Best of Friends

They weren’t broke but they weren’t far off it. They certainly couldn’t afford cashmere coats. Erin’s two-year-old black wool would have done her fine for a while yet.

‘New coat for a new beginning,’ Greg insisted. ‘And you want to wow them at home, don’t you?’

Now she began to fold the coat carefully so she could stow it on top of her carry-on bag in the overhead locker, but a pretty blonde stewardess appeared and said she’d hang it up.

‘It’s too beautiful to get creased,’ the stewardess said.

‘Isn’t it?’ agreed Erin ruefully, thinking of their bank balance.

‘I recognise that accent. You and your husband are Irish?’ the stewardess asked chattily, her own accent a gentle Northern Irish lilt.

‘Yes, we are,’ Erin said.

‘Were you on holiday in Chicago? Wasn’t it freezing? Chicago layover is the coldest there is.’ The stewardess shivered in her chic green suit as though she could still feel the wind chill.

‘We weren’t on holiday. We lived in Chicago for five years, actually. And I was in Boston for four years before that,’ Erin said, responding to the woman’s friendliness. ‘We’re leaving the States and going back to Ireland because my husband’s starting a new job in Cork.’

‘Coming home,’ sighed the stewardess as she turned in the direction of the long locker. ‘Welcome back!’

‘Thanks.’ Erin sank down into the seat and stretched out her long legs. Even with her enormous handbag under the seat in front, there was still loads of space – a welcome change from economy class. Greg eased into the seat beside her and grabbed her arm tightly.

‘Finally,’ he said, face alight with pleasure, ‘we’re finally going. It all starts here.’

‘Champagne or juice?’ asked a different stewardess.

Greg’s grin widened and he took two glasses of champagne, handing one to Erin.

‘Let’s hear it for business class,’ he said appreciatively. ‘Not just room for your legs but free booze too! Let’s hope this is the only way we travel from now on. To our new life.’

Erin smiled back at him and took a celebratory sip. ‘This certainly is the way to fly,’ she agreed, thinking of their normal vacation flights with Greg’s huge frame squashed into a tiny airline seat. ‘If your new bosses weren’t paying for our tickets, we’d be swimming to Ireland, which would ruin my fabulous new coat.’

‘You look like a million dollars in it,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mean all green and crinkly.’

‘We still can’t afford it,’ she pointed out, squeezing her husband’s hand.

‘Actually we can,’ he admitted. ‘I sold my David Bowie special edition vinyl collection to Josh. He’s lusted after it for years. The Ziggy Stardust album’s one of only five hundred.’

‘Oh, Greg,’ sighed Erin, incredibly touched. ‘You shouldn’t have.’ She knew how much he loved his precious record collection.

‘What the heck, we’ve got enough stuff.’ Greg took another gulp of his drink. ‘This is good champagne,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll have another glass.’

Erin fixed him with a faux stern glare. ‘Greg Kennedy, if you get legless and start blowing kisses at the stewardesses so the plane gets diverted to Newfoundland to have you arrested, remember, you’re on your own.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ saluted Greg. ‘Just one more and then I’ll stick to water. I promise not to disgrace you.’

Erin kissed him impulsively. Greg might look serious and the perfect corporate man, but underneath he was irrepressible. He loved silly jokes, chuckled for hours over Gary Larson cartoon books, adored comedy shows and could recite the Abbott and Costello baseball sketch in his sleep.

He was also fired up with a boyish excitement over their move. To Greg, this was an adventure, the same way helicopter skiing was an adventure. He loved the fact that usually Erin matched this spirit in him and was always just as eager to try white water rafting or whatever. Only this time, Erin didn’t feel as thrilled about their new move: home to Europe after many years in the US. She was doing it for him.

She’d been fine about it all at first. This new job was what they’d both been waiting for ever since the shares scandal hit the company they both worked for and the firm’s blue chip status wavered. There was talk of huge job losses and neither Greg, who was rapidly climbing the corporate ladder, nor Erin, who worked in human resources, could consider their jobs as safe.

It was a wake-up call, Greg said soberly as they sat up late in their not-yet-paid-for apartment and tried to work out what their financial position would be if the industry went belly up. Erin had known he was right. But that’s when he started talking wistfully about going home.

Home for Greg was just outside Wicklow, a bustling large town where his father, who had run a post office, was recently retired. Although he hadn’t been home for four years, his whole family had been to Chicago for the wedding. They’d been politely curious about the absence of any of Erin’s family. But she was used to that.

‘My grandmother brought me up and she’s too old to travel,’ was her stock answer. It was also untrue.

The reason Erin hadn’t been home to Dublin for nine years and the reason none of her family made the journey to Chicago for her wedding had nothing whatsoever to do with her grandmother’s age. Erin had left home and Ireland at the age of eighteen to get away from her family. She had never been back. Now twenty-seven, the guilt she felt at that abrupt departure had grown into a solid block of pain. When she’d cut the ties to her family, Erin couldn’t have foreseen she’d feel so strangely adrift in the world. But it was impossible to explain that to the honest and genuine Kennedy family, although Greg knew. For his parents, roots and family were important. People who didn’t appreciate family had to have something wrong with them.

