‘No, she doesn’t.’
‘Well, she doesn’t like me, anyway. She makes that clear.’ I think of the photo of Becky on her side cabinet. ‘You don’t care when she’s rude to me.’
‘Of course I would,’ he counters. ‘But she isn’t rude to you.’
‘Yes, she is, but you don’t notice. You don’t care about my feelings.’
‘Of course I do… but do you care about mine?’
‘Yes, of course I care about your feelings,’ I snap. Then we both just sit there, drinking and scowling, like an old married couple who never got around to leaving each other and can no longer bear to talk about it.
‘We’d better go, anyway,’ Diarmuid says at last.
‘Where to?’
‘That Thai restaurant. I booked a table just before you arrived.’
‘I don’t want to go out to dinner with you, Diarmuid.’
‘And I don’t particularly want to go to dinner with you at this moment, Sally,’ he says flatly. ‘But I’m hungry. I assume you are too.’
And that’s how we end up driving to a swanky new restaurant in Donnybrook. I expect the Corrs to come on the radio, but they don’t; it’s classical music, resigned and rather sad. We both bathe in its melancholy. I still don’t know if Diarmuid saw me with Nathaniel, but it seems that he didn’t. I wonder what made him suddenly remember our anniversary when he was driving back to town from… from where? I feel I should ask where he’s been, but if I do, he’ll ask me what I was doing on the Howth Road. So this is how a marriage ends, I think. With a sigh and a slap-up meal.
It is a very nice restaurant, large and uncluttered, with candles on the white tablecloths. The seats are cushioned and comfortable, and Eastern music tinkles cheerfully in the background. We order our food and then we eat it. We barely talk. We barely look at each other. It’s like being alone – alone in a room, though you know someone else is in the house.
‘You’re looking very pretty this evening,’ Diarmuid suddenly tells me, as we try to work out what they’ve put in the pudding. It’s very strange – both sour and sweet, and not unpleasant.
‘And you’re looking handsome yourself,’ I reply, because I’m keeping the lines of communication open, and because he is. I am also grateful that he isn’t sulking. I hated him an hour ago, but now he just seems deeply puzzling. ‘This is a lovely meal,’ I add. ‘Thank you, Diarmuid. It was a very kind thought.’
‘I’m sorry I lost my temper earlier. I don’t know what came over me.’ He pours me some more wine. He isn’t drinking much himself, because he’s driving. I gaze at his strong jawline, his thick black eyebrows and wavy dark hair. His eyes seem less distant in the candlelight, and his smile is broader and more playful. ‘It was ridiculous, getting so angry because you forgot the anniversary. I mean, who remembers an engagement anniversary?’
‘You do, Diarmuid,’ I say. ‘And I should have. I made such a fuss about your forgetting our wedding anniversary, it’s no wonder you thought I’d be waiting around for you to take me out somewhere.’
‘Why do we have these silly arguments, Sally?’ He looks lost. Scared. ‘I’m not like this with other people.’
‘Neither am I.’ I sigh, remembering the crazy night I let his mice loose in the tool shed.
‘We like each other, don’t we?’ He takes my hand. ‘Sometimes we behave as if we don’t even like each other.’
‘Oh, Diarmuid… of course we like each other.’ I cradle his hand in mine and stroke his fingers. He looks rugged and kind, just like a Tool-Belt Man should look. When he gets up to go to the toilet I watch his departing back with a detached sort of appreciation, noticing the firmness of him, the trim, sexy look of his bottom in the faded blue jeans.
When he returns, I decide to cheer him up. I try to entertain him by telling him about Larry and his breasts, and how he wanted me to spank him, and how I said I couldn’t because I was married to a very nice man called Diarmuid who never asked me to do such things.
‘Can you believe that?’ I laugh. ‘Wanting a total stranger to spank you!’
Diarmuid just stares at me, so I look down at my pudding and wonder if I should have talked about something else. Maybe Diarmuid thinks this is the kind of conversation I have at receptions.
I feel his foot rubbing my ankle under the table. Then he leans forwards and stretches out his hand towards my left breast. ‘Diarmuid!’ I splutter, through a mouthful of strange pudding.
