Not What You Think

by Melissa Hill

  From her sitting-room window, Nicola watched the two retreat to their cars. Chloe walked slowly beside Dan, and Nicola didn’t need to be an expert in lip-reading to make out what the younger woman might be saying to her fiancé.

  “Jesus, Dan,” Chloe was whispering, her expression shocked and confused. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

  Chapter 33

  DAN WALKED CLOSELY beside her. “Look, just get in the car and follow me down to the village. We’ll talk about it then.”

  Chloe said nothing. She reversed out of Nicola’s driveway as if in a daze, and as she did, Dan saw her cast a questioning glance at the Ford Focus parked outside the house.

  Dan drove off ahead and moments later, both vehicles stopped in the carpark of a local pub. His expression unreadable, Dan got in alongside Chloe.

  “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “But how could you – how could you keep something like that from me, Dan? How could you go on for so long without saying anything?”

  “I –”

  Before he could answer, she went on. “That dog – Nicola’s dog – he’s one of those . . . one of those dogs, isn’t he? Like a guide dog except –”

  “An assistance dog.” Dan clarified. “Yes, he is.”

  Chloe shook her head. “But what happened to her? She hasn’t always been that way, has she?”

  “No,” Dan answered sadly, “she hasn’t always been that way.”

  The dog had been quite a shock for him. While keenly aware that over the last few years Nicola had all but resumed her independence, he had been unprepared for the dog’s role in that. He recalled the way Barney – as she called it – had instantly retrieved his mobile phone when it fell on the floor, and how the dog had closed the front door after he and Chloe left the house. Apparently, these assistance dogs could do great things altogether, like switch on and off lights, and load or unload washing-machines. Dan supposed he was a useful guard dog too – able to warn Nicola in advance of any impending danger.

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” Chloe asked again.

  Dan dropped his gaze to the dashboard. “I’m sorry. But as time went by it was getting harder and harder to say anything. I just didn’t know what you’d think of me and –”

  “What happened?” Chloe asked again.

  “I just didn’t know how to bring it up, Chloe. You have to understand –”

  “Dan, just tell me!”

  He could hear the desperation in her voice. This was it, he thought with growing unease. The moment he’d been dreading since Nicola came back.

  Before speaking, Dan cleared his throat. “Well, Nicola and I had been through a lot, as you know, with the miscarriage and, of course, the thing with Ken Harris.”

  Chloe nodded, waiting for him to continue.

  “But we got over it – in fact we got over it faster – and possibly easier – than either of us had anticipated. We loved one another a lot, Chloe, and we were both equally determined to get through it, equally committed to making the marriage work.” He swallowed. “Of course, it wasn’t that easy for me to forgive Nicola for going near Harris, but yet I could understand why it happened. I suppose, for a while, Nicola and I were unconsciously avoiding – not just one another – but what had happened to us. We’d never really spoken about the miscarriage, never really shared our grief. After the Ken thing, I think we both realised what we had been doing, and that we were letting our marriage slip away from us.”

  He knew Chloe wasn’t comfortable hearing this, but yet there was a strange sense of relief in getting the words out.

  “After we admitted to one another how we were really feeling, and how fragile things had become, we both decided that although the marriage was weak, we still loved one another deeply and there was plenty to fight for. So, we set about doing just that. We spoke about moving out of our apartment in Bray, and buying a house of our own. We knew that, if our marriage was to survive, we’d have to make a fresh start.”

  A new house was to signify a new beginning, a new chapter in their life together.

  “For a while, it was terrific. Nicola left Metamorph and got another job in a hotel leisure centre – I suppose to reassure me that she wouldn’t be seeing Ken Harris again, but I knew he wasn’t a problem. All that mattered to me was that I’d got Nicola back – the old Nicola back.”

  He saw Chloe flinch slightly at this.

  “I’m sorry, Chloe. I suppose this is part of the reason I didn’t want to tell you. This kind of thing isn’t easy for you to hear.”

