by Marian Keyes
I was as sure as hell finding it difficult to keep up with all these mood changes.
Something had to be causing it.
Maybe I’d find out when he arrived. Meanwhile I was going to have a sneak preview of the deeds just to see if I actually had any rights at all.
Precisely one hour later, the doorbell rang. It was James.
He greeted me with a little smile and an inquiry after Kate’s health.
“Well, why don’t you ask her yourself?” I asked him.
“Oh, um, fine then,” he said.
We went into the dining room, where Kate was. James hesitantly tickled her. I went to the kitchen to make coffee.
I reappeared with the coffee and turned to James with a smile. “Right then,” I said pleasantly. “Shall we start?”
I gestured to the documents, which were spread out on the table.
We both sat down.
“I thought it would be best if we started with the deed to the apartment first,” I said.
“Okay,” he said faintly.
“Now, if you look at this clause here,” I said, pointing to one that referred to selling the apartment before the mortgage was paid off, “you’ll see that…”
I launched into explanations and suggestions, peppered with the odd bit of legalese. I was proud of myself. I sounded as if I knew exactly what I was talking about. Absently, I hoped that I was impressing him. Even though we had split up it was important to me that he started to think of me as a capable woman and not some spoiled, dizzy, bimbo.
After a while I noticed that he wasn’t paying any attention to what I was saying.
He just sat back in his chair and looked at my face, not at the document that I was so painstakingly explaining to him.
I stopped mid-disclaimer clause and said, “James, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you paying attention?”
He ruffled my hair affectionately—which came as quite a surprise, let me tell you—and said with a little smile, “You can stop now, Claire. I’m convinced.”
“Convinced about what?” I asked him.
What the hell was he talking about now?
“I’m convinced that you’ve changed. You don’t have to keep up this act.”
“What act?” I asked blankly.
“You know,” he said, smiling into my eyes. “This pretense that we’re going to sell the apartment and settle on child support for Kate. You can stop now.”
I didn’t say anything. What on earth could I say?
“It’s not an act,” I squeaked.
“Claire,” he said, smiling indulgently, “stop it! I must admit you really had me going at one stage. I nearly believed that you were serious. Did you really have to go through the charade of getting the deed sent over?
Wasn’t that a bit over the top?”
“James,” I said faintly.
He seemed to take this as some kind of capitulation. He put his arms around me and pulled me to him. I sat there with my head poised stiffly on his shoulder.
“Look, I know you’ve been very difficult. Bloody difficult,” he said. I could hear the rueful smile in his voice. “But I can see that you’re making an effort. I can see how hard you’re trying to convince me that you’re responsible and grown-up and considerate now.”
“I am?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said kindly. He pulled away from me and looked into my eyes.
“You are.”
“So, we can get rid of these for a start.” He rustled the papers on the table and pushed them all into an untidy pile.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we won’t be selling the apartment.” He smiled.
He looked a bit more carefully at my white, shocked face.
“Oh God.” He slapped his hand dramatically to his forehead. “You haven’t realized, have you?”
“No,” I said.
He grabbed me forcefully by the shoulders and put his face close to mine.
“I love you,” he said with a little laugh. “You little silly girl, hadn’t you realized?”
“No,” I said, feeling as if I might burst into tears.
Isn’t it odd how relief can sometimes feel very much like dread?
How happiness can feel like disappointment?
“Why did you think I came to Dublin?” He shook me gently by the shoulders and gave me that same indulgent smile.
“I don’t know,” I faltered. “Maybe to clean up loose ends.”
“I suppose you thought I’d never forgive you for the way you behaved?”
Actually, no, I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort, I thought.
“But I have forgiven you,” he told me nicely. “I’m prepared to make a go of things in the future. I’m sure things will be very different because you’ve grown up so much.”
I nodded mutely.
Why wasn’t I happy?
He still loved me.
He had never stopped loving me.
I had driven him away.
But I was different now and things could be fixed.
Wasn’t that what I wanted?
Well, wasn’t it?
He looked at my silent, shocked face and chucked me under the chin.
“You’re not still put out about that business with Denise, are you?” he asked, as if that was a totally ludicrous idea.
“Well, actually, I am,” I said in a little voice. I felt that I had no right to complain about anything now that he was being so nice to me.
“But it was nothing,” he protested laughingly. “It was just a reaction to the way you made me feel. I’m sure that you won’t make that mistake again.” He smiled as if it were funny.
But it wasn’t.
“Um, right, James,” I said. I felt as if my head was going to explode. I had to get away from him for a while.
“James,” I said faintly, “this has come as a terrible—”
“Surprise!” he interjected. “I know, I know.”
“I need to be on my own to think about things a bit.”
“What’s there to think about?” he asked lightly.
