Page 25 of A Part of Me and You
Oh, how I long to feel good on the inside and the outside, to get excited at things, to laugh with friends until my sides are sore.
My doorbell rings and I look at the clock, startled as to who it might be and I feel my heart race and anxiety rush through my veins. It’s certainly not Eliza. She knows not to call before midday on my day off and it can’t be the postman on a Sunday. I hesitate. My first instinct as always when this happens is to stay put, not to answer and wish any callers away, but Merlin races to the front door barking in excitement and blows my cover. My stomach is gripped with nerves that gnaw at my insides and I look around the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do. The bell rings again. Shit. I gulp. I breathe out. I don’t want to talk to anyone.
No. I need to stop this. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and I walk through the kitchen and into the hallway and open the front door. I am trying, I really am.
Juliette
‘There’s no one here, love. Come on. We’ll try again later.’
I am just about to give up when the dog that Rosie told me about runs up to the glass panel on the door, barking excitedly, and Rosie kneels down to his level, calling his name as he wags his tail and jumps around on the other side.
This really is a magnificent house. It is modern, yet tasteful with its gleaming white exterior, landscaped driveway and black front door with potted spider plants outside, but behind it is the real magic because you look right out onto the magnificent sights of Galway Bay.
‘I really think we should just—’
My urge to give up and leave is interrupted when the lady of the house opens the door and we recognize each other instantly. It is her from the shop where I bought the dress, but I can see her properly now that she isn’t stuck behind a counter and she resembles a little doll; frail and small and pretty with that look of fear and worry still lingering on her face. She looks annoyed at first that we have disturbed her but then she speaks.
‘Rosie!’ she says, her face softening. ‘Gosh and you must be Mum? Well, it looks like we have met before after all.’
She holds the door with one hand and her dog’s collar with the other and already Rosie is reaching across to pat the dog’s head. I really do get the idea we have interrupted her morning and I am highly embarrassed that we have done so. I only came here to say thank you, but it’s Sunday and we probably shouldn’t have called unannounced like this. I feel my face burning.
‘I am so sorry to spring ourselves on you on a Sunday morning,’ I try to explain. ‘Rosie, well actually me, not Rosie, well … I just wanted to say thank you for yesterday for talking to her on the beach and for sending her back to me feeling so much better than she was when you found her. I was worried sick, as you can imagine.’
The lady nods and smiles at me in fleeting glances but it is Rosie who she is really looking at, her head tilted in sorrow.
‘That’s very nice of you,’ she says to me, still holding the door and the dog, still looking at Rosie. ‘I hope you are a bit better today.’
I hand her a gift bag, wondering which she will let go of first to take it from me, the door or the dog. She lets go of the door and looks back at me in bewilderment like I have done something wrong.
‘Really, you had no need to bring me a gift,’ she says. ‘Sorry, I didn’t get your name? I’m Shelley.’
‘Yes, yes of course, Shelley, Rosie told me that. I’m Juliette, Juliette Fox. I bought the blue dress from you yesterday? It’s just a book and a bottle of wine, some chocolates in there too. I hope you like chocolates. And reading.’
She nods at me and smiles a little.
‘I love both. It’s very kind of you to pop by,’ she says, but she still doesn’t move from the door or invite us in. I can’t wait to get away from here. I really shouldn’t have come at all but at least I know I did my bit to thank her.
‘Well, we’ll not keep you, I’m sure you’re busy,’ I say to her, taking Rosie’s arm as a cue to go but she is engrossed in the dog.
‘I told you he was cute, Mum,’ she says. ‘Oh, I’d so love a dog like this, wouldn’t I Merlin? Wouldn’t I love a dog like you?!’
My eyes meet the woman in front of me for a split second.
‘Erm … would you like to come in for a coffee?’ she asks. ‘I don’t have much more to offer you, but I definitely do have coffee. I think.’
My gut instinct is to turn down her offer and get on with our plans which include a beach walk and then Sunday lunch on the pier to start with, but something tells me that this lady, Shelley, hasn’t invited anyone in for coffee in a long, long time and that as hard as it is for her, part of her would like us to stay.
‘Are you sure we aren’t interrupting your morning?’ I ask her. ‘We really only intended on saying a quick hello and thank you. You don’t have to—’
‘No, no, I insist. Please come in. I hope Merlin behaves. He really does get excited when someone comes to the door.’
She opens the door wide and lets the dog go, then puts her gift bag on a sideboard in the hallway and allows us into her beautiful home. Everything is white or cream and there is nothing on the walls – no pictures, no mirrors, no rugs on the floor, no ornaments, no lamps. It really is very bare, like she has just moved in.
‘This is such an amazing house!’ says Rosie as we follow Shelley down the hallway, our voices echoing off the cream marble floors and blank white walls. ‘Do you have a gym? I bet you have a gym and a pool and everything! It’s like a hotel, isn’t in Mum?’
I get the feeling either this lady has either definitely just moved in or she is about to move out. A messy divorce perhaps? It doesn’t feel lived in at all.
‘It is beautiful,’ I say to my daughter who probably has never been in a house like this before. I feel like Lloyd Grossman from that Through the Keyhole programme, looking round me in awe and trying to guess as much as I can about the occupants.
