Friends Like Us: An emotional Irish page-turner about love and friendship

2

Steph

They had been in the same class since they were twelve… and as the rest of the girls formed twosomes, threesomes, and foursomes, they too found their own group. They complemented each other, they were all easy to be with and there were never the fallings-out, the promiscuity that infected the others in their year. They were all only children, as well, which gave them a different feeling, they needed each other; in a way, they were surrogate sisters.

Steph was always quietly sure of herself. Life, she believed was going to be all right. Her own parents were normal, which is more than she would have said at the time for most of the girls at the Abbey. Nuala and Joe, her parents, never let her down, did anything embarrassing, were just perpetually loving and permanently kind. She knew, even then, how lucky she was.

For Eilis, it had been different, not so easy. Her mother was ill while they were at school, for all of their teenage years, she was dying, Eilis her carer. Eilis was quiet, hard-working and never quite let on how difficult it was for her watching her mother fading away. Steph always believed that she and Melissa gave Eilis her few chances to be a normal teenager.

And Melissa? Who knew what had been going on there, at Beach Court, but it was obvious that Melissa just wanted to get away from it as much as possible, hiding it all with her cleverness and her wit.

Eilis hadn’t been on duty that evening they had turned up in A&E, but they scribbled a note, making the woman, Theresa, behind the desk, give it to her.

‘Tell her it’s us,’ said Melissa, who was acting almost giddy after the accident. ‘I think sense has either been knocked in or out of me.’

It was another doctor who checked Melissa out, performing all the tests: the biro-following trick, the walking in a straight line, touching her nose with her finger. Steph and Melissa were nearly in hysterics by the end and Steph had (almost) been sorry when Melissa was pronounced perfectly well and they would go their separate ways again.

But the Beetle hadn’t fared quite so well. Steph called the garage and was told it would have to stay in for a whole week. Steph said her insurance would cover it.

‘Isn’t that illegal?’ asked Melissa. ‘Lying about whose fault the accident was.’

‘But perhaps it was me,’ insisted Steph. ‘I was on my phone, I wasn’t concentrating, you know, stopping and starting in the traffic. Let me, please Melissa?’ she said. ‘Rick’s just had some obscene bonus. Divorce. It’s very lucrative.’

‘Lawyers…’ Melissa shook her head.

‘I know… I know…’ said Steph. ‘It’s not like they are saving lives…’

‘Just tidying them up,’ said Melissa.

‘Life’s great de-clutterers, lawyers.’ Steph shrugged. ‘So, as a result, I can pay. And I would like to, please?’

She always felt a bit guilty about Rick’s money, his obscene pay-check which she felt she didn’t deserve. She wanted to earn her own money, not spend his. They weren’t a team, he wasn’t earning on behalf of them, and if she felt she could pay for Melissa, it made her feel a bit better about it all, at least the money was helping someone else. It also explained the large cheques Steph wrote to various homeless charities and women’s refuges.

She was thinking about Melissa, the following day, when she was tidying up, putting things back in their rightful places, cushions, remotes, glasses, mugs, books. The detritus of a home. But it wasn’t really a home, was it? Not for her. Hopefully, it was for Rachel, but not for Steph. A home is somewhere you feel safe, but Steph was living with a bully, a man who was quick to anger and who wasn’t afraid to push her around. Literally.

When she was pregnant with Rachel, he grabbed her arm behind her back. She’d been reading a pregnancy book at the time and was engrossed in thoughts of maternal love and wondering how to get babies to sleep and hadn’t heard what he had said. So, when she felt him twist her arm, she was too surprised and shocked to react and it was over so quickly that the next morning, she wondered if it had actually happened. Although, he brought her breakfast in bed… which was quite unlike him.

‘Bit drunk last night,’ he said, standing there, in the doorway, tray in both hands. She wondered if he was trying to apologise.

If only she had done something about it then, gone to her parents, refused to live with someone like that. So she had often thought over the years, in a way, she was to blame. There was nothing stopping her from leaving, really, was there? But she had chosen not to, and now this was the bed she had made for herself, her own doing and therefore she couldn’t complain.

And this is how she lived her life: walking on broken glass.

