The Art of Friendship (15 page)

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’

‘It’s a different kind of attention. She’s more emotionally demanding. I never, ever relax with Izzy around in case I do
or say something that she can report back to her mother. I’m walking on eggshells with her.’

‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ said Liam.

Clare sighed and rolled onto her back. ‘You can dismiss that all you like, but it’s true. I don’t mind looking after Izzy, Liam, difficult as she is. But it’s not me she needs to be around. It’s you.’

‘Do you think I deliberately avoid being with her? You think I choose to be stuck at the office listening to people talking shite, rather than spend time with my own daughter?’

‘Of course not.’

They were both silent then. Tears pricked Clare’s eyes. All they ever seemed to do in bed these days was argue.

‘If you did more to help around the house,’ she went on, ‘maybe we would be able to spend time together.’ These days she seemed to spend her evenings, if not painting, then doing chores. ‘How come you have time to sit down and watch TV at night? Do you ever see me doing that?’

Now that the floodgates were opened, she had so many things to say they tumbled out on top of each other. ‘Since when did it become my job to remember and shop for every single birthday, anniversary and the like on your side of the family as well as mine? I organise the kids’ birthday parties, Christmas, every family holiday. I do all the cleaning, shopping, laundry, childcare and cooking. I even put out the recycling and empty the goddamned bins! Apart from earn a wage, Liam, what exactly do you do for this family?’

‘All the cooking. Oh, that’s a joke. You can’t even be bothered to make an evening meal, Clare.’

‘I had to work tonight.’

‘And I had to leave for work at seven this morning. When exactly was I supposed to make dinner?’

‘You managed tonight, didn’t you?’

‘We had beans on toast, Clare.’

‘That was your choice,’ she said, batting away the guilt that threatened to settle on her like a fog.

‘I don’t think,’ he went on with a catch in his throat that, she assumed, was meant to elicit sympathy, ‘that it’s too much to ask for a hot dinner when I come home from a day’s work. I’m not asking for haute cuisine, just a square meal. I think you forget that we depend on my salary for survival. And it’s simply illogical to suggest that I do the household chores when I’m at work and you’re home all day.’

Her head was spinning with retorts. She hated the way they sounded just like her parents used to. Her head filled with rage and angry thoughts. She counted to ten and managed to form them into something coherent. ‘I could make a significant contribution to the household income if you’d just give me the support I need, Liam. I supported you for a year while you did that Diploma in Corporate Finance before the kids were born. I remember us both coming in from a long day’s work and me making dinner while you studied. Why can’t you do the same for me? The way I see it, you just want an easy life and you’re not prepared to put yourself out in any shape or form to help me get my career off the ground.’

Liam shook his head and looked at her sadly. ‘You’re wrong. I want you to be successful with your painting, Clare. In fact I think it’s wonderful that you’re motivated to do what you’re doing and I’m pleased that Patsy’s offered to host an exhibition for you. I don’t even mind the money you’ve spent on art materials.’

‘I’ll earn that back as soon as I’ve sold a couple of paintings, ’ snapped Clare.

He paused momentarily. ‘What I object to is your timing. We have two under-fives at home, Clare, and I just think you’re taking on too much. I’m worried for you.’

Trust Liam to twist the argument around so that it was about her, not him. ‘The timing might not suit your idea of happy families, but it’s perfect for me.
I’m
ready for it.’

‘I’m not sure this family is. If you’d just give it a few more years…wait ‘til Rachel starts school at least. It would just be so much easier on everyone.’

‘Easier on you, you mean,’ mumbled Clare darkly.

‘No, I mean everyone. Can’t you see that the children are affected by what you’re doing?’

‘What d’you mean?’ she demanded, shocked by the suggestion that she was having a negative effect on either child.

‘This mood you’re in all the time. It affects the whole atmosphere in the house.’

‘What mood?’

‘You go about like a martyr, with a face like you’ve sucked a lemon. If this is what being an artist does to you then you should seriously think about giving it up.’

‘It’s not the bloody painting, Liam, that makes me miserable. It’s everything else I have to do.’

He smiled, utterly humourlessly. ‘There you go again. Saint Clare.’

His sarcasm was so cutting, so mean-spirited. He had never spoken to her like that before. She rolled away from him so that he could not see the cold tear slide down the bridge of her nose and seep into the pillowcase.

‘If looking after your family makes you so unhappy, Clare, then you should’ve thought twice about having them in the first place.’

Her heart hardened. ‘The children don’t make me unhappy, Liam. If I’m disappointed in anyone, it’s you. I thought you would make a better father. And a better husband.’

