Take a Look At Me Now

by Anita Notaro

  ‘How is Tamsin?’

  ‘Not great.’

  ‘You need to talk about it?’

  Why did everyone ask him that?

  ‘To an outsider, I mean?’ Colin grinned. ‘Yes, I know you discuss everything with your wife. I get enough stick about you being the perfect husband from Anne.’ He looked at the younger man’s worn-out face. ‘But sometimes it’s good to chat to someone else.’

  ‘Thanks, Colin. I’ll remember that.’

  ‘Someone male, who doesn’t feel the need to analyse it to death.’

  James smiled. He was tempted.

  ‘Sure you can’t manage a quick one?’

  ‘Maybe another night.’

  ‘OK, fine.’ He patted James’s arm as he passed. ‘Mind yourself.’

  ‘I will.’

  Later that evening, when Tamsin was in bed and he was sure she was sleeping, James opened the phone book and looked up a number. This is mad, he thought, closing the book. I am not ringing a helpline.

  He made himself coffee, all the while berating himself for being so weak. What are you like? Any other man would just get on with it. You’re a big girl’s blouse, that’s what you are. He banged down the spoon and went to sit on the couch. After a few minutes spent staring into space he sighed, looked up the number again and dialled.

  ‘Hello, this is the Samaritans. My name is Rita.’

  ‘Hello, eh sorry, I’m not suicidal or anything.’ James felt guilty about wasting their time. ‘I just need to talk to someone.’

  ‘That’s fine. That’s what we’re here for. Would you like to tell me your name?’ She sensed reluctance and said quickly, ‘Just your first name and you don’t have to, only if you want.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I’m James.’

  ‘Hi, James. How’re you doing?’

  ‘Not very well. I just have to tell someone.’ He looked around nervously and took a deep breath. ‘I’ve been having an affair.’ Just saying the words felt like a huge relief. It was followed immediately by worry. Now that he’d told somebody Tamsin might find out. Oh God, he thought, what if this person knows me? Or worse, knows Tamsin? He felt sick.

  ‘OK.’ Rita waited but nothing came. ‘And is that a problem for you?’

  ‘I’m married, that’s the problem.’ He couldn’t stop himself. ‘I’m married to the most wonderful woman and I love her dearly and we share everything and it’s eating me up inside.’ He drew a long breath. ‘This is in confidence, isn’t it? I mean, what if . . .’

  ‘Completely, James. Anything you say to me will not be repeated. There are no notes taken, nothing. That’s why we don’t use second names.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He felt slightly better. ‘It’s just that Tam—my wife and I have been trying for a child for a long time and we haven’t managed to conceive. It’s put . . .’ He struggled to find the right words. ‘It’s put a lot of pressure on our . . . the sexual side of things.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘It’s just . . . all been about getting pregnant, you know. No spontaneity, no foreplay. Nothing. It’s all become . . . a bit mechanical, I suppose.’

  ‘That must be very hard on you.’

  ‘It’s been much harder on . . . her. My wife wants a child desperately.’

  ‘And do you?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Sometimes I don’t know any more.’ He let out a deep breath. ‘Yes, I do, but I can live without it, at least I think I can. It’s not the end of the world for me.’ There was a long pause. ‘But it is for her.’

  ‘That must be tough,’ the counsellor said softly.

  ‘So, a few years ago I . . . sort of got involved with someone . . .’

  ‘This is the affair you mentioned?’

  ‘Yes. Well, it wasn’t really an affair. Not in that sense. You see, I have everything I could possibly want within my marriage.’

  The woman waited.

  ‘I was . . . lonely, frustrated, whatever. I didn’t feel able to put all that on to her, so I . . . took the coward’s way out.’

  ‘What makes you think you were a coward?’

  ‘Oh, I was. I’m ashamed of myself, really, not being able to control my . . . urges, I suppose.’ Another long pause followed by a sigh. ‘Well, eventually I did something about it.’

  ‘You met someone else?’

