Someone Like You (40 page)

‘Hannah, did your mother tell you?’ said Mary tremulously, big baby-blue eyes filling with tears.

‘A bit,’ lied Hannah, perching on the edge of the chair, pleased to see that misery hadn’t ruined Mary’s looks. She was still very attractive with her short curly dark hair, rosy, freckled cheeks and eyes like saucers fringed with long lashes clogged with mascara.

Two little girls who were the spitting image of their mother erupted into the room from the spare bedroom, dressed in grownup clothes that trailed clumsily after them. The younger one, who had to be about four, Hannah reckoned, was wearing purple eyeshadow and a splash of bright lipstick all over her rosebud mouth.

‘Look at me, Mummy!’ she squealed happily. ‘I’m going to the dance.’ She twirled and nearly fell over in her trailing outfit.

The too,’ said the older one, whom Hannah remembered was nearly six and who was wearing Anna’s old black weddings-and-funerals hat with the grey feathers curling limply down instead of jauntily up the way they had when it had first been purchased twenty years ago.

‘Courtney and Krystle, don’t you remember your Auntie Hannah?’ Mary said.

Whatever had happened at home didn’t seem to have left any lasting impression on the two children, Hannah decided hours later, when they’d played dressing-up games for hours, followed by half an hour of stories from a big blue book of fairytales. They loved Hannah and fought over who got to sit on her lap in front of the fire as she read to them about Cinderella’s adventures and how she married the prince but got a wonderful job just so she could keep her independence. Hannah was determined that her fairy stories should have a modern, realistic twist.

‘You’re great with children,’ said Mary fondly. She seemed much cheerier after another pot of tea and a slice of Anna’s fruitcake.

Hannah grinned at her. ‘Nobody’s ever said that to me before.’

By seven, the two girls were finally fast asleep in Anna’s bed and Hannah felt worn out. Driving all the way from Dublin and playing with two energetic children had exhausted her. But Mary didn’t appear tired at all. Or even very emotional, for that matter.

‘Will we drive up to the pub for a quick drink?’ she asked Hannah.

‘What about the girls?’ Hannah asked in surprise.

‘I’ll look after them,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve never set foot in that pub all my life and I’m not going to start now. I’ll put the camp-bed up in the spare bedroom for the girls. We can move them from my bed later. I didn’t air the bed in your old room, Hannah, so I’ll do it now. You two go off and enjoy yourselves for an hour.’

Hannah shrugged. It was obvious that Mary wanted to tell her all the grisly details of the breakup with Jackie.

But she felt too tired of driving to take the car out and, besides, with the stringent drink-driving laws, she wouldn’t be able to have even one drink if she brought the car.

‘Let’s walk,’ she said. ‘It’s only a mile and it’s stopped raining.’

She pulled on a pair of old flat boots of her mother’s and, with a raincoat on, just in case, they set off up the drive.

‘The pub’ll be crowded, I suppose,’ Mary said, sounding remarkably enthusiastic for someone who was theoretically fleeing from misery. She’d painted on another coat of mascara and her lips gleamed with glossy pink lipstick.

‘Always is on Christmas Eve,’ smiled Hannah. ‘You’d swear nobody was going to get a drink all Christmas the way they go mad for it this night.’

Hannah was welcomed into the pub with delight, which was just as well, because otherwise, they’d never have got a seat in the crowded lounge. They refused all the kind offers of drinks and ordered their own, Mary deciding she needed to visit the loo before their glasses of Guinness had arrived. Hannah rarely drank the black stuff any more, but going home made her long for the bittersweet taste.

‘Won’t be a minute,’ Mary said cheerfully, slipping into the crowd.

A lively session was starting up in the corner beside the fire. Several people pushed an elderly man to the front and roared at him to take down the fiddle from its place on the wall and play.

‘I’ve not a note in my head,’ said the old man sweetly as he took the fiddle and began to expertly play a lively foot-tapping tune. The bar exploded into roars of laughter and a few of the hardier souls started dancing a jig in the centre of the room, amazingly not cannoning into each other although they were very drunk.

Hannah sat back in her seat and tapped her feet to the rhythm, keeping an eye out for Mary. She was surprised to see her cousin emerging not from the loo but from the left-hand side of the bar where the telephone was. Mary had a glow on her rosy face as she wound her way over to Hannah.