‘What’s that on your blouse?’ His eyes have darkened.
‘Wine and… and chocolate.’ Am I actually blushing? One could get chocolate on oneself anywhere.
‘I have chocolate cake at home. A lovely big chocolate cake.’ He is holding my left hand now, holding the ring finger, twisting the ring round and round. ‘A cake with lots of icing.’
He remembers! The thought comes to me like a kiss. He remembers that I said I wanted more icing… Maybe this is how you save a marriage, I think. Maybe you just go home and eat chocolate cake and stop talking about mice and diaphragms.
There is a warmth between us now, a kind of wary and weary affection. We drink our coffees and leave the restaurant swiftly. As I get into Diarmuid’s car, I know I will not be spending the night in my cosy, and sometimes very lonely, little cottage.
Chapter Thirteen
I am naked and lying next to my husband in our big double bed. He’s snoring slightly; he’s turned away from me, towards the wall. Our lovemaking, after we ate the cake, was tender, almost apologetic. We didn’t rip our clothes off. For a while we just lay on the bed like two bewildered children, clinging to each other, not knowing what to make of all this.
This is another new Diarmuid – vulnerable, needing me to caress him, to find the special places; needing me to say, ‘Yes. Yes, I want you,’ before I lifted myself onto him and made love to him gently. He stared into my eyes as though trying to see the map of me, trying to pinpoint the place where our love got lost.
And I wanted with all my heart to heal this thing I’ve done to him, this thing that has made him doubt himself. I want him to know our arguments are about our differences, not about who is wrong or right. I want him to know that it’s OK that he no longer trusts me; I wouldn’t trust him either, if he had left like I did. I desperately want him to be happy again, with or without me.
I inch out of the bed, not wanting to wake him. My clothes are piled neatly on a chair. I take them into the bathroom and dress. Then I pad downstairs, hoping that Barry has gone out somewhere. Barry had eaten half of the cake by the time we got to it. He’s a big brown man who chugs through life with almost unnatural cheer; he surfs and drinks huge quantities of beer, and brings home cheerful, sporty women who seem to have no particular expectations of him. I’ve only been to one of his barbecues. He and some mates started playing around with the garden hosepipe and thought it would be fun to drench us. I ended up going home in one of Diarmuid’s sweatshirts.
Barry has gone. I breathe a sigh of relief as I set about making tea and toast and pouring out the breakfast cereal. It’s nearly ten o’clock – and I told Aggie I’d visit her this morning…
My mobile rings. It’s in my handbag, on an armchair in the sitting-room. I race towards it, in case the sound disturbs Diarmuid. I yank it out in a mild panic – maybe it’s Fiona, saying she’s gone into labour – but I don’t recognise the number.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello there, Sally Adams.’ It’s Nathaniel.
‘What is it?’ I lower my voice and go back to the kitchen. I close the door so that the sound won’t travel upstairs.
‘How did it go?’
‘What?’
‘Meeting Diarmuid.’
‘I’m in his – I mean, our – house now,’ I whisper. ‘How did you get my number, anyway?’
‘I asked Greta. You left something in my car.’
‘What?’
‘A notebook. It must have fallen out of your bag. It appears to be full of recipes. And there’s a
photo; it says “DeeDee” on the back. There’s something about her eyes that –’
I think I hear a creak on the stairs. ‘Look, Nathaniel, I can’t have this conversation now.’
‘– that reminds me of you…’
I switch off the phone and lean against a sideboard. The kitchen is capacious and fitted and well designed; it’s a very organised room, and perhaps if I look at it for long enough I’ll feel organised too. I will know where to store these strange bits of myself that keep leaking out. I will know what to throw away and what to keep.
‘Morning.’ Diarmuid walks into the room sleepily, wearing a white T-shirt and a pair of dark blue boxer shorts. ‘Were you on the phone? I heard you talking.’
‘Yes. It was… someone ringing about… about table-mats.’
‘On a Saturday?’ He rubs his eyes sleepily. ‘Their enthusiasm for household accessories clearly knows no bounds.’
