Forgive and Forget

by Patricia Scanlan

  He hoped Melissa wouldn’t be surly and rude tonight. It would be good for them to sit down to dinner at a properly set table for a change. TV dinners were not at all satisfying.

  He dialled his younger daughter’s mobile. ‘Hi, love, I’ll be with you in five minutes, be at the door,’ he instructed as he turned right off the coast road to Sandycove. His stomach rumbled. He wondered what Connie would serve for dinner. She was great at cooking comfort food. He parked on double yellows and hurried into an off licence. A good bottle of wine would be nice. Pity he didn’t have time to stop at the florist’s. What was the etiquette about bringing flowers to an ex-wife? It wouldn’t bother Aimee, but Melissa might be perturbed. She was very protective of her mother when he was with Connie and had once asked him, when she was small, when he and Aimee were having a spat, if he was going to leave them and go back to live with Connie and Debbie. Melissa was such a little worrier, he thought fondly.

  He chose a Sancerre and hurried back to the car. It was a bit like going on a date, he thought, half amused at the notion, as he started the ignition and drove off to collect his daughter.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘I like it; I love the spherical and cylindrical shapes. I’d say he was inspired by Braque, possibly Fernand Léger and Roger de La Fresnaye and, of course, the ultimate Cubist . . . Picasso.’ Debbie hid a yawn as she listened to Andrea Matthews pontificate to a group of Bryan’s friends as they stood sipping lukewarm plonk and nibbling on soggy canapés.

  How she would have loved to stand up and say, ‘I think it’s a load of rubbish. A six-year-old could do just as well.’ She didn’t like abstract art, no matter who painted it. She wondered would Andrea put her money where her mouth was and actually buy a painting. Bryan had pointed out one particularly garish geometrical monstrosity and suggested it might be nice over their fireplace and she had hissed, ‘No!’, aghast. Not only was it a monstrosity, it was an expensive monstrosity. Two thousand euro they did not have to spend on questionable ‘art’.

  ‘It would be a talking point. No one else would have one and it would be an original,’ he urged. ‘And it would appreciate in value. It could be an investment.’

  ‘We can’t afford it, you know we can’t,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ he said affably and turned to chat to another friend of his.

  She drifted off to the edge of the group and stood at the long narrow window, looking out at the city traffic and fine misty rain which had started to fall. The weather was very changeable these past few days. It had been gorgeous this morning; now it was raining. She hoped against hope that it would be a fine day for the wedding. So much depended on the weather. Her parents were probably pretty miffed with her at the moment, she thought dolefully as she watched a cyclist shake his fist at a driver for cutting him up.

  She was feeling a little guilty at not having gone to Greystones to discuss the wedding. It wasn’t her mother’s fault that the step-family was invited. And it wasn’t Connie’s fault that Debbie had a thorny relationship with her father either. Her mother had never badmouthed him to her; she’d always tried to keep the peace between them without taking sides.

  Debbie chewed her lip. She’d acted childishly and that annoyed her. The only tables that needed seating were those for the grandparents, and some of her relatives and Bryan’s family. No more than sixteen people in all, if she remembered rightly. The rest of the guests could free-seat. That was the whole idea about having a barbecue, she thought crossly. Guilt still niggled. It wouldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes to sort, and twenty minutes more to go over the plans for the ceremony. But Barry would have started going on about walking her up the aisle, and she just wasn’t in the humour for arguing with him. A wedding planner would have sorted all that, she supposed, but they didn’t have the kind of money a wedding planner commanded. They’d been at a wedding recently that had cost the guts of fifty thousand. A friend of Bryan’s had invited them. The bride and her mother had gone to the Canaries for a week before the wedding to top up their tans so that both would look stunning in their designer frocks. Fake tans were not an option. Ava, the bride, had worn a Vera Wang ivory silk creation that had necessitated three fitting sessions in New York. It was very simple in design and, to Debbie’s mind, no different from many of the ones she’d looked at herself. The limo had been as long as a tennis court.