  ‘Yes. No, not really. I made contact with . . . someone . . . through a website.’ James closed his eyes. ‘I started seeing a woman.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Basically what I’m saying is that I paid for sex.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ he said eventually.

  ‘That’s OK, James. You don’t have to.’

  ‘It’s just that I have it all,’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘Christ, the whole country thinks I’m the perfect husband. And I love my wife. I’d do anything for her.’

  ‘I’m sure you would.’

  ‘I would, honestly.’ It seemed important to say it.

  ‘I believe you, James.’

  ‘It’s just that this went on and on and I really tried to tell her that it was getting to me, and for once she didn’t hear me. And do you know something, Rita?’ It seemed important that this stranger thought well of him. ‘We do really listen to one another. We’re there for each other, twenty-four/seven. But she became sort of obsessed with the mechanics of sex and I found it harder and harder to . . . get an erection, even. I began to doubt myself. And, eventually, I suppose I just wanted someone who, I dunno, found me sexually attractive.’ He laughed at the irony. ‘So you’d think I’d have had an affair. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to her and besides, as I already told you, I had everything I wanted. Except sex. So I got it the only way I could. I paid someone to want me in that way.’

  10

  DAVE AND MARIE

  DAVE WENT TO the funeral. He felt he ought to. Alison had been very good to him. He never thought for a moment it was because he was paying her. In Dave’s mind, they’d been having a mad, passionate affair, kept secret only because he was married.

  That morning he’d arrived on the building site dressed in a dark suit with a white shirt and muted tie.

  ‘Lookin’ good, boss,’ one of the chippies had shouted.

  ‘How much am I paying you?’ he yelled over the noise. ‘Whatever it is, it’s too much.’

  ‘You must be goin’ to see the bank manager dressed like that.’ Eugene Moran, his foreman, punched Dave playfully on the arm.

  ‘Lay off, will ye, you’re filthy.’ He brushed his jacket. ‘Actually, I’m going to a funeral if you must know.’

  ‘Oh, sorry about that.’ He looked questioningly, waiting to hear.

  ‘Just a girl I . . . used to know. Died suddenly.’ Dave was sorry he’d mentioned it.

  ‘Old flame, was she?’ George the sparks was nearby. ‘Or maybe not so old.’ Everyone knew their boss was a ladies’ man, particularly fond of younger fillies. ‘I seen you in the pub the other night chattin’ up that Imelda one.’

  ‘No, she bleedin’ wasn’t, she was just a friend.’ Dave was annoyed. ‘Get back to work, for fuck sake. We’re already over on this job.’ He turned to the foreman. ‘I’m on the mobile if you need me, Eugene. I’ll be back around lunchtime.’

  ‘Right so,’ the foreman said in his thick Cavan accent. ‘We’ll be here.’

  In the church he wasn’t sure why he’d come. He’d decided he was going to go up and shake hands with the family – mark of respect and all that. But then he had a good look at the woman who made a speech after Communion and he got a fright. She was the absolute spit of Alison. He immediately felt the same attraction that had completely captivated him when he’d first met Alison. She was like an unplugged version of her sister, alive but without the fizzle – understandable under the circumstances, Dave acknowledged to himself. He listened as Lily spoke quietly about what a good sister Alison had been, how she’d been mother and father to her for many years. There were a few bow
ed heads when she told how they’d been best friends and shared everything, including a love of handbags. About the time they’d taken Charlie for an impromptu picnic, and Ali had filled her favourite pink handbag with egg and sardine sandwiches and the bag had to be thrown out afterwards because it smelt so bad. Dave watched her try to hold back the tears and couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  It was only at the end when she walked behind the coffin that he was fully convinced it wasn’t Alison. This one had a different stride. Alison always had a swagger, a confidence that this girl didn’t possess, or if she did it had deserted her today. She looked lost and Dave immediately felt protective towards her. A middle-aged woman walked beside her, rubbing her back, and a small boy clutched her hand and carried a white rose. He didn’t seem too upset, just kept looking at the faces and waving at people he knew. Must be the kid, Dave surmised. He’d read the story several times over in the tabloids.