He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Now that’s the pot calling the
kettle black. You’re not exactly the original Stepford wife, are you?’

The light went out then, followed by much sighing, rustling of bed linen and creaking of the mattress as Liam made a show of settling down to sleep. She lay as close to the edge of the bed as possible – she could not bear for him to touch her, even unintentionally.

‘I’m going through with this, Liam, whether you like it or not,’ she said into the darkness but there was no reply.

She wasn’t just talking about the exhibition. She realised that what she wanted was a sea change, a fundamental reappraisal of the roles within their marriage. She was fed up being a doormat.

Neither of them spoke again. Clare lay for a long time listening to the sound of Liam’s breathing, believing that he would relent, that he would admit that he had taken too much for granted, that he would say he was wrong. But his shallow breathing deepened and slowed and soon she knew he was asleep.

Clare’s heart was seized by anxiety. They had just done something terrible. Something that her parents did all the time. Something they had sworn to each other on their wedding day that they would never do. To someone looking in on the marriage from outside, it might not seem so awful. But for Clare it was a measure of just how bad things were between them. They had let the sun go down on their anger.

The first two weeks in April which, happily, coincided with the school holidays, turned out to be exceptionally warm – summer had come early, everyone said. The back door to Kirsty’s kitchen was wide open, and Candy lay stretched out contentedly in the shaft of midday sun that beat down on the tiled floor.

Outside, in the back garden, Chris had set the sprinkler up to give the grass a soaking and the boys, bare-footed, were taking turns to jump over it. The objective, supposedly, was to time the leap to avoid a complete drenching. But once Adam discovered there was much more fun to be had when the jets of water were pointing directly up his shorts, that went out of the window. Boys, thought Kirsty, and shook her head and smiled.

She lifted down a glass pitcher from the shelf above the cooker. The shrieks of laughter coming from the garden filled her heart with joy – the sound of heady, carefree days, echoes of her own, happy childhood. She took a bottle of elderflower cordial, Chris’s favourite, from the cupboard, poured an inch of the thick syrup into the pitcher and then filled it with cold water. It frothed up like bubble bath, then died down as quickly – as though she’d thrown a bar of soap in the jug. She set it on the draining board, leant her
hands on the edge of the Belfast sink and looked out of the window.

The cherry tree was almost in full blossom and at its foot, white and pale yellow narcissi waved delicately in a gentle breeze. Deep purply-blue irises, highlighted with bright yellow streaks, red tulips, and all manner of primulas peppered the borders – cerise pink, red, yellow, salmon, blue and orange. Some of the early flowering clematis on the garden fence to the right were already in bloom, cascades of star-shaped white flowers tumbling down to the ground. Scott had laboured to ensure that the garden had ‘interest all year round’. The garden, and the boys, were his lasting legacy to her.

Chris toiled in the flowerbed beside the garden shed. He was down on one knee in the shadow of the tall hedge that separated the garden from the public path along the back of the house, tugging something out of the ground. He wore a sort of uniform of khaki shorts, revealing strong, tanned legs and an air-force blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Grey patches of sweat spread out in circles beneath each arm. Now and again he glanced over at the boys, still running in and out of the sprinkler, and smiled.

Kirsty took four clear picnic tumblers from the cupboard beside the fridge. She set them, one by one, on a green melamine tray. Four was such a pleasing, even number. So many products were aimed at the ideal family size of four. Every time she bought a pack of croissants, a box of breaded haddock, a pack of doughnuts or muffins she was always left with one over – an almost daily reminder, even now, of Scott’s absence.

The boys came in shivering with the cold and Kirsty sent them upstairs to change out of their wet things. She arranged chocolate biscuits on a melamine plate and placed it and the
jug of cordial on the tray along with the glasses. After a few minutes of giggling and shouting the boys appeared back downstairs, racing to see who could get their wet clothes in the washing machine first. Then they ran out into the garden.

Kirsty touched her hips lightly with her hands, looked down at her figure. She had taken care with her appearance. She wore red linen trousers and a tailored white linen shirt. On her feet were red flip-flops from Accessorize embellished with sequins and beads. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her right ear, lifted the tray and walked into the garden.

‘Chris,’ she called and he looked up, his eyes shaded by the baseball cap on his head. She set the tray on the table. ‘I’ve got some cordial here if you fancy a drink,’ she shouted.

He nodded, stabbed the point of the trowel into the bare earth, stood up and walked slowly over to the patio where Kirsty and the boys were seated on slatted wooden chairs arranged around the table. Chris removed his leather gardening gloves that had once been a pale tan and were now muddied and worn. He threw them on the bench under the kitchen window, sat down heavily and sighed. His forehead was beaded with sweat.

