by Claire Allan
“Sorry,” he started. “I’m so sorry. I messed it all up, Kitty. I don’t really know why or even really how. I didn’t really think about it – I was caught up in it. But I’m sorry. I realise I’ve no right to ask you or expect you to talk to me and I understand, really I do, if you don’t want to just now – but I want to talk to you. To tell you face to face that I messed things up and I’m sorry that I did. It’s true what they say, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. I’m on the same mobile and I’m staying with Mum and Dad. You can get me there. I won’t torture you. I won’t keep asking. But please, just give me a chance to explain.”
He didn’t mention the other woman. He didn’t explain anything really but listening for a second time, the urge to call him, to ask him to come over was strong. Almost too strong. I thought of Ivy cutting his clothes up. I thought of Cara telling me that I didn’t deserve to be treated that way. I thought of James telling me he was an arsehole. I thought of my daddy holding me while I cried and of Rose’s pursed lips whenever I mentioned Mark’s name.
I couldn’t cope with this. I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to be weak, but I didn’t want to let him go. And my head still hurt, which made me cry. So I left my mobile on the kitchen table, unplugged the phone and scrambled up to the bedroom where I hauled the curtains closed – thick, cosy black-out curtains we had bought at Mark’s insistence because he needed it to be like a coalhole to get a good sleep. I lay there in the pitch dark in the early evening and cried myself to sleep, thinking that just a few weeks before, my life had all been going along in a perfectly lovely and controlled way and now I was curled in a bed crying and not knowing what the hell I was going to do about the mess my life had become.
Chapter eighteen
Erin
I had a silly smile on my face the following day when I went to work. I couldn’t help it. It had been a while. And I felt deliciously satisfied. I had had sex. If it had not been a very personal thing indeed, I would have shouted it from the rooftop of the Northern People building. That would probably not be terribly professional, so I settled for sending Jules a quick text with just two words in it: Mission accomplished. Then I sent Paddy a text to tell him I loved him. I may have written something vaguely flirty and innuendo-laden as well but it wasn’t over the top. It felt a little strange, to even talk about it. Sex had been such a taboosince the operation that it felt strange to think that it was back on the agenda.
I switched on my computer, poured myself a cup of black coffee and opened the email I had sent the previous night, recounting how Paddy and I had met and fallen in love. It was a nice piece – it was honest but, I hoped, not overly soppy. I didn’t want the readers to think they were buying into a full-on boke fest.
I’d show it to Grace just as soon as she got in and hope that she liked it. And then she would show it to Sinéad, who hopefully would also like it and then we could look at sending it to print. I’ll admit I was nervous. There was something very different about writing your own story from writing about other people’s lives. I didn’t want to over-egg the melodrama with this. I didn’t want to make our story nothing more than a source of entertainment to our readers. But then, we did have quite a remarkable story to tell. And I suppose it looked as if we were finally coming out the other end.
Everything felt a little brighter that day. I had a message on my work answer-phone from Rose at The Dressing Room confirming my appointment that weekend for Jules to look at bridesmaid dresses. Fiona, the super-organised and mildly terrifying wedding planner from the hotel had sent both Paddy and me a detailed email outlining our requirements and how they would be met which, rather than making me want to vomit with nerves, as emails from Fiona normally did, made me feel as if everything was moving on just as it should. I even decided that I wouldmake sure to talk, that very day, with the band and the DJ we had booked for the reception after Fiona had taken weak at the mention of their names and said their language could sometimes be “colourful”.
“I don’t think ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ is appropriate wedding music,” shesaid with as much tact as she could muster, which was not a lot.
I had made a mental note on that occasion to smack my sister up, she being the one who had recommended the band and told us, in fact, that no other band in the entire world would be as cool for our wedding. Jules had sworn she hadn’t known that certain less-than-desirable songs were on their set list and then had paused and laughed and pondered whether or not she had actually known but had been too drunk the last time she had seen them to really take it on board. The whole thing had made Paddy laugh uproariously and had made me drop my headto my hands and wonder if the whole Big Day was doomed. That morning, however, as I sipped my coffee, edited my story once more and planned my day – all these little pre-wedding wobbles seemed surmountable. The band would be told, simply and firmly, that they would not be swearing at any stage during the festivities.
“The pictures are lovely,” Grace said, smiling as she walked past my desk. “You scrub up well.”
“Are you trying to say I’m not a stunner every day, boss?” I laughed – aware that my hair was particularly frizzy and my face particularly pale. Although there was still a while to go until the wedding, Jules had persuaded me to go make-up free as much as possible to try and give my skin a rest. As I had no plans to leave the office that day I thought it was safe to go bare. I hadn’t factored in the harsh lights making me look a little more like Ronald McDonald than a pale and interesting Irish beauty.
“Well, of course you’re a stunner,” Grace said with a wink. “But in the pictures you are extra stunning!”
I smiled and then because I was in a just-got-laid kind of a giddy mood I pulled the ugliest face I possibly could just as Liam, the grumpy photographer who had taken our pictures the day before, walked past and muttered, “Sweet Baby Jesus,” under his breath before adding: “I’m glad I’m not taking your wedding photos.”
