The Truth Club

by Grace Wynne-Jones

  Greta looks at me as though I’ve just said no one should wash because after a few weeks one doesn’t really notice the smell. I suddenly realise we could have a frightful argument. Greta must sense this too, because she says gently, ‘You’re just a bit upset at the moment because of Diarmuid. I know you don’t really mean these things. It’s not like you at all.’

  I decide not to protest.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says softly, ‘will you do this article for me? There’s no rush; it’s not needed for two weeks. They want two and a half thousand words.’

  ‘What article?’

  ‘Oh, didn’t I mention it?’ She sounds genuinely surprised. She’s sobered up somewhat, but she still looks a bit droopy. ‘The ad feature about hotel accessories. It’s for a new client.’

  Two and a half thousand words on hotel fucking accessories. I feel like screaming. But I need the money. I need to pay off my mortgage and take some interest in my overdraft limit. It would also be nice to eat occasionally. Diarmuid and I spent a fortune doing up our home, and now I don’t even want the furniture. Any profit we make on the sale will mainly go towards paying for all the cabinets and the tables and the chairs and the armchairs and the… I can’t even list them any more. I don’t know how I got so carried away. I must have thought that, if the house was just right, our marriage would be right too. And then, of course, there are the lawyers who will charge big bucks to separate us. This cottage also needs some refurbishment. On top of the other defects, it turns out that the ants are getting in through a mysterious hole in the kitchen wall.

  ‘That… that sounds great, Greta.’ I manage a smile. ‘Who do you want me to contact?’

  ‘It’s all down here.’ Greta puts a neatly typed memo on my coffee table. Then she sighs, and her rather severe face suddenly looks lost. ‘Maybe I should cook some mince for him. He probably needs some coaxing.’

  It takes me a moment to realise she has returned to the subject of Fred. Poor Fred; I feel just like him.

  Greta sweeps off soon after that – she doesn’t leave a room, she sweeps out of it, and the air behind her shakes for a moment like the wake of a substantial ship. I envy her firm sense of her place in this world, the way she’s so sure of who she is and what she wants. She doesn’t feel trapped and owned by situations. She moulds and manipulates. If she had been married to Diarmuid, she probably would have ordered him to bring the mice back to the college. She would have insisted on romantic meals and meaningful conversations. And, strangely enough, Diarmuid probably would have obeyed her and been relieved to get some direction, some training. Because he didn’t know how to be a husband, any more than I knew how to be a wife.

  And now he wants me to have these long conversations about the house. He wants me to make lists. He wants everything tied up and organised. Most of all, he wants it all to be fair. And he doesn’t seem to know that I can’t bear it. Our conversations seem so empty and practical, almost as if we never knew each other at all.

  I sit on my orange sofa and stare out at the sea through the bay window. I could just walk out of this house, I find myself thinking. I could just pack a suitcase and go somewhere else for a while – Galway, perhaps, or West Cork. I could rent a cottage in the wilds for a week…

  This is not the way to write two and a half thousand words about hotel accessories. Of course I can’t just go off for a week. I have receptions to attend and columns to write and Aggie to visit. I also have to meet Diarmuid and visit what was supposed to be our home, so we can discuss the whole furniture thing in more gruesome detail. And, of course, I have to somehow convince April not to come to Marie’s family gathering.

  I sigh and head stoically towards my computer. How could I ever have thought I could change? This is how I am, and this is how things are. I will always have dreams of leaving, but I’ll stuff them back in their box and try to ignore them. ‘Have to’ is the only way I know how to live.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Nearly two weeks later, I am deeply engrossed in the world of hotel accessories. I have devoted myself to trouser-presses and chrome cafetières. I know I should be phoning April, since it is now August and Marie’s party is in September, I know I should be discussing the house sale with Diarmuid, I know I should make an appointment with a therapist immediately if not sooner, but these things will all have to wait.