Erin adored their son and wanted them to feel that he’d made a good choice in marrying her. She couldn’t tell them the truth. ‘Gran would love to be here but the trip would have been too much for her,’ she said, feeling terrible for the lie.

‘I suppose you’ll fly home later this year, then,’ said Mrs Kennedy hopefully, thinking that if the newlyweds visited Dublin, well, they’d certainly spend a couple of nights in Wicklow too.

‘We’ll see,’ said Erin politely, privately thinking that there was as much chance of her being picked to play for the New York Yankees as there was of her flying home to the bosom of her family. They wouldn’t want to see her now. Why would they? Yes, she’d been so hurt by them, but to run off and stay away – apart from those first few phone calls soon afterwards to let them know she was still alive – what family could forgive that, even a messed-up one like hers? And clearly they hadn’t forgiven her. When she and Greg got engaged, the longing for home had become intense and she’d written several letters to her family. Nobody had replied.

Four years after the wedding, Erin and Greg’s circumstances had changed.

The day after their heart-to-heart about their finances, Greg heard from a head-hunter friend about a job heading the Irish division of a multinational telecoms company. They particularly wanted someone with his international experience. It seemed like a good omen.

The relocation fee would take care of their debts until they managed to sell the apartment, and their friend, the head-hunter, assured Erin that a human resources manager of her calibre would have no problem getting a job. Even better, the Cuchulainn Telecoms people, Greg’s new bosses, promised to rent a beautiful home for the couple for the first six months.

The job sounded like the sort of challenge Greg loved, and he’d been told great things about his management team and particularly his recently promoted second-in-command, a guy named Steve Richardson. The final plus was the location: a heritage town outside the city of Cork that looked incredible when Greg and Erin checked it out on the Web. Neither of them had ever visited Dunmore when they’d lived in Ireland, but they’d certainly heard of it.

Greg told the company they’d have to think about it.

‘It’s a big move, honey,’ he said to Erin. ‘I don’t want to force you to move back to Ireland because of me.’

‘Oh yeah, and who said I was going to move back with you?’ she teased. ‘I might stay here and be frivolous with our money while you work your butt off in Cork.’

‘Money? We have money?’ he said, nuzzling her earlobe.

‘The jar of quarters in the kitchen is getting awfully heavy. There’s at least forty dollars in there,’ began Erin.

‘Forty dollars! You hussy. You could go wild with that, splurging on wine, men and song. I can’t leave you here without me. You have to come. I’ll pine without you.’

Erin looked at him affectionately. Whatever was wrong with the rest of her life, she’d struck it lucky when she’d met Greg. Other guys might bleat on about being the bigger earner and about how she had to go where his job took them, like women following soldiers following the drum. But even though Greg earned more than Erin, it had never made any difference, either to how they spent their money or to the balance of power in their relationship. If Erin insisted on staying in the States and the only job Greg could get was putting out the trash for McDonald’s, then Greg would become the best trash man in the country – he loved her that much.

That love, and the sense that he would always be fiercely loyal to her, were the traits that had made her finally stop running. When she met Greg Kennedy, Erin realised that you could experience the sensation of coming home with a person too, and for her, wherever Greg was, was her home. It helped, of course, that he was utterly gorgeous. Erin was a tall woman but Greg could pick her up as if she were no heavier than a child. When he’d carried her over the threshold of the apartment on their return from honeymoon, she’d felt like a heroine in a fairy tale.

Erin made the decision. Nobody could ever accuse her of not being up for a new challenge. ‘What the hell?’ she said. ‘That forty bucks might go further in Cork than it will here. And you’ve been talking about going home since I met you. Let’s go for it.’

By the time Greg’s new career move was sorted out, the job losses had started at their old company. Erin sold their car, which would, she said wryly, keep her in pantihose until she got a new job. They packed up the apartment, had lots of leaving dinners with friends, sorted out change of address cards and bank accounts. They were both wildly busy and neither of them had time to feel morose over leaving the city they’d called home for so long.

Then, a week ago, something odd had happened. Erin had been standing in Stuker’s Dry-Cleaners waiting in line to get a pile of suits back. Her purse slung over one shoulder, she was ticking off items in her red Things To Do notebook when the enormity of it all hit her and she felt her lungs compress, as if all the air had been squeezed out of them. She’d stumbled and almost fallen as her legs gave way beneath her.

‘Sit, missy, sit,’ said the sweet Korean lady who ran Stuker’s. She eased Erin into a plastic chair, which, even in Erin’s dazed state, seemed weird, because Erin was five feet eight and the Korean lady was barely up to her shoulders.

‘You pregnant?’