by Cathy Kelly
She watched him move around, trying to focus in her head. Yesterday, all week, things had been fine. She’d have noticed, surely?
He was in the en suite bathroom now. Tynan was so practised at packing for impromptu trips, he had it down to a fine art. Within minutes he was ready to depart.
‘I didn’t know,’ she said, feeling a great wash of fear and loneliness inside her at the thought of his leaving. ‘Please don’t go, Tynan. We can work this out. I love you, and I know you love me too. What about last night?’
They’d made love after staying up late watching a movie, and Leila had felt the raw love and thankfulness she always felt in bed with Tynan. He wasn’t a tall man, but his lean, toned body moulded perfectly to hers and no man had ever made her feel the way he did. He seemed to know exactly where to touch her, what to say to bring her closer to orgasm. She’d forced herself not to dwell on the fact that he’d learned all this expertise from other women by telling herself that he was with her, he’d chosen her over the rest of them.
‘How could you do that and then leave?’ she asked, the pain clear on her face.
For a brief moment Tynan stared at her, and she recognised pity in his eyes.
Men were different, he seemed to be saying. They could love and then leave; didn’t she understand that?
‘Don’t go.’
In desperation, she’d grabbed his arm and tried to kiss him. He’d shoved her away, muttering: ‘Leila, stop, for God’s sake. It’s over, right?’
She thought of blocking the door, making him come to his senses, but instead she slumped on the bed and began to cry.
Katy was the only person Leila had told all of this to, right down to the shaming details of her reaction. Instead of raging at Tynan, or throwing his belongings out of the apartment window like the feisty woman everyone seemed to think she was, she’d sat on the couch and sobbed her heart out, begging him not to leave.
But he’d left anyway.
Six months and five days ago. Not that she was counting.
Tynan’s Facebook photo was no longer the one Leila had taken of him on holiday outside the famous Sun Studios in Memphis. He’d removed it within days of walking out and replaced it with one she guessed Diane had taken: it showed him wearing aviator sunglasses and standing against the backdrop of what appeared to be a giant stage. Definitely a music festival.
Leila had followed his progress these last six months through his Facebook albums. The most recent one featured him and Diane on their New Year skiing holiday. Even dressed in a cumbersome ski suit, Diane looked skinny, long-legged and effortlessly cool.
Leila scanned for new pictures, promising herself that this would be the last time. It was ridiculous: Tynan had left her. She had not been good enough for the man she loved. There was nothing more definitive than that. Their marriage was over and she was torturing herself by trying to see what he was up to. It hurt every single time: frequency had not made her immune to the pain.
And then her gaze landed on his status. Single.
Nine
Lean on each other’s strengths. Forgive each other’s weaknesses. ANON
La Vie en Rose was Bridgeport’s fanciest restaurant, bar none. From the plain modern entrance to the bar with its hint of art deco on to the restaurant proper, where the high-ceilinged room was decorated with discreet restraint, the whole place spoke of elegance and menus with astronomical prices.
Grace had been there before with Katy’s family, and once, what felt like a million years ago, with Stephen before they’d split up.
She thought of this as she parked in a spot near the door and checked her make-up in the visor mirror. She and Stephen had rowed, she remembered, because she’d been so horrified by the ridiculous prices.
Not bad for an old broad, she told herself, putting lipstick on her still-full lips and surveying the lines surrounding them with compassion. She was fifty-four: lines were part of the deal.
She’d gone to the hairdresser on the way home from school, a rare event, and had enjoyed a cup of tea and a flick through the sort of magazine she’d never normally buy while the stylist blow-dried her dark shoulder-length hair into lovely loose curls that framed her face beautifully.
Dad’s coming but not Julia, Michael had texted while she was in the hairdresser’s.
Tell Howard so he can change the booking, Grace had texted back, without adding, That is SO typical of your father. Stephen never appeared to realise that it was rude to leave it until the very last minute to tell people whether he was coming.
‘It really suits you curled like that, Mrs Rhattigan,’ said the stylist as they both examined the result in the mirror. ‘You going somewhere special, then?’
‘My son’s just got engaged, so we’re having engagement celebratory dinner tonight,’ Grace said.
She’d rather rip off her own leg than admit that the venue was La Vie en Rose. The stylist’s sons had both attended her school, and it had never been any secret that their father spent most of his money in the pub. The cost of a night out in La Vie en Rose would be a month’s rent for this woman.
‘Lovely,’ sighed the stylist. ‘At least the whole wedding palaver doesn’t cost you when it’s your son. With a daughter, you need to have saved up, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Grace, managing a smile as she thought of Fiona. No saving required there. Grace didn’t want Fiona married off for the sake of it – she could live in a tree house and have a handfasting ceremony in a rowan grove if that was what she wanted – so long as she was happily settled with someone she loved.
Stephen hit the motorway at least twenty minutes too late and immediately found himself snagged up in the Friday-evening rush hour.
He’d driven down this road often enough to know he’d be late to the dinner, which would result in Grace glaring at him. In fairness, she didn’t glare that much; even during their divorce she’d kept the black looks to a minimum. Grace was one of those people who felt that people had a duty to be grown-ups and take responsibility for themselves – divorcing parents in particular.
