Just Between Us

‘I thought you guys were going out?’ Holly said.

‘Change of plans,’ Kenny said.

‘Is there anything good on the telly tonight?’ Joan asked, searching in vain for the TV guide.

‘Nothing good on a Friday, except Sex and the City on satellite,’ Kenny said instantly. Kenny loved TV and read the listings in the paper first, followed by his horoscope, and then the headlines.

From the kitchenette, Holly grinned. She might not know what a wild existence with lots of men was like personally, but she could watch it on TV thanks to the Sex and the City girls. She began to grate some Parmesan reggiano, letting the day’s events seep out of her system, while Kenny and Joan argued over the television. What would she do without them?

Ten minutes later, dinner was on the table, served on Holly’s auction-house Italian china with the pastel fruit designs. None of it matched, but it was exquisite.

Joan began mopping up sauce messily with a heavily-buttered roll while Kenny fastidiously dipped slivers of unbuttered bread into his.

‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘Holly, you are talented.’

Holly beamed.

‘You’ve got to forget what happened today,’ he continued, having heard a whispered version of the story from Joan while Holly was busy in the kitchen.

Holly stopped beaming. ‘You promised not to mention it,’ she said to Joan.

‘I agree with Joan,’ Kenny said, ‘Pia is a blot on the landscape but let’s not rush into making her suffer. She gets her hair cut by my friend Marco, just you wait till next time she wants her fringe trimmed. Linda Evangelista is the only person I’ve ever seen who can cope with a one-inch fringe. Huh.’

‘But making Pia suffer is not our primary mission,’ Kenny added. ‘Fun, yes.’ He grinned evilly. ‘Hilarious, absolutely. But not our primary mission. That,’ he paused, ‘is to get you a man, Holly dear. It would make all the difference to your life.’

Holly blinked anxiously at him. ‘I don’t need a man,’ she said.

Kenny’s smile widened to Cheshire Cat proportions. ‘Yes you do,’ he said. ‘You need to be loved, cherished and adored by some man who spends his whole life telling you how beautiful and wonderful you are. And we’re going to help you find him.’

‘Is that my Christmas present?’ inquired Holly, seeing the funny side.

‘Don’t talk to me about Christmas,’ groaned Joan. ‘I haven’t bought anything and I’m broke.’

‘I’m broke because I have bought everything,’ Holly added. ‘But I’m not really looking forward to Christmas this year because Tara isn’t going to be at home in Kinvarra with the rest of the family. She’s going to spend it with Finn’s parents.’

‘The dreaded mother-in-law?’ Joan said.

‘The very same. For Tara’s birthday in September, she bought her a steam iron.’

‘Lovely present,’ cooed Kenny. ‘I hope Tara’s buying her something suitably awful for Christmas.’

Holly giggled. ‘Tara did mention being tempted to buy a year’s supply of constipation pills but she chickened out and bought perfume instead.’

‘Well, I’ve bought nearly everyone’s gift, except my mother’s,’ Kenny added. ‘I have my eye on this fabulous Tanner Krolle handbag that she’d just love.’

‘Oh, you mean you’re not getting a boyfriend for everyone,’ joked Holly.

Kenny blew her a kiss. ‘Only you, Holly, only you.’

CHAPTER FIVE

On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Tara idly wondered what the rest of her family were up to. Normally, the three Miller girls would be ensconced in the kitchen in Kinvarra, wrapping presents, laughing and joking as they tangled themselves up with Sellotape and shiny paper, with Amelia helping. Christmas wouldn’t be quite the same without everyone else, she thought. But then again, she had Finn. Life couldn’t always stay the same and if it had, she might never have met him. Noticing the time, she went in search of her husband. While she’d been out buying last-minute bits and pieces, he was supposed to have packed his stuff and all the presents. However, his suitcase lay empty on their bedroom floor and Finn lay sprawled on the bed, fully dressed and loose limbed. One long arm dangled over the side of the bed, almost reaching the floor, the other was flung across the pillow. Tara crept quietly over and gazed down at him. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and the combination of stubble and slept-in golden hair should have given him a dissolute appearance. But it didn’t. Even unkempt and deeply asleep, her husband shone with inner goodness. It was those long baby-girl eyelashes, Tara decided.

She slipped off her shoes and launched herself onto the bed.

‘Wake up!’ she roared, as she bounced into position beside her sleeping husband.

‘Errgh, what?’ groaned Finn, opening his eyes to reveal plenty of red-veined eyeball.

