Can Anybody Help Me? (29 page)

Then again, maybe that was what she was doing too.

She refreshed again. A new post was now at the top of the page. Someone called FarmersWife had started a thread called ‘Sad News'. Well, that sounded like it was worth reading. She raised her head. Listened to the clanging sounds emanating from the kitchen. She had at least ten minutes.

Claire reread the last line in disbelief. Suicide.

She put the phone back down on the coffee table, suddenly exhausted. Those poor kids. She knew she should be thinking of them, and that poor eejit of a husband. But she could only
think of herself, right now, right here. Still broken, in some deep irreparable place.

Selfish cow.

It was always her first reaction, every time she heard the word or came across the act. She couldn't avoid it, in her job. Managed to keep her game face on, keep her brain in neutral every time she saw a body being pulled from a river or lifted, broken and lifeless from under a train. But the thought was always there.

Aidan had been a selfish bastard.

Aidan, who had driven her home in his father's car, kissed her good night and then returned to his house and swallowed a box of his mother's sleeping tablets, washed down with whiskey. Aidan, who had killed himself two days before the start of the Leaving Cert. the exam that was supposed to help them escape to college and adulthood and any other bloody place but here. Aidan, with his eighteen-hole Doc Martins and bootleg cassettes and brains that would have seen him pass every exam going, had left a note for his parents and nothing for Claire. Aidan had been a selfish bastard.

She had adored him, treasured every second she spent curled up beside him on her narrow single bed, smoking Carroll's out the window and slagging off the dumb boring inhabitants of their small, dull town. It had been the two of them together, against the world. Until the day it was only her, and the world against her.

Selfish bastard.

She only once said the words out loud, one night in the vacuum between exams and results when she'd hitched a lift into Galway city and come back at 3 a.m., stinking of cigarettes
and cider. She had lost her front door key and her mother got out of bed to let her in. She had made her tea in the chilly kitchen while she talked about him drunkenly, and cried.

Her mother, terrified into silence by the school's grim warnings of copycat actions, had simply nodded nervously and agreed. Selfish bastard. Claire said it one more time, and then was sick all over the floor. She woke up fully dressed in her own bed the next morning and she and her parents never spoke about Aidan again. To be honest, they never really spoke about anything meaningful ever again.

She blamed everyone for his death. His teachers, for not appreciating him. His parents, for treating him like a child. Her own parents. For what, she didn't really know. But she was angry with them, in some vague unfocused way, for their reaction to his death, their attempts to persuade her she'd be okay. On the night of the removal her father had even mentioned that there'd be more fish in the sea. She looked at him, his big calloused country hands twisting, his face grey with concern, and felt only derision. She moved out of the house six months later and, other than for the occasional fraught visit had never returned.

Two decades later, Matt told her that her antagonism towards them had become a habit. She supposed he was right, but didn't have the impetus to change it. Aidan's death had become part of her, a hard knot of anger at her core. It had also decided her future. A local guard, a thirty-five-year-old mother of two sons, had broken the news of Aidan's death to his classmates and realised immediately from the looks and whispers that the tall, pale girl in the second last row had been more than just a friend. Garda Mulhaire had kept a close eye on Claire over the
following weeks. She never patronised, and her gentle questions and assurances had convinced Claire that someone was on her side. When Claire realised a career in the force would also allow her to leave home almost immediately, the decision to join up had been an easy one to make.

She rarely visited her hometown now. But Aidan was still with her. And every time she heard someone had committed what to her was the ultimate act of cowardice, it had become second nature to look for answers and assign blame.

Jesus, Claire, lighten up. She rubbed her eyes and, almost without thinking clicked back into Netmammy. The Farmer already had four responses, each one dripping with ‘sad' icons and offering sympathy, hugs and prayers. MammyNo1 said there were tears on her keyboard.

‘Pasta for madam!'

Her husband placed a steaming plate of food in front of her and gave a mock bow.

‘Sorry it took so long.'

‘No problem.'

Claire forced a smile. Dinner first, and then she had a few phone calls to make.

PRIVATE MESSAGE

‘So, what did you think of the teak one?'

‘The teak one. Yeah.'

