by Shari Low
‘I’ll ask him to make a note of that when I get down there.’
That chipped a piece of my heart, but I was determined not to cry, determined that as long as he was smiling I would be too.
‘Look, Shauna…’ he hesitated. ‘I’m not going to die.’
‘I know.’ Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
‘There’s no fecking way God will kill me while I’m wearing these tights.’
It was too much. A whole avalanche of unstoppable laughter and tears descended, taking my breath away, an internal monologue screaming so loudly it was deafening. Don’t take him. Please don’t take him. Please don’t take him.
I burrowed my head in his shoulder, let him wrap his arms around me.
‘I love you,’ I whispered. ‘You’re everything.’
‘I love you too. And you’re more.’
I heard the unspoken worry, the fear, the emotion in his voice, felt his arms pull me tighter.
‘Mr O’Flynn.’
The voice came from the doorway, and stole the moment.
On the inside I was pleading again, wishing time would stop, begging the world to leave us be. Don’t take him from me. I’ll do anything, give anything, just please don’t take him.
‘I am indeed,’ Colm replied, suddenly restored to forced cheeriness.
The porter came to the top of the bed, flipped a lever at the back and pulled up the side bars. ‘Off we go then.’
Colm’s hand held on to mine for a few more seconds. ‘I’ll see ya later,’ he told me with absolute certainty.
‘You will,’ I replied, then watched as a hospital porter took away the husband that I’d loved since the moment we met.
18
2006
Lulu and Dan’s Wedding
I groaned as I rolled over, picked up a book from the bedside table and threw it at the alarm clock. I missed. Bollocks.
Beside me, Shauna opened one eye. ‘I think the idea of putting the alarm clock at the other side of the room was so that we’d actually get up and turn it off and not just hit the snooze button and go back to sleep. Or launch my book at it.’
‘It was a good plan at the time,’ I told her, wincing. Shit, my head hurt. That’s what tequila shots at 5 a.m. did to a man. A best man, at that.
I’d been made up when Dan asked me, even happier when they announced the wedding was going to be in Spain. To be honest, a few times over the last few years we thought it might not happen at all. Shit, those two could fight. And fall out. And make up. I couldn’t be arsed with the drama, myself, but hey, it was Dan’s call and no amount of tequila would make me get in the middle of that one.
‘Right, Colm O’Flynn, time to get your gorgeous buttocks out of bed,’ Shauna told me. ‘Or you could stay right here and have holiday sex with your wife. Your choice.’
‘I’d definitely go for the second option if I wasn’t an alcohol-poisoned shell of a man,’ I told her groaning. ‘Still will, if you do all the work.’
She smacked me on the face with a pillow. ‘Nothing new there then,’ she quipped, then moved above me, kissing me, not even caring that I must smell like a pub carpet. That was devotion. Five years married and she still kissed me when I was hungover, and laughed at my shite jokes. That was pretty good going.
Her hand had just slipped under the sheet when her phone rang.
‘Leave it,’ I whispered, but I was too late, she was already reaching for it.
‘I can’t. It might be my gran. She said she’d call this morning to express her outrage yet again about not being invited.’
Even through the hangover, that made me laugh. Shauna’s gran was a class act. A gem. And it was just as well, because her parents were the most uncaring, self-centred bastards I’d ever known. I’d asked her about it right at the start, wanted to know how she managed to put up with the way they treated her and she’d just shrugged. ‘I decided a long time ago that you can’t make people love you if they don’t. My mum and dad should never have had kids – they didn’t mean to, I was an accident – but they had me and they deal with me in the only way they know how – blind indifference and barely concealed disdain. And yes, sometimes I feel like telling them how I feel, but what would be the point? They’re not going to change. You can’t force someone to love you. Besides, I’ve got Annie. She loves me enough for all of them.’
