Fandango in the Apse!

by Jane Taylor

  ‘Oh, excuse me.’

  ‘Robbie!’ I jerked away from Michael, appalled.

  Robbie was standing rigidly in the doorway. ‘I saw the light on and as that’s unusual at this time of night, I thought there might be a problem. I see I was mistaken.’

  ‘Robbie…’

  ‘Goodnight, Katie.’ He inclined his head towards Michael and then turned on his heel and left.

  I stared at the place where he had been standing, unable to believe what had just happened. A moment later, I felt Michael’s hand on my shoulder and twisted round to face him.

  ‘Was that him?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Katie, I’m so…’

  I held up my hand to stop him. ‘No, don’t, Michael, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Katie. I don’t know what came over me. It’s you… every time I’m near you, I…’

  ‘I think you should go and please, please don’t come back.’

  ‘Katie…’

  ‘Now, Michael.’

  He stood looking at me, then just as Robbie had moments before, he walked through the door. I stood rooted to the spot until I heard the outer door close and then picked up the nearest coffee cup and smashed it against the wall.

  The phone was ringing as I opened my front door, I knew who it was before I answered.

  ‘Hi, Ali.’

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been ringing every ten minutes since I got home, you switched your mobile off.’

  ‘I had a coffee with Michael.’ I searched in my bag for my mobile, ‘Oh, you’re right it is off, I wonder when I did that?’

  ‘Never mind about that now, I want to know what happened…word-for-word.’

  ‘I just told you, we had a coffee.’

  I can see why you fell for him… he’s gorgeous.’

  ‘I did not fall for him, I had a fling… there’s a big difference,’ I said, while fiddling with the button to switch the mobile on.

  ‘Well, whatever, I can see why you did it. I’d have been tempted myself. So what happens now?’

  ‘In what way?’ I dumped the phone back in my bag to deal with later.

  ‘Well, you know…’

  ‘Ali, we’re not taking up where we left off, if that’s what you’re asking.’ Did she really think I could think about another man when the gaping hole Robbie had left was still festering painfully in my chest?

  ‘Did he suggest anything?’

  Jesus, Christ! ‘No Ali, he didn’t, and he’s not likely to either.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Katie, I’m being insensitive aren’t I… I’ll just shut up.’

  I sighed. ‘It’s not that Ali, it’s just – he told me he had a rough time of it when he went off. It took him two years to get over me – I feel bad about that.’

  ‘But that’s not your fault is it? He was the one who left.’

  ‘I feel guilty because I hardly thought about him at all once he’d gone.’

  ‘Do you think it really did take him two years?’

  ‘Ali, he’s a priest. I don’t think he’d lie about it.’

  ‘Oh, of course, I forgot. Well he’s happy now isn’t he? So what’s the point in beating yourself up about it.’

  ‘He kissed me, Alison. He kissed me, I kissed him back and Robbie walked in and saw us.’

  The line went silent. Ali?’

  ‘I’m coming over.’

  I was sitting at the kitchen table twenty-five minutes later, when Alison walked through the back door. I got up and poured two cups of coffee. Alison had barely dragged her coat off before the questions started.

  ‘Start at the beginning and don’t stop until you get to the point where you pick up the phone to me.’

  When I’d finished, Alison got the coffee pot and poured us both another cup.

  ‘See, what I don’t understand is this – if he’d just finished telling you he was glad he’d stayed in the priesthood – then why the hell was he kissing you?’

  ‘He sort of blamed me for that. ‘

  ‘Oh, that was big of him.’

  ‘No, I mean, he said it was being near to me again.’

  ‘And you were happy to kiss him back?’

  I sighed. ‘Not really… it just happened.’

  ‘Katie, these things don’t just happen.’

  I looked at the sceptical expression on Alison’s face.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Ali. Please.’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I’m having a little difficulty understanding all of this.’

