Friends Like Us

Sian O'Gorman

Description

Is it ever too late to take charge and live your life on your terms?

Grown-up life in Dublin hasn't worked out quite as planned for school friends Melissa, Steph and Eilis.

Melissa has a successful career as a journalist, but inside she's a mess of insecurities.

Stay at home Mum, Steph is lonely and lost, walking on eggshells around her philandering husband and angry teenage daughter.

And Eilis, a hardworking A&E doctor, is just going through the motions with her long-term partner Rob.

A wonderfully warm debut, about friends you can’t live without and about choosing the life you really want.

Perfect for the fans of Amanda Prowse and Dani Atkins

What readers are saying about Friends Like Us:

'Have just bought another book by this author.... keep them coming.'

'Rollercoaster of emotions expressed described in a way that you felt the emotions this group of friends were experiencing.'

'Was sad to see this book end and it's a pity I have another year to wait for another book by Sian!'

'I laughed out loud and cried in some places. Couldn't put it down as needed to know what was going to happen next!'

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Relations familiales
• Sea Stories
• Mashups
• Holidays
• Siblings
• Women
• Coming of Age
• Friendship
• Contemporary history
• Workplace
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Romantic Comedy
• Sibling
• General officer
• Ireland
• Woman
• The Women
• City Life
• Stephen Ireland
• General
• Holiday
• Contemporary
• Family Life
• Romance
• Fiction
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 17 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800485525
• Langue: English

Extrait

FRIENDS LIKE US

SIÂN O’GORMAN

For Ruby

1.Melissa 2.Steph 3.Eilis 4.The girls 5.Steph 6.Cormac 7.Melissa 8.Eilis 9.Steph 10.Melissa 11.Cormac 12.Eilis 13.Steph 14.The girls 15.Steph 16.Melissa 17.Steph 18.Eilis 19.The girls 20.Melissa 21.Cormac 22.Melissa 23.Steph 24.Melissa 25.Eilis 26.The girls 27.Melissa 28.Steph 29.Eilis 30.Steph 31.Melissa 32.Eilis 33.Steph 34.Eilis 35.Steph 36.Melissa 37.Cormac 38.Steph 39.Melissa 40.Steph 41.Melissa 42.Steph 43.The girls 44.Steph 45.Melissa 46.Eilis

CONTENTS

47.Steph 48.Melissa 49.Eilis 50.Steph 51.Melissa 52.The girls More from Siân O’Gorman About the Author About Boldwood Books Acknowledgments

1

MELISSA

Of course the crash was her fault. Melissa wasn’t c oncentrating on the road when she whammed into the back of a Mercedes, as she was too busy having an out-of-body experience, thinking about herself; this woman who should have been all grown-up but was as unsorted as a tube of Smarties. She was driving along the Grand Canal in Dublin, ha d just arrived back in the city after an unsuccessful weekend in Paris. It was a bu sy road at the best of times, filled with the usual battered and beaten up vehicles, the odd articulated lorry, the cyclists who only look up to raise two fingers to traffic th at skims too close. And there was Melissa in her orange Beetle thinking about Alistair and the fact he had just given her the old heave-ho. In the airport . After a weekend in Paris. So that was nice, wasn’t it? At the age of thirty-eight, sh ouldn’t she have achieved a little bit more, relationship wise? But what was really bothering her wasn’t just the f act that she had been dumped – again – but because she had persisted in pursuing a relationship which had, if she was entirely honest, lacked lustre from the very beginn ing. Ishould have rfect in the corner,children, she thought, buckets of them. Mr Pe smiling, as one child smears Nutella on the sofa, w hile the other saws away tunelessly on a violin. Isn’t that what women should have? Isn ’t that what we’re told life should look like? But there was no getting away from it; Melissa had had a trulyterribleweekend, the leastrney puked all over her dressromantic since her school leavers’ do when Tony Tie and she walked home crying and covered in vomit. Ho wever, being an imaginative type, she preferred to think the weekend’s failure was because poor old Alistair had been under the weather and not at his sparkling bes t. But, come to think of it, she had never seen him at his sparkling best. Maybe he didn ’t have one. Flu, Alistair had muttered darkly – and kept re-tuc king his scarf, sniffling and snuffling throughout the weekend. She had managed t o steer him away from Molly Malone’s near the Champs Elysée and instead they at e in a restaurant in the Marais. However, he complained about the steak (too bloody) , refused to be amused by the grumpiness of the waiters and blew his nose in the napkin. Crimes on the lower end of the scale and ones Melissa had been certainly determined to overlook. She remained stoic. Remember Stalingrad, she had ke pt thinking. It was colder then, surely, and they were hungrier. But although she may not have beenactually freezing her arse off in a Russian winter in 1943 a nd fearing for her life, those soldiers at least didn’t have to put up with the snufflings of Alistair. Amazingly, he was able to

