The Girl I Used to Know

by Faith Hogan

  Richard exhaled loudly when he placed the last photograph down. He closed his eyes then and it seemed to Amanda that he shrank lower into himself. Never a tall man, she watched as his frame crumpled, so even his arms seemed shorter, his head sunk deeper into his shoulders. Was this shame, she wondered, or was it anger that he’d been caught out? She really wasn’t sure as she sat silently opposite him for what seemed like forever.

  When he cleared his throat, his voice sounded thick with emotion. He did not open his eyes; instead, he spoke soft and low, his eyes fastened tight shut as though he might keep the horror of this situation from being real if he didn’t look at her.

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said and then he shuddered. Two words and there was nothing else between them for an age. Amanda kept her eyes glued to him. He made no move to get up. He made no attempt to speak or to look at her; his ragged breath might have been anger as much as remorse, she really couldn’t tell either way.

  After minutes of sitting in this silence, Amanda knew she had to speak.

  ‘I’m not asking you to leave, Richard. But this has to end, if you want to stay,’ she said looking across at him. ‘You have to see that; you can’t stay here and be with her.’

  ‘Yes of course, I can see that,’ he said then, and when he opened his eyes to look at her, she could see they were filled with tears. He bent forward towards the table and put his face into his hands. ‘God, I’m so…’ he started to sob. ‘I’ve been so stupid.’

  ‘Yes. You have.’

  ‘And you’d forgive me?’ he looked up at her sharply now. ‘If I end it, you think we have a future together?’

  ‘I…’ Amanda wasn’t sure if she could forgive him. At this moment, she wasn’t even sure if she wanted him here, if she told the truth. The only thing she was sure about was that she didn’t want him anywhere near Arial Wade.

  ‘You’re taking it all very well,’ he said then and his voice had returned to that weakened croak of earlier as though something worse was yet to come.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Amanda shook her head, wanted to be cool and laugh at him. She wanted to be as aloof as Nicola, but she was treading a fine line now between rushing to him and screaming at him as if she was a fishwife and having a complete meltdown. The last thing she wanted was for him to see how she really felt. She was still numb and hurt, but that was nowhere near forgiveness. More than that, she was raging, but thankfully, common sense was holding for now and, anyway, it was buried too deeply beneath her fears to really penetrate into the present moment. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure how I’m taking it.’

  ‘When did you find out?’ He nodded towards the photos, perhaps assessing an opportunity around how much he could get away with.

  ‘They are only from this week, Richard, I’ve known longer than that,’ she said, shaking her head, thinking of that condom and his unenthusiastic response when she insisted on going to the Christmas party, so many things added up in her brain over the last four weeks. She wondered just how long it had been going on for, but Richard had already lied, there was no reason to believe she’d get an honest answer.

  ‘So, what next?’ he asked.

  ‘Next, I think we get to bed. I’ve set up the spare room for you. The kids know that things aren’t right, so it’s not as if it’s going to come as any great surprise. Tomorrow, Richard, we talk.’

  ‘Right. Of course, we’ll sleep on it, that’s best.’

  ‘And Arial?’ she asked, couldn’t help it.

  ‘Arial…’ he said softy and something lingered in his eyes when he looked at her and Amanda felt the most terrible fear grip her. What if this wasn’t just a fling? What if he loved this woman? What then? ‘Tomorrow,’ he sighed a deep resonating sound that made them both shudder. ‘We’ll know better by then.’

  Amanda watched him as he walked from the kitchen and she thought he looked for all the world like a broken man and then she stopped herself, because she knew she could not feel hatred for him in her heart, was it worse to feel pity?

  The terrible fear that had gripped Amanda up to a week ago rose within her once more. What had she expected? That once she got through this, things would return to what they’d been before? She had been thinking that it would be down to her to forgive her erring husband, but now Richard was holding all the aces. He walked out as though there was a decision to make and it was not as clear-cut as Amanda had hoped it would be.

