Someone Like You (35 page)

‘You do fancy him,’ Mel said simply.

‘I don’t. Now shut up. Dad phoned,’ Abby went on.

‘About the wedding,’ Mel finished for her, sloe-black eyes glittering excitedly. ‘He wants you to come.’

‘Fliss and he want you to come,’ Abby said, emphasizing Fliss.

It was their mother’s turn to mutter ‘ouch’ to herself.

‘That’s kind of him,’ she said as nonchalantly as she could, ‘but I don’t think so, girls.’

‘What did I tell you?’ Mel said to her twin. ‘I knew you’d say that, Mum.’

‘Did you now?’ Leonie got up and bustled around at the cooker to hide her distress. ‘You’re great at knowing what I’m going to say, aren’t you? What if I said you’ve got to run the Hoover over the sitting room before dinner - were you expecting that?’ She spoke lightly, hoping to deflect them from the conversation at hand.

Mel groaned. ‘I hate hoovering, Mum. It’s Abby’s turn, anyway.’

‘He wants you to go and so do we,’ Abby spoke up.

Leonie got a packet of green beans she hadn’t intended cooking out of the freezer and slowly put them in a microwaveable bowl.

‘It’s bumper to bumper on the Stillorgan dual carriageway,’ trilled the traffic reporter on the radio, ‘and in Cork, the Douglas area is a no-go zone because an articulated truck has jackknifed…’

‘Mum? You’d love it, you know you would. Dad wants you to phone him. You will, won’t you?’ Abby pleaded.

‘Of course I’ll phone him, girls, but I really don’t think it’s such a good idea. I mean, it’ll cost a fortune and your dad doesn’t really want me there, does he?’

‘He said he does,’ Mel pointed out. ‘It’ll be fun, Mum.

Dad says he’ll pay your airfare. He’s paying for ours too.’

He must be making a bloody mint, Leonie thought.

‘I’ll phone your father, but that’s all. I’m not making any promises.’

‘Please,’ begged Ray. ‘I’d love you to. You always said we had to stick together for the children’s sake and show them people can divorce in a civilized fashion.’

Three thousand miles away, Leonie grimaced. Hoist by her own petard. She had said that, and not just for the children’s sake. She hadn’t wanted the kids to be used as pawns in the sort of vicious breakup most people had; used as blackmail in a fight that was all about power and blame, where parental responsibility counted for nothing.

Leonie had seen too many marital breakups disintegrate into a litany of whose fault it was and why the kids couldn’t possibly see ‘that bitch’ or ‘that bastard’. It was all so unhelpful and childish, she felt.

She’d wanted to be able to talk calmly with Ray about the welfare of Abby, Mel and Danny, to do what was right for their family even though they were splitting up as a couple. And they had, always had. This very adult and mature state of affairs suited Leonie too because she’d instigated the breakup and she couldn’t face years of Ray’s venom bouncing off the kids and back at her simply because he resented what she’d done. It would have been devastating for them, and acutely painful for her. But there had been no venom. Ray had been as good as his word and their divorce had been civilized, just as she’d hoped.

Now, ten years later, her own words came back to haunt her.

‘If it was you getting remarried, I’d be there for you, Leonie,’ Ray pointed out. And he wasn’t lying, she knew.

Leonie wondered if she’d have wanted her ex-husband there if she got married again. She would, she decided. It would be nice to have him there, smiling, encouraging, giving his blessing. Proof that she hadn’t ruined his life.

Which was a joke, she thought wryly. The only life she’d ruined in her attempts to find true love had been her own.

Ray was happy, the kids were happy, and she was the one who longed for the passionate encounter she’d dreamed about since she was old enough to watch black-and-white movies on the telly on Saturday afternoons. Unfortunately, she was turning into a facsimile of Stella Dallas instead of an episode of Dallas.

‘What does Fliss think about this, about me coming to the wedding?’ she asked.

‘She’s as eager as I am,’ Ray said happily. ‘She had a wonderful view of the whole thing. Her parents are divorced and see each other all the time. They both own this skiing lodge in Colorado and share holidays with their new partners. It’s very civilized here. Fliss wants you to be there because she’s going to be the kids’ stepmom and she wants you to meet her. It’ll be great, Leonie. A holiday. We’ve got two extra cabins booked, so you and the kids could share one. I’ll pay your fare.’