reach out for his pint of lager and shiveringly bri ng the vessel to his blue lips. Undeterred, she threw back the red wine and the who le weekend became not a romantic cliché but an alcoholic blur. You can’t have it all, she had thought, consoling h erself. And it isParis; he’s ill and no one can help that. Maybe she just had to try har der, be funnier, nicer, attractiver. With a little helping of Florence Nightingale on th e side. Okay, so it may not have been a success but even if he was a slight hypochondriac, she hadn’tactually expected him to finish with her.At the airport. They were heading through arrivals, both pulling their little wheelie cases, him still snuffling and she smiling winningly, hoping he would say he had had a lovely time, but instead there was silence from Alistair. Well, apart from the sniffing and th e sneezing. ‘How are you feeling now?’ she said, trying to prom pt a response. ‘Glad to be home?’ ‘Going to go straight to bed,’ he mumbled. ‘Sleep t his thing off.’ She wondered if he was confusing a hangover with flu. Whatever it was, he was in Garbo-mode. ‘Good idea,’ she said, masking devastation. ‘You do that.’ An awkward silence hung in the frozen air. And then she realised her smile was full of hope and desperation but she knew how transparently pathetic she was so inst ead tried to look frowny and concerned. And, crucially, grown-up. ‘Melissa… listen.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Listen, u m…’ A taxi had pulled up… it was as if he had actually planned the swift getaway. She realised, finally, that he was going to finish with her and that his shortcomings were in fact hers and that she was the unlovable on e. Please say something nice to me, she inwardly pleaded. Justwantme again. Just like me. Pleaselikeme. ‘Melissa, it was a fun weekend.’ (It hadn’t been. T hey both knew that.) ‘But I… I don’t really feel able to have anything serious at the moment. I’m so sorry…’ She was motionless, heart thumping now, blood cours ing around her brain, sirens going off. She was being dumped. You’d think she wo uld have got used to it by now. Searing pain that soon numbed to a throb, the pulsa tions of which were a reminder of her own essential unloveableness. This was how her life was meant to be, a catalogue of failed flings. ‘Melissa, are you okay?’ He was looking around now for the taxi. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Totally. I agree, I’m so gl ad you said it. I’ve really enjoyed our time together.’ He looked hugely relieved. ‘Thanks. I mean you are great and everything but you know…’ Ah, there it was, the taxi! He swung his cas e into its open boot. ‘I know.’ She smiled again, this time to show what an incredible sport she was. She waved bravely as the taxi sped off. Was that hi m waving from the window? She couldn’t quite see. And had he promised the driver extra to vroom away as though on a heist? Regardless, she was left alone. This was how it always played out: the ascent as sh e was desired, and then the drop, an ignominious free-fall through the air. How ever attractive she was, she was no girlfriend material. Not the marrying kind; she was too weird, too needy, bordering on neurotic. It never took long, usually around three months for them to realise… and Alistair had got out in a record-breaking two month s. There was nothing else she could do except to recov er her little orange Beetle from