  ‘I think I just wanted a moment, one brief moment where I could feel I wanted, feel the heat of a body next to mine, does that make any sense?’

  ‘Oh, Katie…’ Alison reached across and placed her hand on top of mine. ‘My life is so crowded I forget how lonely you must be sometimes.’

  ‘Well, I got my moment, but I’m paying for it now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Robbie, I told you, he saw us and he was furious.’

  Alison almost choked on her coffee. ‘So fucking what? Just because he can’t commit to anything more than a few dates with bubble-headed bimbos, doesn’t mean he can expect you to… to…join a convent, sorry bad choice, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘I know, but I feel sick about the whole thing. Why the hell did he have to walk in just then?’

  ‘I don’t know… something to do with, Sod’s Law, I think.’

  ‘Well, I wish it would sod off elsewhere.’

  ‘Um…this might be in bad taste, but did you ask him about the business cards?’

  Shit! ‘Sorry, Ali, I forgot all about it, but I think we should give St Catherine’s a miss under the circumstances, don’t you? We can try the Methodist and the C of E instead’.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  As the days wore on, I couldn’t get Michael out of my head. To be honest, it was irritating me. Why did he have to tell me about it taking so long to get over our affair? I had enough guilt of my own without him laying on an extra layer. Why had I let him kiss me?

  My heart seemed to break anew, every time I remembered the cold expression on Robbie’s face. I cursed myself for walking into that church hall. Why couldn’t Michael have stayed neatly filed away with the rest of my past? This was forcing me to look back, I didn’t want to look back, I wanted to move on. But then, even that was a problem, looking back hurt, but looking forward was even scarier.

  Everything came to a head a month later on the night of Mark’s party. Alison and I had talked about it numerous times, the latest only that afternoon as we were leaving work.

  ‘You’re sure you’ll be OK?’ she asked, for the umpteenth time. ‘You know I have no choice, Robbie has to be there… Mark would be gutted otherwise.’

  ‘Ali, we have been over and over this… I’ll be fine. I’m capable of standing in the same room as Robbie, I promise you.’ I ignored the lurch my stomach gave as I said the words.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure… now go! Get your glad-rags on and I’ll see you at the hotel at seven-thirty.’

  They were brave words and I believed them, right up until the point where I had to walk into the hotel foyer. I put one foot on the step and stopped. Who was I kidding, there was no way I could walk into a room where Robbie was. What if he was with a woman? The thought almost made me sick there and then.

  ‘Are you alright love?’ A disembodied voice said.

  I turned to the concerned face of a man behind me and realised I was holding up people trying to get into the hotel.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, please go ahead,’ I said, murmuring about forgetting something in my car.

  I walked back to the car and sat there not knowing what to do or how to feel. My mind was telling me to go, drive away, but my traitorous heart was reaching out to Robbie, desperate for one glimpse. He had unlocked my heart. OK, I conceded, he hadn’t meant to, but nevertheless, I was now left with no way of closing it again. I dashed away the tears that were coursing
down my cheeks and struck up the engine.

  At nine-forty-five the phone rang, I was still sitting in the same position as when I had come home. I sighed and moved my stiff muscles to get the phone.

  ‘You couldn’t do it, could you?’ Alison’s voice was just audible over the sounds of the party in full swing.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ali.’

  ‘What did you say? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘I said, I’m sorry… I tried…’

  ‘Wait a sec, Katie, I’m just going outside.’ I could hear the music receding into the background and then Alison spoke again.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I think so…’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘I’ll ring you in the morning, hun.’

  ‘Alison…?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he with someone?’

  ‘Katie... don’t do this to yourself… please.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Please Katie…’

  ‘Just tell me.’

  I could hear her sigh and knew the answer before she told me. ‘Yes, he is sweetheart, but honestly, she’s just another of those air-heads… she won’t mean anything to him.’

  My stomach was heaving, I had to get off the phone, but I was surprisingly calm when I next spoke.