‘Nonsense,’ Leonie said automatically. ‘I’ll pay my own fare.’ She had said it before she realized what it meant: capitulation by mistake.

‘So you’re coming! Great! It’ll be wonderful to see you, Leonie. Thanks, I really appreciate it,’ Ray said enthusiastically.

They

discussed arrangements briefly but, because Ray was at work, he couldn’t talk for long. ‘I’ll call during the week, when I’ve got everything planned,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait to see the kids. And you.’

How different America was from Ireland, she reflected as she hung up. Americans had it all sorted out in their heads. Enlightened, that was the word. People broke up and went on with their lives, ex-spouses met current spouses and nobody threatened to beat anyone senseless because they all hated each other’s guts and resented the hell out of each other. Leonie tried to think of one wedding she’d heard of where the ex-spouse turned up to watch the proceedings - well, other than weddings where the ex turned up uninvited to try and wreck the proceedings. She couldn’t think of any. It was all too civilized. She’d heard of people who refused to go to their children’s weddings because their ex-partner would be there. How pathetic.

Now she was getting in on the enlightened act by going to Colorado to the January wedding of her ex-husband.

How very modern. What a pity she would be going on her own. She’d have loved to have a partner to bring along: someone to act as a personal talisman, to remind her that she was a lovable person. Her talisman would also be proof to the rest of the world that she wasn’t some lonely has been who had scoured the personal ads looking for love and come up with nothing.

Mel was on a high during dinner, volubly discussing what she’d bring to the wedding.

‘Liz thinks I should go dramatic in black,’ she said, nibbling salad and chilli daintily. ‘I don’t know. Black makes me washed out; white would be good because it’ll be snowy, but it’s bad manners to wear white to weddings, isn’t it?’ she chattered away. ‘I’ll have to phone Fliss to check what she’s wearing. Or maybe a clingy shift dress would be nice. Susie’s older sister has this chiffon mini dress. It sounds deadly.’

‘You’re not wearing anything clingy, white or chiffon,’

Leonie said firmly. ‘You’re fourteen, Melanie, not eighteen.

If I’d wanted you to turn into Lolita, I’d have named you Lolita.’

Mel groaned but took no notice. ‘I have to look fab, Mum, that’s all. Who knows who’ll be there. All the movie stars have houses in Vail.’

‘It’s not Vail, is it?’ her mother asked, horrified.

‘Yes,’ Mel said happily.

‘God, we’ll all have to dress up,’ Leonie said, ‘won’t we, Abby? Can’t let Ireland down by turning up like a gang of down-and”-outs.’

Abby was very quiet with all this talk of outfits and clingy shift dresses. Poor thing was undoubtedly fed up thinking that Mel would look like a superstar while she melted into the background yet again, put in the shade by her much prettier sister.

‘Are you not hungry?’ Leonie asked Abby, noticing she was only picking at her dinner. ‘You have been off your food lately.’

Abby shook her head quickly. ‘I’m fine,’ she said and began to load up a fork with chilli, as if to prove that she was hungry. ‘Fine, really.’

Abby closed the bathroom door quietly. It didn’t take her as long these days but it was still good to get in there quietly, before anyone realized how long she’d been gone and that she was actually in the bathroom. That had been a dodgy moment earlier when Mum had asked if she was feeling all right. Abby had been sure she’d managed to hide the fact that she’d been dieting. Over the past few weeks, she’d fed Penny surreptitiously under the table and had hidden bits of dinner in her napkin at mealtimes, anything to avoid eating too much. It had been so difficult and it hadn’t worked. She was always hungry and she wasn’t getting any thinner, she was sure of it. The ancient bathroom scales weren’t exactly accurate so it was hard to check. Nobody ever used them any more. Mum just ate what she liked and didn’t seem to worry about her figure; Mel was skinny no matter what she ate. and Danny only cared about how muscular he was getting. He was always admiring his biceps in the hall mirror when he thought nobody was looking.

Abby’s only other option for weighing herself was the speak-your-weight machine in Maguire’s chemist and it was so hideously embarrassing to have to stand on that with all the other girls from school wandering in and out, buying nail varnish and spot concealer, that she never used it.

Either way, she wasn’t thinner, despite all her efforts at avoiding chips and lasagne, her favourite. Dieting had seemed hopeless until she’d come up with the perfect way to lose weight. She’d read about it two weeks ago in one of her mother’s magazines. You could eat all you wanted and still be thin. It hurt the back of her throat, though. But it would be worth it if it meant she became as thin as Mel. That was all she wanted really: to be beautiful like Mel, just for once, for Dad’s wedding.