  “Don’t worry about what I think,” Chloe said quietly. “Just go on.”

  Dan exhaled. “Right. Well, as I said, the old Nicola was back and – believe me – this turned out to be a bit of a mixed blessing!” He laughed, remembering. “Nicola is full of unbelievable energy – always flitting off here, there and everywhere. She has absolutely no patience and sometimes you can’t get her to sit still in the same place for more than a few seconds!” He paused, realising that he was speaking about it in the present tense. “Anyway, she made an absolute mission out of the house-hunting – it was a big thing for her and I suppose it was something to work towards, something to aim for. I have to admit that I enjoyed it, too – the two of us would take off on our bikes on Saturday and Sunday afternoons to look at show-houses.”

  “Bikes?”

  Dan suspected Chloe was finding it hard to picture him on a bicycle. Dan adored his car.

  “Yeah, Nicola wasn’t a great fan of traffic – she had a touch of the old road rage.” He smiled, almost affectionately, but then his expression became subdued. “But just when everything was started to fall into place for us, just when we were starting to get back on track and things were going well – almost too well . . . “his voice trailed off, sadly. “We had come through so much together – my parents, the miscarriage, Ken . . . we had come through it all, Chloe, and by then we were convinced that the two of us could survive anything.”

  And they had been convinced, Dan thought. It didn’t matter what else life threw at them, they had each been convinced that they loved one another enough, that their marriage was strong enough to survive anything.

  He laughed, a short bitter laugh. “But, it’s true what they say – if you want to give God a good laugh, tell him about your plans.”

  “Nicola ended up in some kind of accident.” Chloe stated flatly.

  Dan nodded. “On her bike. She was out cycling up near Glendalough on her afternoon off, and a tourist who didn’t know the road rounded a corner and ploughed into her – the bastard was lucky he didn’t kill her!”

  Chloe shook her head sadly.

  “I couldn’t believe it, Chloe. I just couldn’t believe it. After everything we’d been through, after everything we’d fought for, something like that had to happen – why?”

  “I’m so sorry, Dan.”

  “The ambulance brought Nicola to Loughlinstown, and from there they sent her on to St Vmcent’s. They set her up in traction but it wasn’t long before they came back with a full diagnosis. She’d damaged a section of her spine that couldn’t ever be renewed. While, she was OK as far as the waist, they were doubtful that she’d ever regain the use of her legs.”

  “The poor thing, what must it have been like for her?”

  Dan struggled to speak. This was the part he hated, the part he dreaded telling her. What would she think of him?

  “However bad it was, I made it ten times worse,” he said hoarsely, a huge lump rising in his throat. “I got such a shock when they told us. I couldn’t handle it, Chloe, and for a long time I wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. After everything . . . I kept expecting someone to tell me that it had all been a sick joke – a candid-camera type thing. I just couldn’t handle it.” Dan shook his head sadly, as if still trying to convince himself.

  “What?” Chloe looked at him. “What are you talking about, Dan? Nicola was the one affected,
not you. What do you mean you couldn’t handle it?”

  It was seconds before the realisation hit her. Despite having met Nicola, Chloe still hadn’t understood. She hadn’t understood why he had gone to such lengths to hide it all from her. But now Chloe knew that it wasn’t so much his wife’s disability Dan had been hiding; it was his own reaction to it.

  Dan was ashamed and so he should be.

  “Oh – my – God,” she said, pronouncing each word slowly as she said it. “You left her, didn’t you, Dan? You left Nicola to deal with it all on her own.”

  Dan said nothing but he didn’t need to. His shamefaced expression said it all.

  Chapter 34

  A FEW DAYS later, Laura was rifling through a sheaf of invoices trying to get to grips with her latest VAT declaration.

  “What do you think?” she asked Eamonn, who was lazing on the floor beside her desk. “Would gift boxes be considered Purchases For Resale, or Purchases Not For Resale?”

  The cat yawned, obviously not caring one way or the other.