  ‘OK, thanks, Ali. I’ll speak to you in the morning.’

  ‘Will you be alright?’

  ‘Yes… look, I’ve got to go now, speak tomorrow.’

  As soon as I replaced the receiver, I raced to the kitchen and vomited into the sink. When I finished I sank to the floor, the pain was excruciating, I couldn’t bear it. Robbie was moving on and I was just another “bimbo” in a long list of bimbos. Except I was the one sitting on the floor breaking my heart over a man who didn’t give a shit.

  ‘Well more fool me,’ I said, to the empty kitchen.

  This was the night of my epiphany; you remember I told you about it in the beginning?

  As I sat on the floor at my lowest ebb things suddenly started to make sense. It was as if a light bulb had switched on in my head, I was awestruck by it. Why had I never seen it before? My mother had told me often enough. I could see her sneering face now. “You’ll get what’s coming to you, make no mistake about that”.

  Well bugger me, if that wasn’t the truth. I went upstairs, changed into an old tracksuit and climbed into bed. I knew I wouldn’t sleep – I didn’t want to. I wanted to sort out the jumble of thoughts crowding my head. I had reached the point where I could no longer escape the legacy of my guilt. If I was ever going to move forward, I had to deal with it. Hours later, I had seen into my soul and as I went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, I knew I didn’t like what I’d found there. I sat down at the table and tried to get everything straight in my head.

  OK, I had been born to a mother who hated me – a mother, who every day of the sixteen years I spent with her, never let me forget that I was worthless – that was a fact, I couldn’t change that. It’s what I had done with that knowledge that was the problem. There had been a point in my childhood where I realised that my mother’s feelings were her problem, not mine. Deep down, I knew I couldn’t be blamed for being born, but I kept the guilt of it alive. Nurtured it even, because if I could be the poor little girl who was hated by her mother, then I couldn’t be blamed for my actions, could I?

  So, I carried the guilt and the feeling I was unlovable into adulthood and lived a life skimming the surface, never really living, never exposing myself to the possibility of hurt. I married a man I didn’t love. Yes, he was a shit at times, but I treated him badly too, and when it became obvious that he didn’t love me either, I perversely took revenge. I could see clearly now, that shagging half the male population of Exeter, wasn’t revenge for Eddie’s affairs, it was revenge for him not loving me. I didn’t love him, but I wanted him to love me.

  The affair with Michael was another matter altogether, he didn’t lead me into temptation, I already knew the shortcut. What better way to get back at my hypocritically, religious mother, than to commit an act so completely against everything she stood for. All right, I admit, I fancied Michael… but I never loved him, I was incapable of loving. Michael’s allure was that he was a priest – and getting involved with him was a payback to my mother.

  When Eddie admitted he was gay it was a shock, but it didn’t hurt me emotionally, it couldn’t, because I had never invested anything of myself in the marriage. I was more hurt by the loss of my lifestyle. I knew that, but instead of facing up to who I was then and there, I took the cowards’ way out and hid myself away. I purposely put myself in a prison of my own making and disguised it as my home. I couldn’t face myself, so I couldn’t face the world.

  I convinced myself that I was doing it for my boys, because in the mess I had created, they were the only good thing I had achieved. But, although I loved them above all else, I still used them as an excuse to avoid life.

  And then along came Robbie, who without even trying, created a crack in the surface of my carefully created shell, and I fell through, right slap bang into the life I had always avoided and suddenly, I was happy to be there. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to genuinely and irrevocably love another human being, a man. Then what did I do? It was laughable really – I expected him to love me right back. Jesus, I had to give myself points for cheek. When I had decided to open myself up to real emotion… I expected Robbie to toe the line, be who I wanted him to be.