‘There’s some heat in that sun.’

‘You’ll be ready for this then,’ said Kirsty, filling the tumblers with the eerie pale greenish-yellow liquid. She picked up a glass and handed it to Chris. ‘It’s elderflower cordial.’

‘My favourite,’ he said and Kirsty smiled shyly, pleased he’d noticed.

‘Do I like that?’ interjected Adam, eyeing the glass in front of him suspiciously. ‘It looks like pee.’

‘Adam!’ cried Kirsty and she blushed. ‘Don’t use language like that. It’s rude.’

Chris put a hand over his mouth to hide a smile. But
Adam saw it and took it as encouragement. ‘But it does, Mum,’ he persisted, with a sly glance at Chris.

‘That’s enough now. Just try it, will you?’ said Kirsty, trying to sound cross and suppress her laughter at the same time.

Adam closed his eyes, screwed his face up and put the glass to his lips. The tip of his tongue barely touched the drink. ‘Yuck!’ he cried, slammed the glass down, grabbed the base of his throat and made spitting noises. ‘It’s disgusting.’

Kirsty sighed. ‘Go and get a carton of Ribena out of the fridge then. They’re in the door, on the bottom shelf.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Adam, making a remarkable recovery. He shot his brother a triumphant grin, grabbed a biscuit and disappeared.

On the other side of the table, David pulled a face. ‘I don’t like it much either, Mum. It tastes a bit sour,’ he said and then added bravely, ‘But I’ll drink it if you want me to. It’s not that bad.’

‘That’s okay, son,’ said Kirsty. ‘Go and get some Ribena if you want it.’ And he too scurried off, before Kirsty could change her mind.

Chris chuckled. ‘Looks like I’m the only person round here that likes this stuff.’

‘I like it too.’

Chris drained the glass in one draught and Kirsty refilled it. She pushed the plate of biscuits towards him. ‘Have one.’

‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said. He broke it in half, then into quarters and set the pieces on the teak table, bleached to a pale grey by the sun and rain. He put a piece in his mouth and squinted at the garden. Kirsty followed his gaze across the lawn, then closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun’s rays.

She could feel his presence like she could feel the sun on her face. Everything inside her was orientated towards him,
like the way the narcissus bulbs in the pot on the kitchen windowsill tilted towards the light. When the pot was turned a hundred and eighty degrees the plants simply began the process of leaning, once more, to the thing they needed to survive. She was attuned to Chris all the time, when she was with him and when she wasn’t. She realised that she thought about him constantly.

‘That
Prunus lusitanica
needs cutting back,’ he said.

She opened her eyes. ‘Pardon?’ His knowledge of gardening was encyclopedic.

‘The hedge at the back,’ he said and pointed to where he’d been working earlier. ‘You know, the Portugal laurel. It’s due a trim.’

‘Oh yes.’

He crunched another piece of biscuit. ‘And the hydrangeas need dead-heading.’

‘Keep some for me – I might put them in a vase indoors.’ Kirsty had always thought the faded flower heads far nicer than the bright blue ones of summer.

‘Sure thing. And do you want those asters split? They could be divided and some used to fill in that bare patch over by the bird table. Now’s the time to do it.’

‘Sounds like a good idea,’ she said.

She and the boys were booked to go to Scotland next week to visit her parents. She stared at Chris. He was looking down, the top part of his face hidden by the peak on the cap. He reached out a bronzed arm, took the third triangle of biscuit and ate it. Even a week seemed too long to be away from Ballyfergus.

‘And I’ll need to prune that fuchsia and buddleia back hard too. Loads to be done at this time of year. Though if you can get on top of it now, it’s easier to manage for the rest of the season.’

‘Can I help?’ said Adam, who had crept up and was standing beside Chris’s left elbow. David loitered a few feet away.

‘Of course you can, wee man,’ said Chris, using his pet name for Adam. ‘Now let me see,’ he said and rubbed his chin. ‘I’ll tell you what needs doing. I could do with a bit of help to hoe those beds over there.’ He pointed to the borders behind the pond. ‘Do you remember how to hoe?’

‘I do,’ said David, taking an eager step forwards. ‘I know how. I can show him.’

‘That’s great, big man.’

David led the way across the lawn. ‘We need to get the hoes out of the shed first, Adam.’

‘What’s hoes?’

‘A hoe is what you dig the weeds up with,’ said David, his voice growing fainter as they crossed the lawn, heads bent together. ‘Don’t you know…’

‘Great kids.’ Chris popped the last piece of biscuit in his mouth and rubbed his fingertips on his shirt. ‘So how’s the job going?’

