At a Time Like This Read online

  Catherine Dunne

  PAN BOOKS

  TO JACKIE AKERELE

  (1947-2006)

  With love

  You knew all there is to know about friendship

  Here at the frontier, there are falling leaves,

  Although my neighbours are all barbarians,

  And you, you are a thousand miles away,

  There are always two cups on my table.

  Anonymous (Tang Dynasty, ad 618-906)

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  1. Claire

  2. Georgie

  3. Maggie

  4. Georgie

  5. Nora

  6. Georgie

  7. Claire

  8. Georgie

  9. Claire

  10. Maggie

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  So. This is how it happened.

  It’s Friday morning, five o’clock. I’m standing in the porch, suitcase at my feet. Cold air radiates from the glass doors and crawls beneath my clothes, but I haven’t time to go back inside and get a coat. I can already see the taxi as it swings around the corner and then slows, almost at once. I watch its measured approach, see it climb the ramp and then descend, headlights glaring up and down like semaphore.

  I step outside at once. I decide to carry the Samsonite: its wheels make too much noise on gravel this early in the morning. By the time I reach the gate, the driver has already leapt out and has the boot open.

  ‘Mornin’,’ he says, reaching for my case. ‘That all the luggage?’

  I nod. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s all there is.’

  He heaves it into the boot and slams the lid shut. I don’t wait for him to open the passenger door for me. Quickly, I slide into the back seat, tugging at the seatbelt until it releases. When I glance out of the window, I catch sight of Raffles, picking his way across the frosty grass. Each delicate paw is placed only after great deliberation. Raffles doesn’t trust the cold. For a moment, I imagine I can hear the tinkling of the bell that hangs from his collar, but of course that’s nonsense. Carla’s ‘bird-warner’. I look away.

  ‘Airport, ’nt tha’ righ’?’ the driver looks at me in the rear-view mirror. He’s in his fifties, balding. Crankiness clings to him like a wet vest.

  ‘That’s right,’ I say.

  The interior of the taxi smells of pine air-freshener, sad upholstery and stale perspiration. The driver turns up the radio to listen to the weather forecast: ‘ . . . And little change expected for the capital city this morning. Rain and sleet until early afternoon, temperatures reaching a high of three degrees celsius. Driving conditions treacherous . . .’ I can see that the sky is now a dirty orange, the Atlantic cold front already stomping its way towards us across the midlands.

  ‘Fuckin’ city,’ the taxi driver says, trying to catch my eye.

  I can see his expression reflected, hear his eagerness for conversation. I peer instead into my handbag, busy, distracted, in search of something urgent.

  ‘It’ll be gridlocked now, within the hour.’ He keeps talking anyway, his tone one of satisfied disgruntlement. He shifts in his seat and runs one hand through what’s left of his hair. Then he turns up the heat, blasting the foggy residue on the inside of the windscreen. Wipers scream suddenly across the outside of the glass. My stomach shifts towards nausea.

  ‘Dunno why people in this country can’t drive in the rain,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘We get enough of the fuckin’ stuff He turns left then, on to the main road, and swerves immediately into the outer lane. Horns blare behind us and beside us, a cacophony of early dawn road-rage. ‘See what I mean?’

  I don’t answer. I don’t want to be a memorable passenger, one too easily distinguished from all the others he’ll meet today. As it is, I am his first fare and that is bad enough. I keep my mouth shut.

  ‘Goin’ anywhere nice?’ he asks, after a polite interval.

  I lower my head. ‘Funeral,’ I say.

  Ah, sorry, missus.’

  And that’s that.

  I shall not miss Dublin. Of that, I am certain. But there are some things I will miss, some people. Maggie, for example. Well, perhaps my other friends, too, but Maggie most of all. She and I go back the farthest. I won’t be with her this evening, won’t be there to share in the festivities. Nevertheless, I can still predict how it’ll all go. It’s Claire’s turn to be the hostess. At about eight o’clock, she will take the first bottle of Prosecco out of the fridge. She’ll stand it in the functional but elegant ice bucket that she once brought back from Copenhagen. She’ll drape a white linen napkin about its neck. All her movements will be graceful, unhurried. Then she’ll probably enlist Maggie’s help to check the four place settings, making minute changes to the position of the cutlery, or the wine glasses, or the angle of the flower arrangements: just as I’ve seen her do on countless occasions over the past twenty-five years. A special night, a night of celebration, she’d said, one to mark all our years of friendship. A silver anniversary of girlhood. Even then, the phrase had made me wince.

