Page 49 of Beautiful Losers

I appreciate the vote of confidence – first from Doctor Bourdariat and now Sabrina. But I don’t feel strong. I feel like the house made of straw in The Three Little Pigs. One puff and I’ll fall down.

‘I don’t know about that. If I could afford it, Ari and I would be on the first plane back to Dublin.’

I don’t tell Sabrina that that day might come sooner than I’d thought. Earlier this morning, I got an email from Sophie. She and Nicolas have found a buyer for La Maison Bleue. All being well, the sale should go through in November, which means Ari and I will be back home by Christmas. We’ll still have some savings left. I’ll find another job in publishing, build our nest egg back up. In a couple of years, we’ll have enough for a small deposit on a flat. We can pick up where we left off. I mean, it’s embarrassing, proving Dermot right, failing yet again, but better that than squander what little money wehave left. Isn’t this what I’ve been waiting for these past two months? An out?

‘Here,’ Sabrina says, rooting through her bag and producing several colouring books and a box of crayons. ‘I noticed Ari likes to draw and I had these in the house from when Theo used to visit as a child.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, touched by the gesture. ‘That’s very kind of you.’

‘C’est rien.This is for you.’ She hands me a small glass jar. I open the lid and sniff, the smell of mandarin and camomile filling my nostrils.

‘Moisturiser?’

‘Relax,’ she says. ‘I do not expect you to start grooming like a French woman. You don’t have the discipline.’

‘Wow, the compliments just keep on rolling today,’ I laugh.

She looks at me sternly. ‘That aside, you are young and you are attractive. You should make the most of it while you still can.’

‘Sabrina, thank you, but …’

She raises her hand to silence me. ‘This is not for a man, though trust me, there is no beauty product more effective than a night of passion. This is for you. We start by loving ourselves. All good things grow from this.’

I give in. I get the impression ‘no’ isn’t a word Sabrina Rousseau is used to hearing often. Besides, the moisturiser does smell amazing.

Sabrina gathers her things and tells me to stay put – she’ll see herself out. After she leaves, I bring the empty mugs inside and put them in the dishwasher. I go to the bathroom to pee. Washing my hands, I see Ari’s Tangle Teezer beside the sink, his red hairs covering the bristles. I remove the clump, tossing it into the wastepaper basket. I rinse the brush and run it over my scalp, going over each knot until my hair is smooth. Sliding my back down the wall, I sit on the floor with my knees pulled up against my chest and for the first time in years, I allow myself to cry.

27

The last time I saw my mother she advised me against having children. I’d just graduated from collegewhen I got a text from Mum, saying she was in town for a couple of days and wanted to meet. She’d emigrated to Lisbon a few years previously, not long after she and Aideen Magee’s dad split up. When she first moved out, I’d spend every other weekend at her new house, trying to avoid eye contact with Aideen, who’d stare at me homicidally over the dinner table. After a year, in which Mum went from being a minor social pariah at the school gates to Blackrock’s Anna Karenina, they moved to Clonmel, where Mr Magee was offered a high-paying job in pharmaceuticals. My fortnightly visits became monthly affairs and then bimonthly. After a while, I’d see my mother two or three times a year, when she’d come up to Dublin to get her hair done. (She believed hairdressers in south County Tipperary conspired to make every woman over the age of thirty-five look like an extra onDallas.)

Mum left for Portugal around the time I started university and kept in touch sporadically. She called on birthdays and at Christmas, and I’d receive the odd email about her new life among creatives who expressed their socialist leanings through installations made out of breakfast food, and owned second homes in Porto. After years trying various interests on for size, she finally found her calling making handbags from old fishing nets and truck tarps, and selling them in her boutique for the price of a small car.

