Mad About You

Chapter 1

 

I pulled a heavy box, marked ‘Miscellaneous’, towards me. I peered inside, it was full of photo albums. There must have been ten of them, all overflowing with photos of our life together. I opened the first one. There was a photo of me and James on holidays in Greece. It was painful to look at, we were so happy back then. James was beaming at the camera. He was tanned and fit but I was white and covered in heat rash. How he didn’t dump me then and there is a mystery.

 

We looked so young in the photos, young and carefree. Well, if I’m honest, I look a bit hot and bothered. I really didn’t need to get heat-rash on my first foreign holiday with my boyfriend. Who wants to have sex with a girl wearing a burka, sitting under a tree? The other hotel guests kept asking me if I was allergic to the sun. And the sad truth was, that I was. No red-head should sunbathe in 38 degree heat. It’s not how God made us. He made us to sit under umbrellas in big floppy hats, sipping cold wine. So, that’s what I did for the second week of our holiday and things were a lot more fun. While James surfed, water-skied and paraglided in the burning sun, I waved encouragingly from my permanent position under a large parasol, surrounded by books and a bottle of rose. Life was good.

 

I turned the page of the photo album, there was a photo of us on our last night in Greece. The night James proposed. I look absolutely radiant, and bronzed, (the miracle of fake-tan). We were so happy and in love. I rested the album on my lap and looked around the empty, soulless room. Where were those two people? When had life got so complicated and daunting?

 

I flicked the pages to our wedding day. Wow, look at my waist, I was so slim. I was at least two sizes bigger now. I’d have to lose that extra stone this year. I wanted to get back to that slim girl. I wanted to go back to that day. I wanted to be relaxed and joyful again. Would I ever be?

 

Sighing, I flipped ahead to the photos of Yuri. I stopped then, overcome with emotion. There was one of us in the airport, coming through the arrivals door, holding our precious Russian angel. My sister, Babs must have taken it. You can see Mum rushing towards me holding ‘congratulations’ balloons. Yuri is fast asleep on my shoulder and both James and I look exhausted but elated. I look closer, Mum’s crying and so am I. Remembering the day still brought tears to my eyes. I peer at Yuri’s sleeping face, the baby boy from Russia who saved my sanity and gave me the gift of motherhood.

 

I shuddered, remembering how much I had shouted at him yesterday when he vomited all over me instead of into the bag I was holding for him. The boat trip over had been a nightmare. Yuri had thrown up the whole way from Dublin to Wales. And then his little sister, Lara, had proceeded to vomit the whole way from Wales to London in the car. I thought we’d never get here. But we did.

 

I sneezed, the room was still dusty. All of the windows were open to air the house, but it still smelt stale and stuffy. I’d have to scrub it from top to bottom. The walls were painted magnolia and the floors had that cheap rope-like carpet that rented houses tended to go for – low cost and long-wearing. The carpet felt really rough and scratchy under my toes. I’d have to buy some big rugs to cover it. I’d have to do a lot of work to make this house into some kind of a home. It was so drab and bleak.

 

I felt panic rising in my throat. ‘Stop it, Emma. Keep calm. It’s not a big deal. People move all the time. James is happy about this new job, be supportive, don’t show him how you really feel’ I scolded myself. But he wasn’t here now. He’d taken the children off the park to leave me in peace to unpack. I really think he’d taken the kids to the park to get away from me and my snapping and shouting and general grumpiness. Hiding how I feel is not my strong point, but I was trying.

 

It isn’t easy to give up everything you love. I’d said goodbye to our house in Dublin that I’d spent years making into the perfect home. I’d left behind my friends, my family – although truth be told my younger sister did now live in London and my brother was in New York – but still, I’d left my parents behind. And I’d given up a job I loved. It was all for James, for his new job, for his career, for his wellbeing and happiness.

 

I want him to be happy. Of course I do. Especially as he’s been so miserable since the last job fiasco, but I don’t know anyone in London and it feels like starting all over again. I loved my old life, Yuri and Lara were so happy in their little playschool and everything was perfect. Well, OK, not perfect. The last six months have been far from perfect. They’ve been really stressful actually, but now I felt afraid. What if London didn’t work out? What if James didn’t succeed? What would happen to us then?

