The One I Love

by Anna McPartlin

  “Well, trust me, Leslie,” Adrian said, “you have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  Leslie drained her glass. “Thanks,” she said.

  By the time the four of them were kicked out of the pub they were friends, laughing and joking and pushing each other down the street under a bright white moon. Adrian put his arm around Leslie’s shoulders and she looked at it resting there, then relaxed against him.

  “Adrian?”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Would you like to have sex with me?”

  “Yes, yes and yes again,” he said.

  “Oh, good,” she said. “That’s a big relief.”

  They walked together to the boat.

  Keith and Elle left them to it. “How do you feel about a bed in a castle?” Elle asked.

  “Sounds like bliss,” he said.

  “You haven’t seen the décor.”

  They walked on, arm in arm.

  “I’m not having sex with you,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I find you attractive and funny, and ordinarily I would, but I’m very tired and today has been perfect and I’d like to sleep now,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said again, and they walked into her room together and she kissed him goodnight and they jumped into the single beds and were asleep within minutes.

  Leslie was standing in the middle of a bobbing boat wondering what she was doing. She heard the toilet light go off. The door opened and Adrian appeared. He walked up to her and she waited for him to kiss her. He fixed her hair and touched her face with his hand, cupped her chin and his lips hovered close to hers. She wished to Christ he’d get on with kissing her because her legs were going to go from under her if he wasn’t careful. And when he did kiss her, a deep, wet, soft kiss, she closed her eyes and thought, This beats the shit out of batteries.

  They made love once, then twice, and after that she told him about her surgery and he kissed her breasts and placed his hand on her stomach as she had done that morning, a lifetime ago, and he told her she was beautiful and that she would always be beautiful and she cried and he held her, and when she was done crying he kissed her and they made love again.

  On the morning that Kurt and Irene’s Leaving Cert exams started, Jane was as nervous as if it were her own future on the line. Kurt found schoolwork easy – he was like his mother that way. Irene had to work a bit harder but she was happy to do enough to qualify for nursing. He was determined to get medicine. Jane laid out a huge breakfast to feed the pair of them and when Irene was first into the kitchen Jane pulled a chair out for her. “Sit,” she ordered.

  “I’m not that hungry, Jane.”

  “You need food,” Jane said, and piled pancakes onto a plate.

  As Kurt was still in the shower and they had time alone together, Jane asked Irene why she wanted to be a nurse.

  “Because Kurt wants medicine,” she said, “and even if I studied day and night for forty years I wouldn’t get medicine.”

  “Kurt is your reason?”

  “Kurt and I want to go to Trinity.”

  “But what if you hate it?”

  “As long as we’re together I’ll love it.”

  “I hope you’re right. Otherwise you’re going to be cleaning vomit for the rest of your life because of a boy you knew when you were eighteen.”

  Irene laughed. “You’re so funny, Jane!”

  Kurt appeared and they kissed, and Jane began to wonder where time was going.

  Her son and his girlfriend enjoyed their hearty breakfast while Jane cleaned around them. “Do you have enough pens?”

  “Mum, you bought us about five thousand – relax.”

  “Okay, double-check your bags for calculators.”

  “Have them,” Irene said.

  Jane put down the cloth, reached into her bag. She took out a twenty-euro note and put it on the table between them. “Buy some lunch – oh, crap,” she said. “Batteries. I forgot batteries.”

  “What do you need batteries for?” Kurt asked.

  “The calculators.”

  “They’re solar,” Irene said, and giggled.

  “Oh, right, of course they are.”

  “Jane?” Irene said.

  “What?”

  “If you didn’t have Kurt, would you have gone to college?”

  Kurt looked up from his food. It was a question he’d never thought to ask his mother.

  “I was thinking about medicine,” she said.

  “You never told me!” Kurt exclaimed.

  “Well, it was just an idea. After all, I didn’t sit the exams. I had you two weeks before them.”

  “I think you would have been a cool doctor,” Irene said.

  Jane smiled and blushed. “Thanks, Irene.”

  “Yeah, Mum,” Kurt said, “you would have been cool.”

  “Thanks, son.”

  “It’s a pity you were such a big slut,” he said, and winked at her the way his dad did when he said something outrageous and thought it was funny.

  Irene and Kurt burst out laughing and high-fived, and Jane couldn’t help but laugh along with them. Cheeky little bastard.

  Midway through the exams, when Irene and Kurt had a day off, Martha invited her daughter and her boyfriend to lunch. Kurt regarded Irene’s mother with suspicion but Irene begged him to join them so he did, and he was really glad he had. Martha had reviewed the situation she found herself in with her daughter and decided the only way back into her daughter’s good graces was with a present, so at the end of an expensive meal she handed her daughter an envelope.

  Irene opened it and it contained two InterRail tickets. “What’s this?” Irene asked.

  “It’s a month’s travelling through Europe,” Martha said.

  “But we’re going to Greece,” Kurt said.

