It was Molly and she had recognized me.
I decided to speak immediately.
“Isn’t your son a wonderful juggler,” I said.
“Yes, that’s just what he is. My son. Just so long as you remember this.” She was small, blond and very angry with me.
I could have kicked myself for having come along here and even more so for being spotted. “Yes, of course he is. And you must be very proud of him.”
“I am. Very. And you can be proud of your sons when you have them. Rather than coming down here, spying on my son.” Molly’s face looked peevish when she snapped like that, not pretty and doll-like as she looked when she smiled.
I don’t know what made me say it. I never tell anyone.
“I won’t be having any sons, or daughters. I can’t have children,” I said.
I hadn’t even told my mother and my sisters, who all kept annoying me, wondering was there any news?
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” Molly said.
“Well, it’s true. Sad, but very true.” I shrugged.
“And what does Dan think?”
“He’s sad too, but he knew this when we got married, and he already has one son whom he loves very much.” I gestured with my head towards the playground.
“And whose life will not be turned around and whose future will not be destroyed just because you couldn’t have children,” Molly said.
“I know,” I agreed.
“So what are you doing here?” Molly was still suspicious.
“I don’t know,” I said and maybe she saw from my face that I was telling the truth. “I really don’t know, Molly, what I am doing here. It had something to do with Dan’s face this morning.”
“Did he send you? I told him he wasn’t to come hanging about—I didn’t think he’d ask you to come.”
“No, no, he has no idea I’m here.” Again I think she believed me.
The school bell rang and the children went inside. Molly and I looked on proudly as other boys were clapping Finn on the back over his juggling. He hadn’t seen either of us.
“Well,” I said, “I’d better be on my way. I have a day off.”
“So have I,” Molly volunteered. “What are you going to do now?”
“I’m going to buy some meat and make Dan a steak-and-kidney pie.”
“Well, he lucked out with you then—I couldn’t cook. Still can’t.”
“I’m not very good,” I admitted. “I have to keep reading the recipe. But he lucked out with you much more—you had a son for him.”
She stood and looked at me for a moment as if weighing up what she was going to say.
Then she said it.
“Why don’t we go shopping together?” she suggested.
I didn’t pause. Not for a second. “That would be great, and you could help me know what to get. The recipe is for four, so I suppose I’ll just have to order half of everything.” I knew I was beginning to burble but it didn’t matter.
She had made a huge step. I had met her halfway.
Could I take another step or would that ruin it?
Oh, what the hell—I’d say it.
“Or maybe we could keep it as a recipe for four and you and Finn could come and eat it too. Like a sort of act of faith, if you know what I mean.”
She paused. Maybe I had gone too far? I often do. Perhaps this woman was just sorry for me not being able to have children, which was why she had suggested going shopping. Bringing the much-loved child to the enemy’s house was different. Maybe this might make her nervous of Dan and me. Maybe, on the other hand, this might make her feel less nervous. No fear now of Dan having further children, which might make him forget the firstborn. I might never know what thoughts were going through her mind.
Then she said, “Everything we do is some kind of act of faith, isn’t it? We’d be delighted to share the steak-and-kidney pie tonight.”
And I didn’t imagine it—the sun started to shine through the autumn trees and left lovely morning shadows all over the playground.
It’s only one night of the year, but people do go on about it. Where are you seeing it in? Are you going to a New Year’s party? There’s as much pressure on you as if it were some kind of contest. People don’t like you saying that you are doing nothing. It makes them feel guilty, as if they should invite you to whatever they are doing.
That’s what they felt about Cissy in the staff room. Cissy had one hell of a year in 1997. During the summer vacation her husband, Frank, had run away with a trampish girl from fifth year. It had been the school scandal, all over the papers, and it had broken Cissy’s heart. It was widely suspected but never confirmed that he had taken Cissy’s life savings as well.
The other teachers knew that at least she was all right for Christmas. She was going to her sister’s house—there would be children there, which would distract her. But New Year’s Eve? They chewed their lips; maybe someone should ask her. It was the one night of the year you didn’t want to be alone. Cissy saw it coming and told them she was having friends round.
Friends?
Cissy never talked about friends. But they didn’t feel so guilty anymore.
So the night came and Cissy sat alone in her flat on Chestnut Street. It was just an ordinary night, she told herself over and over. But it wasn’t. There had been five New Year’s Eves with Frank.
On the first one he had proposed to her and the other four they had gone to the same noisy restaurant and told everyone it was the anniversary of their engagement. And now he was living in England with this jail-bait girl, Lola, who was considering a career in modeling and Frank was going to be her manager.
By ten o’clock, Cissy could bear it no longer. The remorseless cheer on television. The sounds of revelry coming from outside. It all seemed to mock her. She put on her coat and wooly scarf and went out. She went to Gianni’s.
