Cathy Kelly - Just Between Us

Dumping his cargo, Hugh threw his big sheepskin coat on the hall chair, dropped his car keys on the hall table not thinking that they might scratch the wood, and went into the big yellow sitting room.

Switching on the overhead light, not bothering to shut the curtains or even switch on one of the Oriental table lamps that Rose liked, Hugh sank down into his armchair, stretched his long legs onto the coffee table because there was nobody there to object, and flicked on the television news.

He was still watching half an hour later when Rose arrived. She switched on the hall lamp and switched off the main light before putting Hugh’s keys into the cream glazed pottery bowl where they lived.

Hugh was still glued to the news.

Rose swallowed her irritation when she went into the sitting room and found all the main lights blazing. If opened curtains were the extent of her problems, then she had little to worry about. Silently, she shut the heavy, primrose-yellow curtains and flicked on the lamps, all of which took mere moments. Why did men never do that sort of thing? Did being a hunter-gatherer absolve the whole species from domestic tasks?

‘How are you?’ asked Hugh absently, without taking his eyes from the box.

‘Fine,’ said Rose. ‘We’ve got to be out of here in an hour: I’m going to make a cup of tea and then have a shower.’

‘Oh I’d love some tea,’ said Hugh.

Why didn’t you make some, then? Rose thought crossly. She stopped herself snapping just in time. She was grumpy tonight, for some reason. She’d better get a grip on herself. She, above all people, had no excuse for moaning. But as she went into the dark kitchen to boil the kettle, she thought that it was all very well deciding that you were lucky, but Hugh drove her insane sometimes.

She’d just made the tea when the phone rang. ‘Hiya, Mum,’ said Tara breezily. ‘How are you?’ Rose beamed to hear her middle daughter’s voice. Tara

was one of life’s the-glass-is-half-full people and it was impossible to be miserable in her presence. ‘Great, Tara love, how are you?’

‘Wonderful. Finn and I are just racing out the door to a special film screening but he just got a work phone call, so I thought I’d give you a quick buzz.’

‘Sounds like an interesting evening,’ Rose said, holding the portable phone in one hand and pouring tea into two pottery mugs with the other.

‘I wish,’ sighed Tara. ‘It’s a small-budget, black and white and boring thing written by one of National Hospital’s ex-writers.’ National Hospital was the television soap which Tara wrote for. ‘We’ve all been press-ganged into going. I’m terrified Finn will doze off in the middle of it.’ Tara laughed merrily. ‘You know what he’s like when he’s made to watch anything without either football, car chases or Cameron Diaz in it.’

‘Like your father, in other words,’ Rose said smiling. She poured the correct amount of milk into Hugh’s tea. ‘Why do women marry their father?’

‘It saves time,’ Tara said. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘The usual. Trip to the supermarket this morning, a charity meeting in the afternoon and the poverty action gala tonight.’

‘I hope you’re going to be wearing the Miller family emeralds,’ joked Tara.

‘But of course,’ rallied her mother. The Miller family emeralds consisted of old-fashioned earrings and a tiny and very ugly pendant, all of which were in Aunt Adele’s keeping. Adele was always dropping heavy hints about leaving them to one of her nieces when she died, but the girls were doing their best not to be remembered.

‘Actually,’ said Rose, ‘I haven’t worked out what I’m going to wear and we’ve got to leave soon.’

‘Shame on you,’ teased Tara. ‘The whole town will be talking if you don’t turn up in your glad rags. Do you not have some swanky cut-down-to-the-boobs dress that’ll make everyone so astonished they cough up even more money for charity?’

‘I’m trying to wean myself off the wanton trollop look,’ Rose said gravely. ‘Besides which, I don’t have the bosom for that type of thing any more.’

‘Shame,’ laughed Tara. ‘I better go then, but can I say hello to Dad?’

With the radar that meant he always knew when his beloved daughters were on the phone, Hugh had already picked up the phone in the hall.