‘Why didn’t you use the phone at home?’ Hannah asked, puzzled.

Mary went brick red. ‘I didn’t feel as if I could use Auntie Anna’s phone,’ she said shamefacedly.

‘Why? You’re not going back to Jackie, are you?’

Mary shook her head guiltily. ‘Promise you won’t tell?’

she pleaded.

‘I won’t.’

‘It’s not Jackie that made me leave. I’m in love with someone and Jackie found out.’

‘What}’

‘You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘I won’t,’ said Hannah. ‘Now tell me.’

She could see her cousin’s eyes shining like candles in a dark night as she recounted the tale of the handsome fitness instructor she’d met one day at a parent-teacher meeting.

‘Jackie always left those meetings to me,’ Mary protested.

‘He never went to one of them. If Krystle had been a boy, he’d have been there, all right, trying to get him into the school soccer scheme before he was seven, but Jackie isn’t interested in girls. Now Louis,’ she breathed his name reverently, ‘is different. His wife is a bit strange.

That’s why he was there without her. She works all the hours God gives and he has to look after their little girls while she’s away. The oldest one is in the class ahead of Krystle. It just went on from there.’

‘How long have you been seeing each other?’ asked Hannah.

‘Six months. He’s going to leave her for me, but Jackie found out yesterday and there was war.’

‘I can understand why,’ Hannah said mildly. ‘But why didn’t you tell Mam what had happened? It’s not fair to leave her in the dark like that. Jackie might turn up, you know, screaming blue murder, and Mam will be in a rage when she finds out that you’ve lied to her.’

‘I haven’t lied.’

‘OK,’ Hannah said, ‘lied by omission.’

Mary scowled. ‘I couldn’t tell her because you’re the perfect daughter. She’s always talking about you and how well you’re doing. Now you’ve got some famous boyfriend and I couldn’t very well break it to her that I’ve been carrying on with this man and that my husband had found out, could I?’

‘If she finds out, you’ll wish you had.’ Hannah was amazed. Imagine her mother telling everyone that she was the perfect daughter. Hannah had assumed her mother wasn’t too interested in her life. That’s how things had been when she was growing up. Then, Stuart, Hannah’s older brother was the one Anna had involved herself with.

Stuart had only to get reasonable results in an exam for Anna to bake him a special cake in celebration; when he announced he was getting married after his girlfriend, Pam, became pregnant, you’d have thought he’d been awarded the Nobel prize for Biology instead of screwing up on the most basic bit of human biology. Anna had gone crazy trying to buy the perfect wedding outfit and had knitted enough babyclothes for quadruplets. Now here was Mary telling her that Anna spoke about her reverently. It was all too hard to believe.

‘I suppose you’ll advise me to give him up and go back to Jackie like a good little wifey,’ Mary added sharply.

Hannah laughed. ‘Are you mad?’ she demanded. ‘It’s not up to me to advise you, Mary, and I’m not the sort of woman who believes the answer to every question is: a man. You’re a grownup. Just look after yourself and the girls. Don’t rely on any man too much, that’s all I’ll say.’

‘I thought you were in love,’ her cousin remarked.

‘You’re not sounding like it.’

Taking a sip of Guinness gave Hannah a moment before she had to respond. She didn’t want to discuss her own life, and saying that all men were lying, cheating scum might give Mary some hint that everything in Hannah Campbell’s garden was not rosy. Then are all right,’ she said. ‘I’m very fond of them but I’m not in love right now.’

Her nose would grow longer any minute, like Pinocchio’s.

‘I’ve been seeing somebody, that’s all.’

‘Real love is wonderful,’ Mary said, eyes glowing again.

‘You were in love with that Harry, weren’t you? What went wrong there?’

‘I trusted him,’ Hannah said bluntly. ‘Don’t make that mistake, Mary. For your sake and for the girls’.’

Christmas Day dawned cool but dry with a pale sun casting watery light along the front of the house. There was still no sign of her father. Hannah didn’t ask where he was.

She could guess. Sleeping off a gallon of porter in the back of the car, still half out of his skull. By ten thirty, the girls were tiring of their presents from Santa and they all trooped to morning Mass in Hannah’s car. Hannah, who hadn’t been in a church for ages, kept standing up in the wrong places and sitting down when she should have been kneeling, earning herself a reproving stare from six-year-old Krystle.