‘I wanted to bring you up breakfast.’
‘Come here.’
He wraps his arms around me. The softness of sleep is still in him; it feels cosy. Nice.
‘I have to shower and go soon.’ He releases me and wanders over to get a mug.
‘Why?’
‘I promised Charlene I’d give her a driving lesson.’ He looks at me carefully.
‘Shouldn’t you be studying?’ I sound like my mother used to.
‘I studied last night,’ he says. ‘Before we met up in the pub.’
I gaze at him. ‘Last night?’
‘Yes.’ He spoons some instant coffee into his mug, then pours in some boiling water. Diarmuid doesn’t take milk with his coffee, and he just takes half a spoon of sugar. I place a spoon and a sugar bowl on the table.
Is he lying to me? He really looks as if he is telling the truth. But I definitely saw him at those traffic lights. He was even wearing the same wine-coloured shirt that he wore to the pub.
I turn away from him, towards the toast. ‘Do you want marmalade?’
‘Just a skim of it.’ He is sitting at the table, scratching an elbow and yawning, and just for a moment I feel like throwing the toast at him. Can I believe anything he says any more? Has he ever really been honest with me? I should ask him, but I’m not sure I could handle his reply.
‘DeeDee’s dead.’ I have to say it; I don’t know why.
‘Who?’
‘That great-aunt I told you about.’
‘Oh, yes – the one who just disappeared.’
‘I felt very sad when I heard. It’s silly, isn’t it? I never even met her.’
‘She was a relative. That’s only natural,’ Diarmuid says. ‘You come from a close family.’ I don’t know how Diarmuid has formed this impression, but I don’t contradict him. ‘At least now you don’t have to worry about trying to find her. Who told you?’
‘Marie. Someone phoned her from Rio de Janeiro.’
‘Is that where she landed up, then?’ He is drinking his coffee. Somehow the expression ‘landed up’ doesn’t sound right for DeeDee. There’s an arbitrariness about it that is entirely inappropriate. ‘She always wanted to go to Rio de Janeiro,’ I say.
‘So you’ve learned more about her, have you?’
‘Yes,’ I say, but I don’t add that I have only found out she liked marble cakes and hats.
‘Poor woman.’ Diarmuid munches his toast.
‘I’m not entirely sure she was a “poor woman”, Diarmuid. I think she may have actually led a very interesting life.’
‘Completely cut off from her own country and her family, her oldest friends – running away like that…’ Diarmuid looks out the window. ‘It isn’t natural.’
‘Maybe it felt natural to DeeDee,’ I say. ‘Some things may feel unnatural to you, Diarmuid, but entirely natural to someone else.’
‘Fine. Fine; have it your way.’ He gets up from the table. ‘I don’t want to have an argument about this, Sally. Thanks for the toast.’ He goes upstairs. I hear the sound of the shower while I wander around the kitchen washing things and wiping them. I even sweep the floor.
‘Do you want a lift anywhere?’ Diarmuid calls down to me.
‘Yes, please. I said I’d go and visit Aggie.’
‘Fine. I can drop you off.’ He says it brightly, breezily; there’s no suggestion that I might stay here, even just for the weekend.
He has asked me to come back so many times already; maybe he’s got tired of asking. Maybe he’s waiting for me to say I want to. But, if I do, he’s the one who may say he needs time to think about it. Because our marriage hasn’t been on hold, like I thought it was. It’s been changing – becoming something else.
I must ask him where he was last night, I think. Maybe it’s quite innocent. He probably just felt guilty about not studying. Or maybe he was studying, at his parents’ house: his mother loves spoiling him, and Barry plays his rock CDs very loudly… If it had been an important lie, Diarmuid would have gone pink and stumbled over the words. Of course he would have.
I take out my mobile phone and see that someone has sent me a text message.
‘If you want your notebook and the photo back – and I assume you probably do – then phone this number. I’ll leave them somewhere for you, so we don’t have to meet if you’d prefer not to. N.’
But I want to meet Nathaniel again. I want him to tell me about Rio de Janeiro. I want to get into his crazy old car. I want to know that, in this lonely old world, I’m not as alone as I think I am. I want him to tell me what he saw in DeeDee’s eyes.