Almost nobody in his present circle of friends could believe that he and Grace had parted so well, discussed their children so agreeably, and remained friends.
‘You’re saying this to make me jealous,’ one colleague had accused him. Louise was a senior copywriter who was in the throes of a separation that made the Trojan War look like a pillow fight. ‘Exactly how do you manage to do it that way – unless you kill them and somehow get away with it?’
Stephen had been about to say that a lot of it was down to Grace, who was fair-minded and honest to a fault, but he’d been beaten to it by one of the partners, who’d always had a bit of a tendre for Grace.
‘Stephen’s ex-wife is one of the most incredible, decent’ – the partner sneaked a look at Stephen – ‘gorgeous women you’ll ever meet. She’s a class act.’
‘What about Julia?’ demanded Louise, who knew only Stephen’s current partner.
‘Julia’s fabulous,’ Stephen had said pointedly.
‘Which proves that some bastards get lucky twice,’ the partner went on.
Julia did a good line in glaring at Stephen. But she wasn’t going to be at the dinner tonight, so the only hard looks he’d get would be from his ex-wife. Grace would no doubt suspect that his lateness was due to a subconscious desire to annoy the hell out of Howard. In fact, there was probably some truth in that, Stephen acknowledged as the traffic inched slowly towards the Waterford exit.
Howard had a control complex, an out-of-control control complex. At previous dinners over the years – and thankfully these had been few and far between – he had even tried to take charge of what everyone was eating.
‘The beef’s fantastic here. You’ve got to try it, you’ve just got to,’ he’d announce. ‘I’ll order it for all of us, shall I?’
Stephen’s hands tightened around the steering wheel and he decided to turn off the news programme he was listening to and put on the cl
assical music station. Grace would kill him if he lost his temper with Howard tonight, no matter how overbearing the old windbag was being.
The strains of Schubert’s Trout Quintet filled the car and Stephen felt some of the stress of the day ebb away. His mood lifted even more when he reminded himself of the reason he was willing to endure Howard’s company. It wasn’t often he got to spend an evening with his beloved Fiona and Michael, and darling Katy, who was a wonderful girl. And, of course, Grace.
He wished he could tell Grace that he had the strangest feeling that the wedding was creating friction between him and Julia. Nothing he could put into words, but it was there. Julia didn’t understand what it all meant to him.
Despite her brilliance, she’d never understood how linked he was to Grace and their children, linked for ever, Stephen thought grimly. It was truly the most annoying thing about her. She seemed to think that, once he’d divorced Grace, he’d divorced himself from the life they’d had together. But when you had children and had known each other for more than thirty years, it was never going to be over. Not totally. You shared a history, family and things that couldn’t be put into words. Things that mattered.
It was just as well she wasn’t here tonight. Just as well he’d somehow managed to imply that it would be boring and she’d hate it.
Birdie stared into her wardrobe and wished she was one of those women who instinctively knew what to wear. Her mother had been like that: always in the right outfit no matter what the occasion. Of course, it was easier then. Day dresses or evening dresses or perhaps a little suit to a lunch. There wasn’t anything in between.
Birdie had gardening clothes, some of which she picked up in Oxfam or the Vincent de Paul shop, although she’d never tell Howard that because he’d be apoplectic at the notion of his wife buying her clothes in a charity shop. She had white blouses, comfy sweaters and coloured jeans she got in Marks and Sparks for during the day, and good coats to wear over the M&S ensembles for Masses or funerals. She liked catalogue shopping too – loved sitting up in bed with Thumper at her feet, marking pages and deciding which blouse might be nicest, which colourway made the most sense. But when it came to clothes for nights out … She looked at her four good outfits and chose the lilac suit, which Howard had recently been very critical about. ‘Lilac is too pale, too old-fashioned. And how old is that thing? It’s the sort of rig-out my mother could wear. Why don’t you wear any modern clothes, Birdie? Being fifty-nine is different nowadays. You don’t have to wear long black dresses and flat shoes and tie your hair up like a nun. Live a little.’
But Birdie hated shopping because it made her feel so inadequate. Not that she didn’t feel inadequate anyway in the face of Howard’s disapproval. He thought she’d let herself go, she could tell he did.
Once, he’d liked the fact that she wasn’t high maintenance, but not any more. When a woman was young, not being high maintenance was amusing, it gave off a sense of joie de vivre. But for a woman over fifty, it was a sign that she’d abandoned all hope and simply given up.
Almost without thinking, she pulled on the lilac number. It did make her look older and Howard wouldn’t be pleased, but Birdie had so much on her mind, she didn’t care. After the wedding, which was to be held here and needed to meet Howard’s exacting standards, Katy and Michael would be taking a year out to travel the world, and the very idea made Birdie sick. Her thoughts invariably ran to the catastrophic end of the spectrum, a long-worn path. You only had to open the papers to see what could happen.
In the face of such worries, Howard’s irritation almost paled into insignificance.
Outside, in the black car from the limousine service Bridgeport Woollen Mills always used, Howard got the driver to honk the horn a second time.