‘You were supposed to pack and shave while I was out,’ Tara said, crawling up the bed until she was lying on him. ‘I needed a rest,’ moaned Finn, burying his head under the pillow. ‘A few more minutes. It’s only lunchtime.’

‘It’s nearly two thirty and we’re supposed to be at your parents’ by half three.’

Somehow, they’d been roped into an intimate Jefferson family Christmas when Tara had wanted them to go to Kinvarra instead. But short of faking appendicitis, she knew there was no way out of it. They still had to pack for a three-night stay and the drive would take at least another hour, meaning that unless they left soon, they’d be very late.

‘Get up,’ she said again. ‘You know how awful the traffic is to your parents’ place, and today it’ll be worse than ever.’

From under the pillow, Finn groaned again. ‘We can phone and say we got delayed. Then I can have a snooze.’

Tara whipped the pillow away. ‘No way, Finn. Your mother won’t blame you if we’re late. It’ll be my fault. So get out of that bed or I’ll go and get the cold sponge.’

‘Not the sponge,’ pleaded Finn. ‘Anything but the sponge.’

Her fingers burrowed under his sweater and she began to tickle relentlessly.

‘Stop,’ he said weakly. ‘I can’t cope…’

Feeling guilty, she stopped. Finn took advantage of her weakness. In one quick twist, he’d jumped up in the bed and began tickling her, his longer, stronger fingers wickedly insistent.

‘No!’ squealed Tara as he began tickling her feet. ‘Not my feet! No, pig! Stop it!’

‘OK.’ Too hungover to continue at any event, he rolled off her and they both lay back on the bed, panting.

‘Have you packed anything?’ Tara inquired.

‘I got halfway through and I lay down for a nap,’ Finn confided. ‘I’m wrecked.’

‘That’s what happens when you get totally hammered at your office Christmas party,’ Tara said smugly. ‘I told you that drinking pints wasn’t an Olympic sport.’

Finn grinned. ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’

‘Not the day before we go to your parents for Christmas when you leave me to do all the packing,’ Tara reproved. ‘Get up, lazybones. We’ve got to be out of here in twenty minutes.’

‘Yessir,’ saluted Finn, half-heartedly.

Tara began packing quickly, rushing round the flat finding things like her mobile phone charger and her diary. Soon, she promised herself, they’d redecorate.

The bedroom was probably the best room in the two-bedroomed flat as it had the least awful curtains (plain, French blue) and boasted an entire wall of mirror-fronted wardrobes which hid a multitude of sins. Neither Tara nor Finn were tidy people and once the wardrobes were opened, things fell out and had to be carefully jammed back in. In spite of this drawback, they were packed and in the car in thirty minutes. The traffic was, as Tara had predicted, terrible. The Jeffersons lived in a pretty commuter town on the East coast, but the thirty-mile journey from Dublin inevitably took forever.

‘Relax,’ said Finn as they sat in a four-mile tailback to the toll bridge. ‘Mums won’t mind.’

Tara managed to keep her mouth shut. Mums or Mrs Gloria Jefferson would mind very much and would undoubtedly take it out on Tara. Just thinking about the next three days made Tara feel sick. She loved her father-in-law, Desmond, because he was funny and kind, like Finn, but Gloria was another matter. Chillier than the faint dusting of snow on the side of the motorway to Naas, Gloria was obsessed with class, money and ‘doing the right thing’. The right thing for Christmas, apparently, was a sedate meal out with friends the night before, an intimate family dinner on the day (Tara had previous experience of the great silences at any meal where the guest list was just herself, Finn, Desmond and Gloria), and an afternoon drinks party at the Jeffersons’ on Boxing Day where lesser neighbours were invited in to be allowed a glimpse of Gloria’s newly-purchased dining room table and twelve, no less, chairs. The wrong thing, as far as Tara could make out, was Gloria’s beloved only son marrying a television script writer. In her more wicked moments, Tara wished she’d been heavily pregnant when she married Finn, just for the thrill of watching Gloria’s deeply shocked face as her daughter-in-law sailed down the aisle in a maternity wedding dress. What a scene that would have made. Tara’s inventive mind went into overdrive. Imagine if she’d had the baby halfway down the aisle…

‘She likes you, of course she does,’ Finn protested whenever Tara gently pointed out that his mother didn’t appear too keen on her. ‘She’s protective, that’s all. And reserved. It was the way she was brought up.’