‘Hiya, Tara love,’ said Hugh happily. ‘What mad sexy scenes have you been writing this week to shock us simple television viewers?’

Even Rose, on her way upstairs, could hear Tara’s groan of ‘Da-ad!’

‘She’s in great form,’ Hugh remarked when he walked into their bedroom a few moments later, pulling off his tie.

‘Yes, very happy,’ said Rose who was standing in front of the wardrobe mirror attempting to zip up a cream beaded evening dress. ‘Will you do me up?’ she asked Hugh.

He ambled across the room and threw his tie on the bed.

‘Were you talking to Stella today?’ he asked as he expertly pulled the zip to the top.

‘Not today,’ replied his wife. ‘She said she was going to have a busy day. And her neck’s been at her all week. I might phone her now.’

‘Great.’ Hugh grinned. He stripped off his clothes quickly, while Rose sat on the edge of the bed and dialled Stella’s number. She wedged the receiver in the crook of her neck and began to paint a coat of pearly pale pink on her nails.

‘Hello, Amelia,’ she said delightedly when the phone was finally answered. ‘It’s Granny. I thought you and Mummy were out when you didn’t answer.’

‘Mummy is in the bath. She has a cricket in her neck,’ said Amelia gravely, ‘and Aunty Hazel gave her blue stuff to put in the bath to get rid of the cricket.’

‘Poor Mummy,’ said Rose. ‘Tell her not to get out of the bath, whatever happens.’

‘She’s here,’ Amelia announced. ‘And she’s dripping wet bits onto the floor.’

‘Sorry darling,’ apologised Rose when Stella came on the line. ‘I told Amelia not to get you out of the bath.’

‘It was time I got out,’ Stella said. ‘I was in danger of falling asleep in there.’

‘How’s your neck?’

‘A bit better,’ Stella admitted. ‘It started off as a little twinge, or a cricket, as Amelia says, and today it just aches. I can’t lift a thing and Amelia has been very good, haven’t you, darling?’

In the background, Rose could hear her granddaughter say ‘yes’ proudly.

‘Have you got any of those anti-inflammatories left from the last time?’ Rose said worriedly. ‘If you’re out, remember, you left some here just in case. I’ll drop them up tomorrow if you want.’ Kinvarra was an hour’s drive from Stella’s home in Dublin, but Rose never minded the trip.

‘That would be lovely, Mum,’ Stella said. ‘I don’t have any tablets left,’ she admitted. ‘But are you sure you want to drive up? The traffic’s sure to be mad this close to Christmas.’

Rose smiled. ‘What else are mothers for?’ she said simply.

‘Can I say hello?’ said Hugh.

Rose held up a finger to indicate that she’d be another moment. ‘Tell me, what time do you want me there for?’ asked Rose. ‘If I come up for ten, you can go back to bed and I’ll bring Amelia swimming.’

‘Oh, Mum, that would be wonderful.’ Stella sounded so grateful. ‘But I feel so guilty…’

‘Rubbish. You need a break,’ her mother said firmly. ‘Here’s your father.’

Rose and Hugh changed places.

‘I’ll come too,’ Hugh told Stella. ‘Amelia loves swimming with her grandad.’

As he talked to their oldest daughter, Rose hung Hugh’s tie on the rack in the wardrobe, then picked up his shirt from the beige carpet and popped it into the laundry basket. The master bedroom was no trouble to tidy. Knowing Hugh’s propensity for mess, Rose had furnished it so there was nowhere to put clutter. There was just a king-sized bed with a quilted cinnamon-coloured bedcover, a small boudoir chair in the same fabric, and pale wood bedside cabinets which were adorned with lamps and photos of the girls in wooden frames. Rose kept her scent and make-up in the big cupboard under the washbasin in the adjoining bathroom. The unfussy lines of the room were comforting, in her opinion. Relaxing. Apart from the family photos and the big watercolours of four different varieties of orchid on the walls, there was nothing to distract a person from going to sleep. Hugh had wanted a TV in the room but Rose had put her foot down. Bedrooms were for sleeping in.