I hadn’t physically set eyes on my mother in years, so I brought Yiv and Cillian along for moral support. We met for dinner in a Moroccan restaurant off Grafton Street. She arrived twenty minutes late, wearing skinny jeans and a cream silk smock top, dangly ethnic-style earrings and a black silicone wrist band that said‘Make Poverty History’. She hugged the three of us with equal enthusiasm even though she’d never liked Yiv and this was her first time meeting Cillian. We sat on brightly coloured cushions at a low table on the floor. Mum told us Marrakech was ‘practically her second home’ as her partner, Luís, was half-Moroccan and owned a riad in the city. Luís was a hotelier. We had to come and visit them next time we were in Portugal. He had this amazing little place in the Douro valley, so authentic. She took out her wallet and showed us a picture of Luís. He was ridiculously good-looking – tall, dark and practically naked, sprawled out on a bed with a sheet between his mighty legs. ‘Cute baby pic of Fiadh,’ Yiv said. ‘It’s nice you still carry a photo of her around with you after all these years.’ Mum laughed lightly. ‘Oh Yiv, you’re a hoot. I’ve always liked you.’ Over her menu, Yiv widened her eyes at me.

We ordered tagine and Mum asked us what we’dbeen up to. Yiv told her I got a first in French. ‘Wow, that’s wonderful, Fiadh. I’m delighted for you,’ Mum said, sounding genuinely impressed. She didn’t say she was proud of me and I appreciated that, her not claiming a stake in an accomplishment in which she had no part. I told her about my paid internship at theChronicle, how I beat two hundred other graduates to land the job. I told her that after four years in journalism, I’d qualify for a role as a field communications manager forMédecins Sans Frontières. I told her I hadn’t it all figured out yet, but that I was going to do something meaningful. I was going to change the fucking world. Yiv had graduated first in her class and had been offered a coveted job at Facebook. Cillian was going backpacking in South America, but was toying with the idea of stopping by New Orleans en route to see if he could lend a hand to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Rent a boat and help them down off their roofs or something. He just wanted to serve. ‘That is so noble, Cillian,’ said Mum, placing a hand on his arm. Cillian beamed.

We talked about Russell Crowe throwing a phone at a hotel worker (I asked Mum if she remembered the time she threw a phone at Dad. She couldn’t recall the incident) and discussed the much-hyped opening of the new shopping centre in Dundrum. Yiv said her mum had been six times already. Mum and Cillian agreed Dublin had lost its soul. After baklava and mint tea, Mum paid the bill and asked me to walk her back to her hotel. She and Cillian exchanged numbers and he said he’d swing by hers on his travels (which he did. He ending up giving Louisiana a miss and spent a week with Mum and Luís on Luís’ yacht in the Algarve). We walked along Dawson Street, making small talk until we arrived at the Merrion.

‘I wanted to give you this,’ Mum said, reaching into her bag and handing me a small padded envelope. I opened the seal and turned it upside down. A ring fell into my palm. The ring Dad had given Mum for her thirtieth birthday. The ring she was wearing the day she told me she was checking out of our family.

‘It’s not my style anymore,’ Mum said. ‘Though I imagine it’s worth a considerable amount. You could do a lot with that.’

I rolled the ring between my thumb and forefinger, examining its flashy beauty.

‘Do you ever regret it?’ I said, raising my eyes to meet Mum’s.

She gave me a questioning look.

‘Leaving me,’ I clarified.

‘I don’t believe in regrets,’ she said without hesitation. ‘Only lessons.’

I held her gaze, saying nothing. Refusing to let her fob me off with fridge-magnet philosophy. She considered me for a moment, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

‘It was too much pressure – trying to shape a life when you haven’t figured out the form of your own. I was too young for that responsibility and now I’m too old to beat myself up about it. It is what it is.

‘Look, Fiadh, I know I’m in no position to give you advice, but if I can say one thing – it’s the greatest lie women have been sold, that children will fill your cup, that all selfish impulses fall away the minute you give birth. Did you know I left you when you were three months old? I was still breastfeeding. You hated it. It was always a battle getting youto latch on. We were a bad fit from the beginning. One night, I snapped. You father was at work, so I asked a neighbour to sit with you. I went to our local pub, stayed there for hours. My breasts were on fire by the time I got home, my nipples leaking through my shirt. Mrs Donnelly had to give you formula you were so hungry.

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