Even with Rachel, she couldn’t say the right thing any longer. Everything caused Rachel, who was now sixteen-going-on-stroppy, to bite her head off. And there was nothing left that she was good at, nothing. Once she might have thought she was a good mother, but that talent had fallen by the wayside. And she used to be a good friend, was she able to at least be that?

But having seen Melissa again, she felt a lift in her heart. Normally, she felt so leaden, so weighed down, as though there was an actual physical pressure on her shoulders, but today she walked a little taller, a little brighter, feeling, weirdly, a little less alone. Steph felt good; she could almost remember the person she once was, the person she was before she met Rick, before she got married. Almost.

Her parents made marriage look so easy, they were a real team. Nuala was the ideas-person, the one holding the reins, and Joe was happy to be along for the ride, one which had now lasted forty-three years.

Whatever Nuala pursued, Joe would be there, her cheerful companion in life, and now on all the retiree trips they seemed to go on – to gardens across the country with the ‘Grey Green-fingers’, to France for the ‘Francophiles over Fifty’ group and to the mountains, on the first Sunday of every month, with the Wicklow Wanderers.

Behind every great woman was a man like Joe. It was he who made sure that the book for Nuala’s reading group was put aside for her in the library. It was he who took the Dart into town to buy the Prussian Blue from the art shop now she had taken up oil painting. And, even now, he made her a cup of tea, put two shortbreads on a saucer and a flower plucked freshly from the garden into a vase and carried them to her at seven a.m. (He’d only ever missed one day that Steph could remember – when Nuala had gone into hospital to have her gall bladder removed. That day, instead, he had made a flask and transported the entire ritual.)

Steph never failed to marvel at how two people could be so right for each other, and silently and lovingly cursed them for making it look so easy, especially when it was so hard for Steph and Rick.

Rick loved Rachel, of course he did, but it was obvious he no longer loved Steph. If he ever did. And she hadn’t loved him for years, there was something mean about him, a darkness and a rage, which made life a daily trial.

He had always done exactly what he wanted. He worked, he drank, he socialised, he womanised. And she had long suspected that something was going on with Miriam, her next-door neighbour and (former) friend. Miriam was always friendly, always flirtatious, but then, imperceptibly, something changed. There were the little things, like quick glances between Miriam and Rick, or sometimes it was the fact that they didn’t look at each other at all. And suddenly it was all rather perceptible.

She had no proof, nothing. Except she knew it. If she accused him, he would only call her mad and she would look such a fool. But she knew it, she did! Being the weak person she thought she was though, Steph continued socializing with Miriam and her husband, Hugh, smiling when required, and running the house and looking after Rachel. Inside, she was wallowing in failure instead of going mad and all-Edward Scissorhandsy on his suits. And while Rick sprang up the career ladder, Steph felt she had nothing to show for her life. She used to be ambitious, the girl most likely, until life upended everything and she had achieved absolutely nothing.

And why, oh why, did she have to lose it in front of Melissa yesterday? She normally kept all her feelings buttoned up, but it was just seeing Melissa again, just being around her and remembering the girls they used to be, and the tears just came and wouldn’t stop. And Melissa was her usual brilliant self, allowing her to cry and being utterly normal and unfreaked out about it.

And what about Eilis? Would she get the note, would she call? Steph had left both their mobile numbers, asking if Eilis would meet them next week. There was something Steph was hoping to rope Melissa and Eilis into and it was something that might bond them together again.

One of the old nuns at school had called her name when she was dropping Rachel off at school earlier. Sister Attracta, unbelievably still alive and now some kind of honorary nun, wafted around the Abbey looking increasingly wizened but rejuvenated by her the task of organizing each year’s reunion. ‘Stephanie Sheridan,’ she’d called, using Steph’s maiden name (another thing, apart from her independence, that she shouldn’t have relinquished). ‘I wonder, my dear, if you would like to help with this year’s reunion. It is your twentieth.’

Normally, Steph would have run a mile from such an event, but Sister Attracta had ways of making you agree. The big night wasn’t until December and was to be held in the Shelbourne Hotel, which was a far cry from their leaving do which was held in the school hall, draughty and miserable, with the nuns beadily managing the consumption of orange squash. Steph remembered having a bottle of vodka confiscated and so the orange squash had remained unadulterated.

Would Steph be able to look after all the invitations? asked Sister Attracta in a tone that would not countenance a negative response. All she had to do was track down each of the one hundred or so girls in their year and invite them to revisit their school days and their past.

