Page 49 of Rewrite the Stars
‘I’ve a dreaded feeling your mother is going to really step up the baby pressure now that I’m officially unemployed,’ I say to him as he nuzzles my neck, forcing my eyes to roll back in my head with pleasure. ‘She’ll think I’ve no excuse not to fill this house with little people since I’ve no pupils to take up my attention any more.’
Jack’s attention is most definitely on other things and he’s driving me that way too as his hand slips down below my waist.
‘We can always go and practise,’ he says, gently tugging my hair with his other hand and kissing me, taking my breath away. ‘What do you say?’
For the first time I allow myself to visualize what it would be like to have our very own little family here in Ardara. The thought of a mini Jack or mini me gives me an unexpected glow. Maybe the time to think about it isn’t so far away, after all.
‘I say we need to practise at every opportunity we can,’ I agree, feeling dizzy and hot in anticipation. ‘Let’s go upstairs and do our best.’
Chapter Sixteen
Wicklow, August 2018
July, thankfully, went by in a blink.
My days of unemployment shouldn’t really feel as low as they do as technically, if I was still working, I would be off school now anyway enjoying one of the great perks of teaching: a very long summer.
Yet knowing that doesn’t seem to ease the pain I’ve been feeling as each day rolls into another and I can’t seem to see any hope ahead. I’m afraid to admit it to anyone else, but my self-confidence is on the floor and I feel my mood slipping deeper and deeper into a darker place. I’m totally unsure of who I am, of who I want to be, and of where I’m going next.
Kirsty came to stay with us like a bolt out of the blue, which both delighted and exhausted me at the same time, but there’s only so much of a person’s ever changing love life you can keep up with, and I was soon dizzy with names of datingapps, never mind names of actual dates. So by the time she left you could say I was more or less glad to see her go.
I then spent a luxurious two weeks in the South of France with Jack where we enjoyed long, lazy days exploring vineyards, museums, cities including Cannes and Nice, but since August kicked in, this summer seems to be just dragging on and on and on.
My mother made a list of alternative jobs for people with a degree in teaching, thinking it might spark me off in a new direction since my entire reputation as a teacher had gone down the drain. I know her intentions were good, but her execution was exasperating.
‘How about tutoring?’ she said one day at the start of a random phone call when I was lying in bed. ‘Maggie Farrell’s sister’s daughter does it and makes a clean fortune. Or is it her son? Anyhow, Maggie Farrell’s—’
‘I have no idea who Maggie Farrell is, never mind her sister’s daughter’s son or whoever is making a fortune, Mam,’ I told her, getting off the call as quickly as I could and burying my head under the duvet.
‘Keep busy,’ said Jack. ‘Something will come up, love. You’ll see.’
But as I waited for something to come up, my mind-set kept slipping further down. I lifted my guitar one day and sat in the living room as the sun burst through the window. I tried to strum a few chords, searched desperately in my head for some words to come but my mind was totally blank. In frustration, I tested myself to see if I could get through a full version of James Taylor’s ‘Sweet Baby James’, one of my all-time favourites, but it just wasn’t happening. I had to really fight the urge to throw the guitar into the corner, then I sat there alone and cried for what I’d let this darkness do to me. Is this how Matthew had felt when he had been battling with his sexuality and it led him into depression? Am I depressed? Am I facing some sort of identity crisis?
Jack would know and would help me in a heartbeat if I spilled it all out to him, but he is struggling with a few heavy cases from work as it is, and I’m his wife after all, not his patient. So I hide it from him, only revealing my impatience at not being able to find work, when really I know my issues run a lot deeper.
Visiting Matthew in Galway managed to distract me for the short time I was there, but it also served to stir up some old raw emotions when I saw him in his new environment. His determination hadn’t waned since he left for pastures new, even though he’s been stuck in that chair for almost three years now, and it just breaks my heart every time I see him in comparison to the way he was, so handsome, vibrant, full of craic and music and song. His old spark is still there somewhere, ironically much more so than it was in the years just before his accident, but I put a lot of that down to Martin and how he has stuck by him every single day since it happened.
The weather was glorious while I was over in Galway and we spent our days in Matthew’s back garden with its sea view, drinking cold beers, reminiscing and putting the world to rights as we listened to music that brought us way back to our youth, not to mention the memories attached to every song.
‘Remember the time you got suspended for clapping along in choir practice, pretending to be someone out ofSister Act,’ Matthew reminded me, much to Martin’s amusement. ‘You were always getting into trouble; innocent trouble, but enough to put the nuns into a spin, not to mention our poor mother who was convinced it was front-page news every time. I don’t think she’ll ever get over you being caught smoking on the school bus. She was reminded of it every time she went to the post office!’
‘Oh, you little minx, Charlotte Taylor,’ said Martin as he sipped his glass of Malbec. ‘And I thought that butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.’
I sighed in a bid to defend myself.
‘It was actually an after-school detention for mySister Actclapping in the choir, not a suspension if you must know, Matthew, so don’t exaggerate,’ I corrected my brother. ‘And by the way, I’m so glad I’m not depending on you for a job reference now that I’m an out-of-work teacher!’
Martin agreed with me. He shuffled up in his seat.
‘He’d sink you, Charlotte! He does the same to me all the time!’
Matthew was enjoying the attention and stirring the pot.
‘I can assure you that any of my blips in school were minor, Martin,’ I said, keeping it going. ‘So don’t listen to him. He always did love to spin a yarn when he’d an audience, didn’t you Matthew? All I can say is, once a showman, always a showman.’
And speaking of audiences and being a showman, they went on to tell me with great enthusiasm how they’d now secured two gigs a week in the city as a two-piece act under the tongue-in-cheek name of ‘Wonder Wheels’, playing cover versions of popular songs to tourists, students and whoever passed through some of Galway city’s finest bars, pubs and nightclubs.
‘It’s a full-time job keeping up with artists like Ed Sheeran,’ said Matthew, unable to hide his elation as he told me all about his latest repertoire. ‘And to be honest I was very out of touch with the music of today, but I’ve quickly learned how to please the variety of people who turn up in the melting pot that is Galway.’