Chapter Fourteen
It’s raining, pissing down in buckets, as Diarmuid and I leave the house. We scurry to his car. I have borrowed one of his jumpers; it hangs on me like a brown tent.
‘They say it may ease up in the afternoon,’ says Diarmuid, who tends to listen to weather forecasts. He is sitting beside me, solid and preoccupied, and seems very far away.
‘Good,’ I reply, wondering where the other Diarmuid has gone to, the one who needed me to hold him and caress him – the Diarmuid who was thoughtful enough to use a condom.
‘I know you don’t feel like starting a family in… in these circumstances,’ he said tenderly, taking the packet out of the small cabinet beside the bed. It was a new packet. I was, of course, immensely grateful and surprised, because Diarmuid has always said he dislikes condoms. But now he seems to be able to use them without peering at them reluctantly and swearing and asking me to help him ‘get the thing on’. Where did he learn this expertise?
No. I mustn’t think these things. If I do, everything he does will seem suspicious. All men know how to put on condoms if they really need to.
I gaze out the window. ‘Isn’t it a lovely view?’
‘Yes,’ Diarmuid says, fiddling with some button on his car.
‘We could almost be in the countryside,’ I say, gazing at the small white cottages that hug the nearby mountains. We pass a huge beech tree; the leaves seem heavy and plump with rain.
‘How’s Aggie these days?’ Diarmuid enquires, almost absent-mindedly.
‘Oh… pretty much the same.’ I decide not to mention the floating sheep.
‘Will you tell her about DeeDee?’
‘No. There’s no need to.’
‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’
We swing onto a larger road, away from the mountains. I feel a sudden yearning for the mountains, for some vast, daunting space. ‘I’ve been wondering if I should visit her grave.’ The sentence pops into my head and I just say it, like I would have to Nathaniel.
‘Whose grave?’
‘DeeDee’s, of course.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Sally, can’t you just forget her?’ Diarmuid’s voice is hard, infuriated. ‘She’s dead. Surely that’s the end of it.’ His voice softens. ‘I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but it’s the truth.’
I decide not to argue. Truth is a strange thing, perhaps more flexible than we suspect. In a way he’s right about DeeDee, and in a way he’s wrong. And if he
could see this, we could talk about so much else; we could explore the soft, forgiving places in between these delicate certainties.
‘Barry may be moving out in a few months. He’s thinking of going back to Australia.’ Diarmuid glances at me quickly.
‘Oh.’ I tighten my grip on my handbag.
‘I was wondering if we… if I should build a… a sort of one-roomed cottage at the bottom of the garden, instead of a conservatory. I think I might be able to get planning permission.’
‘Yes,’ I say slowly. ‘Yes, why not? That would be nice.’
‘I’d be building it for you,’ he says quickly. ‘If you come back, you could use it as an office. A… a place of your own.’
‘Oh.’ I gulp.
‘I think you’re right: we shouldn’t start a family unless we’re more sure about this whole marriage thing.’ This whole marriage thing. Diarmuid doesn’t say things like that. ‘We’re going to have to talk about all this properly soon, you know. My family have been pestering me with questions about us. They’d really like to see some kind of resolution.’
But it’s our marriage, Diarmuid, I want to scream. Why do we care so much about what other people think of us?
‘And of course we’ll have to make some kind of decision about the house – about whether we should keep it.’
So we’re back to that again. Maybe we don’t need a marriage counsellor at all. Just a good estate agent.
‘I’m sorry to bring all this up now, when you’re about to see Aggie.’ His eyes crinkle kindly. ‘Last night… the second half of it… was lovely.’ He reaches out for my hand.
‘Yes, it was.’ I smile. There seem to be at least five Diarmuids, and I wish I knew which one married me.
‘I miss you,’ he says, but not the way he used to. The gap is smaller; the space is being filled with other things.
‘And I miss you too,’ I say, because it feels like I should – and because I sometimes do. But more often I ache for the idea I had of him.
The Truth Club Page 12