  ‘You’re all excited by the idea, aren’t you?’ I asked her, on the evening she handed each of us an embossed envelope. Style was a matter of honour with Claire. The invitations were on handmade paper, the black letters glossy as Chinese lacquer. Her smile was broad, her eyes sparkled with mischief. But some instinct drove me to burst her bubble. ‘Do the four of us really need to be reminded about how old we’re getting?’

  Maggie shot me a warning glance then. One of those that I’ve become accustomed to over the years. But I had no intention of taking back what I had just said. I had no intention of softening it, either. Maggie knew when to give up. She’d learned way back how to recognize when such efforts were useless.

  Claire’s colour heightened at my jibe, and she tilted her head to one side. I thought she looked at me a little coyly. ‘Don’t be mean, Georgie,’ she murmured, and changed the subject.

  I suppose it was mean of me, but by that stage I’d already withdrawn in all the ways that counted from my friends, my family, and the way they lived their lives. From the way we’d all lived our lives. Twenty-five years is a long time: long enough for some things to change and too long for so much else to stay the same. I’ve been thinking a lot, particularly over the last few weeks, about what friendship is and what it means to me now, what it has meant to me over the years. I can still remember the night we made our pact: a bit like the three musketeers, but there were four of us. One Four All. All Four One. Our motto, until things fragmented. Well, nothing lasts for ever.

  It happened shortly after the birth of Nora’s eldest son, Robbie. Maggie and I were sitting together on the overstuffed, buttoned leather sofa. Nora was upright in the armchair, holding court. Claire was in her favourite place, on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her red hair was backlit to perfection by the faux-Tiffany lamp on the nest of tables behind her. She looked glorious, like one of Titian’s saints about to be assumed into somewhere a lot more interesting than Nora’s suburban living room.

  ‘Why don’t we make a pact?’ Nora was saying, nursing her one glass of wine of the evening.

  ‘What sort of pact?’ Claire asked drowsily, tipping her head sideways to see Nora better. The glow from behind sharpened her cheekbones, made her eyes luminous. Maggie nudged me then. She made the faintest of gestures in Claire’s direction.

  ‘Wouldn’t that make you sick?’ she whispered. I grinned. I knew exactly what she meant.

  Nora kept on talking. ‘Why don’t we arrange to meet every month to six weeks or so – I mean a real arrangement, a date we put in our diaries? Then we’ll make sure it happens and that way, we won’t lose touch.’ She gave each of us in turn one of her
brightest smiles. None of us spoke.

  ‘I’ll cook for us here,’ she went on, and I felt how her eagerness was almost a fifth person in the room. ‘You’re all still students, and you don’t have the space. It’s so much easier for me.’

  ‘Oh, but that wouldn’t be fair,’ objected Maggie. At the same time, her leg jerked and the tip of her shoe glanced off the wine glass I’d set on the floor beside me. Dear, clumsy Maggie with her two left feet. I watched as the red stain spread out in slow motion across the beige carpet, acquiring the contours of a rather tipsy Australia.

  ‘Oh, shite, shite, shite – sorry, Nora. Here, let me mop it up.’ Maggie was struggling to free herself from the sinking embrace of the sofa. But by then, Nora was gone, racing for the kitchen.

  ‘Oh God, oh God,’ Maggie muttered, shaking her head. ‘Why does it always have to be me?’

  Nora was by now on her knees, the kitchen roll in one hand, the drum of Saxa salt in the other, holding them like six-guns. She was more tight-lipped than usual. Maggie continued to grovel until I nudged her to stop. Enough, already.

