by Niamh Greene
Maybe I should just concentrate on my date with the vet to get my mind off things. Perhaps Anna is right, perhaps he is just my type… if I have a type, that is.
Eve
What Does Your Taste in Men Say About You?
The type of guy you’re attracted to can speak volumes. Do our quiz to reveal all!
You like a guy to look:
a)Well groomed – hand-made tailored suits are a must.
b)Macho. There’s nothing nicer than a well-oiled muscle and a bulging bicep.
c)Intellectual. Extra points are given for wearing glasses.
What kind of hobbies does your man enjoy?
a)He doesn’t have time for hobbies: he’s too busy checking his investment portfolio.
b)Fitness: he’s in training to defend his Iron Man competition title.
c)Reading: he’s a real bookworm.
What is your man’s most endearing quality?
a)His ability to tot up a bill without a calculator.
b)His ability to crush a can with his fist.
c)His ability to quote entire passages from great works of literature.
In bed, your man likes you to:
a)Be quick. He keeps up with the Japanese markets so he’s only ever free for ten minutes at a time.
b)Be wild. He loves a good wrestle between the sheets.
c)Be talkative. Reciting poetry really gets him hot.
Results
Mostly As: You want the good things in life, but remember: there’s more to a relationship than material possessions. Sometimes ‘having it all’ can make you feel empty inside.
Mostly Bs: You like your brawn and that’s OK, but don’t forget that for long-term happiness your man needs to have some brain too!
Mostly Cs: An intelligent man can be a real turn-on, but just make sure you inject some fun into your relationship too. Love doesn’t have to be a serious work of art!
Molly
I wake up on the sofa, my face stuck to the leather seat, my temples pounding. I lift my head a fraction to get my bearings and a searing pain shoots from my forehead to the tips of my toes. What’s going on? I feel like I’m dying – it’s like an articulated truck has reversed over me again and again, just for fun. My throat is like sandpaper, my eyes are almost completely glued together and my cheek is crusty with drool. Maybe I’m getting the flu. Or something even worse. Like pneumonia. Or a brain tumour. It certainly feels as if my head is going to explode. Then the fog clears for a second and I remember the wine. I drank wine. Lots and lots of wine. Again. Since I got that letter from Charlie a few days ago I’ve been drinking far too much almost every night. But this morning is the worst I’ve felt. And I’m on the sofa, which means that I must have fallen asleep here. I never even made it to bed.
I inch my face away from the sofa, wincing, as another wave of unbelievable pain stabs my skull and my stomach heaves.
There’s no way I can go to work today, not in this state. I can barely move, let alone make myself presentable and Minty-ready. I’ll have to call in sick. Which means I’ll have to explain to Penny why I can’t come in today. The thought fills me with dread and another wave of nausea washes over me. Officially, Penny is the advertising manager, but she prides herself on taking care of HR ‘on the side’. Minty gave her the HR gig because she felt that Penny wasn’t being stretched enough by calling people up and threatening them with grievous bodily harm if they didn’t pay for advertising that had run in the magazine. She needed an extra challenge to get her teeth into. And Penny took to HR like a duck to water. She relishes executing the ridiculous company policy that if you’re sick you can’t just email an excuse, or leave a message and get the answerphone to do your dirty work for you. No, at Her you have to call Penny directly on her special HR line and explain why you can’t possibly drag yourself into the office and put in a good ten hours at your desk. Minty came up with the idea in order to discourage misuse of sick leave. Minty doesn’t believe in sick days – she doesn’t believe in being sick full stop – but that’s because, although she only weighs about five pounds, she has the constitution of an ox and never gets so much as a sniffle. I personally like to believe that germs can’t live in such a hostile environment.
I’ll have to come up with a really good excuse or Penny will know I’m lying. It can’t be anything too obvious. I can’t tell her I have the flu – she’ll never fall for that. Maybe I could say I’ve contracted a flesh-eating parasite from a mosquito bite on honeymoon. Or how about some sort of superbug that even antibiotics can’t cure? My head is pulsating with the worst hangover I’ve had in years and I can’t think straight, but it’s crucial that I concentrate and come up with something credible. It’s already past nine. I have to call within the next five minutes or Penny will know for sure that I’m pulling a sickie and then she’ll never let me forget it.
I could say I had an accident. Nothing life-threatening or really serious, just a personal injury that would put me out of action for a while. Something plausible and not so outlandish that she’ll suspect anything is amiss. Eventually it comes to me. I’ll say I’ve hurt my shoulder. You can’t be expected to do any sort of work when you’ve injured your shoulder and you’re in agony. That’ll have to do.
I pick up my phone to make the call before I lose my bottle.
‘Penny speaking.’ She’s already adopted her stern HR tone.
‘Hi, Penny,’ I croak, my head pounding. At least I don’t have to use my ‘pretend-sick voice’. I sound genuinely dreadful.
Penny says nothing.
‘You’re never going to believe what happened to me.’
‘You’re right,’ Penny says brusquely. ‘I probably won’t believe it.’
I ignore that and concentrate on sounding honest.
