You, Me and Other People

by Fionnuala Kearney

  I turn my head to see Tom a few feet away.

  ‘Adam, sorry, don’t want to interrupt, but I’ve left that book in reception for you.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom.’

  He nods, glances at Beth and walks away. I don’t want to introduce her. Somehow I’d prefer anyone I talk about to remain faceless.

  ‘You’re right,’ Beth says in his wake. ‘Bloody awful dress sense.’

  We sit for a while, people-watching, as Beth calls it, before she announces she should go.

  ‘Stay a while longer?’ My voice reveals a tiny plea.

  ‘Adam, I’ve got a whole house to pack.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry … Just fifteen minutes, please. Tell me something funny. Something I can laugh about later, when you’ve gone and I’m in the group, listening to other people’s strange lives.’

  She looks hesitant, reminds me that I too have a strange life, and launches into the tale of Karen’s attempts to get her dating again. I try not to react. The knowledge of her being on a dating website is not funny. I try and laugh at the bits I know she’d expect me to. I try not to show how I really feel and then catch Tom walking by again. My conscience prickles. What the hell am I doing here if I can’t submit to being honest?

  ‘Actually, I’m not really sure how I feel about this.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You on a website. Dating.’

  She’s quiet for a moment, lifts her bag from the floor to her lap, then faces me. ‘It’s not up to you though, is it, Adam? We’re separated; we will be divorced at some point. I’m here for you, to help you through whatever crap you’ve got going on since Noah died. Many women wouldn’t be … But do not presume you have any influence on my life any more. You don’t.’

  I swallow hard. ‘You’re right.’ I attempt a rescue, but she has already stood up, her bag placed firmly between us as I stand too. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re always sorry afterwards, Adam. Maybe that’s something you should talk to Tom about.’

  She leans to my cheek, but if there is a kiss I don’t feel its touch. ‘Bye Adam. Stay well,’ she says, then turns on her heel, and walks away. It’s a sight I should be used to but it never fails to make me shiver. One day, I’m afraid she will walk away for good.

  I mention this in group this afternoon. There are six of us here, quite a small gathering, with a therapist I’ve not met before, Fiona, in charge of proceedings. It doesn’t take the group very long to suggest that maybe I’m not afraid of losing Beth, that maybe my greater fear is being alone, that maybe I suffer from abandonment issues. I rebel at first. I quite enjoy my own company. Despite what everyone’s been telling me for the last year, I’m a good guy and I’m quite comfortable when I’m on my own. Someone argues back. Apparently, that’s not the same thing. Being on my own is not the same thing as being alone. Or being left alone …

  I don’t like the sound of this. It’s something that Tom was trying to get me to see earlier, something he said about my parents leaving me? Beth leaving me, divorcing me, puts me in the same place. On my own, and alone as well.

  I thank people for the insight and let others speak. I’m only half listening to Rosie talking. She’s a young girl, about Meg’s age, and normally shy to speak, but she’s in full flow today. ‘Fuck other people!’ is what gets my attention. ‘We’re not in here to keep other people happy. We’re here to fucking sort ourselves out.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ I want to say, but instead I just smile as Rosie clears her smoker’s throat.

  ‘We’ve gone off-piste.’ Fiona is obviously trying to pull the group back to whatever track she’d been on when I zoned out.

  ‘Ask Adam,’ Rosie says. ‘How’s he doing with the whole forgiveness thing?’

  I can’t speak. I’ve done enough talking today, so I just shrug.

  ‘I know I have to,’ she says, ‘but I can’t, don’t you people get that?’ She shakes her head.

  I look at Rosie – so young, so destroyed and so bitter. With a father who abused her and a mother who ignored it, she has a right to be all of those things, but her determined stance looks tiring.

  ‘If it’s any help,’ I say as I stand to leave, ‘I wish I’d had the ability to forgive my parents all those years ago, when I was your age.’ I tap her shoulder as I pass. ‘Would have saved a lot of angst on my way here …’

  I leave them to it, head back to my room via reception and collect the book Tom left for me. I shut the door behind me. ‘Alone at last,’ I say aloud to the empty room and toss the book on my bed. All I can see in the title is the word ‘suicide’. I’m never going to read it. I don’t need a book to know that my parents loved themselves and each other more than they loved me. More than they loved Ben. I don’t need a book to know that I found this rejection unbearable, that I’ve never really dealt with it. I don’t need a book to know that no matter how I square it off, trying to understand my mother’s instability, I still feel like they betrayed me, betrayed us. I don’t need a book to know that I have never grieved for them, or forgiven them. And I don’t need a book to tell me that I probably need to do both …

  I slide my back down the door and sit on the floor. I stare at my scuffed shoes, remind myself to polish them when I get home, remember I have no home and wish that I could just cry. If I could howl, maybe it would feel better.

