*
Which was why late on a sunny Friday afternoon in July, a part of Dawn was almost surprised to find herself really here and about to check in. As usual, the good, docile girl, doing exactly what other people thought was best for her, yet far from certain that this was actually what she wanted herself.
But she had to admit her Mum and Eva were actually right. She had gone sleepwalking into marriage and now, shock and numbness were somehow making her sleepwalk her way out of it.
On auto-pilot, Dawn chained her bike neatly to the railings outside Dublin’s newest boutique hotel on Hope Street, just off Fitzwilliam Square, took a deep breath and braced herself. She’d been here about two weeks ago for an initial interview with a lovely, caring woman called Chloe, so she knew what to expect, but seeing the hotel once again, it now struck her as weird.
Because from the outside, this place didn’t look much like a hotel at all. It was one of those elegant old city-centre Georgian townhouses down a cobble-stoned street, ivy-clad and discreet. In fact, the only sign that betrayed that it was anything other than an upmarket lawyer’s offices or a consultant’s rooms, was a neat plaque on the wall outside, that read ‘Ferndale Hotels, Hope St.’
Busy, professional looking people all bustled past Dawn, power walking their way into law offices or stockbroking firms or wherever the hell they worked, all yakking into mobiles or checking emails as they strode by her. No one took a blind bit of notice of this waif-like girl with the long straggly red hair down to her bum, almost trembling as she willed herself to walk up the steps and ring the front doorbell.
Climb the steps, just climb them. One at a time.
Can’t do it can’t do it can’t do it can’t do it can’t do it
Just get up the steps and ring the bell, that’s all you have to do. That’s how easy it is.
It’stoomuchit’stoomuchit’stoomuchit’stoomuch
And now here it came, the fear. Shock, the cold sweats, the whole works. Was this really happening to her? And if she could barely even make it up the steps, then how was she ever supposed to face into what lay ahead?
A cold clutch of fear gripped her and she suddenly realized she was trembling. But then it had been so long since she’d even spoken to Kirk and the thought of having to go through this whole process side by side together was physically making her nauseous.
Right then. There was only so much arsing round with the lock on her bike she could pretend to be doing, to delay the inevitable.
Get it over with, Dawn, just get it over with. Remember, this isn’t just what everyone around me wants, it’s what Kirk wants too.
After all, Kirk had clearly moved on with his life. So wasn’t it time she put the past behind her and did exactly that too?
A good, sobering thought that, and it got her all the way to the discreet buzzer at the side of the heavy, Georgian door. She buzzed and a young, smiley girl about her own age in a receptionist’s uniform with a name badge that read, ‘Liliana,’ let her in. Funny, Dawn thought. I wonder if she realizes just how far a kind smile goes.
‘Good afternoon! It’s Miss Madden, isn’t that right?’
‘Emm … yes, I’m Dawn.’
‘Come right on in,’ came the smiling reply, in an accent that might have been Polish; it was hard to say. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’
‘Thanks.’
‘And how are you today?’ Liliana asked politely as she led the way into a stunning, black and white marble-tiled hallway.
‘Terrific, thanks.’
Falling apart, that’s how I am.
‘Did you have any problems getting here?’
‘No, none at all, thanks.’
Are you joking? When I was passing the canal, I almost wanted to throw myself in. Anything rather than have to face into this.
‘May I offer you a glass of champagne?’
‘No, thanks.’
It would physically choke me to drink it.
‘If you don’t mind waiting, our General Manager has asked to be told as soon as every guest arrives, so she can welcome you personally.’
Dawn traipsed after her and was led through the hallway and on into a gorgeous, quiet room, just to the right of Reception. She could hear voices drifting back from another room just next door, other early arrivals like herself, she figured. But given that she was in no kind of form to make polite chit-chat with total strangers, she was relieved when the room Liliana ushered her into was mercifully empty.