If Shauna could live with it, keep it civil and pretend not to give a toss that they didn’t care, then I could too, but it didn’t stop me being entirely fecking outraged at their indifference. And don’t even get me started on their messed-up relationship with Lu’s mum and dad. Jesus, that was all kinds of twisted, but again, none of my business. I would just do the same as everyone else, keep a lid on my opinion, keep everything friendly on a surface level, and avoid mentioning the herd of elephants in the room.
‘Oh, not my gran, it’s Vincent. Hang on.’
She climbed out of bed and grabbed a bottle of water from the table by the window. ‘Hi Vincent, what’s up.’
Vincent. Bane of my bloody life. Nice enough bloke, but his timing was relentlessly crap. For the last month, since they’d launched the new company, every time I sat down with my wife, every time we fell asleep, every time I wanted to make hung-over love to her in a villa in Spain he bloody called. It had been Shauna’s idea, going into business together, the two of them joining their catering companies together to capitalize on clients and cut down costs. It had been a good move, but Christ, he must be eating into their profits with the amount he spent on mobile phone calls to my missus.
‘No, it’s banoffee pie. Yeah, it’s in the storage centre all ready to go.’
I got out of bed and headed for the shower, switching it on and then searching the marble unit for the shower gel. I was sure Shauna would’ve packed it. Yep, there it was, right next to my razors, shaving cream and… I squinted to read the packet… pregnancy test.
So it was that time. Again. I sighed as I leaned my forehead against the tile wall, hoping the cold surface would eradicate the thumping head, made even sorer by the new possibility of another kind of headache. It was two years now since she came off the pill and sometimes it felt like getting pregnant was all she thought about. Every month she was disappointed, every month she picked herself up, shook it off, and crossed her fingers for the next time. And every time I tried to act like I shared her sadness. I just couldn’t tell her that I didn’t.
The door opened and she came into the bathroom behind me, laughing at my pathetic head/tile stance. ‘That bad?’
‘Worse. What did Delia Smith want?’
She flicked my buttock. ‘You really need to stop calling him that. You’re going to forget and say it to his face one day. Anyway he was just checking today’s function.’
‘All okay?’ I tried to seem interested, but we were talking about mini-quiche and vol-au-vents here.
‘Fine. He’s great. Teaming up with him was such a good move. And stop pretending to care,’ she said, flicking me again.
I saw her gaze go to the white box on the worktop. ‘Shall I do it now? I’m a week late tomorrow.’
I thought about it and then made the right decision. ‘Leave it until tomorrow, love. If I’m going to find out that I’m going to be a dad again I don’t want it to be naked in a bathroom, with a hangover, a banging sore head and an erection.’
She looked down then back up. ‘I can do something about at least one of those things,’ she told me, pulling me towards the shower.
As it happened, the fact that she’d also packed painkillers, extra water and my best suit took care of all of the issues, so when I headed to Dan’s suite at one clock, dead on time, I could almost pass for human.
Rosie’s new boyfriend, Mark, was there already. That didn’t surprise me. He’d told us the night before that he had to get an early night because he was getting up to do yoga at dawn. Rosie was a lovely girl, but I had serious reservations about her taste in blokes. This one had been around for a while, thoug
h, so she was obviously into him.
Lulu’s dad and Shauna’s dad came in at my back, the whole male contingent now complete. Charlie and Jeff looked knackered, probably because they’d still been up doing shots with Lulu and Rosie when I’d crawled to my bed. Last thing I remember was Jeff and Rosie singing Doris Day songs until Shauna’s mother got out of her bed and read the riot act.
‘All right mate?’ I asked Dan, who was sitting on the couch looking extremely catalogue model in his pants. I didn’t pretend to understand his relationship with Lulu. The bloke could have anyone and he was no pushover, yet he put up with all Lulu’s drama. It was like some weird force-field attraction shit.
‘Yeah, I’m good.’
I’m not the most perceptive, but there was something about the way he said it that was off. Before I could ask him what was up, someone opened another magnum of champagne and got things started again.
I was tempted to join in, but I saw Dan slip into the bedroom and followed him.
‘You okay?’ I asked as soon as I was out of earshot of the others.