Martin had planned a New Year’s Eve dinner with Geoff. He was going to cook a pheasant and had ordered it from the butcher. Geoff would be home from Christmas with his family. Geoff’s parents still thought he might marry and give them a spring wedding and several grandchildren. They knew nothing of his happy life with Martin in the big city. They were old and set in their ways, Geoff said; no point in trying to make them understand something they never would.
That was fine for Christmas. Martin always helped out at a Christmas charity, and before he knew it Geoff would be back again, full of stories and plans. But this year Geoff had telephoned. His parents were giving a big New Year’s party and he simply had to stay. At first Martin thought that he was being invited to join the party, and when it became clear that he was not, he fought hard to hide the bitterness and disappointment from his tone. He wished Geoff well at the party and warned him to steer clear of prospective brides.
Martin canceled the pheasant and stayed at home listening to music. And eventually he became so restless that he thought his head was going to burst. And around ten o’clock he went out. He didn’t know where he was going, nor did he care. He couldn’t spend one more moment in the home he had made for Geoff. And he walked for nearly an hour, hardly noticing his surroundings. He passed a chip shop called Gianni’s; it didn’t look very full. He had to eat somewhere, so he went in.
Josie and her sister Rosemary ran an organic vegetable shop. Well, Josie ran it; Rosemary dressed up and stood in the shop giving people recipes and talking about the celebrities who ate nothing but organic food. Rosemary was willowy and lithe and much admired. When anyone did interviews about the little store, which they often did, Rosemary was pictured at the door or beside the big juicing machine. Well, Josie didn’t really look the part. Big, honorable Josie, in her cardigan, not the image you wanted for healthy living. Even if she did go to the market and visit the suppliers and even if she was the one who put in ten-hour days while Rosemary went to lunch and talked to the right people.
They lived in the same house. Rosemary had all of upstairs, two floors, and Josie had
the basement, but tonight the whole house was needed because Rosemary was having a party. Her fellow was free because his ghastly wife had gone skiing with the awful children, so he and Rosemary would have a great New Year’s bash. This had been signaled to Josie several times. It had not been said out straight but it had been very heavily implied that Josie should not be there for the party.
They would need the basement for the caterers and Josie didn’t really like crowds of strangers, did she? Josie had never been so hurt in her entire life. She told her sister that she was going out to friends anyway and staying the night. Rosemary didn’t ask what friends. It didn’t occur to her that Josie, who worked all the hours God sent, might not have any friends. Josie booked herself into a bed-and-breakfast place on the other side of Dublin. She paid in advance but could not stay in the cold, forbidding room. Downstairs the landlady and her extended family were getting into the spirit of things. Josie put on her coat and went out. There had to be a better place to spend the last hours of the year. She saw a cheerful-looking fish-and-chip shop. It would do as well as anywhere else.
Louis was tired. Back in New York this would have been a normal day—he could have got his business done, find what he was looking for. But this crazy country seemed to have closed down for two whole weeks. It was no way to run an economy. He was here to do a job that should have been simple on the face of it, but every complication under the sun had turned up. His client would never understand these delays. Perhaps the place might return to some kind of normal working function in two days’ time. He sure hoped so. He had rented a service apartment for himself for his time in Dublin. It was clean and efficient but without any soul. No way to come back to the city of his birth. But, anyway, coming back as a sort of hired gun, a spy, wasn’t great either.
Louis went into the neat little kitchen. There was nothing to eat. He didn’t fancy going to a big noisy place. On his way back here he had passed a fish-and-chip place. Maybe he could get a takeaway. It was only half a block away. Gianni’s—that’s what it was called.
Gianni’s father asked how business was. Gianni lied, as always.
“Very good, Papa. Many, many people,” he said.
“I don’t think so, Gianni.”
“Why do you not think so, Papa?”
The old man moved between chair and bed and never came downstairs anymore.
“Because if there were many, many people, you would have had your shoes mended, my son.”
“We have enough business, Papa. We live, we live well.”
“You can’t be free, get married, have a life of your own!”
“I don’t want to get married and have a life of my own. I like to live here with you.”
“Well, go downstairs and serve all these customers, then.”
“I will, Papa.”
Gianni ran down to his café, which had been empty before, but now there were four people looking around in some confusion.
“I’m very sorry—I was up with my father. He’s old and he fusses a bit. Now, who was first?”
None of them seemed in any hurry; they were polite people. Not like the drunks who often came in, but then it wasn’t closing time yet.
“Well, then sit down, won’t you, and I’ll take your orders.”
“Can you eat here?” the big woman with the funny knitted hat asked.
“Indeed, but perhaps it’s not very festive for New Year’s Eve?” Gianni looked around his drab little premises without much pleasure.
“I’m happy to eat here,” said the woman with the knitted hat.
“Me too,” said the well-dressed young man in the well-cut coat. Gianni would have loved a coat like that and some new shoes. Someday, perhaps.