“James,” I said, “you hurt me an awful lot. Hurt me and humiliated me.
I can’t just bounce out of that feeling to please you.”
“Oh dear,” he sighed. “We’re back to ‘poor Claire’ all over again. I thought you’d changed. What about the ways you hurt and humiliated me?”
“But I never meant to…”
“Well, I never set out to hurt you either,” he replied. A slightly impatient tone in his voice. “It just happened.”
“But you said you loved Denise,” I said, remembering the part that hurt most of all.
“I thought I loved her,” he said carefully, as if he was explaining something to a very young child. “But it turned out that I didn’t.”
There was a pause.
Then he spoke.
“Fine, all right!” he said belligerently. “You want me to admit that I made a mistake. Fine, I’ll do it. Just to show you how committed I am to making this marriage work.”
He paused and said in a singsong voice, sounding like a little boy, the type of little boy you’d like to kill, “‘I Made a Mistake.’ Will that do you?”
“Um, thank you,” I said politely.
Would he please just go.
“Of course, if you’re going to hang on to grudges and grievances then there’s no point in my being here, is there?” he asked. “If that’s the case I’ll just go straight to the airport and go back to London and I’ll never refer to this again.”
“No, don’t do that.” I felt panicky at the thought of his leaving me again.
I also felt panicky about the thought of his staying.
This was too much to cope with.
The fucker left me out of the blue.
He arrived back and told me it was all my fault that he left me.
But that he still loved me
and wanted to try again.
Was that the behavior of a logical person?
“Claire,” he said, back to the gentle nice guy James, “I can see how overwhelmed you are by all of this. It’s perfectly understandable. You thought you were all alone. And now you find that you have your old happy life back. It must be hard to take in all at once.”
“That’s right,” I mumbled.
“So I’ll leave you by yourself for a couple of hours.”
“Thanks.” I sagged with relief.
“I’ll see about plane tickets. What day would you like to fly back to London?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Panic gripped me again. I didn’t want to go back to London. At least I didn’t want to go back with James.
“No time like the present, eh?” He winked. “How long will it take you to pack?”
“Oh James, I don’t know,” I said, feeling horrorstruck. “A long time, probably, what with all Kate’s stuff and that.”
“Oh yes, Kate,” he said, as if he’d just remembered her. “I’d better book her on the plane too.”
“Well, don’t do anything just yet,” I said. “Give me a little bit of time to think things through.”
“Well,” he said, frowning, “I’m missing work by being here. So I’d like to get back as soon as possible, now that we’ve got things worked out.”
“I’ll talk to you later about it,” I said, guiding him toward the front door.
“Well, don’t take too long about it,” he said, “after all…”
“Time is money, I know, I know,” I wearily finished off the sentence for him.
I closed the door behind him and stood for a moment, leaning against the door, feeling quite weak.
“Is he gone?” hissed a voice.
It was Mum, sticking her head out of her bedroom and looking down at me in the hall.
“Yes,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, taking in my shocked appearance.
“Nothing,” I said faintly.
“Good,” she said.
“James told me he still loves me,” I said blankly.
“What!” she screeched.
“I hope you told him where to stick it,” shouted a voice from behind Mum.
“Claire, Claire,” said Mum, running down the stairs, “come in. Sit down.
Tell me all about it. This is great news.”
She guided me to the kitchen.
“Where’s Kate?” she asked.
“In the dining room,” I said, sitting down weakly at the kitchen table.
“I’ll get her,” said Mum, and off she ran.
She was back in a moment, her face all eager and agog.
“So what did he say?” she demanded impatiently.
“He said that he still loves me and wants me back,” I said expressionlessly.
“Well, isn’t that great?” exclaimed Mum.
“I suppose,” I said doubtfully.
“And what was the situation with this Denise one?” she asked, looking at me carefully.
“Apparently, he never loved her,” I said quietly. “He only turned to her when he felt that he wasn’t getting any attention and care and love from me.”
“And it’s all over with her?” asked Mum.
“Yes,” I said.
“Do you believe him?” she asked.
“Funnily enough, I do,” I said.
“Well, that’s fine then,” said Mum.
“Is it?” I asked.
Mum was silent for a few moments. She was thinking about something.
When she spoke it was in a funny solemn tone of voice.
“Claire,” she said, “don’t make the mistake of letting pride get in the way of forgiveness. You still love him. He still loves you. Don’t throw it all away just because your feelings are hurt.”
I remained silent. And she continued speaking. A misty faraway look in her eyes.
“Lots of marriages go through hiccups,” she said. “And people get over them. They learn to forgive. And after a while they even learn to forget.
And the marriage is usually stronger afterwards, if you work at it and stay together.”