  ‘You wouldn’t know it was a designer dress, sure you wouldn’t?’ one of the girls at work said as they’d viewed the photos a week later.

  ‘Oh, we knew, believe me – we knew,’ Debbie assured her fervently, remembering Ava’s oft-repeated assertion. ‘It’s Vera Wang, isn’t it stunning?’ They had covered the cost of the wedding by remortgaging an eggbox of an apartment which they’d be paying off well into middle age, but they’d have the video of the wedding to look at for ever and a day, Debbie thought wryly. She didn’t think it was worth being in debt to that extent just for one day in your life.

  ‘What’s the matter? You’re very cranky.’ Bryan appeared at her side with another glass of wine.

  ‘Sorry, it must be pre-wedding nerves. I suppose I should have gone home and met the parents for an hour.’

  ‘Ah, don’t worry about them; they’ll get over it. That’s the reason we’re having a barbie, so there’ll be no fuss. Stop panicking.’ He leaned down and kissed the top of her head and suddenly she felt happy again. He was right. She looked at him, his jet-black hair falling boyishly over his eyes, and his melting cocker-spaniel eyes smiling at her and thought how lucky she was to have met him. Bryan never let things get on top of him; he was so laid-back he was almost horizontal. It was just as well – she got uptight enough for the two of them. He loved clothes and shopping and socializing, and he was the life and soul of every party they went to.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and eat and have a laugh with some of the others. They want to go to Yamamori Noodles. That won’t break the bank, so you won’t have to be worrying about whether we can afford it or not.’ He smiled down at her, his brown eyes twinkling. She smiled back at him.

  ‘I love you, Bryan, sorry for being such a nag.’ She leaned up and kissed him. That was one great thing about her fiancé: he never held a grudge, and their fights didn’t last long.

  ‘Life’s too short to worry, I’m always telling you that,’ he shrugged, dropping his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Dad left a pretty cold message on my phone,’ she confided.

  ‘He’ll get over it,’ Bryan said airily. ‘Come on, let’s go over and chat to Caitriona and Suzy – they’ve just arrived.’

  Typical response, thought Debbie disappointedly. Bryan hated family stuff. She could never really talk to him about her family issues. His attitude was: ignore the bad things and have fun in life. She wished she could be more like him. He was right: life was too short. She was going to have fun with the gang tonight. She’d deal with her parents tomorrow. He was lucky, he was the baby of the family and he was spoilt rotten. He never had to lift a finger. She was finding that out for herself after six months of living with him. He dropped his clothes wherever he took them off. The washing machine was completely alien to him. She’d got him used to filling the dishwasher, but getting him to empty it was proving more difficult. She’d just have to persevere, but it was irritating sometimes, and she was very conscious of not wanting to be a nag.

  Debbie swallowed her wine in two mouthfuls and helped herself to another glass.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ encouraged Bryan. ‘Let’s party!’

  Connie wrapped the aubergine-and-mushroom-stuffed chicken breasts in slices of bacon, drizzled some olive oil over them and slid them into the oven. She’d add the cream ten minutes before she served them. It was a handy dinner; she just hoped Melissa would eat it. She had some new potatoes and a selection of vegetables ready to cook in the steamer.

  Miss Hope, her little black cat, curled around her ankles, purring ecstatically. Connie smiled down at her and shook a few treats i
nto her food dish. She didn’t have to worry about her cat’s appetite, she thought in amusement, hearing the sound of contented munching.

  Melissa was such an edgy, sullen young girl. Just like her older sister at the moment, Connie thought as she took out the ironing board and began to press her uniform. She had to travel across town first thing tomorrow. She was doing the weekend on the orthopaedic floor in the Bon Secours in Glasnevin. Only that she liked the hospital so much, she’d have said no. It wasn’t handy for the Dart. So she either had the option of driving, or Darting to Connolly and getting a bus. Maybe she’d treat herself to a taxi from town, she decided. She didn’t usually work weekends but she needed the extra money for the wedding and for Debbie’s wedding present. She was giving her cash because she knew how tight things were, financially, for her daughter.