  Closing my eyes, I complete a mental ‘grief list’. My life with Beth, my home in Weybridge, my perfect relationship with my daughter, my dead son, my dead parents. Quite a list – quite a lot of grieving yet to do …

  Chapter Forty-One

  ‘My husband’s a selfish man.’ I am sitting opposite Desmond from Tooting, as Glenn from Woking decided after I cancelled him that I was unworthy of a second chance. Desmond and I are in a pizzeria and I’m eating bruschetta with a strong flavour of garlic. I ordered it within three minutes of meeting Desmond as I knew immediately we would not be playing tonsil hockey together. Not tonight, not ever.

  It appears the main thing Desmond and I have in common are selfish spouses to whom we are still attached by law. He assures me that he’s getting a divorce. I want to assure him that I don’t care about his assurances, but don’t because it would be rude. All I can think of is how I’m only here because Adam’s reaction to me dating pissed me off. Because of him, I allowed Karen to persuade me to go out with Desmond from Tooting.

  To be fair, even I thought Desmond had it all on paper. His photo, a fairly genuine representation of the man, shows a tall, athletic guy with a gorgeous smile. His hobbies list music and dancing. He has no children, so no potential stepchildren to worry about. He runs his own PR business, so he’s solvent and intelligent and responsible.

  In real life, he still has all of these qualities, especially the Hollywood smile, which I reckon meant spending several months in a dentist’s chair. He does, alas, also have a voice that makes Joe Pasquale sound like a tenor. If my nerves are grating after the first three minutes, I know there’s no point.

  Unable to blame Karen, unable to blame poor Desmond, I smile through the rest of the meal, but life is just too short …

  ‘I’m not doing it.’

  Ben looks over the roof of his car to me. ‘Please?’

  ‘No. I’ve been in already. I’ve done my bit.’

  ‘He’s asking for you. Please?’

  ‘No! Look around you?’ I gesture to the boxes still waiting in the hall, to both his and my car already packed to the brim. ‘I’m grateful you’re helping me today, but if going to see Adam again is a condition, I’m not doing it, so go home now.’

  I climb into my car. ‘You can either follow me or not. If not, put those boxes back in the hall and pull the door behind you.’

  I drive away, my heart racing in my ribcage. Ever since reading that letter in the loft, I feel uneasy around Ben and I’m suddenly angry at Adam. It’s his brother he should be talking to, not me.

  Since Tawny is vacant, the current owners have allowed me a
ccess before completion in order to help me out, and I have to use any time I have off work to move my belongings into my new home. Within minutes, I pull up on the driveway and am relieved to see Ben follow close behind.

  I push open the door and pick up the pile of junk mail gathered by my feet. Turning off the hallway to the right, I carry the first box into the main living room. It’s a big room, designed to be both living and dining; thankfully, the walls are painted a neutral taupe shade and the cream carpet is almost new. It’s a blank canvas that is about to be filled with boxes.

  ‘Looks good, Beth.’ Ben places another box next to the one I’ve brought in and looks around him. ‘It’s in really good nick, isn’t it?’

  ‘Have a look back here.’ I lead him to the rear of the house, through a door into what is an extension to the original Victorian building.

  ‘You’ll have to learn to cook,’ he says, his jealous eyes hovering on the new range.

  ‘I can cook.’ I’m indignant. ‘I’ve cooked you many a fine meal.’

  ‘You,’ he says over his shoulder, ‘have only ever cooked me lasagne, or maybe something else mince-based.’

  I stop to think, rub the edge of the range with the sleeve of my jumper. I’m quite sure that Ben has attended at least one of my more experimental dinner parties over the years.

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ He reads my mind as he carries in two stacked boxes. ‘Elise and I never joined you when you were doing your posh girl stuff. “Confeeeeee duck” was one I vividly remember turning down.’

  I smile at the memory. Confit duck was one of my specialities a few years ago, when Adam and I used to compete with our neighbours, Nigel and Sylvia, to create the finest dinner parties. There was a period of a few years where we’d rivalled Michelin chefs, until we all decided it was too much like hard work and we should just enjoy each other’s company with simpler, less stressful, food. I see my reflection in the stainless-steel range and wonder if I’ll ever again be that person, or even if I want to be. I’m sure I’ll feed Nigel and Sylvia in this space, but will I ever go to that bother again? It will, more than likely, be a bottle of wine and a takeaway.

  In the meantime, I’m going to their house later tonight for a ‘good luck with the move’ supper, and I find myself wondering who’ll be there and what Sylvia will cook. I tap my new range lovingly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll use you,’ I reassure it. ‘Really, I will.’

  ‘You’re talking to the appliances?’ Ben is standing in the doorway with his feet apart and both hands on his hips. All he needs is an orange T-shirt and he’s a Mr Muscle lookalike.