‘That’s wrong,’ she hissed at Hannah with the piety of a child who was in training for her Holy Communion.

‘Sorry,’ said Hannah meekly, holding on to Courtney’s small hand and trying not to laugh at Krystle’s stern face.

Courtney had taken a shine to her auntie and insisted on sitting beside Hannah, holding on to her new crying, nappy-wearing doll with the other chubby little hand.

Occasionally, she’d give the doll to Hannah and would sit, thumb in her rosebud mouth, leaning against her new friend, utterly content. It was nice to sit there with Courtney’s little body against hers and look around at all the people, Hannah thought.

She felt vaguely guilty about not having been to Mass for so long. Religion hadn’t seemed important in her life and yet, today, with Anna, Mary and the children beside her and with the hard-working people she’d grown up with united in worshipping God, she felt as if she’d been missing something. She was what Leonie called a submarine Catholic - they only came up when there was trouble. It might be nice to go more often, she decided.

The elderly Ford was parked outside the house when Hannah drove up. He was back.

‘Don’t be giving out to your father, Hannah,’ warned her mother in a low voice so that Mary wouldn’t hear. ‘I don’t want a row. This is Christ’s day, so let’s pretend to be a normal family.’

Once, Hannah would have fought with her mother for even daring to say that to her. He’s as bad as he is because nobody ever says anything to hint, she’d have hissed. If he didn’t get away with spending every penny he gets on drink, then we’d all be a lot happier.

That was a different Hannah. This one didn’t want a fight today, she wanted peace and goodwill to all men, and if that meant managing a cold smile for her father, then she’d do it.

The children rushed into the house and stopped in fear at the sight of Willie Campbell slumped in the armchair beside the fire. As fat as his wife was thin, he was an almost comical figure with his threadbare tweed jacket and a shirt that had probably been white when he’d put it on but was now stained with beer. He still had a full head of thick dark hair but it was growing grey now, the same colour as the eyes that roamed over the visitors. Guilt and remorse were written all over his face.

‘Mary,’ he said slurring his words slightly. ‘Welcome.

And little Hannah. Have you got a kiss for your old father?’

Hannah looked at the hopeless creature in front of her and wondered why she’d made him into such an ogre in her mind. He wasn’t bad, she realized. Just weak. Weak and a drunk. It wasn’t his fault he’d given her a lifelong distrust of other men. It certainly wasn’t his fault that she was so hopeless with men that she kept picking ones who’d let her down just like he’d done all her life.

‘Hello, Dad,’ she said, making no move to embrace him.

‘Long time no see. Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas, Uncle Willie,’ said Mary, dragging the two girls over to their uncle. She hugged him but they were not keen to do the same.

‘Come on, girls,’ said Anna firmly, taking them by the hand and leading them away. ‘Let’s go up to your bedroom and take off those coats. Willie,’ she said to her husband, ‘go and have a wash and change your clothes. This is Christmas Day and you could do with a fresh shirt. If you want to have a rest, we’ll wake you for dinner.’

Nothing had changed, Hannah thought. Her mother carried on as usual, giving her father a way out with the usual coded messages, messages telling him he could sleep his hangover off and that he’d be welcome at the table when he was clean and sober. It was her version of see no evil, hear no evil. When she’d been growing up, Hannah had raged against this, what she saw as her mother’s blind acceptance of his alcoholism. Stop making excuses for him.

Leave, get out! Or make him leave, she wanted to scream in frustration. But her mother wouldn’t. Her marriage was all she had and she’d been brought up to accept what she’d been given in life.

Perhaps it was having been away from home for so long, or maybe it was because she’d changed too, but Hannah no longer felt the need to fight with either of them.

‘I’ll make you a cup of tea to bring to bed, Dad,’ was all she said now. Her father looked at her gratefully.

‘Thanks, love.’

When he’d shuffled off to the bedroom he shared with her mother, Hannah heaved a silent sigh of relief. She felt as if she’d passed some sort of test. Not his test but one of her own making. Accepting who you were in life meant accepting your parents for what they were. She’d managed it, just about.

They had dinner at five and it was great fun thanks to the presence of the two small girls. Getting Courtney to eat anything green was a trial and Hannah was in charge of that mission.

‘Don’t wan’ it!’ Courtney would say petulantly, throwing her Winnie the Pooh fork across the table with great force when presented with a bit of broccoli.