Unless Gloria had been brought up by Trappist monks, Tara could see no reason for her icy silences. But then, Trappist monks were amiable people and there was no way that Gloria could ever be called amiable. She could be friendly to other people, mind you, just not to Tara, who never ceased to be amazed at how her mother-in-law could simultaneously bestow smiles on Finn, and disdainful glances on her.

There were no beloved ex-girlfriends in the closet to account for this bitchiness, nobody Gloria would have preferred Finn to marry. Tara decided she was simply the sort of woman who viewed all women as rivals one way or the other. Tara might not have been a rival when it came to Mr Jefferson, but she was a rival for Finn’s affection. That put her on Gloria’s hate list. And boy, could Gloria hate.

It was well after six when they drove in the gate to Four Winds, the Jeffersons’ meticulously maintained house. The house was small but even so, it was about three times the size of Tara and Finn’s shoebox apartment. Gloria had dropped heavy hints about how the couple would be able to afford a bigger home if only they moved out of the city, nearer to Four Winds. But Tara would prefer to endure constant penny-pinching, not being able to afford much in the way of luxuries and having a bathroom the size of a built-in wardrobe as long as it kept her far away from her mother-in-law.

‘We’re going to be in trouble,’ Finn said gloomily. Even he had decided that his mother would go mad at the lateness of their arrival. Consequently, it was up to Tara to cheer him up.

‘We’re only going out for a quick meal,’ she said, ‘I can be changed and ready to go in five minutes.’

‘I know,’ he said, ‘but she won’t be pleased. We’re going out with the Bailey-Montfords and Mums has a bit of a keep-up-with-the-neighbours thing going with Liz B-M, so everything has to be perfect. Did you bring something dressy to wear tonight?’

‘You saw what I packed,’ said Tara, startled. ‘I don’t have anything very dressy with me, not for any day. I thought this was just a relaxed dinner with old family friends. You didn’t mention any special significance to this meal.’ Tara thought of her suitcase with its selection of casual clothes which she’d imagined were suitable for a family Christmas. She had a couple of sweaters, a white shirt styled like a man’s dress shirt, her chinos, jeans for any rambles in the snow with Finn, and an indigo corduroy dress she’d brought to wear for Christmas Day. She was currently wearing black jeans, a black polo neck and her beloved sheepskin coat. Because she’d packed in a hurry, she’d brought far too much but even so, none of this rapidly assembled wardrobe could be described as dressy. ‘Why didn’t you tell me we’d need to dress up?’ she asked.

‘I just thought you’d know,’ muttered Finn as he parked the car.

‘Know what?’ Tara was getting angry now. ‘I brought the sort of thing I’d wear in Kinvarra for Christmas. It’s suitable for there. Are you telling me that your mother is going to be dressed up like a dog’s dinner tonight and every night?’

Finn’s silence was enough of an answer.

‘Great. This is a great start,’ Tara said. Another black mark loomed.

‘Let’s not argue,’ begged Finn.

Tara gave him a resigned look. ‘You’re right,’ she said. Anyway, there’d be enough arguing in the Jeffersons’ without them being at it too. Gloria could argue at professional level.

Desmond Jefferson opened the door before they could ring the bell. ‘Hello Tara, Merry Christmas, hello Finn,’ he greeted them. A tall, shy man who looked like an older version of Finn, with the same unruly fair hair and the same kind, handsome face, Desmond Jefferson was often described by friends as ‘one of life’s gentlemen’. Until his recent retirement, he’d been a civil servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs. His current plan was to spend lots of time in his garden. Tara reckoned he just wanted to stay as far away from Gloria as possible, not that Desmond would ever say so. He was far too kind and liked a quiet life.

She kissed him affectionately on the cheek and handed him a small package. ‘A secret present,’ she whispered. ‘Fudge.’

Desmond smiled. ‘Our secret,’ he nodded, slipping the package into his trouser pocket.

Like Tara, he adored sweet things but Gloria kept him on a severe diet. There was no adequate excuse for this, Tara knew, because he was perfectly healthy, had no cholesterol problems and went for a four-mile walk every day.

‘Mums likes to fuss,’ was how Finn explained it.

Mums likes to control, was Tara’s personal version.

His mother was in the drawing room waiting for them. She glanced quickly at her watch, and then smiled, as if she hadn’t really been clocking the fact that they were very late. She was fifty-nine but looked at least ten years younger, thanks to rigorous dieting, monthly chestnut rinses in the hairdressers’ and a painstaking beauty routine. Dressed in a black satin evening dress that was a perfect fit for her tiny body, Gloria should have looked marvellous. But the hardness in her pale blue eyes and the taut disapproval in her jaw ruined the effect.