‘No,’ he answered.
Shit. Not what I was expecting.
‘What’s up?’
He shook his head as he shrugged. ‘Am I making a huge fucking mistake here?’
‘What?’
Now he thinks he’s making a mistake? On the morning of the fecking wedding?
‘I mean, let’s face it, we both know she’s a nightmare. I woke up this morning and just thought, fuck, what if this is how it’s always going to be? What if she’s always a nightmare? I always thought she’d calm down, because you know, I think a lot of what she does is out of some twisted insecurity, and no wonder given she grew up with The Cockswappers. I don’t even mind that she doesn’t want kids…’
‘What, never?’
‘Nope. Says her folks put her off the whole reproduction concept. Her words. I’m cool with it. I just hate all the other crap. I kinda figured that if we got married then she’d settle down. Cop on. But what if she doesn’t? What if I’m still checking her phone and wondering if she’s shagging the guy behind the bar when we’re eighty?’
For the first time in my life, I genuinely, absolutely, was speechless. Dan and I had been mates for best part of ten years, but shit, we talked about football. Maybe a bit of golf. We liked a drink and we knew how to party. At no point did we ever have heart-to-heart, bare-your-soul, in-depth conversations about the psychology of his relationship with Lulu.
Christ, I needed another drink but his expectant expression told me this was an occasion on which I needed to form coherent sentences, so I gave it my best shot.
‘I don’t know,’ I told him, honestly. ‘I really don’t. Look, I’ve never pretended to understand your thing with Lu. I know you love her.’ I floundered. I was rubbish at this. Zero out of ten for constructive advice so far. ‘But I suppose the bottom line is that you need to decide if you can live without her or if you love her enough to stay – even if that means you have to put up with all her crap. Either way, you have to decide now, and either way, I’ll back you up.’
Okay, I was hitting a flow now.
‘If you don’t want to do this, you can just walk out and I’ll tell everyone for you, you don’t need to look back.’ I had no idea why I said that and I really, really hoped he didn’t do that because I was in no way equipped for that kind of responsibility. ‘Or I’ll go get her and you can talk to her.’ Choose that one. Definitely that. ‘Or if you decide to go through with it, we’ll never tell anyone we ever had this conversation.’ That one! That’s definitely the top option!
He went quiet as he thought about what I’d said. Choose door number three. Dear God, please.
‘Did you ever have any doubts about Shauna?’
‘No.’ Honesty again. ‘Not a single one. But that doesn’t mean we’re perfect. We fight. We argue. We disagree on loads of stuff. But like I said, when it comes down to it, I wouldn’t want to live without her.’
Thirty-two years old, and this was the first time I’d ever had a conversation like this with another guy. Maybe Shauna was right when she said I had the emotional intelligence of a shagpile rug. She was so much better at this stuff than me. I wanted to put the current situation on pause, phone for her advice on what to do, then come back and execute a perfect save. As it was, I went for the more natural stance of crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. It clearly wasn’t working. Dan was staring out of the window now, his hands on his head, face a mask of serious.
‘All good in here, boys?’ Lulu’s dad picked that moment to stick his head in the door, already dressed in his white shirt and trousers. The all-white thing had been Lulu’s idea. Personally, I thought we looked like a Boyzone reunion on a summer special of the X Factor.
‘Yeah, all great, mate,’ I told him. ‘Just working on the speeches.’ It was the first thing that came to mind, followed by ‘shit, speeches!’. We really did need to work on the speeches. I’d been planning to wing it by talking about their unquestioning devotion to each other, but I think I might just have lost the bulk of my material.
‘Champion!’ he said, giving us a thumbs up before retreating back to the lounge, to sit with his best mate, Shauna’s dad, the man that was screwing his wife. But hey, one fucked up relationship shitstorm at a time.
‘What do you reckon, bud?’ I asked Dan, not wanting to be pushy, but aware that the guests would soon be heading to the sands, and the groom wasn’t meant to be the last to arrive.