“And I would like to sit down as well. Too much festivity out there.” The woman in the dark coat with the scarlet scarf was attractive. She didn’t look like someone who would be eating alone in a greasy-spoon place on New Year’s Eve. Then neither did the rich American businessman. He was entirely too classy for this place.
But he had a license only for a takeaway. Not a proper restaurant, with people sitting down. The little table was just for people waiting to collect their packages from the fryer.
But Gianni didn’t turn away good money. He ran around assembling tomato sauce and vinegar and paper napkins, and then got four plates from the back of the shop.
They had settled at the table as if they had always intended to have supper here.
“Please,” Gianni warned. “Please, if other people come in and want to sit down, will you tell them you are my friends? There are some people who might want to come in here and not go home, if you understand?”
They looked as if they understood.
“So you just say you are friends of Gianni? Okay?”
They seemed to get that too.
As he went to fry the fish Gianni heard them introducing themselves to one another. They all actually seemed pleased to meet three strangers and sit down at the plastic-topped table. Weren’t people extraordinary.
They had no small talk, the people at the table; they plunged straight into what they felt about the year that was just about to end in under two hours.
Martin said that he was lonely because his great friend Geoff had gone to his parents’ instead of eating roast pheasant with Martin. He had been so looking forward to the evening, when they would make their plans for the next year.
“Well, at least he went to his parents’,” Cissy said. “My husband ran away with one of my pupils. Now that’s way worse than your scene.”
Cissy stopped speaking, as if amazed at herself. Normally she froze anyone out who asked about the situation, and here she was, blurting it all out to complete strangers.
“That’s very bad, certainly,” Martin agreed. “At least Geoff is coming back the day after tomorrow. Would you take your husband back if he came and asked you?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. I’d like to think not but you are never sure what you might do if the time was right.”
They looked expectantly at the other two, waiting for something to be divulged.
Josie had taken off her knitted hat.
She spoke seriously.
“My sister and I run this vegetable shop, and we were there till seven o’clock tonight with last-minute shoppers. Well, I was there. My sister was at the hairdresser’s. She’s having a big party at our house tonight and my face won’t fit—well, any of me won’t fit. So I said I was going out with friends.” She looked very sad.
Louis, the man with the American accent, patted her on the hand. “And in a way you are going out with friends. We are all having dinner with you.”
If Louis had mentioned nothing about his own situation, the others didn’t seem to notice it.
The cod and chips were served and Gianni was pleased to see them all brightening up. From time to time customers came in. Occasionally they looked at the little table of diners.
“I didn’t know you were going upmarket, Gianni,” one of them said.
“These are my friends,” Gianni said proudly.
“Ciao ciao,” Louis said cheerfully, and they all said it. Gianni was so pleased he brought them all a plastic mug of vermouth each. It tasted like a horrific cough medicine but they all struggled with it.
“I could really do with a glass of decent wine now,” Louis said. “But of course I have nothing in that apartment I rented.”
Martin said that he had plenty of wine at his home but it was a long way away.
Josie said that she had no access to anything either.
They didn’t want to break away from the comfortable intimacy of their little table but they couldn’t face another glass of the medicinal vermouth.
Cissy said, “I only live round the corner, on Chestnut Street—come back to my place.”
And that was how it all began.
Ten years ago tonight.
They all trooped up to Cissy’s flat.
She got out the white wine
and Christmas cake and they talked like old friends. They sorted out one another’s problems. Martin should not try to force Geoff to come out if it would break the parents’ hearts. If you loved someone you wanted their happiness. Cissy should start separation and get an immediate order against Frank for the savings that he stole. This was not the time for decency and rising above it. Cissy needed the money. She must go on a luxurious long holiday. They agreed that Josie must hire a business manager to assess the contribution of each sister. Louis unbent enough to tell them that he had fought with his family many years back and had gone to the U.S.A., where he had done well in one kind of thing after another. He worked hard, he made money, but it wasn’t actually the life he had wanted. They suggested he get in touch with his Irish family. Louis said that Hell would have to freeze over before he would even consider doing that. Then it was midnight and they all raised a glass, and said it was a pity to have to go home.
When they said the word home, they each said it with varying degrees of scorn. For Martin, home was a house without Geoff; for Josie it was a cold bed-and-breakfast place; for Louis it was a service apartment without a soul. And if they all left, then Cissy would be left in a home that was no longer a home without Frank.
“Why don’t you all stay here?” Cissy said.
She and Josie would share the bedroom, the men could sleep in the sitting room. It was all so much better than the places they had left. Nobody had to be asked twice. Next morning Cissy made everyone an omelet and the good mood of the night before was still there.
No addresses were exchanged. No plans were made, but they agreed that if chance were to bring them in this direction next New Year’s Eve, they might resume the friends-of-Gianni role.
The new year had begun well for them. Something they had never expected.
A year went by and none of them had done what they had half agreed to do. Cissy had not started proceedings against her wandering husband.
Martin still hoped that Geoff would come out to his parents and take Martin home with him.