  Only now, when I knew the utter despair of loving someone who didn’t love me back, could I feel real remorse over Michael. I had used him and then dismissed his feelings as little more than an annoying complication. Well, I had my comeuppance and I deserved every bit of it. My biggest problem was what I did with this new insight. I would always love Robbie, I knew that would never alter, but somehow I had to move on – it was just at that moment – I didn’t know how. Fate, however, was about to give me a nudge in the right direction.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  ‘One of us needs to get the delivery van MOT’d,’ Alison was saying a week later, ‘it runs out in two weeks.

  ‘I’m just popping into the bookshop but I’ll go afterwards if you like.’

  ‘Oh good, I hate that lecherous old bugger who owns the garage, I don’t know why we go there.’

  ‘They’re cheap.’

  ‘I know, but I’m not sure that’s a good enough trade off.’

  Later that evening, I was admiring my new book, sitting on top of all the other “coffee table” books I loved, but regretting not buying the Jilly Cooper I had intended to get. I’d stopped spending my nights in fantasy land and needed to keep busy. I turned the television on, flicked through the channels, and when nothing of interest caught my attention, I turned it off again.

  Oh, well, I thought, reaching for the book, there’s nothing else for it, I’ll have to “find my path to well-being and wholeness” as promised in the book. Right, I said aloud to the front cover, ‘Shamanism is about healing the mind, body and soul… I have to warn you, you have your work cut out with me.’ Then I laughed, I really was in danger of going loopy.

  The book intrigued me but I’ll be honest and tell you I skimmed, picking out bits I thought were relevant to me, rather than giving it the attention it deserved.

  “Shamanic Healing is used to work on inner child issues”, yep…I had them, and “wounds from the past’, those too. “It can help during life crises, relationship problems, depression, times when you feel at a crossroads in your life’. Yay… this book was obviously written with me in mind.

  Seeing as I didn’t have a Shamanic practitioner handy ( the book recommended finding one) I spent the following weekend trying to teach myself to meditate in order to reach into my inner self, I suppose I was thinking anything is better than nothing. Have you ever tried to meditate? It’s bloody impossible. Clear your mind, my arse! Every time I tried, I found I had just spent twent
y minutes thinking about what I was going to have for lunch, or Robbie, or Michael or horrors of all horrors… my mother.

  I was obviously doing it wrong, but in a strange way these “non-meditation” moments were having an effect on me. Gradually as I was coming round to the idea that I didn’t have to accept things the way they were, I began to get angry with myself. I had lived my whole life against a backdrop of needless guilt, afraid to stand alone and be my own person. OK, I could blame my mother for starting it all in the first place, but I was the one who had carried it on, and every moment since had been leading to this point. It was time to deal with the consequences.

  It took a while, but over the following weeks I began to feel more positive than I had ever done. I still cried myself to sleep over Robbie, and in the daylight hours, I was still angry, but I began to sense I was heading towards a resolution. Don’t ask me why… I wasn’t sure myself, but I knew I was on the cusp of finding a way forward. It was as if suddenly the past made sense to me, all I needed was one little step to put me on the right path.

  And then it happened. It was a normal morning, I was in the bathroom getting ready for work. I lifted my hand to apply my eye shadow and I saw my mother staring back at me. OK… that sounds dramatic, obviously it wasn’t actually my mother, and I don’t actually resemble her, but for the first time I could see some of her features in mine. Why was that? I had never noticed it before, but then maybe I was seeing myself clearly for the first time.

  I had her nose… mine was shorter, but it still had her shape. My cheekbones resembled hers… my chin… My God! I was horrified. It was a perfectly lucid moment when my plan took shape in my head. I knew exactly what I had to do. Convincing Alison was another matter though.

  ‘Ali, can you stay back a minute, I need to talk to you.’ We were just about to close up for the day and Alison turned a surprised face towards me.

  She grimaced. ‘That sounds ominous.’

  It had taken me a month of planning to get this far and this was going to be the hardest part, even harder than when I had explained to the boys. I needed a deep breath for courage to face what I knew would be Alison’s objections.