Cathy Kelly - Always and Forever

‘Although there will be lots of cardiologists on hand if she does,’ Vanessa said cheerfully.

And Mel…Mel had planned a bit of personal grooming time so she’d look her best on this important occasion. A new dress, perhaps. Or a trendy haircut. Something to show the world, and the top people at Lorimar, that Mel Redmond had her finger on the pulse.

Yet somehow, with fifteen minutes to go before she and Adrian had to leave the house on the Saturday night in question, Mel was upstairs frantically trying to revive her limp hair with a blast of hairspray. Her maquillage consisted of a faded bit of eyeliner that had originally been plastered on at nine that morning, and her skin tone was more Wet Weekend in Greenland than the delicious shade of Malibu Bronze most of the other Lorimar women were aiming for. Adrian was recovering from the flu and Mel realised miserably that even he looked better than she did. Feeling worn out after a hectic day and an even more hectic month, all she wanted to do was lie down on the bed and sleep.

Her diary had been black with dates for the whole of February. The second Friday of the month had been Adrian’s younger brother, Eddie’s, fortieth birthday and the landmark party had involved a big meal for the extended family in his favourite restaurant.

‘My kid brother, forty…’ Adrian kept remarking in an astonished way. ‘It seems so old. I can remember us talking about what it would be like to be forty.’

‘It was like being a million years old,’ reflected Eddie. ‘It seemed so far away. I sort of hoped I’d be forty before you because I was fed up with being two years younger and you got to do everything first.’

‘For you to be forty first, Adrian would have had to have died,’ said their mother, Lynda.

‘Just as well it didn’t happen then,’ Eddie said gravely, ‘although I came close to killing you often enough, big bro.’

The following weekend, Mel’s aunt and uncle celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary and their children organised a big lunch party in a Dublin hotel, complete with a band playing Jim Reeves songs, and enlarged photos on the walls of the happy couple during their married life. Arrangements of pale pink roses decorated the tables, and to recreate the whole wedding effect, which had originally been low key because of a lack of funds, there was a blessing by the parish priest, champagne toasts and speeches.

‘It’s such an emotional event, isn’t it?’ said one of the guests dreamily to Mel after Uncle Dermot reduced the whole room to floods of tears by telling them how he didn’t want to cope a single day without his Angela.

‘Er, yes, very emotional,’ replied Mel, sweat ruining her hair as she rushed off after Carrie, who’d run rampant as soon as she realised that the hotel was the perfect place for escaping her mother. So far, Carrie had hidden in a stall in the women’s loos, under the draped tablecloth where the anniversary cake stood in state, and behind the swing door into the kitchen.

‘Sit down and rest and I’ll take care of Carrie,’ said Mel’s mum, as Mel sprinted past.

Mel stopped and thought of how her high-heeled party sandals were killing her and how the people who organised these events and invited children never seemed to plan anything specifically for them. ‘Children welcome!’ meant nothing when it didn’t include a special child-friendly room where parents could alternate care while round-the-clock Barney’s Great Adventure / One Hundred and One Dalmatians played on the video. Or else on-demand tranquillisers for the parents. Those glasses of red wine sitting invitingly at the edges of the tables were like a magnet for a child of Carrie’s age.

‘You’re tired, Mel. Have a sit-down with Adrian. Get yourself a piece of the cake, go on. I’ll keep an eye on her.’ Karen got up from her seat and began to head off after the lilac-clad whirlwind that was Carrie.

‘No, Mum, it’s OK. You do enough,’ Mel said firmly. If her feet hurt, she’d just take her shoes off. Who’d notice? ‘Next thing, Carrie will think you’re her mother and not me!’ The brittle laugh that accompanied this comment didn’t escape either of them.

‘She wouldn’t, don’t be silly.’ Karen’s soft hand gripped her daughter’s tightly.

‘Course not. It was a joke!’ Mel’s face adopted its best PR executive smile. They both knew it was fake.

‘See you later then, love,’ said her mother. And although she’d never worked in PR, she managed a creditable imitation of her daughter’s smile.

There was no respite at the office either. Mel was snowed under as the company’s magazine, which was sent to all subscribers, was going quarterly instead of biannually, and everyone in the publicity department was being called upon to work overtime. To make matters more tense, there were ominous rumours of huge cutbacks. More work and less money – not a good combination, Mel felt.

Vanessa was under the same pressure and the only time they got to talk was in the morning in the ladies’, where they compared notes on the dismal vibes that were circulating about how the company could Save Money.

‘I was reading a bit in the paper the other day about how most working women do so much first thing in the morning that by the time they actually get into the office seventy-five per cent are knackered,’ Vanessa said one day as she washed her hands and decided that she didn’t have the energy for any other primping.

Mel, applying jet-black mascara to give her tired eyes some definition, almost laughed. ‘Only seventy-five per cent? What sort of medication are the other twenty-five on?’

What had added most to Mel’s sheer exhaustion was the fact that Sarah wasn’t sleeping well. For several weeks, Sarah had refused to settle on week nights until she was falling with tiredness, and then she slept badly and woke up several times in the night crying. Mel had discussed this with Dawna, the nursery boss.

‘I think I’ve got to the bottom of it,’ Dawna said finally the Friday before the Lorimar charity ball, when Mel was at her wits’ end. ‘She doesn’t want to miss being with you, Mel. When Mummy’s out at work all day, we miss Mummy, don’t we?’

Sarah nodded gravely.

‘That’s all it is. She doesn’t want to go to bed and miss spending time when you’re home in the evening,’ Dawna went on blithely, not realising that she was injecting another hypodermic needleful of guilt into Mel’s heart. ‘I bet she goes down like a lamb at weekends when you’re there all the time?’

Mel nodded. It was true: on Friday and Saturday nights, Sarah always slept well and Mel had tried to convince herself it was because the weekends were packed with activity and she was tired. She should have known it wasn’t that.

Rather than ask for her mother’s help again, Mel enlisted the aid of Adrian’s mother, Lynda, to babysit on Saturday while she and Adrian went to the ball. Lynda was always thrilled to be asked, though that didn’t happen often. This was partly because Mel didn’t want to seem to take advantage of her but mostly because Mel felt that Lynda at some level disapproved of her.

Lynda had come from a generation who’d stayed at home with their children, and even though she never directly said a word to Mel about her job – Lynda wasn’t the confrontational type – Mel felt the vibes anyway.

A youthful sixty-something with a trim figure from playing badminton and the same blonde colouring as her son, Lynda seemed the ideal mother-in-law. She lived far enough away not to be dropping round all the time and, although she’d been widowed for several years, she had her own social life and didn’t cling to Adrian. But the odd comment Lynda made gave Mel to feel that she didn’t want her beloved granddaughters brought up by strangers and was suspicious of her granny rival.