We present an extract from Other People's Lives, the new novel by Kathleen MacMahon, the acclaimed author of The Home Scar, This is How it Ends and Nothing But Blue Sky.
As schoolgirls, Justine and her best friend Iseult dreamed of a future that revolved around marriage. They saw it as a happy ending, never imagining for a moment that the reality would be more complicated...
Prologue
The first time Justine ever set eyes on Iseult O'Sullivan, she was just a child- shaped silhouette in the front window of the house next door. Justine could see that she was a girl, because she had her hair tied up in two stubby bunches, like horns, on the top of her head. She looked like a malevolent little devil. Justine’s family had arrived by car, with the removal truck following behind them, loaded up with all their stuff.
Justine’s dad leapt up the steps two at a time and opened the front door with the key he’d just picked up from the auctioneer.Her mother followed, carrying baby Paula in her arms. Justine was nearly four, her legs so short that the front steps were a steep climb. By the time she’d reached the top, the girl in the window of the house next door was gone.
The girl was Justine’s age, as it turned out, and she had twobrothers. One was roughly the same age as Paula and would despite the gender difference become her playmate, then her partner-in-crime.
The other was older and would eventually become Justine’s husband. Neither of these outcomes could necessarily have been predicted when the Maguires moved in next door to the O’Sullivans. What did seem inevitable, from the very start, was that Iseult and Justine would be friends.
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Listen: Kathleen MacMahon talks to Miriam O'Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1
Not just friends, but best friends. Sometimes, in the years that followed, Justine would have cause to wonder, if she could go back and choose a best friend again, would she choose Iseult? It was pointless even asking the question. They were like two balls of wool knitted together row by row intoa jumper, and if there were a few dropped stitches along the way there was no going back to fix them now. Everyone said Justine was the sister Iseult never had, and although she never would have said it to anyone, Iseult was always closer to Justine than the sister she once had and lost.
Iseult was the first of them to marry, precipitously, at the age of twenty- two.
When Justine married Iseult’s brother, John, two years later, they became sisters in law as well as in sentiment. In one of the few photographs taken on Justine’s wedding day, she and Iseult are pictured standing side by side, with their arms about each other’s waists. Justine’s head framed by the white tulle cloud of her veil leans to the side, resting on her friend’s shoulder. Iseult’s leans the other way, resting on Justine’s head.
What is not evident from the photograph is the profound change that had occurred between them. From that day on, marriage was the one topic they could never discuss.
Other People's Lives is published by Penguin Sandycove