Grace laughed and I laughed and it felt like one of those lovely days where you can see the bad in no one and where you think that just maybe there is hope for the human race after all. I guess I had really, really needed to have sex the night before and, having made that lovely leap, everything seemed a little brighter.
“Have you the first article done?” Grace asked, heading towards her office.
“Just emailing it to you now, boss,” I smiled and watched as she retreated into her domain.I saluted in her general direction and went back about my business, while hearing Liam mutter again – this time about being a lick-arse.
“You’d just love me to lick your arse!” I called, in a completely inappropriate move clearly buoyed by my reawakened sexuality.
We both blushed, which at least took the pallor from my face.
I was trying to recover from that, sip my coffee and get through to the dodgy wedding band who clearly didn’t do phone-answering in the morning, when a message popped up in my email from Grace, asking me to drop into her office when I had five or ten minutes. She’d had enough time to read the article and I imagined she was going to give me feedback and suddenly I felt a little nervous. Again, this was different from my usual pieces. This was my life. If she hated it, she wouldn’t just be judging my writing, she would be judging me too.
Nervously I lifted my notebook and pen and walked into her office, perching myself opposite her and trying to read her face for any hint of reaction.
“I like it,” she said slowly, sitting back, looking at her computer screen and then looking back at me again. I could hear the ‘but’ forming in her head and I wasn’t wrong.
“I like it, but . . .” she said, looking at me. “I feel you’ve held back in this piece, Erin.”
Held back? I’d described the discovery of a tumour in the man-I-love’s testicle – for anyone to read about.
My eyebrow must have risen to a whole new level because Grace looked at me and sighed. “Don’t get annoyed. Listen to me.”
&n
bsp; I nodded. I would not get annoyed – not on a day which had been going so well – and I would listen to her. That was not to say I would agree with her, but I would definitely listen.
“The piece is well written. It’s even funny in places,” she said. “The strength of your feelings for Paddy really comes through, as does your trepidation about the wedding, your fears about the future and how you are coping together with what you are going through.”
“Yes, I thought so too,” I said, wondering where exactly in any of that I had held anything back. Jesus, I’d even written a section about my concerns about over-underwear-buying when going to try on big frocks. I’d had a whole big-knickers-will-hide-my-tummy-but-make-me-look-like-a-ninety-year-old internal dialogue as I dressed that morning – deciding in the end to stop off at M&S for some new sensible midi-briefs before the fitting.
“I know . . . but the thing is this. The intro, it intrigued me. You know the bit where you say you were one of the cynical people who had given up on love? Like a heroine in a chick-lit novel who had been hurt before and had built up huge walls around her heart?”
I cringed. It sounded cheesier when read back. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. I was in a bit of a romantic mood when I wrote that.”
“Don’t apologise. I’m a romantic at heart myself. Just because Aidan and I have been married for ever doesn’t mean I don’t still remember those first few months and years of falling in love –”
“But?” I pre-empted.
“Well, I know this is a magazine article. But I’d love to know more, you know. I’d love to know about why you lost your faith in love. Why it was so important that Paddy brought down those walls.”
I swear to God, I thought I could almost see a tear form in her eye – but it wasn’t as big as the lump that was forming in my throat at the very thought of revisiting the whole Ian/abandonedwedding/great depression of 1999 scenario.
“I’d like to know more,” she repeated, shrugging her shoulders.
“As my friend or my editor or as a very nosy person?”
“A combination of all three. This piece is good, but it could be better. There is more to tell and our readers would like to know. Hell, I’d like to know. I’ve worked with you for four years now. I’ve driven to Dublin with you – that’s three and a half hours in the car, five if you take my driving into consideration. I’ve been drunk with you. I’ve handed you a tissue to mop your tears after Paddy’s diagnosis and handed you tampons over the cubicle door. I consider us fairly close, and yet I’ve never even had an inkling there was a life before Paddy – not a romantic one anyway. I’d like to know more.”
I looked at her. She had a strange, animated expression on her face – a mixture of intrigue and annoyance. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to spill my guts right there and then.
“There’s not a lot to tell.”
“Except that you were once hurt so badly you built up a big wall around your heart that only Paddy could ever knock down?”
Jesus, she was getting soft in her old age and she was obsessed with walls and knocking them down.
Thinking on it, Grace had always been on the soft side. She was definitely good cop to Sinéad’s bad cop. But still, it surprised me to see her go so gooey.
“It was a long time ago. I was twenty-two. His name was Ian. We ran away to Gretna to get married, which is much less exciting than it sounds. He left me at the altar andI haven’t heard from him since.”
“Left you at the altar? Jesus – how?”
“Well . . . basically . . . he left me at the altar. I imagined he walked away. He may have got a taxi. I don’t know.”
“You are being facetious.”
“You are invading my personal emotional space,” I said, and instantly cringed because that was truly the most wanky sentence I had ever uttered in my entire life.
“If you ask me, you have unresolved issues.”