  “They’d have to be ‘For Resale’, wouldn’t they? Because they’re part of the overall product . . . yet I don’t actually sell them on to people so . . .”

  Laura kneaded her forehead impatiently. She’d been at this all afternoon and she still couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

  Not that there was any bloody point, Laura thought. The Crafts Exhibition hadn’t been the great success she had imagined. Yes, she had given out plenty of cards and, yes, there had been loads lots of compliments thrown about, but still there was nothing concrete – not even the possibility of something concrete.

  Laura just wasn’t selling enough to justify her existence as a jewellery designer. If anything she was losing money, what with all the stock she had to buy and all the packaging and boxes and all the unseen expenses, like phone and electricity and heating and everything! It was just too much.

  Laura had to admit to herself that maybe they had been right; Helen, her mother, all the doubters had been right. It just wasn’t possible; this kind of life just wasn’t feasible, not for someone like Laura anyway. They had been right from the very beginning. She didn’t have the tenacity, the confidence, the belief in herself to really make a go of this.

  Laura had finally begun to realise that she just didn’t have the killer instinct.

  “And that isn’t exactly something you can fake, or something you can work at, is it, Eamonn?” she asked, feeling more than a little concerned that lately all she seemed to do was talk nonsense to the cat.

  She got up to make herself a cup of coffee and, hopefully, clear her head. On the fridge, Laura caught sight of a wedding snapshot Maureen had taken of herself and Neil at the altar. Laura studied Neil’s earnest expression, the one he had spent ages practising especially for the day. “I can’t show off the gap in my teeth,” he had insisted weeks beforehand. But by the time the photographer had arranged and rearranged them all for the photographs, Laura knew the gap in his teeth was well and truly forgotten. She was pleased. At least in their professional wedding photographs, Neil would look like her Neil and not the stiff, uncomfortable Neil in this one.

  How would Neil feel when she told him she was about to give up what once had been her dream? That she was going back to the rat-race, where she would be once again a square peg trying to fit into a round hole?

  Just then, Laura heard the doorbell ring. She went out to answer it and nearly dropped her coffee mug when she saw who was standing outside.

  “Hello, Laura,” Helen said nervously, “can I come in?”

  “Of course.” Laura was shocked at the sight of her. Helen looked as though she hadn’t slept in days. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face was pale and she was dressed in a baggy T-shirt and track-suit bottoms – track-suit bottoms!

  “Do you want a coffee? I was just making one.”

  “Would you mind?” Helen looked unsure and, Laura thought, nervous. Now this was certainly odd – Helen in track-suit bottoms and nervous!

  “Come on through.” Laura walked ahead of her into the kitchen. She looked at the clock. Almost two in the afternoon. Why wasn’t Helen at work?

  “Why aren’t you at work?” she asked.

  “I took a few days off,” Helen said quietly. “I needed some time – to think.”

  “Oh.”

  Helen took a deep breath. “Laura, I came here today, not to ask for your forgiveness or understanding, or anything, but just to say that I am truly, deeply, sorry for what I did.”

  “That’s OK, Helen.”

  “Not just for the Neil thing, although that was bad enough, and to this day I still don’t really know why I did it . . . I mean I do know – I just wanted to fuck things up for you, like things were fucked up for me. I suppose I’ve always been that bit envious of you and –”

  “Envious – of me?” Laura interjected, surprised.

  “Well, yes.” Helen said. “You just seem to sail through life taking each day as it comes, no worries, a wonderful husband, a fantastic home – everything!”

  Laura stared at her. She had thought Helen had come here to apologise, to make amends for her behaviour. She certainly hadn’t expected Helen to come up with a pathetic excuse like that! Envious, my backside!

  “And this,” Helen made a broad sweeping gesture towards Laura’s workshop. “You took a risk and forged a decent career for yourself by following your dream. How many of us have the courage to do that?”

  “You’re trying to be funny, aren’t you?” Laura said. “You, Helen Jackson, with the designer clothes and the designer apartment and the – the designer life – you expect me to believe that you are envious of me!”