  Until two months ago, Connie had been nursing an elderly lady five mornings a week, and it had suited her. She’d loved having the afternoons off. Rita Clancy had suffered a bad stroke and needed round-the-clock nursing but, fortunately, her family could afford it. She’d been ill for a year and had suddenly deteriorated, developed pneumonia and died. It was a blessing for the family and the poor woman herself, but it meant that Connie was back doing the rounds of the hospitals. Private nursing was a desirable choice at the agency, but there had only been a couple of vacancies, both of them difficult commutes.

  Still, she liked orthopaedics, and she liked the Bons, so that was this weekend sorted, but once the wedding was over and she’d made the extra money she needed to cover her expenses, and her holiday to Spain, she was going to cut down on her hours, she promised herself as a tasty aroma wafted from the oven.

  She was hungry. It seemed a long time since her lunch with Karen. She hoped that Barry wouldn’t be too long. He’d sounded fed up and harassed on the phone. She had the feeling from snippets of conversations she had had with him that life with Aimee wasn’t always a bed of roses. Not that it was any of her business now. After all these years she’d got over the hurt, anger and shock of her marriage break-up, and for that she was truly grateful, because there was a time when she’d been eaten up by bitterness and rage and she’d hated Barry. It had taken a long time to come to terms with her own contribution to the break-up. Her neediness. Her facility for ignoring her intuition. Her tendency to try to please and placate despite her own feelings of unhappiness and resentment. She’d been a real wimp, but once she’d acknowledged that it wasn’t all one-sided and that she’d had a role to play, once she’d taken responsibility for her actions, healing had come.

  It had been tough, very tough, she mused, ironing the leg of her navy trousers with more force than was necessary. And she’d certainly never expected to end up on her own. With hindsight, she knew she should never have married Barry while she was pregnant. If things had been left to develop naturally between them, they might have married and stayed married or they might never have married at all. Barry had only proposed because he felt obliged to. That was no foundation for a marriage.

  She blew a strand of hair away from her face as she ironed vigorously, feeling a wave of heat envelop her. She remembered how shocked she’d been when the pregnancy test had proved positive. She’d had to sit down on the bed and fight the waves of nausea that engulfed her. Barry was as pale as she was. She’d never been able to take the Pill because of the excruciating headaches she’d got on it. They’d used condoms when she was ovulating but her cycle had been irregular and they’d got caught. She remembered the trapped look in his eye, and she was sure her own expression mirrored his. She felt well and truly trapped herself.

  ‘We’ll get married. We can have a small wedding, we’ll get a deposit for a house no problem, the two of us are working.’ He was pacing the bedroom in his flat.

  ‘Are you sure you want to marry me?’ Her voice had quivered when she’d asked the question, knowing that if she said no, he might not push it.

  ‘Of course I do,’ he said stoutly. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she assured him, relieved beyond measure that he hadn’t backed out. Being an unmarried mother was a path she really didn’t want to go down.

  ‘You’re a nurse! You should have known better,’ her mother had said in disgust. Stella Dillon hadn’t been at all happy when she heard the news.

  Her father, Jim, had been more accepting, and when she’d told him that Barry had proposed, he’d said kindly, ‘Connie, don’t get married just because you’re expecting a baby. Wait for a year or two. You and the baby will always have a home with us.’ But Connie, hormones in a heap, and madly in love with her boyfriend, had wanted to get married. So what if they were having a baby; they would have had children at some stage. The main thing was that they loved each other.

  When they’d got the keys to their house, on a small estate in Deansgrange, she’d been ecstatic. Every piece in her jigsaw was falling into place, albeit a little earlier in her life than she had planned.

  They’d had a modest wedding, and her empire-line cream chiffon dress had hidden her neat bump satisfactorily. They’d honeymooned in Portugal, and as she lay sunbathing on the golden swathe of beach fringed by the frothy white waves of the Atlantic, she’d felt exquisitely happy and she’d persuaded herself that Barry felt the same.

  How easy it is to delude oneself, she thought wryly as she hung her uniform on the back of the door and started ironing her sheets.