  Dab, dab, sprinkle. Dab, dab, sprinkle. Claire looked on, fascinated. The soggy paper towels gathered on the sheets of newspaper and looked like the aftermath of a massacre.

  ‘Oh, but I don’t mind cooking,’ Nora said. She ran her hand over the pile of salt, pressing it still further into the carpet. We all watched as the wine began to bleed into it, lifting the stain from the beige surface as if by magic. ‘I love entertaining. And with a new baby, well, I can’t get out much. You’d be doing me a favour. I mean it.’ And she looked Maggie right in the eye.

  Game, set and match, I thought. I may have been only nineteen, but nevertheless, I recognized Nora’s skill. I couldn’t help but admire it. Kind-hearted Maggie was caught in that dangerous net of hospitality: she knew that resistance was futile. Any further struggle would pull the filaments tighter, enmeshing her all the more. So she just nodded, looking from Nora to me for confirmation. ‘Oh, well, in that case, then, yeah – yeah, that would be really great. It would be lovely to meet here.’

  ‘I think it’s a wonderful idea,’ Claire interjected, softly. I don’t know which of them glowed more at that – Nora or Claire.

  ‘So it’s settled then,’ said Nora, as she knelt beside Australia. She couldn’t hide her delight. ‘I’ll get the calendar.’

  And so it came to pass. A quarter century of monthly meetings. Occasionally, one or other of us had to cry off. I never felt as though I was missing out on anything spectacular. But I have to say that each of us was afraid that those present would speak of many things, including the absent one. And for that reason, if for no other, nobody ever wanted to be the absent one.

  I take out my purse as the taxi pulls up outside the departures terminal at Dublin airport. I glance at the meter and hand the driver twenty euro. He starts to scrabble for my one euro eighty cent change.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I say, and open the rear door. He pops open the boot and is by my side in an instant.

  ‘Thanks very much, missus,’ he says, placing my luggage on the ground, snapping the handle upwards and into place for me. ‘I hope your day isn’t too sad.’

  I look at him in surprise. What on earth can he mean? Then I stifle a smile with difficulty. ‘Thank you,’ I murmur, taking hold of the proffered handle. I settle the strap of my bag more comfortably on my shoulder. ‘Thank you very much.’

  He nods and slams the boot closed. ‘No problem,’ he says, and I walk away. All at once, I see myself through his eyes and experience a sudden surge, a rush of pure elation. If only he knew.

  I approach the check-in desk. There is no queue. I hand my passport and ticket to the smiling young woman who asks me all the usual questions about sharp objects, bombs, dangerous weapons.

  ‘Is Frankfurt your final destination?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. ‘Florence,’ I say.

  ‘Would you like me to send your bag straight through?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ I realize my tone is firmer than I intended. In the recent past I’ve had far too much experience of lost baggage. ‘I’ll collect it in Frankfurt, just in case. I’ve lots of time between flights.’ I don’t want to arrive to where I’m going unprepared. Not on this occasion. I don’t want to be caught without all the things that make a woman’s life civilized.

  ‘Have a nice flight,’ she says. But I hear ‘Have a nice life.’

  Will I? I wonder. It’s not too late to pull back, to go home, to pretend that this is the result of a momentary madness. It’s strange, this sudden tension I feel between wanting and not wanting. I feel the pull of old intimacies, followed almost at once by the push of alienation. I think about tonight at Claire’s, with Maggie and Nora. Of course I won’t be with them: I have chosen not to be with them. But I’d love to be there, nevertheless: a presence, a shimmery ghost sliding in and out among the chairs, finally settling at the one empty place, listening.

  So. I can see the contours of their evening spread out before me already, like a well-worn pattern, undemanding, easy to follow. I might need to make the occasional nip here, a cautionary tuck there, but by and large, I have the evening’s measure. Of course, I do accept that I shall never really know: instead, I’ll have to be content with imagining. And I shall miss that knowing, miss those comfortable, predictable endings. I’ll raise my glass to them all this evening and take great pleasure in this, our final gathering.