Grace was all about the unresolved issues. She had undergone counselling a few years back after the birth of her first child and now she believed wholeheartedly in the power of counselling, dealing with your past and if necessary telling the whole world about it. Because as much as she was my friend, she was also a damn fine journalist with a killer instinct for a story. If the truth be told, if the shoe was on the other foot or the pen in the other hand, I would be asking an interviewee the same awkward questions and wee-ing myself with excitement if I was able to break beneath the surface and reveal a little bit of juicy back story. Much as Ian was my personal emotional space, he was also my juicy back story.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It was a long time ago and I’m over it and surely revealing the deep secrets of our battle with cancer is good enough? I mean, I know how to write a tear-jerker. And I’ve cried writing this. I think it’s good.”
Grace looked at me sympathetically, but not sympathetically enough that I still couldn’t see the story-mad twinkle in her eye.
“It is good,” she said. “It’s one of the strongest things you have written. But it could be even better. We expect a lot of you now, Erin. The readersexpect a lot of you. You’re the Feature Writer of the Year. This could solidify that position. This could get you noticed.”
She wasn’t going to let up. When Grace got a notion stuck in her head, she was like a dog with a bone.
“I’m going to have to think about it,” I said. “And I’m going to have to talk to Paddy. This involves him too. But seriously,Grace, I don’t really think about Ian any more. I don’t necessarily want everyone to know I was left at the altar or that I made a complete eejit of myself in my early twenties. I don’t class anything about the entire Ian situation as positive.”
“Just think about it. That’s all I ask,” Grace said.
I nodded before standing up, walking back to my desk and sitting back down, feeling slightly less of a shiny happy person than I had been before.
Paddy looked tired when I got home – and told me he hadn’t done too much that day.
“You tired me out yesterday,” he said with a smile as I kissed his forehead.
Seeing him looking a little pathetic – tired and weak – I felt a wave of guilt wash over me. Had the photo shoot and the evening out taken too much out of him? Had I pushed him too much the previous night?
I sat down beside him and took his hand.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“How do you know anything is wrong?” I asked, turning to look at him.
“I’m not stupid, my lovely lady,” he said with a smile. “You didn’t call me this afternoon. You walked in here like the Mother of Sorrows and before you sat down you went straight to the fridge and opened a bottle of beer. And, to top it all off, you have sat down beside me and not immediately told me to turn Deal or No Deal off and I know you reserve a special kind of hatred for Noel Edmunds – so something is obviously wrong.”
I looked at him again, tired, with a blanket over his knees and looking pale, and I felt a lump form in my throat.And I didn’t want in that moment to talk to him about Ian and whether we should tell the world, or talk about the article and work.
I cuddled into him, fighting back my emotions and simply whispered. “I can’t wait to marry you, Paddy. I love you with all my heart.”
He kissed my head and we sat there for a while and I watched the entire episode of Deal or No Deal without saying a single word or calling Noel Edmunds a pain in the hole.
Every couple has the talk. Everyone has that “Well, tell me all about your past” chat – and we were no exception.We had been together around two months and it was aboutfive in the morning. We had been up all night, chatting, laughing, drinking wine and getting completely lost in each other. We had talked about everything from favourite films to our first memories of school. We had told each other about our families. I had told him about Jules – and how we were best friends as well as sisters but how we used to murder each other when we were teenagers. He had told me how his mother could be a bit stuffy, b
ut that she was a lovely woman at heart (not that he was a mammy’s boy, he stressed). He had told me about a three-year relationship he’d had with a woman called Caroline which had ended fairly painlessly after they just drifted apart. He had told me how he loved her once – genuinely – but that it was just one of those relationships that was never going to work long-term because ultimately they wanted different things. That was when I told him about Ian and about how, ultimately, we wanted different things as well (me wanting to be married to him, him wanting to be a million miles away from me).
Of course I had been full of bravado when I told him – hindsight being wonderful and me having realised we would never have worked anyway. But at that stage – when we were in the process of falling in love with each other – I didn’t dare tell him how I fell apart. How I almost became a modern Miss Havisham. How I wore my inexpensive cotton dress for four solid days and how the flowers wilted in my hair as I lay in my hotel room and tried to make sense of what had happened. How I cried all the way home on the plane like a big eejit, still with my flowers in my hair which by that stage was greased off me. I drank three small bottles of wine on the forty-five-minute flight, and given that I hadn’t eaten for four days I got off the plane at Belfast pissed as a fart and ran into my mother’s arms sobbing while she tried to tell me it was okay. She didn’t tell me until a week later – when I was coherent again and not quite so suicidal – that she had been apoplectic with rage and disappointment that I had run off and not told her about my plans. She decided then to tell me how she had never liked Ian anyway – and even though at that stage I didn’t like him much myself I still told her to frig off. I will never forget the shame of it. I had never sworn at my mother before and have not sworn at her since and yet that day in our living room I told her in as strong a voice as I could muster to frig off. In fact, I believe what I may actually have said was “Frig away off”. Even now I could still see the expression on her face if I thought about it.