 

I looked at another photo to try to calm my nerves. It was one of James and me at Lucy and Donal’s wedding. We are all standing arm in arm roaring laughing. My best friend marrying James’s best friend. It was perfect. It was also the day I found out I was pregnant with Lara, our little miracle. Such wonderful happy times. I felt a lump forming in my throat.

 

When I told Lucy we were moving to London, she said that it would be the making of us. That we’d have all this quality time together as a family that it would get us back on track. I wasn’t so sure about that. We’d been here exactly nineteen hours and I felt desperately lonely and homesick.

 

I pinched myself, ‘Stop it. You are a forty year old mother of two, get a grip. Make the most of this new adventure. Work at it, focus on making it a success.  Make this strange house a home. Make your marriage work. Be nice to James. Be positive. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Forget your troubles come on get happy….bla bla bla’. The positive rant wasn’t working.

 

My phone rang. It was my mother. I hesitated and then answered it.

 

“And they call this summer! It hasn’t stopped raining since you left. Honestly, the weather in this country is a farce. We’ll be getting a toonami next, mark my words. I’ve never seen such rain. It’s all that global warning,” Mum huffed “It’s Tsunami and Global warming.”

“That’s what I said. And let me tell you, putting your newspapers in a green bin isn’t going to stop the O-zone layer from burning us all to death.”

“I though you said the tsunami was going to kill us?”

“It’ll be one or the other. Your father has me demented dividing everything into separate bins. He now has a compost heap in the garden. Did you ever! This is a man who has only ever given nature a cursory glance while pounding around the golf course. Now he’s insisting that banana skins and tea bags and God knows what else, go into this big pot he has on the kitchen windowsill. It stinks out the kitchen not to mention looking awful. Honestly Emma, he’s getting very peculiar in his old age.”

 

I knew there was no point interrupting my mother’s flow. I put the phone on loudspeaker and continued unpacking.

 

“How are my little pets? You know I think Yuri’s grown over the summer. He’s still very small mind you, but that’s the awful food they fed him in that orphanage. Hopefully, in a few years time he’ll be as big as the other boys in his class.”

 

“Mum!” I warned her. “I’ve told you a million times, don’t be negative about the orphanage.”

 

“Why not? You told me it was a terrible place and didn’t you save him from it. I gritted my teeth, “We didn’t save him, he saved us. We’re the ones who should be grateful.”

“Well there’s no need to bite my head off. I know how lucky we are to have him. Amen’t I besotted with him. Sure he’s my favourite grandchild. And before you give out, I love Lara and Sheila too.”

 

“Mum! It’s Shala.” I corrected her for the millionth time. “You know perfectly well how to pronounce it and it’s annoying for Sean and Shadee that you insist on saying Sheila. The child has a beautiful Iranian name and you need to accept that.”

Una sniffed. “I don’t know why my children couldn’t call their babies nice simple names. None of this Yuri and Shala nonsense.”

“Yuri was named before we adopted him and it’s a beautiful name and may I remind you that your daughter-in-law is Iranian and Shala is a lovely name.”

“I don’t see why Sean couldn’t have married a nice Irish girl. Why did he have to find an Iranian girl who doesn’t want the children baptised or raised as Catholics. It breaks my heart.”

“Mum, Shadee is an amazing girl, and Sean is blissfully happy. The fact that she isn’t Catholic doesn’t matter. She’s a great wife and mother and a lovely person. And besides, we all know you baptised Shala under the kitchen sink the minute they had their backs turned.”

Mum changed the subject, as she always does when she’s found guilty. “Anyway, that’s enough about that. How are you pet? All unpacked?”

I sighed, “No, I still have about twenty boxes to go.”

 

“Well chop chop Emma, James needs a nice home to come back to after work.”

 

“Thank you Mum, I’m going as fast as I can.”

“It’s important that a man wants to come home to his wife Emma. Put a smile on your face and make the most of it.”

“What if we never come back?” I said, finally verbalising my biggest fear.

 

“If you don’t you don’t.” Mum said, reassuring as always. “Life isn’t straightforward Emma.”

I snapped the photo album on my lap closed, “I’m aware of that, I have an adopted son and I’ve just moved country for my husband’s job.”

 

“Marriage is all about compromise” said the woman who had never compromised in her life. “You just have to get on with it. London is your home now, make the most of it. Life is a long and bumpy road.”

 

It had certainly been bumpy lately. I hoped it would be smoother now that we had made the move. But what if it wasn’t? What if this job didn’t work out either?