He sighed, turned around. ‘I can’t call it off,’ he said. I wanted to punch the air with relief. ‘If I’m walking into a disaster, then I’ll just have to deal with it when it happens. I love her.’
That was it. So simple. Job done.
‘Thanks for listening, Colm.’
‘Any time,’ I assured him, while thinking, ‘or preferably never’.
‘Okay, let’s go get married,’ he said, pumped up now.
‘I don’t want to throw any more issues in, but I think it might go better if you were wearing more than your boxers.’
Half an hour later, we were on the beach, and Lulu was walking towards us, holding her dad’s hand, her mother walking behind her with Shauna and Rosie. All of them were dressed in white, Lulu’s dress long, the others shorter. I know all eyes should be on the bride, but I couldn’t take mine off Shauna. Her blonde waves were flowing over her shoulders and she had pink flowers in her hair that matched the bunch of roses she was holding. If this was our day and she was walking towards me looking like that, I’d marry her all over again.
I winked and she returned it, then we both played our part in the ceremony to perfection. Shauna took Lulu’s flowers, fixed her dress, squeezed her hand. I managed not to drop the rings.
Dan never wavered once. His voice was strong and certain, and he got through all his vows without doing a runner into the ocean and taking off in a speedboat. Pretty much all we could ask for.
As they both said I do, I glanced over at Shauna and tears were streaming down her face. It wasn’t like her. I could count on the fingers of one hand how many times I’d seen her cry, and even then it was only at movies and the occasional advert featuring neglected dogs. She was tough, Shauna. I’d loved her on sight, but I’d loved her even more when I learned how independent she was, how she just got on with stuff, made it happen, relied on no one to help her or fix things, while at the same time, making sure she took care of everyone else. She was the one who made sure Rosie was okay, the one who told Lulu when she was out of order. And the one who was always thinking ahead, making sure our lives were as good as they could be, planning stuff, making things happen.
Except for the whole kids thing. The fact that hadn’t happened was definitely stressing her out.
‘I now pronounce you man and wife. Dan, you may kiss your bride.’
Cue cheers and applause as Dan scooped Lulu up and kissed her. Deciding that for now, my job was done, I wandered over to Shauna, who still had te
ars dripping from her face.
‘Hey baby,’ I said, putting my arms around her and kissing the top of her head. ‘What’s with the waterworks? You getting all windswept and romantic in your old age?’
She shook her head, using the palm of her hand to wipe away her tears. Then she laughed, and said, ‘Have I got mascara all down my face?’
I kissed her nose, then one cheek, then the other. ‘No, you’re fine. Especially if you want to form a tribute act for Kiss.’
She nudged me with her elbow. ‘Colm O’Flynn, you are so lucky that I love you. It’s a miracle, really.’
‘I know, you’re right. I’m blessed,’ I said, teasing her. That’s when I noticed that the tears were still coming.
‘Right, you’re milking this with the whole weeping thing you’ve got going on there.’
She laughed again, yet the tears hadn’t stopped. Behind us, a man with a camera was taking photographs of Dan and Lulu and her parents and I had a feeling they’d soon be giving us a shout. Probably not the best timing since my girl was still breaking her heart.
‘Are you going all soft on me? Are you going to be reading slushy books and forcing me to watch romantic films?’
‘No,’ she whispered, wiping the tears away for a second time. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’m being pathetic. It’s just that… It’s just that… I’m not pregnant.’
19
2015
The Operation
It sounds so clichéd, but it really had felt like time stood still. Four hours, that turned out to be seven, that felt like forever. I tried to read, tried to sleep, tried to eat. In the end I just sat, until eventually, the nurse popped her head in and said he was now in recovery and they’d bring him up when he’d come out of the anaesthetic.
What did that mean? Had it worked? Was he ok? Was he damaged? I asked, but there were no answers, just kind smiles and promises that the doctor would speak to me soon. I thought about calling someone but there were no words to describe the terror that was crawling through every vein in my body.