  Amanda sat in her darkened kitchen for almost an hour digesting the words that her husband never uttered. He didn’t need to say them, she could tell. Richard was in love with Arial Wade. What would she do if he chose to leave her? She knew it was a possibility. All the same, she hadn’t seriously considered it until now and the sickening churn in her stomach told her that at this moment it was as likely as any other outcome.

  Eventually, she looked at the clock, three o’clock, and she would have to get up and start a new day in a few hours’ time. She hadn’t cried in the time she was sitting here, perhaps she was too numbed by it all. She dragged herself up to bed, lay beneath her expensive goose down quilt; she didn’t change into her lovely soft pyjamas, she didn’t even take her shoes off. What was the point?

  She lay for the next three hours, frozen by fear; her heart beating with the kind of trepidation that ancient man lived or died by. Far from feeling better, having ‘gotten it all out in the open’, Amanda felt much worse. As though she’d opened a Pandora’s box of misery and she’d never manage to get the lid back on it again so her life could return to some kind of normality.

  *

  At six o’clock, Amanda heard Richard move about the house. He was always first out, there was nothing new in that. It sounded as if he was bustling about, making a greater effort to be silent, but still managing to make more noise. She heard him curse as he trod on the stairs; he didn’t make himself his normal cup of tea. Amanda turned over and faced his empty pillow beside her.

  It was only later when she decided to check the spare room for laundry that she realised, he was gone. Richard had packed up a weekend bag. He had left that morning without saying a word, it was why he had grunted and cursed as he made his way down the stairs. He had made his choice and Amanda knew she had lost in her gamble to save her marriage.

  Too cowardly to have it out with her, he’d left a note. I am in love with Arial. There was no sorry. I don’t expect you to understand. There was no remorse. For months, fighting a passion so much more than… Amanda felt herself retch, but held the note more tightly. Once in a lifetime… too strong to walk away. There was no goodbye. We are meant to be together.

  She steadied herself; he was leaving her. He was leaving her with more cruelty than if he’d just managed to lie to her one more time. Amanda slid down off the bed he’d slept in last night. She curled up on the floor and cried until, eventually, her body could take no more and she fell into a wracking, sobbing sleep.

  When she woke, she knew that there was nothing else for it. Her only recourse now was alcohol. The kids were gone and, God knows, there were enough decent bottles to inebriate the crews of several submarines. Instead of sailors, she would make do with Tess who had promised to check on her when the coast was clear. There really was no one else. By the time she arrived, Amanda had already almost finished a bottle of wine.

  So, she ended up with the mother of all hangovers, true, but with Tess, she ended up laughing as much as she cried. Maybe she’d done her crying. After all, four weeks is a long time to spend your nights lying awake dreading what might happen.

  Now it had happened and, Amanda realised, the world had not fallen apart. Her world was much the same as before, only now she had one less thing to worry about.

  They drank three bottles of wine between them that Saturday evening. The truth was, it turned out that Tess had been just like her. She was lonely. They each needed company and friendship; luckily, it looked as if they had finally found it in spades in each other.

  ‘You’re better off,’ Tess said, her words
slightly slurring, but the intention was genuine. Tess really believed that Amanda could have a better life without Richard and all the crap he brought with him.

  ‘Well, there are things I won’t miss, that’s for sure,’ Amanda was sipping her wine now, the gulping desperateness of earlier subsided once she had calmed down. ‘I won’t miss my weekly coffee mornings, or the pressure of having to be the perfect hostess for all of his clients.’ That was true, and it was only the start of it.

  It dawned on her, as she looked around her untidy kitchen; she was in no rush to clean up. It didn’t matter if she left a cup on the draining board, or if she burned rice so it stuck to the bottom of one of her expensive saucepans. Richard wasn’t here to look at her as though she had failed. It didn’t matter if she chose to dab on a dollop of Nivea cold cream to her overly preened skin and spend her day lounging with a magazine, Richard could not make her feel slovenly any more. She could donate every piece of uncomfortable designer furniture and surround herself with pretty Laura Ashley or Cath Kidston or vintage finds if she felt like it. It didn’t matter if her hair went grey, or if she didn’t wear the most up-to-date labels. It didn’t matter if she never had another filler or facial. It didn’t matter if she bought her groceries in Tesco or served up fish and chips in front of the telly occasionally. None of it mattered anymore and it took Tess to put it into words.