‘What the hell is she doing?’ he groaned.
The driver, Tom, who’d driven Mr Desmond many times before, had seen the great man in many of his moods. Bonhomie when he was escorting an important contact to lunch, wild irritation when he was alone in the car and on the phone to the office over some disaster, and occasionally, quiet affection in those calls he took when he gazed fixedly out of the window as a signal to the driver that he was not to listen in.
For a clever man, Mr Desmond could be stupid, Tom thought. Looking out of the window didn’t stop Tom from being able to hear what he was saying.
Mr Desmond had to be in his early sixties for sure, but he didn’t look it – that streaky mane of hair and the permanent tan made him look years younger, and the clothes helped. All expensive things some woman brought him every six months from London.
Tom had gone to Dublin to pick up both the clothes and the young woman, and she’d been worth the trip by herself – like something from a fashion magazine, he’d told his wife. Mad clothes, strange shoes and hair like a blackbird’s wing, cut short to show off a neck like a ballerina’s, and red lipstick on those indecently large lips – something he never told his wife.
She must’ve had something injected in them to make them that size, Tom decided. Did they take the injectable stuff from your body, or was it some other sort of product? His wife would probably know, but he daren’t ask else she’d want to know why he was paying so much attention to another woman’s lips.
She never stayed long. She’d get Tom to carry the clothes into the house, and then he’d park outside until she emerged a few hours later with a couple of bags to return. She’d talk on the phone on her way back to Dublin, setting up meetings with other people and telling them that the grey Armani had worked a treat, as she knew it would.
‘He has the shoulders for it, great physique,’ she’d said once, almost proudly.
She was a stylist, Tom knew, because he’d heard her say it on the phone once, but why on earth a man of Mr Desmond’s age needed a stylist was a question Tom had never been able to answer.
Mrs Desmond hurried down the front steps, a neat little figure in a nice pale purple suit, with her silvery hair tied up in its usual knot.
‘Hello, Tom, how are you?’ she said, slipping into the back seat next to her enraged husband. ‘How’re Marjorie and the children? This is an exam year for your son, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Mrs Desmond,’ said Tom.
He loved Mrs Desmond, all the drivers in the firm did. She remembered their names and asked about their families, gave presents of lovely Bridgeport products for special birthdays, anniversaries or weddings.
But it was Mr Desmond who paid the bills and chose the car company, so Tom kept his eyes on the road and his mouth firmly closed, hoping there would be no more conversation, because he knew all too well that Mr Desmond preferred his drivers silent as the grave, in every sense.
‘We’ll be late,’ said Howard, holding his fire because of the driver. Normally he treated drivers as if they weren’t there, but when Birdie made such a point of talking to them, it was harder to do so.
Birdie could feel him looking at the lilac suit with disapproval. He didn’t have to speak for her to hear the reproach: Birdie, this is a special occasion and you’re dressed in that dreadful thing again! You could have made an effort. But tonight she didn’t care. The combination of joy over Katy’s engagement and fear over her and Michael’s forthcoming trip had thrown her so much that, for once, she didn’t give a toss about Howard and his opinions.
Grace was the first one at the table. She liked being early. It gave her a chance to settle into her surroundings and feel comfortable before everyone else arrived. When they’d been a couple, Stephen had made them almost miss every flight they ever took, insisting that it would only take x amount of time to get to the airport and that nobody expected people to be there hours early, did they?
Another difference. Lately, she kept coming up with the differences between them in her head. She suspected that subconsciously she was reminding herself that they’d been better off splitting up. It had to be the thought of Michael getting married that was causing it. Nothing made a person re-examine their life so thoroughly a
s the prospect of their child marrying and entering the next stage of adulthood. Did we do it all wrong? What did we get right?
Grace knew enough to be certain that she’d been a good mother. She’d loved Fiona and Michael unconditionally, given them a home where they both felt free to speak their mind, knowing they’d be loved no matter what they said or did. Her goal had been to provide them with the security and confidence to go out and face the world, and she felt she’d achieved that.
But there was always a what if? That element of doubt.
There had been plenty of pain along the way: Christmases when the children went to stay with Stephen, Julia and his parents. And the holidays with their father, after which they’d come home, eyes sparkling, telling of places she hadn’t been:
‘We learned to surf!! Dad has a video of it and he’ll send it to you.’
‘Mum – the Uffizi gallery, you’d love it!’
And she would have loved it, but she hadn’t been there. Stephen and Julia had been there instead, watching her beloved children while she sat at home fine-tuning her planning for the second half of the school year for other people’s kids.
She’d never cried in front of the children, never let them see how the choices she and Stephen had made had hurt her. Never let them see that sometimes she questioned those choices.
‘A drink, madam, before the other guests arrive?’ asked the waiter. ‘Mr Desmond has ordered champagne for everyone, but I think we must wait until he gets here …’ He sounded anxious, as though the whole staff were on tenterhooks because Howard Desmond must have exactly what he wanted. It wasn’t too far-fetched a notion: Howard was the richest man in town and made sure everyone knew it.