‘Hello, Gloria,’ said Tara, ‘lovely to see you. Your Christmas tree is nice.’ It was horrible, actually. God would strike her down for lying so much.

‘Thank you, Tara,’ said Gloria in her well-modulated voice. ‘So lovely to see you too. Finn,’ she added, sweetly reproving. ‘You haven’t shaved. We’re leaving in half an hour.’

Finn’s smile didn’t falter at the bite in his mother’s voice. ‘Didn’t have time, Mums, too busy with last-minute work,’ he lied, putting a pile of gift-wrapped presents under the tree and then giving his mother a hug. Tara never bothered hugging Gloria; she’d tried it once and it had been like embracing a shop-window dummy. ‘Just as thin and just as stiff,’ Tara had told Stella later. ‘She’s nothing but a shrew.’

‘She’s had years being on her best behaviour as a civil servant’s wife,’ Stella had said kindly. ‘I’m sure she really likes you, she’s just very formal.’

‘Stella, she’s the most un-civil person I’ve ever met. Now when are you going to wise up and turn into an old cynic like me?’ Tara laughed. ‘You expect the best of everyone.’

‘I don’t,’ protested Stella. ‘I hate to see you not getting on with your mother-in-law. She seems nice enough to me, you must give her a chance.’

‘She’s had six months since the wedding,’ Tara replied grimly, ‘and there’s been no time off for good behaviour.’

‘I’ll show you to your room,’ Gloria said now, rising graciously to her feet. ‘If you hadn’t been so late, you could have had coffee. Still,’ she gave Tara a rather contemptuous glance, ‘you’re here now.’

Tara said nothing. She knew she wasn’t imagining it. Gloria was a cow. As she led them from the room, Tara took a quick look around. The room was beautifully proportioned with big windows and, in daylight, it had a nice view of the trees in the front garden, but Gloria’s décor was positively arctic. Pale blue walls, an even colder blue rug and silvery grey armchairs dominated. Even with the heating on at full blast, the effect was cold. It was a million miles away from the comfortable charm of Meadow Lodge, where much of her parents’ furniture was beautiful but old and well loved. Everything in the Jeffersons’ house was defiantly brand new, as if Gloria consigned everything to the bin in a three-year cycle so she could keep up with the Joneses.

The Christmas tree was worse, decorated with far too few silver bits and pieces because Gloria hated ostentation and thought that less was more. Where were the elderly, much-loved decorations that the family would have had for years? Tara thought of her mother’s version of a Christmas tree: a riot of golds and reds, with battered cherubs and some wooden decorations they’d had for thirty years and which one of the family cats had systematically chewed. Rose had even held onto the now faded paper decorations that Tara herself had made when she was about six years old. Gloria would shudder at the sight of that tree.

‘I hope you brought your good suit,’ Gloria said to Finn as she marched up the stairs to the guest room.

‘Yes, Mums,’ said Finn.

Behind Gloria’s back, Tara stuck her tongue out at her husband, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl following a stern teacher to the head’s office.

Finn pinched her bum in return.

‘Is this going to be a very formal occasion?’ Tara asked innocently, ‘because I didn’t bring anything suitable.’

Gloria whisked around, her beady eyes slitted down to the size and texture of uncooked lentils. ‘It’s Liz and Pierre Bailey-Montford,’ she said incredulously, as if that fact alone explained why dressing up was a necessity. ‘You must remember them from the wedding?’

Tara could remember many things from her wedding, chief among them thinking that she must love Finn very much to marry him when she was getting Gloria as part of the deal. ‘Sort of,’ she said, deliberately hazy.

‘Pierre owns B-M Magnum Furniture!’ hissed Gloria, the veneer slipping. ‘Their house is two hundred years old. Liz buys all her clothes in Paris.’

That was what was she disliked most about her mother-in-law, Tara reflected: her criteria for assessing people were all wrong.

‘So this outfit won’t do?’ Tara knew she was pushing Gloria to the limit but she couldn’t help herself.

Gloria stood by the spare room and let Finn and Tara enter. ‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ she said venomously.

‘We won’t be long,’ Finn said, interrupting before war broke out. ‘Tara has other clothes.’

‘Yeah, my lap dancing thong and my feather boa, you old bag,’ Tara muttered under her breath as she dumped her bag on the floor.

