Always and Forever by Siân O'Gorman

Author:Siân O'Gorman [O’Gorman, Siȃn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

32

But once I unscrambled my thoughts, lying awake, unblinking into the night, I began to have second thoughts. A date. Me. On a date. This was the very essence of moving on. Which, I knew, was A Very Good Thing. But I utterly felt terrified at the thought. And I wasn’t quite sure why. And what would it involve? Would we hold hands? Would we kiss? Did I want us to? But if you were going to spend time with anyone, then it would be with Ronan. I felt safe with him. And happy. And that was a very good start. It wasn’t as if I had agreed to go out with Donald Trump.

Once up and dressed, I had no time to think about it as I had a business meeting. This was me, working for free, for a small local garage. This was me. And it mattered. I cared about this garage and what it meant to the place I lived, to my neighbours. It was personal. It was funny, but this kind of moving on seemed far less frightening. Tracksuit bottoms swapped for smart jeans, I even went mad and dabbed a bit of mascara on. I was ready. I had begun to think that perhaps this could be the start of something. My own company, perhaps. No more Decco, or big clients, or expensive lunches. Instead, I could just imagine working from my study, eating my lunchtime sandwich in my own kitchen, collecting Harry from school every day. I was daring to dream.

Marietta looked surprised when she saw me. To be fair, she hadn’t seen me in anything approximating smartness in three years, so I didn’t take offence.

‘You look nice, Joanna,’ she said. ‘Where’re you off to?’

‘P. J. and Sheila’s,’ I said. ‘The garage. I have an idea, just a PR thing, to boost the business. They need it. They have terrible competition from some tyre-changing crowd.’

‘Ah, Sheila,’ she said. ‘Give her my regards.’

‘You two used to be great pals, didn’t you? In the old days.’

‘We were at school together.’

‘But you used to be best friends, didn’t you?’

‘When we were teenagers,’ she finally admitted. ‘But…’

‘But what?’

‘We fell out over a man.’

‘A man?’

‘She didn’t like the company I chose to keep. Didn’t approve. And I,’ she smiled, “chose him.” She paused. ‘It was a long time ago, nearly fifty years. Sheila and I are still friends, just not in the same way.’

This world of dating and jealousies was not something I had ever associated with my mother and her friends and acquaintances. There were so many stories, so much intrigue, that I didn’t know about. There was a whole side, an entire universe, to my mother; events, heartbreak, thoughts, feelings and passions, which I had no idea about. It was like discovering a new planet, or a hidden world behind a waterfall.

‘By the way, Mam,’ I said, hoping she would linger for longer, not feeling quite ready to cut short this moment of confessions and confidences. ‘I’m going on a date tonight.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.