  “For two weeks,” she said, “and then you’re going to Europe for a month.” She smiled her big porcelain-toothed smile. Anything the Moores can do I can do better.

  “No way!” Kurt said.

  “Oh, my God!” Irene shouted.

  They hugged each other and then Irene hugged her mother and Kurt shook her hand awkwardly, but when he moved in for a hug they bumped and Martha pushed him off. “You’re welcome,” said Martha.

  Twenty minutes after that Kurt witnessed his girlfriend’s mother manipulate her into coming back home on her return from Europe, and as much as he wanted to say something he kept quiet because Irene looked so happy.

  At first Jane was unhappy with the notion of her child backpacking around Europe so she called Dominic and they arranged to meet for lunch to discuss it. The rain was coming down in buckets and had been for three days straight. Jane battled her way into the restaurant and shook the rain off. Dominic was waiting. They kissed and it was slightly awkward but both pretended not to notice. She got to business straight away.

  “That bitch thinks she’s so clever.”

  “Or maybe she just wanted to do something nice for her daughter.”

  “She’s getting back at me.”

  “Really? Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?”

  “No, I don’t.” She sighed. “She’s saying in no uncertain terms that if she can’t have her daughter I can’t have my son.”

  “You’re being hysterical,” he said, and then she pulled the twisted face that made her look like her mother so he backed down. “Or not – you’re right and she’s a bitch from hell, but at least Kurt gets to do something great.”

  “It’s too much,” she argued. “He’s never been away from home for longer than a week and that was with supervision – and now nearly an entire summer!”

  “He’s eighteen,” Dominic reminded her.

  “I know but –”

  “But nothing – my brothers did it, I did it, Brick and Mint did it, and we all came home safe and sound.”

  “Times have changed,” she reminded him.

  “Times are always changing. He’s not going to war – a
ll he’s doing is strapping a bag on his back and going out into the world to have a blast.”

  “Did you have a blast?”

  “Time of my life,” he said.

  “Alexandra spent two weeks in the Canaries with Siobhan Wilson and Christina Benson. She came home burned alive and with beads in her hair. She said it was the best time of her life.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They were in our class.”

  “I don’t remember them. What was she doing with them?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Dominic. Maybe it was because her best friend was sleep-deprived, knee-deep in nappies and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, “sorry.”

  “So you think I should just let him go?” she asked then.

  “I think that if you’re really honest with yourself you’ll see you have no choice.”

  “God, I hate that woman!”

  “I don’t know – maybe you should thank her.”

  “For what?”

  “Kurt’s seeing you in a different light. He appreciates you in a way he didn’t in the past.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he’s seeing you through his girlfriend’s eyes and, as a mother, you beat that Martha bitch hands down.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, and smiled. “I can live with that.”

  It was true. Since his girlfriend had moved into his home Kurt had come to appreciate his mother more.

  “You’re lucky,” Irene told him one day in his room. “You just don’t know how lucky you are.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “No. Not easy. I live with a woman who doesn’t seem to notice if I’m there or not, and as for my dad, the last time I saw him was more than three months ago. Your mum lives for you.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that’s the problem.”

  “That’s not the problem, Kurt. The problem is she gave up her future for you and now you’re scared she’ll want to keep you.”

  “Bollocks,” he said.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “You’re so full of shit, Irene,” he said, and she laughed.

  “Fine,” she said. “Maybe I’m wrong but it’s a thought.”

  Irene was wrong but it made Kurt think. A whole new world was opening up in front of him – opportunity, his first foray into adulthood, leaving home, university, making his own decisions, living his own life. He was so excited about his future and counting down the days until he and Irene were on a flight and leaving their childhood behind for good. And eighteen years ago his mum had been standing in the same kitchen but instead of holding a bag full of pens and a solar calculator she had been holding a baby, and instead of planning trips abroad, preparing for college and a life without Rose, she was stuck in the rut she still found herself in eighteen years later.

  Two days after their exams finished and with packs on their backs, Irene and Kurt made their way down the front steps towards Jane, who was holding the car door open. Elle sat on the wall wearing sunglasses, even though it was dull and raining. Rose emerged from her basement and stood by her door. Kurt put his bag in the car boot and went back to kiss his grandmother. She hugged him tight. “Stay safe,” she said. “Life is hard enough without you disappearing on me.”

  “It’s only six weeks, Gran,” he said.

  “Six weeks is a lifetime, my darling. Live well.”

  “I will.”

  She let him go and watched him hug Elle, who took the opportunity to slip him an extra few euro.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said.

  “I do,” she said.

  Irene got into the car, then waved at Rose and Elle, and Kurt joined her. Jane got into the driver’s seat and started the car. Elle waved one final time and they were gone. Rose went inside and Elle sat on the wall, smoking a cigarette and wearing her sunglasses despite the rain.

  Jane had felt bad for a number of weeks about the way things had ended with Tom and when she eventually found the confidence to call him she left a message apologizing for blowing up. She asked him to call her and told him once again she was sorry.