  Yesterday I picked up Diarmuid’s music box. I was going to store it away, somewhere where I couldn’t see it, but instead I threw it at the floor and the lid flew open and the music started and the little dancer fell off and scooted under the sofa. I haven’t bothered to find her. I will probably Hoover her up next time I actually get around to cleaning my cottage.

  Every so often I think of the wedding presents. What am I going to do with the table-mats and the Waterford crystal and the recipe books and that plug-in thing that cooks casseroles? I should clearly have other priorities, but at the moment I have so many priorities I don’t know how to prioritise them. If I had been sensible, I would have told Greta I was taking a short holiday because of ‘personal circumstances’, but instead I have allowed myself to wander into the terrible desert of soap dispensers and shower mats. I have become obsessed with them.

  It’s beginning to remind me of the weeks before my wedding. I knew I should be thinking about my doubts about Diarmuid, but I was more worried about my veil. I am using hotel accessories as a displacement activity. There are so many things I don’t want to think about that hotel accessories are a sort of incredibly boring refuge. I thought I had completely lost myself to them – which is why I am extremely surprised to find myself heading towards Dublin airport.

  I actually came to this part of Dublin to discuss wall-mounted coffee units with a man called Gervaise, who had so much to say on the subject that he didn’t think a phone call would be sufficient; he wanted me to see the showroom. The bus I caught had ‘Dublin Airport’ on the front, but I asked the driver to let me know when we reached Old Wish Road. It’s such a lovely, poignant, percussive name – and I must have been thinking about its poetry when we actually passed the place. The driver must have forgotten my request. When I realise we are nearly at the airport, I know I should get off the bus and call a taxi, because I’m already a little late and Gervaise will be fretting. But I find I want to stay on the bus. I want to go to the airport. I want to have a creamy cappuccino and ponder the latest developments in the cordless kettle. I decide that I’ll ring Gervaise from the airport, explain that I’ll be a bit late and apologise profusely.

  I gaze out the bus window. It’s raining again. I find myself dreaming of California, of the young girl I was there. I want her freedom and innocence; I want to see the round brown hills that she loved, the hummingbirds and the palm trees, the high and huge blue sky. No one asked me if I wanted to leave. We just packed up and left. April went back, and I always said I was going to go back too; but I never did, not even for a holiday. It was one of those things that had to wait – perhaps forever.

  I begin to wonder what I should do about April. One option is simply to kidnap her when she arrives for Marie’s party. I could ask Fiona to drive me to the airport, and then once we’d got April into Fiona’s car we could drive to Fiona’s huge home, say we were just going to have a quick cuppa in the dining room that Fiona hardly ever uses, and then lock April in there. I think about this for a full five minutes, but then I decide that perhaps kidnapping April isn’t such a good idea. What I really need is to talk to her, face to face. I’m her big sister; she does sometimes listen to me. But if she’s actually travelled to Ireland she’ll be harder to dissuade. The best thing would be to talk to her in California. The thought makes me feel so jumpy that I stare out the window again, at the dreary, rainy day. I wonder if Nathaniel is somewhere sunny. I wonder what he and Fabrice are getting up to.

  To distract myself from these miserable thoughts, I reach into my handbag for the half-bar of chocolate that’s been there since three o’clock yesterday. I am amazed to f
ind my passport. It must have been there for weeks. I took it into town with me ages ago – it was almost out of date, and I planned to apply for a new one, but I got sidetracked and forgot. I glance at the expiry date. There are still a few months to go. I can still use it.

  I get out of the bus at the airport and head into the building. People are bustling past me with trolleys and cases and that sense of compact purpose that foreign travel gives some people. I am in the departures area. Am I really just here for a cappuccino? A faint thrill runs through me. Have I in fact travelled here for another purpose entirely?

  What is there to keep me in Dublin? I think. Aggie has Fabrice; she seems to have forgotten all about me and DeeDee. Fiona has Zak and Milly, and Erika has Lionel, even if she doesn’t want him. Mum and Dad have each other and tennis and music. April and I seem to be the only ones who are alone now. Nathaniel has Ziggy and Fabrice and Sarah and Eloise, and even Diarmuid has Charlene.