  I buy a newspaper, coffee. I settle into the traveller’s sport of waiting.

  Georgie, Porgie, pudding and pie. Kissed the boys and made them cry.

  Well, let’s see who’s crying now.

  1. Claire

  I can still remember the day we met, as though it was only yesterday. The day that changed everything. The day after which things were never the same again, not for me, anyhow.

  I saw her first in Front Square. She was tall, fair-haired, standing very straight. That day, she had her hair up, and I admired her long neck and the silver earrings she wore. They caught the light, like fish gleaming silver under water. Her presence was commanding: that was the first word that came to mind. Even back then, even as a teenager, she had that air of ownership that continues to define her as Georgie.

  She was talking away to a guy seated at one of the Freshers’ Week tables and from where I was standing, I could tell that she was giving him a hard time. He looked as though he was trying to disappear under the scarred wooden surface, or at least, to hide further behind it. I could see that he wanted to be somewhere both safer and quieter. That spindly table reminded me of primary school, of copy-books smelling of chalk dust and low-ceilinged rooms filled with books and certainties.

  ‘Well?’ the girl who would soon become Georgie asked for the second time, just as I approached. Except that it sounded more like a demand than a request. She pulled a leaflet from the bundle in front of her. ‘What other reasons could there possibly be for joining?’ Her voice was crystal, full of confidence. It made me conscious of my culchie origins. I decided I’d better keep my mouth shut.

  The young man began to fumble with the leaflets, tidying them. It was an attempt, and not a very effective one at that, to try to ward her off. He was really doing his best to show his authority. But he didn’t have a chance. Strangely for me, I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for him. I remember thinking that he was almost a caricature with that shabby tweed jacket, those heavy black spectacles and a row of cheap biros straining from his breast pocket. ‘Eng. Lit. Soc.’ was stapled crookedly across the pitted wood in front of him. I took one decisive step forward, surprising myself. I’d never been much of a joiner before, but somehow this girl’s brashness gave me courage. The world owed her and she knew it. Maybe, just by my being with her, it might realize that it owed me, too.

  ‘Hello,’ Georgie said, sensing my presence. Then she turned to look at me. No, she really looked at me, as though she was interested in what she was seeing.

  ‘Hello.�
�� I didn’t know whether I felt disconcerted or pleased.

  Her gaze swept over me. Head to toe. No attempt to hide her appraisal. ‘Pure English?’

  I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said, trying not to let the Clare cadences slip through. (I know, I know, Claire from Clare. I’ve heard that joke a million times and do you know, everyone who makes it believes that they are the first to have thought of it.) ‘Not Pure English. I’m doing French as well.’

  She nodded, her blue eyes unblinking. ‘My name’s Georgina, but everyone calls me Georgie.’

  ‘I’m Claire. Nice to meet you.’ I wasn’t exactly sure what we were supposed to do next. Shake hands or something? I decided that I’d take my cue from her.

  ‘Shall we go ahead and join and put this guy out of his misery?’ The young man sitting behind the wobbly table hadn’t said a word throughout our conversation, and now he looked from one of us to the other. His head was like one of those nodding dogs you see in the backs of cars – except that his nod was horizontal, rather than vertical.

  ‘I should close my mouth if I were you,’ Georgina – Georgie – advised him. ‘Lots of wasps dying, this time of year. You could get stung.’ She signed her name with a flourish and handed me the pen. I did the same.

  Everyone calls me Georgie.

  I remember how struck I was by her comfort inside her own skin, her familiarity with Everyone.

  ‘Been to the Buttery yet?’ she asked, hoisting her rucksack over one shoulder.

  I shook my head. ‘No. I’ve only just arrived.’

  ‘Fancy a coffee? Or a tea?’ she added hurriedly.

  I suspected that there had to be only one right answer here, and I already knew that I knew what it was. Coffee (urban, sophisticated); tea (provincial, dull). As it happened, I have never liked tea, tea and sympathy. But still, my answer made me feel like a fraud. ‘Yeah. Coffee’d be good,’ I said. We crossed Front Square and made our way down the Buttery steps.