  “Well, of course! Why wouldn’t I be? You have everything I want – everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m not saying that you don’t deserve it, of course you do, but everything always seemed to come so easily for you!”

  “Easily?” Laura parroted, her eyes out on disbelieving stalks. “You think things have come easily for me! Me, who all these years has sat and watched you bag all the best men, the best jobs – even the best exam results, for goodness sake! Why would you be envious of me when you were the one who got eight bloody honours in your bloody Leaving Cert!”

  The two women faced one another and, for one brief moment, a tension-filled hush descended on the room.

  Eventually, Helen raised an amused eyebrow. “Eight honours?” she said, biting back a grin.

  Laura immediately felt a bubble of laughter rise up within her. “Oh God,” she giggled, her eyes dancing with humour, “I can’t believe I just said that – I can’t believe that I brought up the bloody Leaving Cert results!”

  Helen was laughing too. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for laughing at you. I know what you mean – it’s just . . . God, you should have seen your face! ‘You got eight honours in your bloody Leaving Cert, Helen!’ Honestly, Laura, you should have seen your face!”

  They laughed again, and, as they sat down to drink their coffee, Laura reflected that no matter what had happened between them – no matter how remote and flimsy their relationship had been over the past few years – she and Helen would always have a bond, an odd, bizarre, and often fragile bond of friendship, but a bond nonetheless.

  Helen was her oldest friend. Yes, they had let things slip over the last few years and yes, Helen had many times put that friendship at risk, but could Laura honestly admit that she hadn’t done the same? Hadn’t she made the same mistake of believing Helen’s circumstances to be perfect, believing that her friend was the type of person she herself really wanted to be? And hadn’t she too envied her for that, envied her poise, her confidence, her looks – even her life? Laura remembered all the times she had sat here in this house, and in her office, feeling self-conscious about her abilities, her appearance and her situation, wishing that she possessed even an ounce of Helen’s vibrancy. And then, Helen would arrive in the door all poised, gorgeous, and oozing self-assurance, making her feel even more insigni
ficant.

  Laura couldn’t kid herself that she hadn’t felt bitter towards Helen at times – secretly bitter that her friend looked better than her, that she was more capable, more assured. There were even times when Laura resented Helen just for who she was.

  But wasn’t that only natural between friends – between women, even, Laura thought, that no matter how much they pretend to be supportive, sympathetic and compassionate, now and again they just want one another to fail? Not through jealousy, she thought, but because through comparing our own successes to other women’s failures, we tend to feel that bit better – that bit smugger about ourselves. Laura knew that she had many times been guilty of just that where Helen was concerned.

  “I’m sorry,” Helen said again, her expression growing serious. “I came here today to tell you that, and to tell you that if you want me out of your life then I’ll understand completely.”

  “I don’t want you out of my life, Helen,” Laura said. “We’ve both been stupid. We’ve both been childish. OK, maybe I didn’t try and steal your boyfriend but . . .” She trailed off when she saw Helen wince. “Look, I know you weren’t thinking straight – you were hurting. And I suppose, if we’re being honest, at the time I felt that bit superior to you – for once.”

  “Superior?”

  “Yes. There you were, abandoned, a single mother, struggling to come to terms with losing everything you held dear, and there I was madly in love with a man who I knew loved me back, and didn’t want to lose me.” She gave a little laugh. “In a way you did me a favour, because when Neil confessed what had happened and was so cut up about it, I knew his feelings for me were real. If anything, it brought us closer and it made our feelings stronger. Meanwhile you were left with no one. So, yes, I felt that little bit superior.”

  Helen looked at her. “Bloody hell – we’re not exactly candidates for a remake of Thelma and Louise, are we?”

  Laura shrugged. “You and I know both know that it doesn’t always happen that way. We don’t all go around sobbing on one another’s shoulders and hugging like they do in the movies. Real friendship isn’t just about the soppy bits; it’s warts and all.”