  A shudder runs through me; then it stills into a faint tremble, like the flapping of a tiny bird. I can’t allow April to make her grand declaration at Marie’s gathering. I can’t allow her to break Mum’s heart – it has been broken enough already.

  Almost without thinking, I go to the standby counter. ‘I want to go to San Francisco,’ I tell the woman. ‘As soon as possible. I don’t have any luggage.’

  She tells me a seat may be available on a flight that leaves in three hours. She will announce my name as soon as she has news. Yes, the price will be greatly reduced, but I won’t be able to choose my seat; I’ll just have to take what’s available. I say that’s fine and ask if I’d be able to hear her announcement in the café. She says yes. My smile trembles and I head numbly towards all the people going God knows where.

  When I was going to New York, I had luggage; I had knickers and T-shirts and tights and bras. I was even wondering whether to buy perfume in duty-free. That’s how I am at airports. I check in punctually and make sure I know which boarding gate to head for; I look in my bag over and over again, to make sure I have my tickets and my passport and the address of the place where I’m planning to stay. I sit on those strange, endless-looking seats and make lists to discover if I’ve forgotten something crucial. Only today I don’t feel like that. I’m not just preparing to be somewhere foreign; I am in a foreign place already.

  I didn’t know one could feel like this, I think as I sip my cappuccino in the nondescript, functional café. I didn’t know how things can just fall away. Nothing lasts. All the things we cling to – houses, jobs, marriage – are just little specks of shifting sand. We build our lives around them, and then in moments like this we see the impermanence. All we truly have is this moment.

  Who am I to be, now that I’m not Diarmuid’s wife? I’m 35, that’s still quite young. I want to be somewhere new. I want to be somewhere that won’t keep reminding me of who I planned to be. I want a place that won’t ask for explanations, a place where I can start a new story about myself – a story that won’t be continually contradicted.

  I think of April. I wonder if she’ll understand all this. Probably. It’s one of the main reasons people go to California, the land of the reinvented self.

  But I’m only going to California for a visit, I tell myself. I’ll probably be back here in a week. April needs me now; she’s opened up to me in a way she never did before. I must help her to see sense. And I must make her know I love her.

  There seem to be endless announcements about not leaving luggage unattended. Since I don’t have any luggage, I wish they’d just shut up. Maybe I should go to one of the shops and buy something – a face-cloth, perhaps, or a toothbrush – but instead I stay in my seat and watch people bustling past me with their preoccupied airport expressions. I should be looking more like them. I delve into my bag and take out my lipstick, the lipstick April helped me choose in New York.

  My mobile is switched off in case Diarmuid calls again to discuss furniture. I don’t know why it upsets me so much; it almost seems enough reason in itself to leave the country. Is that why I’m leaving – because I want to avoid conversations about furniture?

  Mum and Dad will understand when I tell them I’ve gone to talk to April, I think. When they hear that she wants to spill the beans at Marie’s party, they’ll probably be very grateful that I’m trying to make her see sense. I get out my mobile phone and ring April’s home number. There is no answer. Because of the time difference, she’s probably asleep. I leave a message to say I may be arriving in California this very evening and will phone her when I have my flight details. Flight details… Am I actually planning to get on a jumbo jet without even my toothbrush?

  I ring Gervaise and tell him that, much as I would love to talk with him face to face about wall-mounted coffee units, I may need to phone him about it from America. He is clearly waiting for an explanation, so I say I’ve just found out I have to fly to San Francisco because of a family matter. My voice gets trembly, and I know if I don’t stop talking soon he’ll know I’m crying, so I say, ‘Bye,’ briskly and hang up. At least I have my laptop with me; I wanted to type up the interview with Gervaise on my way home and get it over with. And this evening I planned to have Swedish meatballs for dinner. I even took them out of the freezer to defrost.