She found herself in a sort of cross between a library and a comfy sitting room, with high vaulted Georgian ceiling, leather wingback chairs and a chandelier you could possibly swing from if the mood took you. It was beautiful, comfy and welcoming, and yet to Dawn, the whole effect was just intimidating.
She was asked to sit down and did as she was told, just waiting on her ‘fight or flight’ hormones to kick in. The way she was feeling, it was only a matter of time.
Liliana made a polite bit of small talk about the general loveliness of the day, then offered afternoon tea. Dawn somehow found herself nodding yes, having barely registered a word she was saying.
‘Please make yourself comfortable then,’ came the reply, ‘and I’ll take care of your check-in and just let Chloe know you’re here. She’ll be with you straight away.’
Left on her own, Dawn took a moment to pace over to the window and gaze down at leafy Fitzwilliam Square, just across the street. Toddlers in strollers and a gang load of small kids were running amok down in the playground below, as the yummy mummy brigade sat on park benches looking proudly on, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine. Carefree, smiling women in skinny jeans and swingy tops with expensive looking handbags, who probably had loving husbands at home, to laugh with and row with and curl up to every night. Just like she’d signed up for. Just like she was supposed to have.
At that, sudden panic shot through her like an electric volt. I shouldn’t be here … I’m not sure I even want this! What am I even doing here in the first place?
And what exactly would this whole process involve anyway? Oh God, even the thought of being in the same room as Kirk, with some total stranger asking them the most intimate details about their married life, was enough to make her stomach seize.
The palms of her hands were sweating now and her heart was palpitating, as her eyes filled up and her breath started to come in short, jagged bursts. A full-blown panic attack was imminent, no matter how much Dawn told herself just to get a good, firm grip.
Wonder if I could just make a run for it, she thought frantically. Just get the hell out of here and tell Mum and Kirk and Eva that she’d just changed her mind?
I could easily do it, her mind raced. The coast is clear. I’ll just tell everyone that I need the loo and then bolt for the hills. I can figure out what to do afterwards, can’t I? But if nothing else, at least I won’t have to go through with this …
Her thoughts were sharply interrupted as the heavy oak door behind her suddenly swung open. Next thing, in breezed Chloe, young and fresh and gorgeous just as Dawn remembered her, with her lovely shoulder-length blonde hair, bright blue eyes and that flawless ‘Look! No make-up!’ look, that Dawn knew right well took years to perfect.
Women like Chloe usually made Dawn feel a bit like a scruffy student, still smoking roll-ups and making the same pair of jeans last for a full week. And yet, Chloe was just so warm and friendly and down-to-earth, Dawn had taken to her on sight, the minute they’d met at their initial interview, just a few weeks ago.
Kirk was always going on about people’s auras and hers was definitely yellow and blue. Colours of compassion and generosity. Might have sounded a bit mental, but somehow, for the first time since she’d crossed the threshold of this place, just being here with Chloe made her feel a bit less ick about being here in the first place.
‘Well, hello there!’ she smiled kindly, gripping Dawn’s hand. ‘It’s so good to see you again, Miss Madden and huge apologies for keeping you waiting.’
<
br /> ‘Dawn, please,’ she said in a strangulated voice that she hardly recognized as her own.
‘Ah, well then you’ll have to call me Chloe. Please, sit down and can I just say that I’m here to personally make your stay as comfortable and easy as possible. So if there’s absolutely anything at all I can do for you …’ She trailed off and there it was again, that warm, slow smile. Definitely a yellowy/blue aura. And Dawn would have put money on it that she was a Virgo. She had perfectionist written all over her.
Next thing, tea arrived and Chloe poured, politely asking her whether she’d had far to come? General, mannerly chit-chat. No doubt to relax you a bit, Dawn figured, before the shit really hit the fan, and she suddenly found herself having to tell some total stranger in this plush hotel all about the last time she’d had sex with Kirk.