‘I hurt my shoulder. I can’t move it. I’m in complete agony. I tripped and fell down the stairs. I’m lucky I didn’t break my neck.’ I prattle on and on and on, adding lots of details, hoping I sound authentic.
‘Poor you.’
Sarcasm drips down the line. Penny can tell I’m lying, it’s obvious. I know I’m a terrible liar and the stone-cold silence on the end of the line means that she knows that too.
Maybe I’m laying it on too thick. Maybe I shouldn’t have hinted that if I go back to work too early I could end up in a head-to-toe cast for months. I’ve tried to imply that I’ve been almost crippled, but she doesn’t sound all that sympathetic. In fact, she sounds like she couldn’t care less. It’s not like I’m the type to call in sick frequently. OK, so I may have taken a day here and there in the run-up to the wedding, but that’s only to be expected. How else are you supposed to organize an extravagant ceremony for two hundred after working hours? It’s just not possible.
‘So, you slipped down the stairs, did you?’ Penny sounds like she’s taking notes. ‘And that was…?’
‘Em, last night?’ I stutter, praying she believes me.
‘Okaaayyyy.’
There’s lots of rustling in the background. She’s definitely flicking through official stuff – probably the company file dedicated to employees like me, the one that’s got ‘Big Fat Liar’ scrawled in red letters on the front.
‘And you’ll be back…?’
‘Tomorrow?’ I offer.
There’s another silence, while she writes all this down.
‘Um, are you still there?’ I ask timidly.
‘Yes. I am,’ she says coldly. ‘I will need a doctor’s note – ASAP, of course. For the file.’
‘Sure,’ I say brightly, feeling even sicker, ‘that’s no problem.’
I hang up, wondering if I can persuade my doctor to falsify a sick note. Perhaps if I lay on the mental anguish aspect of the situation thick enough, he’ll take pity on me. That shouldn’t be too hard. I have every reason to be in serious mental anguish, so it’s not like I’ll have to make up that part. But at least the call is over. Now I can use the rest of the day to figure out what to do about Charlie
’s letter. The time has come for a decision. I can’t put it off any longer.
I know the ball is in my court. He made it clear in his note that he wants to come home and it’s up to me to decide what to do. Do I take him back and try to carry on as we were before he left so suddenly? Or do I change the locks and refuse to see him? If he explained why he left in the first place, would I understand? Or do I even want to know what his reasons were? It’s all so confusing, but the choice about what to do next is mine and there’s no getting away from it – I can’t run away and hide. Not like I did when Mum and Dad died. This thought bounces into my aching skull without warning, and deep down I know it’s true. When it all got too much to bear, I ran. I didn’t call it that at the time, but that’s what it amounted to.
I decided to leave about a month after the accident. I wasn’t eating or sleeping or even talking much by then. Instead I spent most of the time replaying everything over and over again in my head. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that it had been my fault. No one came right out and accused me of causing their deaths, but I knew deep down what everyone must be thinking. I had invited them for lunch. If I hadn’t, they would still be alive. It was simple. I would have done anything to have turned back the clock, but that was impossible so I shut myself away and hid from the world. I couldn’t face anyone – I couldn’t even face myself. So when a cousin who’d moved to San Francisco invited me to stay for as long as I wanted, I knew it was exactly what I needed to do. I had to get away, as far away from everything as soon as I could. I knew it would be much easier for everyone if I left. Including David. Especially David.
I think back to how he reacted when I told him I wanted to leave Dublin. He’d misunderstood at the beginning.
‘Good idea!’ he’d said, when I told him my plan. ‘Where will we go? How about Italy? Or Greece? Greece could be nice. I could do some research for my next book while you relax – it’d be fun.’
He tried to take my hand in his, but I pulled away.
‘No,’ I said, ‘you don’t understand. I don’t want you to come. I want to go on my own.’
In a split second, his smiling face fell and those brown eyes were suddenly full of confusion.
‘On your own?’
He pushed his messy fringe off his forehead, something he used to do when he got anxious.
‘Yes, I need some time alone. I want to think.’ I couldn’t look him in the eye – it was too hard.
‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘Of course, I can understand that. You’ve been through so much. How long are you thinking? A week? Two?’
His face crumpled when I told him I didn’t know when I’d be back. That I didn’t want him to wait for me. That I realized that I didn’t love him after all, that we weren’t meant for each other and that Mum and Dad’s deaths had made me see that life was too short to waste it with someone who wasn’t right for you.
