My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. by Annette Sills (epub e reader .TXT) 📗

in I spotted one of Bryonie Phillips’s cronies sitting at the bar. I panicked.  But he was engrossed in his phone and didn’t see me as I hurried past into the eating area.

We sat at a table looking out into the outside yard. Mary was in great form. In a fuchsia shirt instead of her usual black or navy, she looked tanned and happy after spending half-term hiking around Sicily with her German partner Monika. We chatted for a while about our former boss Pete whose job Mary now had. Pete had left under a cloud after rumours of an affair with a Polish MA student. I knew Maja well and liked her. Much more than Pete, who was hairy and dismissive and quietly full of himself. Both were married. I reminded Mary how I’d told her earlier in the year that I had suspicions about an affair.

“Remember I said something was going on?” I said, dunking a chunky chip into the bowl of hummus on my plate. “Shame I didn’t have the same intuition about my husband and my best mate.”

“Shame indeed.” Mary narrowed her eyes. “So how are things between you and Joe?”

“Much the same. Except he’s kinder now and I’m not as angry. As much as I try I can’t find fault with him at the moment.” I bit into a chip. “Apart from the bit about him shagging my bestie.”

Mary said nothing, sprinkling salt and pepper over her plate and frowning down at her steak.

“Do you still love him?”

I sat back and sighed.

“Love doesn’t actually seem that relevant right now, Mary. I’m letting him be around because I need him. All I know is it actually feels better to have his presence around now and again than be on my own dealing with depression, even after everything he’s done.”

“Fair enough. Do you talk about what happened at all?”

“Not really. I did mention marriage guidance the other day but he says he doesn’t want to be made to feel guiltier than he already is by talking to a large woman in Birkenstocks.”

Mary looked under the table at her feet and I laughed. Then she hovered the bottle of Riesling in my direction.

“Had my one glass for today,” I said, shaking my head and putting a hand over my glass. “I can’t take the downers that come with the hangovers any more.”

“All the more for me then,” She grinned, filling her glass. “And what about counselling? You heard anything?”

“According to my GP there’s a four-month waiting list.”

“Christ. Is it that bad?”

“Yep.”

“What about going private? You have the money.”

“It might sound a bit daft but I’m scared of spending it. I have to know what’s happening with Joe first and if we end up selling the house. Therapy’s not cheap.”

“A good investment, though.”

I put my knife and fork down, rubbed at my temples and sighed.

“It’s not about the money, Mary. I’m putting it off because I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

I leant over and lowered my voice. “If I start digging I might discover that I’m like her. Like Tess.”

“In what way?”

“Manic depressive. Bipolar or whatever it’s called these days.”

Mary dabbed her lips with a napkin then frowned. “You’re a worrier and a bit oversensitive by times but I doubt you’re bipolar. I’m sure you’d know by now if you were.”

“I’m feeling much better now but they say depression’s genetic. What if isn’t just one episode? What if it becomes permanent?”

She reached over and picked up her glass.

“Carmel, you’ve had a pretty tough time recently. Don’t you think your depression is a reaction to everything that’s happened to you? Remember when you said you thought something was triggered seeing the little girl with her dad at her old house that day?”

I nodded. “Yes?”

“Didn’t it ever occur to you that you’ve never dealt properly with your father’s death? That at the age of ten you were thrown into the role of looking after Tess and Mikey and you never properly grieved for him? Losing a parent at a young age is huge and it’s something that’s probably taken its toll on you over the years. Then recently a series of events happened that were out of your control. Mikey and Tess died suddenly, you were told you might have a heart condition, you discovered all that stuff about Tess and the baby then you found out about Joe and Karen. Who the hell wouldn’t get down after going through all that?”

“And Joe’s parents dying.”

“Christ, I forgot that.” Mary gulped from her glass again. “I’m slitting my wrists here. Look, Carmel, you’ve suffered loss after loss. Circumstances have made you depressed. It doesn’t mean you’re bipolar. You’ve just unravelled, that’s all.”

I sat back. Unravelled. I thought about that time I found Tess’s knitting between the sofa cushions in the old house, how it came apart in my hands, stitch after stitch, loosening and unhooking, the shape of it finally disappearing. Was Mary right? Is that what had happened to me?

I gestured at the passing waitress and asked for coffee.

“Did anyone ever tell you you’ve got a way with words,” I said to Mary then. “Someone should give you a promotion.”

Chapter 31

Julia’s letter arrived on an unseasonably warm Friday evening in November. Like everything else that year the weather was topsy-turvy. Summer had been winter and now winter was turning into summer.

I’d just got in from work. I’d been back for three weeks. I still had my bad days but Mary had given me an easy timetable and overall I was glad to be keeping busy.

Joe was round and had offered to cook a curry. Amy Winehouse crooned on the music system, chicken korma bubbled on the hob and I was setting the table. To any onlooker we looked like a normal couple enjoying a Friday evening together.

He was holding a brown envelope in his hand.

“I forgot. This was on the mat when I came in,” he said. “Irish postmark. Looks interesting.”

He searched my face. He was looking for