Steph immediately thought of Melissa and Eilis. She would if they would. She was going to ask them when they met next week, and this, she had begun to think, begun to hope, was a way of them being the way they were, the three of them against the world, a gang. She hoped they would say yes, she didn’t know what she would do if they didn’t want things to be the same. She hadn’t realised how much she had missed them, and she hadn’t realised how much she needed them.

Tidying some newspapers, she found Rick’s mobile, left over from last night. She was amazed he would leave this hanging around. He normally had the thing permanently in his hand or pocket. Quickly, she dropped it on to the rug and, aided by a sharp kick, its new home was among the dark and the dust. Steph had been engaging in this subtle form of domestic terrorism for quite some time now. It was strangely satisfying.

And then, she spotted Rick’s keys on the hall table. Would hiding them be too much? Probably. Don’t push it, Steph, she thought. Keys could be tucked behind a cushion or slipped into a drawer another day. The phone was enough for now and she didn’t want Rick suspecting he was living with a domestic terrorist, he might get angry and that really defeated the feeling of satisfaction.

She looked at herself in the mirror. This is me, she thought. I’m thirty-eight and what do I have to show for nearly four decades on this planet? What exactly have I done? Except turn into a wreaker of domestic acts of terror. The temptation to cackle maniacally was overwhelming. The secret, she realised, was staying on the right side of madness. But she was like a beginner, wobbling on the tightrope.

She heard a beep from his phone from beneath the sofa. She paused, in mid-air, and suddenly she knew she had to see what that text was. Normally, she would never check his messages but she was feeling slightly reckless, the old Steph wouldn’t have been afraid of anything and after seeing Melissa again, she could feel something of her younger and more daring self stir.

She fished it out and looked at the screen. Immediately, she wished her younger self had stayed where she was.

Missing you.

And the name of the sender? Angeline. His junior from work.

She scrolled back from the text and read as many as she could, her heart beating wildly, trying to take it all in.

They went back months and months as far as she could tell. Texts from Angeline saying she missed him, texts from Rick saying he wanted her. Arrangements to meet, times and venues, hotel rooms, bars and restaurants, passion, sex, desire. It was all there, an affair in text form.

If she was a braver woman, she thought, she would smash Rick’s collection of horrible crystal whiskey glasses or flush his phone down the toilet. But she wasn’t brave, not anymore, she was scared of what he would do. Even if she held the moral high ground she never, never, had the upper hand. He was always in charge and in control.

And Steph had met Angeline… how old could she be? Not thirty, anyway. Could she be mid-twenties? Twenty-five? What an utter bastard Rick was.

Managing to keep her anger on simmer, she dropped the phone back under the sofa. And, suddenly, she thought of something else, something else she needed to know. On the sideboard, in the hall, were letters from the credit card company. Normally, she left them to Rick, but this time she opened the envelope and scanned the rows and rows of transactions.

She spotted her own transactions: Rachel’s new school coat, Steph’s facial, paying for Melissa’s car. And then something caught her eye.

Netaporter – €365.

She had often looked at the website, imagining outfits she might wear if she had dates to go on or weekends away. But her life never demanded a cocktail dress, and she had no idea that Rick had heard of the website. He certainly didn’t buy her anything expensive and glamorous. Rick had never bought her anything like that. It was dated last month. And then more, a few days later, all in London. Selfridges. And the Wolseley, a Claridges bar bill and a room in The Connaught. They came to thousands and thousands of pounds. And she remembered that one of the texts specifically mentioned the bar in Claridges.

She checked the dates; the weekend he went to London to meet clients. But if that was a business trip, she was Rumpole of the Bailey. She then had a thought and went on Facebook and searched for Angeline Barrow. Birthdate? Last month. So it was a birthday weekend away. It had to be. Angeline was 29 years old. Steph shook her head. What was he thinking? Steph felt disempowered, dehumanised, worthless. Someone else was worth his time, his energy and she was nothing. She should have been used to it, but each time she was faced with his utter disregard for her and their family life, it was a new shock, a fresh wound.

Somehow she managed to get her coat, bag and keys and drive to the Dundrum shopping centre, and she did what she always did when subtle domestic terrorism did not quell her feelings of utter powerlessness. She went shoplifting. It was far more soothing than eating cakes, she thought, or drinking alcohol. The high was so much higher.