I didn’t mean any of it of course. I loved him so fiercely it hurt. I knew that I’d never love anyone else the way I loved him. And that was the point. Because I knew I couldn’t go through this pain again if anything ever happened to him. Losing Mum and Dad was unbearable – if I lost David I wouldn’t be able to go on. That’s why I had to leave him now. The more time I spent with David, the more I loved him. Letting him go now would spare me even more heartache in the future. It made perfect sense. And besides, he deserved better: I was a mess, and even though he was being kind and supportive, he must have been sick of me. I didn’t tell him all this though – better to let him think that I was leaving because I didn’t love him any more. Better that he hated me. I hated myself. And so I went to San Francisco and tried to forget all about what had happened. I worked part-time in an Irish bar downtown and concentrated on partying too hard. Before I knew it, a year had gone by and Tanya and Al were begging me to come home. I suspected that, if I didn’t, then I probably never would, so I nervously packed a bag and flew to Dublin, telling myself I would stay for a week, maybe two. When I got back I found that the pain of losing Mum and Dad had faded, just a little, so that it was almost bearable to be there again. And it was so lovely to see Tanya and Al that two weeks quickly turned to three. Then I fell into the job at Her and the idea of going back to San Francisco became more remote. But I still didn’t contact David. I never called him to explain that I had lied about my feelings for him. I let him go on believing I didn’t love him, that I had never loved him. No wonder he looked at me with such disdain at the Sheldon Hotel. There was no disguising how he felt. It’s obvious he hates me for what I did to him.
But there’s no point thinking about David right now. Right now I have to concentrate on Charlie, and to do that I need to clear my head. It’s so fuzzy from the alcohol that it’s impossible to think straight. I know the only thing that will work is getting some fresh air. A brisk walk will help me focus on what I should do. My stomach heaves at the thought of getting off the sofa, but before I can change my mind I grit my teeth, pull on the nearest pair of boots and leave.
Within two minutes of hitting the pavement, I’m regretting it. My boots dig viciously into my feet with every step I take. Not putting on my trainers was a big mistake. The boots were a bargain buy in the sales, but they were always too tight for me. By the time I admitted this to myself and brought them back to the shop, the sales assistant wouldn’t let me return them. Not even when I explained to her that I was afraid they would cut off circulation to my calves, and that I could be struck with a serious thrombosis at any second. I’ve been trying to convince myself that they fit ever since. Now my toes are numb and my heels are screaming in agony. They’re probably bleeding – I’m afraid to look.
My head throbbing with pain, I blink in the bright sunshine and try to decide whether to keep going or turn right round and run/hobble in my too-tight boots back home. The sunlight is too bright, the path is too lumpy and, worst of all, there are people. People who look like they haven’t got a care in the world. People who are smiling, chatting on their mobile phones, carrying on as if life is perfectly normal. They don’t have runaway husbands writing to them, wanting to come back. They don’t have ex-boyfriends appearing out of nowhere and confusing them. They have quiet, peaceful lives – I can tell by their faces. Like the woman walking towards me, talking to someone on her phone.
‘OK then,’ she says, casual as you like. ‘I’ll see you at the movies at eight.’
She passes me and I resist the urge to glare at her. It’s obvious she has no worries or traumas. She’s probably going to a movie tonight with the love of her life. They’ll sit in the back row, holding hands and sharing a bumper bucket of popcorn, completely oblivious to the hell that other people are going through.
Next up is a man, walking a dog. A golden Labrador. I’ve always wanted a golden Labrador. They’re so cute and lovable and licky. I wanted one so badly that I’d even given it a name in my head: Lellie. I used to love fantasizing about taking bracing walks across the hills with Lellie, throwing sticks for her to fetch. OK, so I’m not a big fan of walks, or the outdoors, but still, I could have changed. Lellie would have helped me appreciate nature more – I could have grown to love wet grass and mucky leaves. And it would have been a great excuse to get the sheepskin shearling coat I’ve always wanted. Charlie never liked dogs. He said they shed too much, and that getting one would mean watching the leather sofa get scratched to shreds. But David loved dogs – he always wanted a golden Labrador too. He was a real doggie person.
I’m standing on the path, watching the beautiful dog do a quick wee against a telephone pole, when it happens. A couple amble towards me. A very happy-looking couple holding hands and grinning stupidly at each other. I can feel their happiness bouncing off them and slamming into me. They are in that bubble of love which nothing and no one can penetrate. The man looks just like David: tall, scruffy, with shaggy hair. In this light, with my head fuzzy from a hangover, he could pass for him.
In the distance I hear a voice, a real
ly bitter croaky voice, say, ‘Make the most of it while you can – it won’t last.’
I look round to see who’s talking, but there’s no one there.
Then I notice that the couple are staring at me, in the way that people usually stare at mad Aunt Nora when she does something inappropriate, like shouting at the traffic warden or sticking out her tongue at the lollipop lady. They have the same expression that I’ve seen on people’s faces when she takes one of her funny turns: kind of annoyed, but a little bit afraid as well.
‘Do we know you?’ the man is saying, frowning at me, then wrapping his arm round his girlfriend’s shoulder and pulling her even closer – as if that was physically possible. Up close, I can see he doesn’t look at all like David really. He’s much smaller and he has kind of a mean mouth.
‘Sorry,’ I mumble.
I suddenly realize that I was the one who said that. There’s no bitter old crone hanging round street corners berating young loved-up couples – there’s only me. I am the mad old crone. I am losing the plot. I’m now talking to complete strangers in the street. Not just talking to them even, but telling them not to count on love because it will come back to bite them in the end. I’m going insane: it’s official.