And yet, so far, everything was … okay, she thought. For a start, Chloe actually seemed like a good listener. Would kind of put you in mind of an Aer Lingus hostess. You know, a giver, a people pleaser, one of those kindly souls who just couldn’t do enough for you. The sort of woman who might just understand and unlike her well-intentioned family and friends, might even … shock horror … actually care about what Dawn had to say, for a change. Instead of dictating, ‘This is the best thing for you right now!’ and expecting her to just shut up and get on with it.
‘I really should tell you,’ Chloe chatted on, passing over a plateful of posh looking finger sandwiches. ‘We’ve got a whole weekend packed full with a fairly exhausting schedule for you, which I have right here, if you’d like to have a look …’
Dawn drifted off and just nodded mutely, only half listening. Then after a bit more chit-chat, a silence fell and she was suddenly aware that Chloe was looking at her keenly, almost studying her.
‘So, if it’s okay with you, Dawn,’ she went on gently, ‘and before the whole process kicks off this evening, can I ask if you’ve any particular concerns that I can help you with?’
Well, this has to be it then, Dawn thought. The bowel-witheringly awkward bit. The part she’d dreaded. Her cue to sit here, and start dishing the dirt about her married life and why it had been so abruptly cut short. And why two souls who’d barely been married at all in the first place now needed out of it, fast. And just the very thought of the truth coming out, was now actually making Dawn feel like throwing up.
Suddenly it didn’t matter how warm and trustworthy Chloe seemed. In spite of having come this far, now all Dawn desperately wanted to do was bottle out of it, say ‘Sorry, I changed my mind,’ and run away. Fast.
Chloe seemed to be onto her immediately though. Because in a flash, she’d got up out of the armchair where she’d been sitting and in one elegant move, was straight over to the sofa where Dawn was nervously perched right on the edge.
‘You okay?’ she asked, all concerned. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem to be.’
Dawn couldn’t bring herself to answer though, just couldn’t seem to piece together the right words to say in the right order.
‘Because we don’t have to do this, if you don’t want. It’s written all over you that you’re petrified of what lies ahead. I know how awful this must be for you. Believe me, I know.’
Wow, Dawn thought. This is the first person in three months, three weeks and two days who actually seems to get how I feel about all this.
‘And I’m sure it took nerves of steel to even bring yourself this far,’ Chloe went on. ‘It’s an awful, rotten situation for anyone to find themselves in and I can’t promise you that the future will be all rosy and perfect once you check out of here, but I can at least tell you that what you’re going through will all be over so, so soon. In a single weekend. Three short, little days out of your life and then that’s it! You’ll be free. For good. Free to start your life over, free to move on.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Dawn said, suddenly finding her voice.
‘Sorry?’ Chloe was looking at her puzzled now.
‘No one does. I’m barely able to take it in myself and I’m the one stuck in this whole nightmare.’
She broke off and was shocked to find that the fancy china teacup she’d been gripping onto was now actually rattling in her hands.
‘I’ve been married for almost three years now, you see,’ she went on. ‘And I have to tell you, I don’t want this. I don’t want any of it. Kirk is – was – my best friend. My soulmate. I never thought I’d ever divorce him and I can’t accept I’m even here in the first place. I can’t accept what’s happened.’
Chloe nodded understandingly.
‘Of course, if you feel you’re unsuitable for what we have to offer at the hotel,’ she said gently, ‘then I completely understand. You can just walk out of here and forget about the whole thing and that’s absolutely fine. But if you don’t mind, can I just say one thing?’
‘Go ahead,’ Dawn said dully, focused on the china teacup in front of her, studying the pattern on it, like she might have to take a test in it later on.
‘Well, you’ve made it all the way here, haven’t you?’ Chloe said softly. ‘I know this must be hell for you, but you’ve come this far. So at least a part of you must have decided to go through with it. And your ex must want this too, surely.’
‘Too right Kirk wants this. In fact, everyone around me wants this.’
And without even realizing it, suddenly Dawn’s voice had choked up and the fat, salty tears that had been threatening ever since she first set foot in here were now starting to fall.