3

Eilis

Aching feet, damp patches under her arms and, sticky-up hair. For an A&E consultant, this was what was called getting off lightly, the mere physical manifestations of a night shift and it didn’t do you much good to dwell too long on the emotional toll. Eilis McCarthy knew dwelling on anything didn’t get you anywhere. She was half-way through a night shift and it was 4am but in the parallel universe of hospital life, the time didn’t matter, you didn’t care. It was a case of getting to the end, whenever and wherever that was.

But in all these years, the nightmarish whirl of a shift on the A&E ward never ceased in its power to shock. And then, suddenly, like some terrifying fairground ride, it was over and you would be deposited on terra normal, legs shaking and eyes blinking in the sunlight, the throb of it all jingling and jangling in your brain.

And all those patients, the old, the dying, the strokes, the beaten-up women, the bizarre domestic accidents – all those stories – they didn’t just float off and disappear. You couldn’t just forget about them and carry on with your day. Well, Eilis couldn’t, anyway.

She would go home and try to do some gardening or gaze in the fridge for something to eat or be brushing her teeth and then she would realise she had totally stopped, frozen at the memory of the person who, just hours earlier, was fighting for life. They were men and women at their lowest, at their most vulnerable. Helpless, inadequately clothed, often alone, and Eilis would have stitched them up, made assessments, talked to them, soothed them, dispensed drugs, and then she was expected to just walk away. And then there were those who didn’t make it, the ones who couldn’t be soothed and medicalised back to full health, the ones who they couldn’t help, couldn’t save. It was them, the ones who had lost the fight, that were the worst, those were the faces that most haunted her waking moment.

Maybe she should have gone in for paediatrics. But that was heart-breaking, too, wasn’t it? Worse, maybe. Or… maybe she should never have done medicine. But it was all her mother wanted for her.

The kettle in the little kitchen of the staff room in A&E was a slow-boiler and even if you tried not to watch it impatiently, it still took ages. But she persisted as she was suddenly desperate for the comfort of a hot mug of tea and a proper read of the note she had skimmed. And maybe a biscuit. Eilis rooted around in the tin hoping for one that wasn’t soft or half-chewed.

She was thin and pale, the result of a diet of biscuits and not enough sleep. She was petite and pretty, her hair was cut pixie-style, but she spent most of her life avoiding mirrors so as not to be reminded of the dark circles under her eyes, and anyway, what could she do about it? Unlike practically every other workplace in the world, a hospital was one place where your physical appearance was of absolutely no consequence, thankfully.

The note had been written by Steph and Melissa. She had scanned it quickly, when Theresa had given it to her, but she wanted a chance to read it properly, to take it all in. The thought of Melissa and Steph – her friends! – made her feel that fresh air was being breathed into her life, something wonderful was there for her, if she wanted it.

And she did. She hadn’t realised just how much until she saw Steph’s handwriting. ‘It’s us,’ the note had said. ‘Here to see you. We miss you and want you to join us next week for drinks. Steph and Melissa.’

But what would they think of her? Would they see through her, realise how insular, how introverted she had become? And what would she say about Rob?

She and Rob had been together since they were first years… so twenty years ago now. But she wasn’t sure if what she had with Rob was normal? They hadn’t had sex since… since probably around the last time she had seen Steph and Melissa. No, that was taking it a bit far. But probably six months or so. Long enough anyway. Too long. When were you officially flatmates? What was the cut-off point? Six months? A year?

She and Rob were both doctors, so it was inevitable and entirely un-ironic that their relationship should be clinical. He was a consultant but had had the sense not to specialise in A&E, the front line. He was besuited and officed and led a far more civilised professional life than Eilis. He liked everything just so: his life, his home and his partner. He didn’t go in for emotion or mess. Their small cottage was like something you might see in an interiors magazine, where if you left a mug on the table, it all felt wrong and weird. Their kitchen cupboards didn’t even have handles, so you had to jab and stab at them, just to try and get them to open. Sometimes Eilis wondered just what was so wrong with handles. But these kind of things mattered to Rob… and it didn’t really to her, so she went along with it.