‘Don’t wind her up,’ pleaded Finn when the door was shut and they were on their own.

Tara sat down on the duvet, which was hysterically floral, as though the fabric designer had accidentally jumbled up two different patterns on one piece of material. It gave her a headache just to look at it.

‘I don’t wind her up,’ she said. ‘I simply don’t understand why your mother plays games all the time, that’s all. If she wanted us to bring formal clothes, all she had to do was telephone and tell us. But no, that would be too easy.’ Tara was getting crosser thinking about it. ‘Instead, she lets us come and then goes overboard with disapproval because I haven’t packed a cocktail dress. That’s being manipulative, pure and simple. I’m fed up with it.’

‘Tara love, please don’t get upset.’

Finn sat down beside her and held her. ‘Can’t we have a nice Christmas, please?’

Tara laid her head against his shoulder, relishing the comfort of being close to his lean, muscular body. Tara never seemed to have time for the gym but Finn went religiously. ‘I’d love to do that,’ she murmured, ‘I’d love our first Christmas as husband and wife to be special, but I don’t know how I can cope with your mother, Finn.’

Finn stroked her hair gently. ‘Christmas reminds her of Fay, that’s all. It’s difficult for her.’

Tara sighed. Fay was Gloria’s sympathy card. Gloria’s younger child and Finn’s twenty-seven-year-old sister, Fay had gone off travelling after a huge blow-up with her mother and had refused to talk to Gloria since. Although Tara had never met her, because Fay’s dramatic departure had been two years ago which was before Tara and Finn had even met, she sounded like a bit of a free spirit. Fay now lived in California, practised psychic healing and corresponded with Finn and Desmond, but hung up when her mother came on the phone. Clearly, psychic healing could only do so much.

If it had been anyone else, Tara would have felt sorry for a mother who was cut off from her daughter. Tara loved her own mother far too much to ever do such a thing. But knowing Gloria for the past eighteen months, Tara could see why someone would be driven to travelling to the other side of the world to escape her.

‘We’ll have a nice Christmas,’ she reassured Finn.

‘Thanks, babe.’ He looked so grateful. It was the least she could do. She’d bite her tongue when Gloria was being bitchy.

Tara decided to wear the corduroy dress, plenty of lipstick, and a big, jaw-clenching smile. Gloria, who’d obviously decided to modify her own behaviour, said nothing and the foursome set off in a taxi with Finn and Desmond chatting happily as if they hadn’t noticed anything was amiss.

At the restaurant, Tara had to start biting her tongue when she met the others. If Gloria had pulled out all the stops in the dressing up department, she had nothing on Liz Bailey-Montford who was dressed as though Hello! were due to photograph her at any minute for a ‘lifestyles of the rich and tasteless’ piece. Jewels gleamed at ears, wrists, neck and fingers and her silver and black plunging dress was a dizzying combination of sequins and beading. Tara was blinded by the glitter.

There was obviously plenty of one-upmanship between the two supposed best friends because Liz had brought along her daughter and son-in-law as backup and wasted no time telling everyone that Serena was doing a masters in art history and Charles was a tower of strength who worked with his father-in-law in the furniture business.

‘I don’t know what we’d do without Charles,’ Liz said, ‘he’s so capable.’

Charles had a blank, unintelligent face and Tara thought he didn’t look as if he was capable of changing a light bulb. But he’d obviously lucked out by marrying Serena who was heiress to the B-M furniture kingdom, so he couldn’t be that dumb.

There were lots of double kisses, oodles of ‘oh you look wonderful, Gloria! Doesn’t she, Pierre?’ and it took ten minutes for everyone to be seated, according to a table plan, naturally. Tara hated table plans. She liked sitting beside Finn and hated all that rubbish about sticking him as far away from her as possible and putting her beside someone she didn’t know.

Pierre, on her right side, appeared tired, while Charles, on her left, looked uninterested until he found out that she worked on National Hospital, and then spent the next ten minutes plying her with stupid questions about what the stars were really like.

‘Theodora, I mean, Sherry,’ he said with glazed eyes, ‘she’s fabulous, isn’t she? Is she like that in real life?’

‘You mean man-mad?’ inquired Tara, bored. ‘Men adore her.’

Charles backtracked hastily. ‘Oh no, I don’t mean that. I just admire good acting.’

‘Of course you do.’

The waiter arrived and Gloria and Liz ordered melon and plain fish.