  She had put Barry’s moodiness on their return home down to stress of work and, four months later, the stress of a new baby. Over the years she’d made excuses for his gradual distance and withdrawal. He’d been very good with Debbie when she was a baby and, when they’d lost a baby through miscarriage, Connie had felt that he was as upset as she was. But all along, at the back of her mind, she knew something wasn’t right, but she’d been afraid to confront her fear.

  They’d seemed to have it all. A happy, healthy child. Good jobs. A nice home. Plenty of friends. Why would she rock the boat because she felt their intimacy had disappeared? Sex was perfunctory, but wasn’t it like that with most working couples with a young child, she’d comforted herself. It was just that they didn’t seem to talk or have fun any more. Gradually, over the years, all they seemed to have to bind them in any sort of marital intimacy was Debbie.

  She damped down her feelings of loneliness and frustration as best she could and got on with things, but although she put on a bright façade, Connie was desperately unhappy.

  She’d sat at a dinner party with him one evening and watched the interaction of the other couples, all friends of theirs, over the course of the meal. The small gestures and intimacies between them were like a flick-knife to the heart. In that small, intimate tableau in their friends’ dining room she saw clearly all that was so lacking in her marriage. The little nudge, the eyes meeting and smiling at each other, the good-natured joshing and teasing. The casual dropping of an arm around the shoulder or the interlacing of fingers. Little wordless gestures that were the underlying bedrock of companionship and affection which was so important in a marriage. The little things that said ‘I love you,’ ‘You’re special to me,’ ‘This is fun and I want you to enjoy yourself and I’m glad I’m with you.’

  She’d stroked Barry’s hand when he’d made a joke and he hadn’t even noticed or, if he had, he’d deliberately paid no attention to her. Cut to the quick, she’d wanted to cry out, ‘Don’t ignore me. I’m your wife. I’m here and I need to be acknowledged. Stop punishing me.’

  That night had been a turning point for Connie. She knew she couldn’t go on any more without confronting the problems in their marriage, no matter what the outcome.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she’d said bluntly when he came back after walking the babysitter home.

  ‘It’s late. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’ He had been surprised at her abrupt tone.

  ‘No, Barry, it can’t wait. You know as well as I do something’s wrong in our marriage. You won’t deal with it. I’ve tried to add
ress it over and over, and you tell me it’s nothing or that you’re too tired to talk. Well, we can’t run away from it for ever.’ Once she’d actually started saying what she felt, it had come easy to her. She knew deep down this was the crunch moment for them, and she knew in her heart and soul that, if she gave him an out, he’d take it. Connie was so scared she’d started to shake, but she’d stared Barry straight in the eye and said, ‘Do you not want to be married to me?’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he blustered.

  ‘Answer the question, Barry, because that’s what you’re making me feel.’

  And then it had all come pouring out. How trapped he felt, how he hadn’t wanted to get married so young. And how he loved her but he wasn’t ‘in love’ with her.

  ‘Is there anyone else?’ she’d asked him quietly, stunned at his response.

  ‘No. I wouldn’t do that to you,’ he’d replied indignantly, and she’d believed him.

  ‘What do you want to do? Do you think counselling would help?’ Her mouth was as dry as the Sahara.

  ‘No . . . I’m sorry, Connie, I can’t help the way I feel, nothing’s going to change it,’ he said miserably.

  There was no answer to that. He was being honest, and she could see the relief in his face that the truth was out. ‘I guess not,’ she muttered, realizing that there was no point in prolonging the agony.

  ‘I do love you, I . . . I’m just not in love any more. Can you understand that?’ he asked earnestly as he took her hand and caressed it and she thought how ironic it was that such a gesture, one she’d longed for, should signify the end of their marriage.

  ‘I understand.’ She swallowed. She wanted to pull her hand away and rake her nails down his face and say, ‘Fuck you. I don’t want your wishy-washy love. I want you to desire me, find me attractive, I want you to want to be with me, you bastard.’ But she’d swallowed her rage down, not wishing to give him the satisfaction of seeing how devastated she truly was.