Claire stared at Matt, smiled and tried to buy herself some time. The teak one. Hmmm. Was that the big brown one with the massive teddy bear stencilled onto the headboard, or the smaller one that was suspended from a metal yoke and looked like it would make any self-respecting baby seasick. The teak one. Her husband looked at her expectantly. She would have to offer him something.

‘It was … nice.'

‘You don't think it's a bit big for our bedroom? I mean, we could use the Moses basket for the first few weeks, but he'll probably grow out of that soon enough and we'll want him in beside us for at least six months. Maybe the cream one was better? The one with the retractable sides?'

‘I …'

Claire stopped. They had looked at what seemed like fifty cots that day and none of them had been good enough for her husband. Too big. Too small. Too matching. Not matching enough. Not breathable. Or was that the mattress? Either way, she herself had had trouble breathing after the third shop.
The doctor had suspended her period of house arrest the day before by telling her she could go out for a few hours, if she took things slowly. Claire had imagined a trip to the cinema, maybe a hot chocolate and a wander around the magazine section of her local supermarket. Not a trip to babybed land.

Matt looked at the notes – Notes! – he'd taken on his phone and frowned.

‘You're right. I don't think any of them is one hundred per cent. I'll tell you what, why don't we try Ikea? It mightn't be too busy this time of the day.'

‘I'm not …' Claire's voice trailed off as the prospect of hot chocolate retreated even further into the distance, replaced by Scandinavian interiors and maybe, if she was lucky, a supper of meatballs and fruit sauce. Matt looked at her.

‘God, hon, I'm sorry. You must be exhausted? What was I thinking? Here, I'll drop you home.'

‘Maybe that would be best.'

She leant her head back on the headrest and tried to look blood-pressurey. If that was a word. Fact was, she felt fantastic. Better than she had done in weeks. In fact, the three days she had spent confined to the house had made her realise how absolutely wretched she had been feeling in the days leading up to her collapse. She had been wrecked, fair enough. Working too hard, yadda yadda. But she was raring to go now. Focused and back in action. Only problem was cots didn't seem like a particularly interesting thing to focus on.

She couldn't get the Farmer and his Wife out of her mind. It was becoming something of an obsession, checking into the Netmammy page every few hours to see what other posts had been added. The thread was now into its seventh page. And
every other poster seemed to feel the same way. FarmersWife had been a regular, popular poster and had given no indication that she was feeling suicidal. There had been many previous discussions on the boards about depression, postnatal and every other kind. Many of the Netmammies were open about their use of happy pills. But FarmersWife had never said that she had any worries in this area. The night before, awake and uncomfortable after her fourth toilet trip in a row, Claire had even scrolled back through the woman's posts, trying to see if she gave any indication that things were getting on top of her. On the contrary, she seemed like a woman who was busy, but happy and coping beautifully.

Sure, she'd complained, but they all did. About sleepless nights and temper tantrums and snotty noses. And husbands that didn't understand, or pretended not to hear. But there had been another side to her too. Every so often she'd post, completely unbidden, about how she loved being a mother and how beautiful her family were. Or she'd say that her DH had done something to drive her mad but that she had forgiven him and loved him anyway. She just sounded like a happy woman. There was absolutely nothing to indicate that one day, she just wouldn't want to be around anymore.

‘There aren't always clues.'

All of the counsellors had told her the same thing, after Aidan died. The one her mother had dragged her to, the one her aunt drove her too and the third one, years later, that the Guards had recommended. They'd all yammered on about it, how she couldn't blame herself for Aidan's death, that there was nothing she could have spotted, nothing she could have known. But that hadn't stopped her beating herself up on a
regular basis. The same thing she knew Farmer was doing, no matter what platitudes he was hearing from other people.

‘So, I'll drop you home?'

‘Thanks, love.'

It was with only a tinge of guilt that she let Matt escort her into the house and then waved him back down the road again. Ah, he'd enjoy heading out on his own. Off to browse Moses baskets. Matt loved that sort of thing. Planning. Claire preferred to think that the baby things would fall into place after he or she arrived. There was no point in tying themselves up in knots beforehand.