  Outside, Dave stayed well in the background and stared at Alison’s sister in daylight. She was thinner, and dressed in black she didn’t have the same presence. He tried to pinpoint exactly what it was. Class, he decided, or maybe style. He watched as people came over and hugged her, saw the same elegant gestures that Alison had used. She had style all right, but she lacked punch. Alison had always seemed to grasp at life; this girl looked like she was used to being led. She still didn’t cry, he noticed, although she looked very fragile and bit her lower lip a lot. ‘In need of a good dinner,’ his mother would have said.

  The little boy played around and brushed off the hugs and kisses as if they were mosquitoes. Mostly he dodged in and out of the crowd and never noticed the pitying glances thrown his way. A few people gave him money and he showed the coins to everyone so that eventually he had a right stash, and he sat on the step and laid his treasure out in front of him. The older woman who’d been with him earlier quickly gathered them up and the child looked as if he was about to cry but changed his mind once the loot was handed to him. He stuffed the coins in his pocket and left his hand there, shuffling them about and stealing a glance at them every now and then when he thought no one was looking. Dave smiled to himself: Alison’s boy had the makings of an entrepreneur, a bit like his mother in that respect.

  Eventually, Dave decided he had to see the sister face to face. He waited until most of the crowd had disappeared. She was just about to put her dark glasses back on when he found himself in front of her, without really knowing what to say.

  ‘I, eh, was a . . . eh . . . friend of Alison’s’ was the best he could think of. He could feel his face going red. Fuck it, he hadn’t blushed since he’d been refused a dance at the convent disco thirty-five years ago. The sister stared at him with Alison’s eyes, except they weren’t smiling at him. ‘I, eh, just wanted to say how sorry I was.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ She shook his hand. ‘I’m Lily.’ She looked amazingly composed. ‘I’m sorry I don’t know your name, Mr . . .’

  ‘Mad . . . Eh, Dave will do.’ He was afraid she might have heard his name but she showed no sign, just nodded. ‘Thank you, Dave. I’m meeting a lot of Alison’s friends for the first time today.’ She brushed her hair away and he could have sworn it was Alison standing in front of him. ‘I’m afraid it’s all been quite a shock.’

  ‘I’m sure it was.’

  ‘Did you know Alison well?’ she asked politely.

  Dave hadn’t a clue how to answer that one. ‘Eh, I did, yeah . . . Well, sort of.’

  ‘Lily, love, I’m so sorry.’ A woman with dyed red hair grabbed her in a bear hug and Lily smiled at Dave and thanked him again and he melted away to where he could watch her unseen. She fascinated him in the same way her sister had. That fascination had kept him coming back time and time again to Alison – and not just because of the sex.

  Later that evening, on his way back from looking over a job with Eugene, he decided he needed a pint. Normally he didn’t drink during the week, except Thursdays when he took Marie out. He’d seen too many men with beer bellies and purple, veined faces over the years.

  ‘Fancy a gargle?’ he asked now as they reached their cars.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

  ‘Com’on then, it’s been a bitch of a day. We deserve it.’

  ‘So, was it the funeral then?’ Eugene asked as they settled into the snug in Ryan’s pub.

  ‘Yeah, hard that.’ Dave put down the pints of Guinness and pulled out a stool. ‘She was only a young one.’

  ‘Sad. Family?’

  ‘Sister. The spittin’ image of her.’ Dave finished half the pint in one go and licked his lips. ‘And a boy, too. Only a baby really.’

  ‘Tough.’ Eugene sighed but said nothing else.

  ‘Thing is, I was sort of . . . havin’ a relationship with her.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’d only seen her last week.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She drowned. You probably read about it in the papers.’ Dave fidgeted. He would have loved a fag but couldn’t be arsed going to all the trouble.

  ‘Think so, yeah.’ It was clear Eugene hadn’t seen the story.

  ‘I was sort of seeing her, on and off like, for a few years. Keep that to yourself, though.’ Dave took another swallow.

  ‘I don’t gossip about my boss.’ The older man looked straight at him.