  ‘You’re your own woman; from now on you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.’ And that was when the resentment set in, because very quickly it angered Amanda that she had become someone she hardly recognised. No one had made her change. Richard may have expected that they live a certain way, but he did not make her into what she had become. No, Amanda realised that it had been all her own doing and the worst part was she hardly knew where she began and ended.

  In her youth, Amanda had been the girl who sketched everything she saw. Four years of Art college and she hardly owned a painting that she vaguely liked. Richard chose the art as investment pieces. She looked at the two prints that hung above their dining room table. They had come from a little gallery on Batchelor’s Walk that was having a ‘moment’. They were truly hideous, splotches of all the worst colours, overwritten with faux suicide-inducing lines of ‘poetry’. Good taste had long deserted her when she allowed those to overlook her dining table.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Tess asked in a voice that wobbled as much with alcohol as it did with amusement.

  ‘I’m getting rid of these,’ Amanda said, pulling the vast kitchen table closer to the offending pieces. She climbed up, a little shakily and lifted them from the wall. They weren’t large, but they were big enough to dominate the room with their dark themes. She laid them on the table at her feet. She would bring them back to the gallery; see if she could sell them on. She could donate the proceeds, if anyone was stupid enough to buy them. ‘The emperor’s new clothes,’ she grumbled as she moved them to the hall. She tucked them out of sight in the antique sideboard that stood to attention beneath the stairs. By the time she came back into the kitchen, she had made a decision. ‘I’m going to paint something for there. I’m going to paint something that is magical and hopeful and every time I look at it I’m going to remind myself that I’ve had a second chance.’ And that was it, she mightn’t be like Richard, off to start a new relationship with someone else, but she was going to make the most of life, starting right now. She smiled and mentally added it to her to do list.

  ‘What else are you going to do?’ Tess asked, her eyes full of hope for a future that looked bright through the lens of a bottle and a half of the most expensive plonk she’d ever drank.

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m not going to wallow, I’ve done enough of that.’

  ‘Well, good for you,’ Tess said and Amanda had a feeling that she believed her and maybe that was enough.

  *

  Of course, Richard had only taken half of his belongings with him. Somehow, having them around kept her grounded in a kind of limbo. She moved everything she came across into the spare room, but Amanda knew she had to get them out the door. She thought it would be easy, compared to telling Casper and Robyn. When they returned on Sunday evening, she sat them down around the kitchen table and over hot chocolates; she explained that Richard had moved out. They took it quite well, but then, she’d given them the sanitised version. She told them that they’d grown apart. No big drama, just the love for each other had changed and they were both happy to be friends and be parents to their children. There had been no great rush to the phone, no outpouring of grief. The truth was, they hardly saw their father anyway. He’d always been working – especially since Arial Wade arrived on the scene. Amanda wondered if Richard would perhaps see more of them now than he had before, because there would have to be actual time put aside in his life for them. Perhaps they knew that too.

  *

  ‘Your belongings, Richard. There’s quite a lot of stuff here and really, I’d prefer if they were out of the house,’ Amanda kept her voice neutral, she had decided that she would not become emotional with him. At this point, she’d cried and worried enough to last a lifetime, there was no point in recriminations. He had chosen Arial over her. Amanda reasoned that, in some ways, she had stopped being Amanda a long time ago. She had come to the point, where she wasn’t at all keen on who she had become either. All the same, it hurt as if it was a physical pain in her gut that he had chosen someone else over her. It was the ultimate betrayal; a public humiliation that shouted out to the world that she was not good enough. She put all those thoughts aside when she telephoned him at the office on Monday morning.

  ‘Yes. Well…’

  ‘Can I send them to Arial’s place?’