Rob spent his evenings perched on their stylish but incongruously uncomfortable sofa. Supposedly a place to relax, it made you feel like you were waiting for your annual smear test. It wasn’t what you wanted in a sofa; that much was sure. But Rob loved it and was happy to balance on its edge.

Their whole house was a bit like that, Eilis thought. Rob didn’t even like cushions or rugs. The headboard on their bed had a piece of wood jutting out that caught Eilis on the back of the head. Every time. And even the tea towels were too nice to use. Eilis had her own secret supply of mugs that Rob said he could not, would not drink out of. If it didn’t emanate from Scandinavia, then it wasn’t worth having. He had also sharpened up his appearance lately but isn’t that what happens when the forties loom, you either up your game or let things slide. He was more muscular these days and his hair was trendier. It was quite a shock when he came home with it, such a departure from the normal hair he had before… But he looked good. And very different from the Rob she had met all those years ago, when they were first years doing medicine in Trinity College.

He had dressed beyond his years in those days, blazer and smart trousers, hair cut in a style only a Granny would love. But now… he exuded that look of the lean, sporty type. Not the kind of man Eilis ever thought she would end up with and not the kind who she would have thought would have gone for her. But he had and there they were. A couple, uncoupled.

It didn’t help that she felt surrounded by death. There was the hospital, of course, part of the job. Sometimes she felt like the last person left in the castle which was being besieged by faceless people with swords. She kept having to swing around and fight off the next one. But it was also her mother, who had died in her last year at school. She felt almost embarrassed that she was still, she felt, in grieving, even twenty years on. She still felt like that eighteen year old who lost her mother, she still carried the pain around carefully so as not to dislodge it. She couldn’t, hadn’t, told anyone about it as no one would understand her inability to move on.

But at least now she had Steph and Eilis… at least she had her friends back, after all that time. They hadn’t given up on her.

She was desperate to phone Steph straight away, and say wild horses wouldn’t keep her from meeting next week. She had missed the two of them as well and that making new friends like them had turned out to be impossible. She almost skipped out of the tea room, ready to get on with the shift and get home.

‘Right, I need to talk to you.’ A man in his early forties, wearing a checked shirt and sleeves rolled up, was marching straight up to her. Handsome, she couldn’t help noticing. ‘Yes,’ she said, smiling warily.

‘Are you a doctor?’ He spoke angrily.

‘Yes… but…’

‘My mother has been waiting for more than eight hours. I just can’t believe that this situation exists in this country. My mother… my mother is out there. Stroke… we think. Who knows? Not anyone in this bloody hospital! She’s eighty-five, but no one has bothered to ask her that. No one has asked any questions yet because not a single doctor has examined her…’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, thinking how worried he looked, wrung out. ‘We are…’

‘Listen,’ he interrupted. ‘I know you’re up to your eyes, but when are you going to see her?’

‘One of the nurses will have…’

‘Do you think that is enough?’ he said, speaking more quietly. ‘Do you think that it is okay for an eighty-five-year-old woman to be left sitting on a plastic chair for eight hours? She’s been given the once-over and that’s all. Is it because she’s old? Not worth saving? Are you all happy with that?’

‘No… but… there’s a system here…’ She tried to speak kindly to him, to soothe, to calm.

He rolled his eyes. ‘A system? There’s a better system in any kindergarten. Bedlam this is. Proper bedlam.’

‘I am sorry,’ said Eilis. ‘We are working as hard as we can.’ This is the line that they all trotted out, something they have been told to use to keep anxious or angry relatives at bay while they get on with the job of looking after patients. But she was well aware of the flimsiness of the line, the lack of satisfaction it gave the relative who was only trying to help someone they loved. She thought of her own mother and how she would feel if she had been sitting on a chair for eight hours. ‘We’ll get to her as soon as possible. I promise.’

‘Really?’ He raised his eyebrow. For a moment, he looked away, his mouth taut with the pressure of the situation, the fight he was having to get his mother off a chair and into a bed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘We will…’

He shook his head, as if to say he couldn’t talk about it anymore and suddenly she was struck by him, this handsome man, with blue eyes, and she was struck by his humanity, his fight for his mother. She was touched and moved by him. And when he pushed his hair back, she noticed his hands; strong and tanned, even in this Irish winter. She was suddenly disarmed and didn’t know what to say.