  I should stay. I can’t just leave; I have responsibilities, duties. The ants must be attended to, and I have to go to Milly’s christening. And there are so many people I’d miss. This whole idea of leaving is daft; I don’t know how I can even have considered it. I want my mugs. I want my orange sofa. I want my view of the sea and the sky and the gulls and the windsurfers. I want my mother’s chicken casserole. I want to watch Dad playing the cello, his eyes closed, a deep peace on his face.

  But I don’t rise from my seat. I can’t believe it, but I just stay there, waiting for my name to be called. Did DeeDee feel like this? What was she looking for? What hopes were in her heart when she left? I don’t think I would even consider doing this if it weren’t for DeeDee.

  Will I even come back here? I think as I look around me. Of course I’ll want to – I’ll have to – but maybe not for a while; maybe even years. And I will miss it so much. I try to memorise the scene – Dublin airport; my home town. When the plane lifts off, everything will seem so small and distant, so unlikely, as the houses turn into tiny boxes. We might even fly over my home, where there is a half-drunk orange mug of tea on the table. I feel a stab of almost unbearable grief. Aggie – will I ever see Aggie again? Even though she isn’t that excited about seeing me any more. Fabrice has replaced me in her affections.

  I blink hard to stop the tears. Erika and Fiona must come over and visit me as soon as possible. I’ll miss them so much, but I think they’ll understand. I’ll pay Erika to get the cottage ready for a new tenant. I’m sure Fiona would store my belongings if I asked her to. And when I get to San Francisco I must look up Astrid. I’d love to know what became of her; I’d love to know if she still believes in angels. There are plenty of people I’d love to see again. I could write articles about America and anything except interior decoration. That’s the great thing about freelancing: it’s flexible. You can do it in different places.

  I should phone people to say goodbye, but if I do they’ll try to dissuade me. I must tell someone, though; I can’t just leave here without telling anyone. The only person I’ve told is Gervaise. I feel a tug at my heart. I so wish I could ring Nathaniel, but it would be just another ardent message clogging up his answering machine.

  I ring anyway, just to hear his voice. ‘Fred and I are out,’ the answering machine says. There is a loud woof; then Nathaniel adds, ‘Please leave a message. If you don’t, we’ll never forgive you.’

  Maybe that’s the last time I’ll hear Nathaniel’s voice.

  Then I hear my name called. ‘Sally Adams,’ the sing-song voice says. I rise slowly from my seat and head towards the standby desk.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘What’s your name?’ The woman at the standby d
esk peers at me. She is slim and tanned and has shiny blonde hair.

  ‘Sally Adams,’ I say. ‘You just called me.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Yes, you did. I heard my name called just now.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t call you. Maybe it was the information desk.’

  I am about to explain that nobody knows I am at the airport, apart from her, but then I feel a shudder of dread. Has Gervaise followed me here? I did tell him I was flying to America. Is he going to follow me to the boarding gate talking about wall-mounted coffee units?

  ‘It’s just over there.’ She waves vaguely to the right. I suspect the information desk is at the other end of the building and she can’t be bothered to give me directions. I get a daft urge to explain my whole situation to her. I want to look into her detached, slightly bored face and ask her if she’s met other women like me. When a woman marches up to her and says she wants to go to San Francisco and doesn’t have any luggage, doesn’t she get ever so slightly curious?

  My name is called again. ‘Please go to the information desk,’ the woman’s voice says. Now that I hear it again, I realise that’s what she said before. Perhaps April has heard my message and phoned Marie, and a family delegation has come to persuade me out of my idiocy. Maybe I want them to.

  ‘You’ll call me if you have news about a flight to San Francisco?’ I say to the woman.

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ve got your details here.’ She gives me a brief smile. ‘You might be able to leave on the three o’clock flight. I’m just waiting for confirmation of your seat.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I bite my lip and walk in the direction she indicated. I don’t see the information desk, but… Dear God, it can’t be. Is that really Nathaniel?