the car park and start driving home, allowing the s hame and humiliation to embed itself. No one knows, she thought, as tears streamed down h er face, no one knows who I am. I am nothing, no one, worthless. Other people found relationships easy but Melissa f ound them torturous. It was always full-on and then over. Keeping her deep unlo veableness a secret was taking a strain. Never again, she thought. No more. A life of spinst erhood loomed. Well, anything had to be better than watching a man blow his nose on a napkin. And now, here she was, wending her weary, woeful wa y home along the Grand Canal and about to crash into a Mercedes. A swan flapping its wings gave her a jolt, granting Melissa a look in his beaky, beady face, as if to say,who do you thing ye are? Gallivanting again? Well, you’ve only yourself to blame. She saw the bumper of the Mercedes whizz towards he r; the swan having a good gawp. ‘You were right!’ she wanted to shout. ‘You w ere right. I do have only myself to blame. It’s all my fault. All of this. Everything!’ In the very short journey from uncrashed to crashed , she heard the screeching of her own brakes (her body had gone into action, as l east it wasn’t letting her down), and then the terrible crunch, the breaking of glass and the sound of her head hitting the steering wheel. A nice Mercedes, she imagined, woul d have air bags. An old Beetle wouldn’t. And didn’t. Her head against the wheel, Melissa wondered what t o do before she heard voices and someone trying to help her out. She staggered, stunned and blinking, out of the car, resting on the arm of an old man, who in diffe rent circumstances, would have been leaning on her. ‘Terrible traffic,’ he was saying. ‘There’s always accidents along the canal. Too many cars. I always walk into town this way and I s ay to meself that it’s a miracle there aren’t more prangs or pile-ups. That’s what I alway s say.’ He led her to the wall alongside the canal. Bloody hell, she thought. Jesus Christ. I’ve just been in an accident. The dizziness was be ginning to clear and she looked around. Her head was hurting but she was, she realised, still alive. ‘Now, love, are you all right? No broken bones?’ sa id the man. ‘Everything in perfect working order?’ ‘Just a broken heart,’ she said, unable to resist the temptation of the drama. The old man laughed. ‘Oh, now,’ he said. ‘Lovely wo man like you. Surely not?’ She managed to smile so as not to scare him off ent irely. She put her hand to her head and felt it carefully. A huge lump was forming underneath, bubbling Vesuvius-like. But it was her car she was most worried about. She noticed two men had managed to push it up onto the pavement, its bonnet buckled an d forced open, bumper hanging off. And people – passers-by, good Samaritans? – were he lping the Mercedes driver out of the other car, a blonde woman, expensive highlig hts glinting in the rare late- afternoon winter sunlight. Oh God, Melissa knew this type. Better just hand ov er her life savings to pay for the dent in the back of the Mercedes. Although it looke d perfect, wellperfect enough, apart from that teeny-tiny-titchyscrape. The woman looked perfect enough too, with her swishy blonde hair. Melissa looked away, still shak y and not quite ready to face the

inevitable confrontation, and began rifling in her bag for her phone. She wanted to call Cormac. He’d be nice to her. She was aware of the woman coming towards her and M elissa braced herself. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she blurted out, looking up into the sun . ‘It was all my fault. I just wasn’t concentrating.’ The other woman was open-mouthed, ‘Melissa!’ She wa s laughing now. ‘Oh sweet Jesus, Melissa!’ ‘Steph! Oh my God, Steph!’ Itwaslooking exactly the same since they’d last seen each other. Blonder, Steph, perhaps, her straight hair in a long bob, her face the same, just slightly older, perhaps, minimal make-up. Polished, groomed, she was working the glorious trinity of the jeans- Converse-Breton just like any other thirty-somethin g mother, but on her, it was smarter, newer,and expensive. Melissa managed to stand up and the two hugged each other for so long it turned into a kind of dance as they began to rock together . The crowd gave a cheer and there was even a round of applause. Steph, her old, old, old friend. How sweet the vaga ries of life. Who said that? Someone, anyway. Oh. She felt strange and had to sit down again. Once upon a time, Melissa and Steph were inseparabl e. School friends and then friends into their twenties when something happened – life? – and they drifted. Like a swan on the old canal, especially the type of swan who predicted bad luck… or in this case, maybe the swan was a signifier of good luck. Drifting back into each other’s lives again. Or rathercrashingback in. ‘I don’t believe it!’ Melissa said. ‘We haven’t see n each other in years and then this happens.’ ‘Of all the backsides in all the world, you had to run into mine.’ Steph was still smiling and Melissa grinned back, but she felt emba rrassed. Here was Steph, all gleamy and glowy, and there was she, dusty and dish evelled. She pushed her hand through her brown hair that refused to either lie s traight or curl. She was wearing an outfit (skirt and ankle boots) that had been meant for Paris, but now, in Dublin, seemed over the top and ridiculous. She’d plastered hersel f in make-up too, full foundation, the works, and she felt like a drag queen that hadn’t m astered the act of dressing like a woman. But Steph was still smiling, seemingly not noticing or caring that her old friend was a mess. ‘So, what do we do now?’ Melissa asked. ‘You know a bout this…’ she gestured to their cars. She actually wanted to get herself home and changed and into something more like her. She was feeling a bit ridiculous in her Parisienne non-chic and, she was thinking that maybe they could meet up again later, once she had her jeans and trainers on again. But Steph didn’t seem to notice what she was wearing and was too busy thinking about sorting out the car situation w hich, Melissa had to agree, was the more pertinent of the tasks. ‘Well, I think mine is driveable,’ said Steph. ‘But we can always get yours towed. We’ll get it sorted.’ And Steph did, even though the accident was technic ally Melissa’s fault, Steph took charge and phoned a garage to arrange for them to p ick up the Beetle while the crowd,

