Ciara Geraghty - Rules of the Road

I didn’t have the faintest idea what she was talking about.

‘Are you going to ask me in?’ she said, and it was only then I noticed the rain. Drizzle really, but unpleasant nonetheless when you’re standing at somebody’s door getting soaked by it.

‘Oh gosh, sorry, I … of course, come in.’

Iris walked around the kitchen table, shaking everybody’s hand. She never mentioned the fact that we were in the middle of dinner.

‘You’re a lucky man,’ she said to Brendan, clapping his shoulder. ‘Having a woman like Terry in your life.’ She smiled at him, and Brendan did the only thing anyone can do when Iris Armstrong smiles at them. He smiled back. I can see Brendan’s face even now, bright, as if it were lit by the power of Iris’s smile.

I stood at the kitchen door, at a loss as to what to do or say. I think I was worrying about feeding her. Was there enough food left over to warrant an invitation to eat with us? And whether Iris liked mushrooms. Lots of people don’t.

‘You must be so proud of her,’ said Iris, looking at the girls and Brendan in turn. When nobody responded immediately, she turned to me, then back to the table, put her free hand on her hip. ‘You didn’t tell them,’ she said. Her tone registered little surprise. Even back then, before we were friends, Iris seemed to know exactly who I was.

‘Tell us what?’ Brendan glanced from me to Iris and back to me, and his look was sort of fearful. Maybe fearful is too strong. But this wasn’t what usually happened in our house at dinnertime. A stranger in our kitchen. Making declarations. Not that Iris was a stranger exactly. I just … well, I hardly knew her.

‘Your mother saved Ted Gorman’s life today,’ Iris said.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say I—’

‘Ted is one of the Society’s biggest donors,’ Iris went on, wrestling herself out of her coat and draping it on the back of a chair before sitting down. ‘And today, when he was having a tour of one of our day-care facilities, he collapsed, and Terry here performed CPR on him and saved his life.’ She picked up a slice of garlic bread and took an enormous bite so that, for a moment, the only sound in the room was Iris’s molars grinding the crust. ‘I’ve just come from the hospital, and his doctor told me that if it hadn’t been for Terry’s swift action, Ted would be on a slab this evening.’

There was a stunned silence. The girls looked at me. Brendan looked at me. Iris looked at me. I felt the familiar heat of my blood rushing up the length of my neck and into my face.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’ There was an edge of accusation in Brendan’s voice.

‘I was going to,’ I said. ‘After dinner, when we were relaxing.’ I’m not sure if that was true. I slipped away when the ambulance arrived, got on with the rest of my day. I picked up Brendan’s suit from the dry-cleaners, collected the text book I had ordered for Anna in Eason’s, brought Dad home from day-care, helped my mother wash her windows, did the grocery shopping on my way home, ran a Hoover over the hall, stairs and landing, then cooked dinner. Truth be told, I had mostly forgotten about Mr Gorman after all that.

‘This garlic bread is delicious,’ declared Iris, picking up Brendan’s napkin and wiping her mouth with it.

‘Please. Join us for dinner,’ I said, clenched with worry that there might not be enough.

‘I’d love to, I’m starving,’ said Iris, tucking Brendan’s napkin into the collar of her top. ‘I forgot to have lunch with all the excitement.’

‘I didn’t even know you could do CPR,’ said Brendan, as I managed to scrape a decent enough portion of risotto out of the pot.

‘I did that first-aid course, remember?’ I said. ‘When the girls were little. Just … you know … so I’d know what to do if they … burned themselves or something.’

‘Oh,’ said Brendan.

‘I nearly forgot,’ shouted Iris, pulling a bottle of champagne – I mean, proper champagne, not fizzy wine – out of her handbag. ‘We have to toast you, Terry. You’re a handy woman to have around in a crisis, big or small.’ Iris winked at me, and I thought she might have been referring to the coffee-jar incident. Not that it was a crisis, but … I was still pretty sure that’s what she meant all the same.

*

‘So,’ says Jennifer, when all my purchases have been bagged. ‘That’ll be seventy-four pounds and twenty pence, when you’re ready.’ I hand over two crisp fifty-pound notes, still warm from the ATM machine. I smile at her. ‘Goodbye Jennifer. Thanks for your help. And I hope everything works out. I’m sure your girlfriend will forgive you once you explain.’

‘You really think so?’

‘I do. Bonsai trees are notoriously difficult to maintain. Everyone knows that. And it’s obvious she’s crazy about you.’

‘Thanks T,’ she says. T! ‘Have a great trip. Where are you heading for next?’

‘I’m not exactly sure.’

‘Wow. I thought you’d be like my mum, with a laminated itinerary.’

‘I am, usually,’ I say. ‘My girls often give out about my lack of spontaneity.’

‘I always give out about my mum,’ Jennifer says, ‘but I’d be lost without her.’

Jennifer hugs me before I leave. Although perhaps she is overly-familiar with all her customers.

The door tinkles when I open it, and I step outside into the main street.

The High Street. That’s what you call it in England.

Either way, it’s still a street. An unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar place with no laminated itinerary in my handbag that I can touch with my hand from time to time, just to feel it there.

I think it’s then – that moment – that I come up with The Plan.

I’ll ring Iris’s mother.

Vera.

Called for Vera Lynn.

It’s like Jennifer says. We’d be lost without our mothers. Even mothers like Vera, who, on the face of things, is perhaps not going to be a poster-girl for motherhood anytime soon. But who is still, essentially, a mother. Perhaps she is who Iris needs right now.

In the absence of any other plan of action, this seems like a viable option.

I’ll be breezy. Let her know we’re in town. We’re passing through. Suggest that she might like to meet up. I could dress it up as a surprise for Iris.

Iris hates surprises.

But Vera is not to know that.

I’m pretty sure the last time Iris saw Vera was at her father’s funeral. Iris said Vera only showed up on the off chance there might be something in the will for her.

That can’t be true. Not entirely, at least.

Vera is Iris’s mother, after all. That will always be true no matter what has happened.

They haven’t spoken since then. But it’s never too late for a second chance. Did someone famous say that? Or did I just see it on a T-shirt once?

It doesn’t matter. The idea has taken hold, grown roots. I become convinced that a mother’s love is what is needed here. A mother’s love will be like a bridge over the hurt and neglect and, well … abandonment, yes, there’s no getting around that. It might prove a difficult one to bridge.

But not impossible.

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