions.’

‘We’d love some advice,’ said Maud.

‘Could you sort of mark our card?’ Simon asked.

‘I think you should go to a small place, somewhere that

hasn’t become a big international tourist area. Then you get to know the people, and the place.’

‘And would we just turn up … ?’

‘With our words in basic Greek?’

‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll write to a friend of mine in this lovely place on one of the islands and tell her that you might need a job.’

 

‘Would you?’

‘Is it a restaurant?’

‘Well no, she runs a craft shop, but she has a great friend Andreas and he runs a taverna.’

‘Taverna,’ the twins repeated solemnly.

‘The island is called Aghia Anna - look, find me a map and I’ll show you …’

Declan’s heart nearly burst with pride as the twins ran back home for their map of Greece. Knowing Fiona she would

indeed be able to set them up.

He looked across at her as she traced her finger across the map. This was the road from Athens to Piraeus, which was the harbour town. Then they were to walk along the line of ferries heading out for the Greek islands. They must write down the name Aghia Anna in Greek letters so that they would recognise the words when they saw them. She was as enthusiastic as if she were going with them. He felt a catch in his breath. She wasn’t just a girlfriend, not just a pretty nurse and part of a hospital romance. This was something totally different. As he watched her push the curls out of her eyes and behind her ears he realised that he couldn’t live without this girl.

It was part of his life that she should be there, reacting and smiling and pealing with laughter. He needed her approval and her courage. He had to know what she thought about

everything. She looked up suddenly to know were they boring him and caught him staring at her.

‘What is it, Declan? Am I droning on too much?’

‘You couldn’t drone on. It just isn’t in your vocabulary.’

His voice sounded thick suddenly, as if he had a cold.

‘Hey — I’m meant to be looking after you,’ she said anxiously.

‘Are you developing a wheeze?’

‘No - it’s something else entirely.’

 

‘Like what exactly?’

 

‘Like emotion, if you push me. You know, the way they say in books “His voice was husky with emotion” …’

‘Oh, Declan - aren’t you a scream!’

‘I mean it,’ he said simply. ‘I was just looking at you and realising how precious you are to me.’

Maud and Simon pretended to study the map with huge

intensity.

Fiona came over and kissed Declan lightly.

‘And you to me,’ she said. ‘But I’ll have to borrow your laptop. There have to be cheaper flights than the twins have found.’

He still held her hand a little and didn’t take his eyes off her face. It was as if he was looking at her for the very first time.

Nothing mattered as long as he could be with Fiona, at St Jarlath’s Crescent, her parents’ house, the flat she shared with Barbara, by the seaside. Anywhere. Suddenly it was clear to him. She was quite literally the centre of his life. And soon he would be back in the clinic working with her all day and he would see her every night.

 

When Declan came back to work in the heart clinic everyone was very supportive and he caught up on all the news surprisingly quickly. He had been away when Hilary’s mother

had died, but he knew the whole story from Fiona and he took the first opportunity to tell Hilary how sorry he was.

‘She’s at peace now,’ he said to Hilary.

‘Thank you, Declan. Another way of putting it is that I

wouldn’t be told, I wouldn’t listen and she was killed by a car as a result.’ Her voice was very flat.

‘Don’t think like that, it wouldn’t bring her back.’

‘No, but if I had listened to other people she wouldn’t be dead. I can’t forget that. I am allowed to feel ashamed and sad about it.’

‘You loved your mother, what’s bad about that?’

 

‘You are very soothing, Declan, but we must not be bland.’

‘No, I agree, I have a tendency to go down the bland route, but can I tell you something. If I hadn’t had the accident, Fiona wouldn’t have got to know my family so well, and they love her now. If it had just been a dinner, a roast that night, we would still be playing games and dancing round each

other. Am I mad to think we were meant to be together? Is that too bland or is it just being grateful for how it turned out?’

‘It hasn’t turned out well for me.’

‘Yet,’ Declan said. ‘A day will come when you are glad that she didn’t spend years lost in a fog. Not yet, but believe me it will come.’

‘She’s a lucky girl, Fiona,’ Hilary said.

And she watched Declan move towards his patients with

their notes in his hand and a smile of reassurance on his face.

‘Well, Joe, you’re looking fit and well, I hope you feel as well inside. No palpitations?’

And it was as if he had never been away.

Hilary and Ania watched him, delighted to see him back.

‘He is so important to this clinic,’ Ania said in a solemn little voice.

‘As are you Ania. This place couldn’t function without

you,’ Hilary said with such sincerity in her voice that Ania’s eyes filled with tears.

 

I