  Dave signalled for another round. ‘Needless to say the missus knew nothing.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Marie and me, we get on great, like, but you know how it is, over the years things change.’

  ‘They do, I suppose.’

  ‘Thing is . . .’ Dave fished for money. ‘After the kids were born, Marie sort of . . . lost interest, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do.’ Eugene tried not to look uncomfortable as he sipped his pint and wished he wasn’t having this conversation. Where he came from, a small town in the arsehole of rural Ireland, nobody talked like this. Oh sure, everybody knew exactly what was going on in every house for miles around but nobody ever discussed it openly. Dublin was a queer place, he’d long ago decided.

  ‘Fuck it, man.’ Dave banged down his glass. ‘I’m a healthy, normal male. And there’s no shortage of women where I’m concerned, never has been.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And then I sort of met Alison and well, it was amazing like.’ He saw the foreman’s discomfort and decided to change tack. ‘But now, Marie’s a great woman and all that, you know what I’m sayin’? And I treat her well, you see that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Wants for nothin’. House is immaculate. Sure that extension is the third we’ve done since we bought the gaff. Unrecognizable as a council house it is now.’ He gave a satisfied nod. ‘We have at least two holidays a year and she has a shopping spree in New York with her pals every Christmas. I don’t begrudge her, mind.’

  ‘No.’ Eugene was a man of few words.

  ‘I idolize the ground she walks on. I do, really. And this way, it means I’m not troublin’ her, you know?’

  ‘Sure what would I know.’ Eugene fiddled uncomfortably with his beer mat.

  ‘Why? Are you and your missus at it like rabbits?’

  Eugene thought of his wife Marge at home in their three-bedroomed semi a few miles from Killeshandra with six kids and two cats. He reckoned they’d had sex in total about ten times in twenty-odd years of marriage. Every time Marge got pregnant she turned her back on him and when she had the baby she was too exhausted for months. It wasn’t something he thought about any more.

  ‘What’s it like to have an affair?’ he asked now, knowing the opportunity would never present itself.

  ‘Great sex, no strings.’ Dave liked the older man thinking he was experienced.

  ‘And what about Christmas, birthdays, that class of stuff?’

  ‘Doesn’t arise.’

  ‘You must meet women who are quare accommodatin’ then.’ His Cavan accent was thick and flat.

  Dave
smiled. ‘I make it worth their while.’ He winked.

  Eugene nodded. With Dave, he knew it always came down to money.

  They talked for a while and got back on safe ground and somewhere between the second and third pint Dave decided he was going to make contact with Lily. The thought of seeing her again excited him and he could never resist a challenge.

  11

  LILY

  THE FUNERAL WAS hard. It was my first taste of what a broken heart must feel like – strange to think that this one had nothing to do with a man. I felt hollow, as if my insides had been scraped out. The ritual helped: all the people and the nice things said and the hugs did comfort me, but then I’d catch sight of Charlie and I’d find myself praying that it was all a dream. I kept hoping that she’d rush into the church, blonde hair flying, eyes crinkling, and take over like she always did. Now her picture stared up at me from the top of a blond wooden box. It was one of her favourites of the two of us, taken when we were teenagers. I looked mortified and she looked so alive – impossible to get my head around the fact that underneath that picture lay her dead body.

  I spoke after Communion because I knew it was what she would have done. The prospect terrified me. I was sure my legs were about to give way as I walked to the pulpit, and when I got there my hands were shaking so badly that I had to abandon the notes Aunt Milly had made me jot down the night before. So I simply told them what a lovely, decent human being she was, one of the nicest, kindest people. I reminded everyone how well she’d looked after me all these years. How she’d always say ‘good girl’ to me – especially when I’d done what she wanted – as if I was her baby. And now she’d left me her real baby to mind. I told them I was scared without her. Asked them how I’d ever manage, as if they might know some answers, things I hadn’t thought of. Then, once I knew I was on the verge of breaking down I wrapped it all up as quickly as I could by asking them to pray for me and Charlie – Alison’s good girl and beautiful boy.