slightly disappointed that there wasn’t any blood o r more carnage, dispersed, leaving them alone. ‘You’re white as a sheet, Mel,’ Steph said. ‘And yo u’re shaking.’ Melissa could feel her teeth chattering as though s he was Bugs Bunny eating an invisible carrot. She suddenly felt terrible, as if she was going to be sick. ‘I think Melissa, that we’d better get you to hospi tal,’ said Steph. ‘Get you checked out.’ Melissa began to shake her head, no, which, she soo n realised, was exactly the wrong thing to do. ‘Come on, we’ll go down to Vincent’s… to A&E, just to be on the safe side.’ Melissa could only nod and allowed Steph to lead he r to the car. She lay back in the seats and immediately felt better. It had to be adm itted, what the Beetle gained in cuteness and character, it lacked in the comfort de partment that the Mercedes had in spades. They pulled out into the traffic and made their slo w progress along the canal. Melissa looked at Steph as she indicated and smiled at the drivers who let them out. She hadn’t changed at all, same old Steph. One of l ife’s good people, the kind of person you wanted on your side. ‘I’ve just had a thought!’ said Steph suddenly. ‘Ei lis!’ ‘Oh my God, yes!’ They both laughed. ‘Imagine!’ sai d Melissa. ‘She could be there, you know?’ Eilis was their old school friend, part of their tribe of three. She was a consultant, as far as they knew, at the A&E in Vinc ent’s hospital. ‘Ouch!’ Melissa pressed both her hands to her head. ‘Shouldn’t have laughed. That hurts. Major headache.’ ‘You poor thing,’ said Steph, glancing over. ‘You m ust have given it a huge whack. I hope they test you for whiplash too.’ ‘I hope they won’t think I’m wasting their time,’ s aid Melissa. ‘You know, when they have really ill people to deal with.’ ‘You are meant to go to A&E after a car crash,’ sai d Steph. ‘You could be walking around with a head injury otherwise. No, of course we are not wasting their time.’ There was silence between them for a moment. ‘Are you… are you still in contact?’ Steph said. ‘Y ou know, friends? With Eilis?’ For a moment, Steph looked so vulnerable, so easy to hu rt; it was a look that Melissa had never seen before. It’s true, she realised slowly, people don’tstay the same, even if they look the same and behave the same. Life always , always changes us. Something had happened to Steph which had made her insecure, or scared. It was hard to tell but Melissa had never seen that look in her eyes before . She was always so together, so happy. And then she had married Rick and she disapp eared into wifedom and motherhood, as so many do. Melissa had been sad abo ut it but she had her own life, other friends. It had seemed a natural parting. Mel issa was single – still! – and marrieds socialise with other marrieds, and singles with the ir own kind and never the twain, et cetera. ‘It’s just that I lost contact with Eilis,’ Steph w as saying, ‘as well as you, but you two probably still hang out…?’ ‘Not for a long time,’ said Melissa. ‘Not for ages. Years. D’you think she still works there?’