‘I know it’s not your fault,’ he began and walked off back to the waiting room.

‘We’ll look after your mother, don’t worry,’ she managed to say.

Leaning against a trolley (thankfully patient-less) was Becca, one of the staff nurses, laughing with Bogdan, the porter.

‘Everything all right, doctor?’ called Bogdan.

‘Jaysus, Eils,’ said Becca. ‘I thought he was going to have a coronary. In the right place, though, eh?’

Eilis didn’t answer but instead walked to the nurses’ station and took a moment to calm herself. ‘Theresa,’ she then said, ‘there’s a woman in the waiting area, she’s eighty-five and she may have had a stroke. Could you check on why she hasn’t been seen yet. Will you find out?’

‘Certainly, doctor.’

Becca came up and sat down beside Theresa, swinging a 360 in the chair.

‘Jaysus,’ she said. ‘I’d do him.’

‘Bogdan?’

‘No, that total ride. The one with the gorgeous ass. Mr Shouty.’

‘Oh him?’ Eilis dismissed it. She had a teenager with a broken leg who was just back from x-ray, a man who had been beaten up and needed stitches, and another man who had stumbled down the ladder of his loft and had fallen onto his back on his landing. She needed to assess him straight away.

‘I wouldn’t mind him shouting me into bed,’ said Becca.

Bogdan overheard her. ‘You’ve got to have more self-respect, Becca,’ he said. ‘Shouting is not good from man to woman.’

‘It all depends,’ shrieked Becca. ‘If you get my meaning!’

Eilis left Becca laughing away and Bogdan shaking his head, puzzled. It was going to be a long night, she felt the note in her pocket, though, and remembered she had something, she had two friends who wanted to see her. And she felt something she hadn’t felt in years: excitement.

4

The girls

Eilis called Steph the next morning and arrangements were made to meet. She had looked forward to the night all week, and had even bought herself a new top.

‘Where’re you off to?’ he asked, not mentioning or noticing the top, the lipstick or the heeled boots. She noticed him, though. He wasn’t in his usual off-duty clothes, he had his nice jeans and shirt on. Was he going out? That was the benefit of not having children, she thought. They could both go out and not have to mention it to the other.

‘Meeting Steph and Melissa. Remember? I told you. We’re meeting in the Shelbourne. Steph has a proposal.’

‘Ah, yes, yes you did. Well, have a good time. And say hello from me.’

‘Will do. So, what are your plans? You look like you’re going out.’

‘I was,’ he said. ‘You know, work night-out. But I don’t know… I think I’ll have a quiet night in,’ he said. ‘There’s that programme on steam trains… so…’

Just then his phone beeped and he picked it up. Eilis took it as a cue to leave. They were like an old married couple, these days. Comfortable together. Unlike their sofa.

Sometimes Eilis wanted to buy something hideous and see how long it would take Rob to bin it or burn it or whatever he did with the aesthetic eyesores that inhabit most people’s homes. Things would be disappeared, and nothing more would be said. Eilis toyed with buying a little jug, with a picture of the Parthenon on it, when they were in Greece last summer. Gloriously tacky, naff but nice. But she knew that its life, like that of a box of chocolates in a communal office, would be pitifully short if she brought it home, and instead brought back a bottle of Ouzo, a taste of the holiday.

And Eilis didn’t really mind too much. He was the aesthete and she appreciated the fact that he was into things and the way they looked, far more than she did. Except, she did long for a sofa that did what it was meant to; something into which you could sink, something enveloping.

Rob was equally dedicated to his own wardrobe. He always dressed in purely navy or grey or black that he bought in the kind of posh men’s shops which are always entirely empty of other customers and where the cost of jumpers is the price of a small family car, and the socks so luxurious you can’t actually wear them.

But his style had rubbed off on her. A bit. Okay, a lot. She now dressed not unlike him in a muted colour palate which some might call stylish but she felt desperately boring, really, and middle-aged. But she was boring, she supposed, and middle-aged. Once upon a time she had a pair of red checked trousers and she didn’t even consider that they might be garish or unflattering. She just wore them because she loved them. Who was that person, she often thought, the one who was so unselfconscious?

She took the winding train into town and arrived at the Horseshoe Bar in the Shelbourne, and ordered a gin and tonic and sat down to wait for Melissa and