Oh no! I thought. I recognize this scenario. This is the one where the mother reveals to the daughter that the mother had an affair many years ago with someone like her husband’s best friend. Or, more likely, that the daughter’s father had an affair with someone. (“What? You mean Dad had an affair?”) And the mother had been all set to leave him and take the children with her. (“You were only a babe in arms.”) But the mother didn’t leave. She forgave him. The father was distraught with contrition. And now their marriage was stronger than ever.
But if she had been about to tell me something like that she seemed to change her mind. The misty look cleared from her eyes.
She returned to the present.
“It’ll take time for all the hurt to go away,” she said. “You can’t expect it to just disappear instantly. But, given time, it really will go.”
“I don’t know, Mum,” I mumbled. “This feels all wrong.”
“In what way?” she asked.
“I don’t know…” I sighed. “There’s no feeling of…of…of triumph. Of victory. And I still feel angry with him.”
“It’s fine to still feel angry with him,” she said. “And you have plenty of right to feel angry with him. But talk it over with him. Maybe you could both go for marriage counseling. But don’t let the anger blind you to everything else. After all, this is the father of your child we’re talking about. If you can’t swallow the anger on your behalf, think about Kate. Do it for her. Are you going to deprive your child of her father just because you’re angry?”
She ended on a very impassioned note.
And before I could respond she was off again.
More impassioned invective.
“And as for wanting to feel triumph or victory at getting him back. That’s so empty. So hollow. It really is childish to want to be a winner in this.
There are no winners or losers in a situation like this. If you get your marriage back in working order then you will be a winner. You will be victorious!”
She should get a job writing speeches for revolutionaries. This was stirring stuff!
“All right,” I said a bit doubtfully, “if you’re sure.”
“Oh I am,” she said confidently. “Your marriage was very good for a while. Fair enough, you encountered problems. And they weren’t dealt with very well. But you’ve probably both learned from this.”
“I suppose,” I said.
“And it just goes to show that you can’t have been as bad as he makes out if he wants you back.” She grinned.
But I didn’t find it funny.
I was still finding it hard to believe that I had been that difficult at all.
Who was it that said, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.”
And some saint or other said, “There are more tears caused by answered prayers than unanswered ones.”
I could see what they meant.
I had been so hurt. I had loved him so much. And I had wanted James and my marriage and my old life back. And now that I had it, I wasn’t so sure what all the fuss was about in the first place.
Why?
I was being given my marriage back, but first of all I had to accept that I was immature and difficult and selfish. And that I had been a burden to James. And I was finding that very, very difficult. I mean, I knew it must be true. There was no other reason for him to have left me. But if I wasn’t even sure what I was doing wrong, then how the hell could I possibly avoid repeating it?
I still felt great humiliation and hurt about his sleeping with that fat cow.
But he wouldn’t let me tell him. I felt as if I couldn’t whine about it because it made me look selfish and immature. I couldn’t win.
I knew I loved him. But I couldn’t really remember what it
was that I loved about him. He seemed so…so…so pompous. Was he always like that?
So sort of humorless and wintry.
And what was the future going to be like?
Would I be afraid to make flippant remarks and tell him funny stories?
Would I be afraid to lean on him and feel taken care of, the way I used to, in case he felt alone and uncared for?
Our roles had been reversed.
And I didn’t know how we should behave toward each other.
Everything would have to be relearned. It was very frightening.
What was wrong with the way it had been?
Well, plenty, obviously, if you listened to James.
But I had liked it like that. And I wasn’t sure that it could work any differently.
However, there was only one way to find out. And that was to go back with him and try again.
I had to do it, if only for Kate.
It was worth trying. Because it had been so good.
But right now it was terrible.
I still felt so raw and angry and humiliated. I wanted to give him a smack every time he said how childish I was.
Fine then. Deep breath. Squaring of shoulders.
I would go back to London with him.
Kate was entitled to her daddy.
And I was going to get a chance to put things right.
Funny. You want something so badly it hurts. And then you get it, but it needs so much restoration and renovation and knocking down of walls and rewiring of electricity and new plumbing put in that you think, fuck it, I don’t want it anymore. I’ll settle for something a lot smaller, with no garden, but at least it’s finished.
Mum was still sitting looking at me. Her expression was one of anxiety.
“It’s okay, Mum. I am going to go back to him. I will try again.”
There really didn’t seem to be anything else to say.
I stood up and sighed. “I’d better call James and tell him that I’m coming back.”
I went to the phone. I felt as if I was about to face a firing squad. I called the LiffeySide.
“James,” I said when he answered, “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about and I’ve made a decision.”
“Which is?” he demanded brusquely.
“I’ll come back. I’ll try again.”
“Good,” he said. I could hear the faint smile in his voice. “Good. We’ll try harder this time, eh?”