‘Shh, shh, it’s alright,’ Chloe said, instantly producing a Kleenex from up her sleeve and slipping a comforting arm round her bony little shoulders. Then she looked at her full-on, eyes full of concern.
‘It’s going to be okay, Dawn. And you’re going to be okay too. But you don’t have to go through with this, not if you don’t want to.’
‘Oh, Kirk and I will be going through with this alright,’ Dawn managed to get out through sobs muffled into the tissue. ‘Whether we stick it out here or not, we’re getting divorced. We have to, you see.’
‘No, you don’t! Not unless you both really feel it’s the right thing for you …’
Dawn took a deep breath and braced herself. ‘But you see, there’s something about our marriage I need to tell you first. Something you don’t know.’
Funny, Dawn thought. Wonder if my face went the exact same colour as hers, when I first found out the truth too.
Chapter Ten
Lucy.
Lucy was in foul, stinking humour and bloody hell, but did it show. All morning in work, it had showed, when a photographer she’d been shooting a commercial with bluntly told her, ‘You look like complete dog shit today, love. You’ve got bags under your eyes I could carry luggage around in and your skin’s like the surface of a pizza. Late one last night, was it then?’
Course, she’d told him where to shove it, but his words still bloody well stung.
Wasn’t even her fault. Well, not entirely. Lucy had a rare day off yesterday and had insisted on dragging her pal Bianca into Carluccio’s restaurant in town, ‘just for the one!’
Ha! World’s single greatest lie, she thought bitterly, popping yet another paracetamol from the plastic strip she’d rooted out from the bottom of her bag and knocking it back with a quick gulp of water. Anything to dull the crucifying, relentless hammering at her temples.
One glass of vino last night had quickly turned into one bottle of vino and blah-di-blah and on it went from there and before Lucy knew where she was, it was half one in the morning and she was drunkety drunk drunk. And of course, by then she felt on top of the world and in absolutely no mood to think about going back to Bianca’s flat, which she’d been staying in ever since … well, ever since.
Are you joking? Go home? The newly single Lucy Belter? The girl once known as Party Central? On the same Thursday night when there’d been a big international rugby match on and when the town was only crawling with hot French blokes? Not a
bleeding snowball’s chance! So nothing would do for Bianca but to drag Lucy off to Lily’s Bordello, the buzziest nightclub in town, to cheer her friend up a bit while they partied on into the wee small hours.
Not a bad plan, Lucy had thought. Why not drink on and get chatted up by properly wealthy guys who didn’t necessarily have adult kids in the background, waiting to bleed him dry and piss all over her life in the process?
Anything to anaesthetize herself and keep her mind off the weekend to come and the whole ordeal that lay ahead of her.
She could barely remember what happened after Lily’s Bordello. All she knew was that she woke up the following morning with a thumping head, parched with thirst and the very real sensation that she could puke. Hauling herself up onto her elbows, she groggily groped around the bedside table for her mobile to check what time it was. She was utterly disorientated, then with a slow, sickening feeling, it dawned on her that she wasn’t even in her own bed.
Instead, she found herself in a strange hotel bedroom, with cheap nylon sheets that smelled like they hadn’t been changed in weeks, an overriding stench of damp and lampshades a delightful, lurid shade of psychedelic 1970s orange. Her breath stank like a brewery and – the cardinal sin for any model who happened to have a 9 a.m. photo shoot that day – still in full make-up from the night before. Even the pillow under her looked a bit like the Turin shroud, there was that much foundation and mascara caked onto it.
Worst of all though, she didn’t seem to be alone. Through the gloomy half-light she could just about make out the lump of a giant silhouette in the bed beside her. And it was breathing.
Shit, shit, shit.
She hadn’t, had she? Slowly, she slid her hand over to the other side of the bed and realized the lumpen shape beside her was bollock naked. Next thing, a stray hairy arm slid suggestively up her bare thigh and a French accent grunted, ‘You want to slide over to my side of the bed, chérie? You ready for some more?’
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