‘Really well,’ smiled Kirsty. ‘My boss is really nice and she’s been very flexible. She said I can fit the job in around school hours and I get Fridays off as well.’ She glanced away from him then and focused instead on a cluster of crimson tulips growing in the narrow border by the wall. She did not tell him, of course, that the main reason she had negotiated Fridays off was because that was the day Chris came to do her garden.

‘Sounds perfect,’ he said.

‘Yes, I think so. Harry and Dorothy said they’d help out during the holidays. And though it’s early days I’m sure I’m going to love it. It’s an exciting time, coming up to the summer. That’s when the museum gets most of its visitors.
Lots of Americans and Canadians come here, you know, trying to trace their family histories.’

Chris was staring at her. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and felt her cheeks redden. ‘I’m rabbiting on a bit, aren’t I?’ She took a long sip of cordial and avoided looking at him.

‘No, not at all.’ Chris brushed the crumbs off the table onto the patio with a cupped hand. ‘For what it’s worth,’ he went on, bringing his gaze to rest on her, ‘I think you’re doing the right thing. It’s what, over three years since Scott died?’

He had never mentioned Scott before, either by name or in passing. Kirsty nodded.

‘I think you’re very brave taking these first steps towards rebuilding your life, Kirsty. The danger with a loss like yours is that you never move on. I’ve seen it happen.’ He leant forwards in the chair then and fixed those clear blue eyes of his on her like lasers. ‘You have a whole new future ahead of you. You must grab it and make the most of it.’ He held his hands up, formed into two tight fists. ‘And one day I hope that you find happiness, because you deserve it, Kirsty, you really do.’

Kirsty was taken aback by the passion in his voice and in his demeanour. Was he going to say what she hoped? She blinked and put her hand to her breast. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, the roof of her mouth so dry her tongue felt thick and too big.

‘Not only,’ he went on, ‘are you one of the nicest people I have ever met but you’re too young and beautiful to be on your own. You deserve to be loved. Just be careful who you let into your life. Not all men are worthy of a woman like you. But there is someone out there for you, Kirsty, I’m sure of it. You just have to open your heart and you’ll find him. Or he’ll find you.’

Kirsty felt the colour drain from her face. Her heartbeat steadied, her pulse stopped racing. He saw himself as an
advisor, a protector, a benign confidant to a younger woman in need of a friend. Not a potential partner to her.

‘Well,’ he said after a pause and looked a little sheepish. ‘Now look who’s talking too much!’

It was certainly true that she had never heard him say so much all at once. Kirsty gave a hollow little laugh. She could not bring herself to speak. He relaxed back into the chair, folded his right leg across his left. He took the baseball cap off and hooked it over his knee. His hair was flat against his head, dark with sweat. There was a short silence and then he cleared his throat.

‘Talking of your new job,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the boys working in the border by the pond, ‘I’m thinking of a change myself.’

Kirsty swallowed with difficulty, licked her dry lips. ‘What sort of change?’

‘A complete one. New job. New place.’

‘A new place,’ repeated Kirsty. ‘But…but I don’t understand. I thought you liked your job. And you’ve spent years building up the business. You can’t just throw that away.’

He gave her one of his gentle smiles. ‘Being my own boss has a lot going for it. But it’s got its drawbacks too. I’m not getting any younger and I’m not sure how long I can carry on with hard physical labour. If I’m ill, there’s no-one to do my work. If I can’t work, there’s no pay. And then there’s the difficulty of finding enough work to survive the winter months.’ He shook his head. ‘No, it’s time for a change.’

‘What sort of change?’ said Kirsty, filled with dread. What if he moved away from Ballyfergus? She might never see him again. All of a sudden, the sun seemed too bright, the wind too cold. She shivered.

‘I’m not sure yet. I haven’t really been looking, not with any focus, so I’m not sure what’s available.’

Kirsty wet her lips. ‘And you’d consider moving away from Ballyfergus?’

‘For the right job.’

Kirsty smiled and tried to look like she did not care. Her hands were shaking so much she hid them under the table.

Chris looked over at the boys again who, hoes now abandoned, were kneeling on the grass at the edge of the pond. David had a stick in his hand that was half-submerged in the water, prodding the frogspawn. ‘Because of the divorce, I’ve never had a particularly close relationship with my daughters. It’s the one thing I regret.’

What if he relocated and she never saw him again? There was only one thing for it, she had to tell him how she felt. She swallowed and tried to drum up the courage to speak.

But before she could open her mouth, Chris sighed, took the cap off his knee and looked inside it before placing it on his head. ‘But that’s the way it is. So you see there’s nothing to keep me here.’