‘ Then she’d stop. Abby tied her hair back in a scrunchie so it wouldn’t get in her way and -leaned over the toilet bowl.

Only Penny’s pleading eyes made Leonie grab her anorak and brave the hideous December weather. It had rained solidly for three days, great sheets of rain that defied any raincoat, scarf or hat. No matter how well wrapped up you were, the rain insinuated itself under some hem or other, soaking clothes until the wearer was. wet and freezing.

The girls were cuddled up in the sitting room with the heating on full blast, pretending to revise for their Christmas exams but really watching a crucial episode of Home and Away. In the oven, a lemon and herb basted chicken was roasting succulently for dinner. Leonie’s plan had been to read the paper and, exhausted after a busy day in the surgery, veg out until dinner. But Penny, who hadn’t been walked for the entire water-logged three days, looked so mournful that Leonie finally gave in.

‘If they gave Oscars to animals, you’d get one for sure,’

she muttered as Penny sank to the floor in abject misery, resting her nose miserably on her fat golden paws. ‘Nobody can look more depressed and abandoned than you. Skippy, Flipper and Lassie wouldn’t have a hope.’

Wearing waterproof leggings, her big waterproof anorak and with a pink knitted hat under the hood,.Leonie hoped she’d stay dry.

Penny danced around her mistress’s feet, singing in her high-pitched canine voice, thrilled with herself. Shivering, Leonie trudged down the road, wondering if she was stone mad to be doing this.

It was ten days before Christmas and every house along her road had candles or small lights in their windows.

The brightly coloured gleam of Christmas tree lights shone through windows and glass porches, and the atmosphere of cosy warmth inside made it feel all the more cold and wet outside. Leonie huddled into her anorak.

Even watching Penny delightedly bouncing in and out of the myriad enormous puddles didn’t make her laugh the way it usually did. Ten minutes, that was all she was doing.

After ten minutes on an evening like this, she’d be a drowned rat. Once they’d left the main road, she let Penny off the lead and followed slowly, hating the sensation of needles of rain hitting her face with ferocity. She was so cold.

Penny buried her nose in a puddle and whisked it up joyfully, splashing water over her laughing face. With her rainproof fur coat, designed by nature for all kinds of weather, she didn’t mind the rain, although she always quivered when she was being hosed after a particularly dirty walk, as though the cold water she’d leapt into moments before was painfully cruel when it was coming out of a hose instead of a big puddle.

‘You’re lucky I love you, Penny,’ Leonie grumbled to her gambolling dog, ‘otherwise I’d never bring you out on an evening like this.’ She moved to the other side of the narrow road because it was more sheltered from the rain.

She was so busy trying to cover as much of her face as possible from the icy rain that she never even noticed the giant pothole beside the big forbidding black gates. As Penny bounced about the gates, sniffing excitedly and peeing, Leonie stepped on a cracked bit of asphalt, her foot in its wet Wellington boot wobbled and she fell heavily, barely managing to protect her face with her hands. She was up to her knees in the water-logged pothole and her elbows ached from landing heavily on the road.

‘Ouch!’ she cried with pain, tears flooding her eyes.

Penny instantly ran back and started barking. Feeling jarred and shocked by her fall, Leonie didn’t know what to do for a moment. She could feel the water seeping into her clothes, and her knees and elbows stung, but shock meant she couldn’t move.

‘Are you all right?’ said a masculine voice. She moved her head, only then noticing the car lights behind her.

Suddenly someone was putting arms around her and helping her gently to her feet. She swayed in this person’s embrace, feeling unsteady and shaky. Penny hopped anxiously from paw to paw, knowing something was wrong but not able to do anything.

‘You’re in no fit state to go anywhere,’ the man said decisively. ‘Come with me and we’ll get you dried off and see whether you need the doctor.’ He half-carried her over to a big Jeep with headlights blazing.

Normally, Leonie would have resisted and said she’d be fine, really, and that Penny couldn’t get into the Jeep because she was filthy and wet, but she was too shocked and tearful to say anything. The man helped Leonie into the passenger seat as if she were light as a feather and then opened the back door for Penny to leap in.

Leonie closed her eyes wearily, still in shock. The pain in her elbows was getting worse. She felt them gingerly, sure she’d torn her anorak in the fall.