  ‘Well, no. I mean, I’m not staying with Arial at the moment, her place is quite small and…’ he was whispering, trying not to be heard. ‘Have you told Nicola anything about… us?’

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Well, it’s just… nothing is set in stone, you know. We still might…’ Richard’s voice broke off.

  ‘What are you saying? That we might give our marriage another try?’ Amanda was incredulous. One minute he was flying into the arms of the love of his life and making her feel as if she wasn’t good enough and now this? ‘I don’t understand, I thought you loved Arial?’

  ‘Well, I do, but…’ Richard cleared his throat. ‘Look, we have things we need to sort out, you and I. This, our separation, is bigger than just the two of us, you know?’

  ‘Have you spoken to the kids?’

  ‘Em, no. I thought, you, I mean, we might…’

  ‘I’ve told them that we’ve separated, Richard. You can’t have thought they wouldn’t notice.’ Amanda sighed and, in that moment, all of the things she’d talked about over those bottles of wine with Tess seemed to come full circle. Richard was the expert on how they lived their lives, but Amanda was the one who had to do all the work around it.

  ‘Did you tell them why we separated, I mean, about me and Arial?’

  ‘What do you think, Richard? No. I didn’t tell them that you’re having an affair. I think it’s enough for one person in this family to feel betrayed, don’t you?’

  ‘I…’ he faltered, he still hadn’t said he was sorry. Of course, Amanda realised, he wasn’t at all sorry. ‘We should meet up, you know, make a plan, so we can do this with as little…’ his sentence hung in mid-air, other wives might have thought the missing word was upheaval, pain, hassle, but Amanda thought, he might just mean cost. All the same, she had a feeling that she was missing something. Could he possibly be playing her again?

  ‘Yes. We should.’ She was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. She had wrapped up the two paintings from the kitchen and was about to drop them off at the gallery. She ran her finger along the bubble wrap, a longing to burst each bubble surged through her. She could never resist bursting each air pocket when she was a child. ‘How’s next Friday?’ She knew, he could hardly say no. After all, it was their anniversary. Twenty-two
years of marriage and they’d be spending it figuring out how to pull it all apart with as little fuss as possible. ‘And I can bring along some of your things,’ she said flatly.

  Chapter 35

  Twenty years earlier…

  Amanda pushed the bags far beneath the stairs. It was silly to hide them, but all the same it was a big week for Richard. The last thing she wanted was to upset him with art materials and canvases he saw as such a waste of time. She couldn’t help herself, browsing in the galleries, she just… what was the word? Hungered for it. That was it, she was ravenous for some kind of outlet of her own. Of course, she had the girls, Nicola, Megan and Clarissa, she had her charity work and, heaven knows, she filled her days on the Square garden, but she wanted something more. Something just for her.

  ‘But you have everything you could want,’ Richard had said it so many times. ‘Why would you feel you had to go plunging yourself in all that.’ Richard thought the creative scene was shifty, obscure and lowly. He liked his art curated, delivered to his door without hassle or reckless browsing.

  ‘It wouldn’t be the same now, it’d just be a hobby, something to do on free afternoons,’ she said lightly when they almost fought.

  True, when they met first, she’d been so consumed by it. If she was in the middle of a piece, she could disappear for days, lost in the work, and Richard wasn’t accustomed to that. Richard was used to his girlfriend being at his beck and call. Perhaps it had been half the attraction in the beginning. Certainly, when he came to the end of year show, she could see he was impressed, not with the work so much, but with the praise and admiration. She’d won the President’s Prize. Her painting, an abstract called ‘This Life’, had gone on to sell for six thousand euros, a fortune for someone yet to graduate. It was a pittance for Richard, of course, and so it seemed diminished by his eyes.

  ‘Have you ever thought about painting again,’ Connor, a lecturer from that time, had opened a gallery on Fitzwilliam Street. Blue Canal carried an eclectic range of pieces, but they had one thing in common, they were each exceptionally good.