  Tom had listened to the message but he was too embarrassed, too ashamed to call her back. In the few weeks that had passed he had found himself missing her. He missed her smile and the way she twisted her face when she wasn’t happy. He missed her laugh and her calm, caring nature. He missed the devil side of her because just when you thought she was a total pushover she pushed back – and, by God, she pushed hard. He liked that. He liked that she was formidable, just like Alexandra, and it made sense that the two had once been best friends because in a way they were similar.

  Jane missed Tom so much it interrupted her thoughts. She’d be on the phone to a buyer and she’d think of him and lose concentration. She’d be parking the car and stop dead just to remember a moment they’d shared. Only when someone beeped would she resume normal operations. She’d find herself thinking about him and worrying about him, and at night she lay awake wondering what he was doing, where he had been, where he was going and whether or not she’d ever see him again.

  Jane woke up early on 21 June and was up and out before eight. She knocked on Tom’s door a little after eight forty-five, and when he didn’t answer she pressed the doorbell and held it until she heard him stamp down the stairs.

  He opened it roughly, with a big sleepy head, wearing boxer shorts and a “Go West” T-shirt. “What?” he yelled. Then he wiped his eyes, focused and saw who it was. “Jane.”

  “Tom,” she said, and pushed past him into the house. He followed her into the kitchen where she set about finding the coffee.

  “Second shelf on the left,” he said.

  She located it and set about making some.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “We’re going to spend the day together,” she told him.

  “No,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Jane, I don’t want this.”

  “Want what? You don’t want to spend the anniversary of your wife’s disappearance with the woman who recently called you a fucking bastard? Fair enough, but tell me what you do want to do?”

  “I don’t remember you exactly calling me a fucking bastard.”

  “Must have been in my head,” she said.

  He sat down at his counter. “I was thinking I’d stay in bed.”

  “No,” she said, “out of the question.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to come to Dalkey with me.”

  “You are joking.”

  “I think we should walk the streets she walked and I think we should talk and reminisce and then maybe we could get some lunch, and after that we’ll hand out some of those flyers you keep in that black bag of yours by the door, and maybe we’ll make our way into town and we’ll stay there until it gets dark and this day is over.”

  Tom thought about it for a moment or two, then nodded. He went up to his bedroom and came down dressed and ready.

  They walked together through the village of Dalkey and as they walked they handed flyers to anyone who would take them.

  After a while Jane decided to broach the subject they had both been avoiding. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

  “You were right,” he said, “perfectly right.”

  “I was taking out my own frustrations on you,” she said, “and while I’m never going to be able to comprehend how a man who loves his wife as much as you love Alexandra could possibly be with that girl Jeanette, I’m still on your side.”

  “Alexandra’s gone,” he said, “and I miss her so much I ache, and I’m so terrified that I swear it’s brought me to the brink of insanity and I’m just holding on, and for a while that girl helped me do that. I’m not making excuses. I’m just telling you the way it is.”

  “Okay,” she said, “and again I’m sorry.” She handed a flyer to a woman pushing a pram. The woman looke
d at it for a second and crumpled it right in front of them. “What a cow,” Jane said, and Tom pushed her ahead.

  “I ended it with Jeanette,” he said. “Actually, if I’m honest, I treated her pretty poorly.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I pushed her out the door and slammed it in her face two minutes after you left.”

  “Oh, that is a poor show.”

  “I blame you,” he said, and grinned.

  “That’s funny,” she said.

  There had been no developments since the reconstruction aired. The police had received a number of calls after the show but none of them panned out. Tom was at a loss as to what to do next, and part of him wished he could just let go. “How about we get a drink?” he suggested.

  “Love to,” she said.

  Tom put the flyers back into the black bag and together they walked to the pub.

  On the last day of June, Leslie sat up in her hospital bed. The nurse had just taken blood and the trainee doctor had taken her history for the tenth time. She was asked if she wanted something to help her sleep but she declined as she wanted to spend as much time with her breasts and womb as possible. She was wearing a nightshirt that Jane had bought for her and under her bed were slippers from Elle. She moisturized her face and put balm on her lips. When the woman across the way tried to make eye contact she pretended to read a magazine, and when the woman disappeared into the toilet, she jumped out and pulled the curtain around her bed.

  The woman in the bed opposite had been watching the clock, waiting for visiting hour, but Leslie didn’t expect any visitors because she had been adamant that she wanted to be alone.

  Jim was the first to appear from behind the curtain with a bag of fruit and a bottle of 7up raised high.

  “I told you not to come.”

  “I wouldn’t have expected you to say anything else,” he said, and sat on the chair by her bed.

  “I can’t believe you’re ignoring my express wishes.”

  Jane called out Leslie’s name and Jim opened the curtain. “She’s here,” he said, and turned back to Leslie. “Looks like I’m not the only one.”

  Jane appeared with a Brown Thomas bag filled with moisturizer, perfume and a set of candles. “They’re from Elle too,” she said, “and I know it’s weird to give you candles but they smell so good.”