  ‘I am,’ I say. ‘Talking to appliances is perfectly normal. Have you seen the back garden?’ I lead him to the narrow French doors that overlook an orderly, perfectly formed green space, with just one slightly wild, untended area behind the garage.

  ‘It’s not like the garden at The Lodge, is it?’ he says, wistfully.

  ‘Adam was always the gardener there. This is fine for me.’

  ‘Will you mind, once all your stuff is in?’

  ‘Mind what?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong.’ He holds a conciliatory palm up and I can already tell I won’t like what’s coming. ‘This place is amazing. Karen and I would love a place like this, but when you bring all your things in, it’s going to be a bit crowded. You’re used to so much space.’

  ‘I’ve been used to being married and I’m getting used to not being.’

  He winces.

  ‘I’m used to space and I’ll get used to less,’ I add.

  Ben leans against the back wall, looking outside. ‘Are you guys really finished, Beth? Really?’ He faces me on the last word. ‘I saw a big difference in him yesterday when I saw him, a big difference. He seems to be back on his feet, seems really together; is looking forward to being back at work. He looks a bit thin still, but hey …’

  ‘I’m not going, Ben. I’ve had enough. I’m spent. The Adam show has been switched off. No more drama, no more telling me he doesn’t like the idea of me seeing other men. I mean, really? Where does he get off?’

  ‘He still loves you.’

  I shake my head. ‘In his head, yes, he still loves me, but that’s because he can’t have me. When he had me, he wanted Kiera and then Emma.’

  ‘I know two is two too many, but it is only two. Two in twenty years.’ The man is desperate.

  I stare at him, gaze at his irises until he has the grace to look away. ‘Does your new fiancée know you feel this way? That two affairs is acceptable as long as it’s spread out over two decades?’

  He blushes at the mention of Karen. Ever since they got engaged, they have been nauseatingly sweet with each other. ‘I’m not saying that. I—’

  I interrupt him. ‘How did Adam take the news, by the way? That you two are engaged?’

  ‘He knew it was coming. He knew I was going to ask her on Christmas Day, then Noah died and there was just so much going on with Adam … He was pleased. I think he’s really pleased for us.’

  I know he will be. Despite his dick wanderings, Adam is a real romantic.

  ‘Can’t you forgive him? Make a new start, here?’

  ‘It’s too late. This is my house and, besides, I don’t love him any more.’

  Ben raises both his hands to his mouth and presses hard on his lips. He moves forward and back in an almost rocking motion. It’s a reality check he wasn’t expecting.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I add. And I am. I wasn’t expecting to hear those words myself. I’m not even fully sure I mean them.

  ‘Well, I guess Adam needs to hear that.’

  ‘I’m not going to visit him in The Rookery and tell him I don’t love him any more, Ben, especially if he’s doing well. I’m not going back there.’

  ‘Even though he’s asked for you?’

  My eyes blink, slowly, rhythmically. ‘Can’t do it … Can’t see him …’

  ‘Beth, please?’

  ‘Christ, Ben. No! Don’t you get it? Why does he want to see me anyway? I’ll tell you why. It’ll be another apology. There’ll be something else he’s sorry for.’ I storm out through the hallway, the front door, to my car. ‘Have you no clue what “can’t” means?’ I yell back. ‘It’s a different word to “won’t”!’ I take another box from the boot and march back indoors, stacking it in the living room.

  Six boxes more and I’ve finished. Hands on my hips, I call from the door. ‘Are you staying here?’

  ‘I have never asked you to do anything. Never,’ he says from the same position in the kitchen. ‘I’m asking you to do this one thing. If not for Adam, then for me.’

  I walk to the kitchen door. Seeing him there, I’m torn. Everything Adam has been through with his parents, Ben has too and though he doesn’t know it yet, there’s more to come. He hasn’t looked up, doesn’t want to meet my eye. I shake my head; a ‘Grrr’-like noise escapes my lips and I run my hands through the roots of my hair. ‘If it means that much to you,’ I tell him, ‘I’ll do it. Ten minutes with him – no more.’

  He approaches me, arms open, sweeps me up into a bear hug, lifting me off the floor. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Skinny Minnie. You need to eat more,’ he calls back to me as he heads out to empty his car.

  My feet plant themselves back on the ground and I watch his back. Shit … I’m not sure what I’ve just agreed to by going to see Adam again, but I already wish I hadn’t.

  It’s not a confit-duck night, but nor is it a lasagne or a takeaway. Home-made beef wellington is the main course and I am salivating thinking of it. I’ve just finished telling the gathered table about the time I tried to feed poor vegetarian Giles some beef lasagne. On my right, Ginny, the neighbour who lives on the other side of Sylvia, is still laughing. On my left, a man I’ve never met before is grinning politely.

  ‘You’re not a vegetarian, are you?’ I ask, a little worried.

  ‘I most certainly am not,’ he says. ‘I’m a carnivore looking forward to his beef.’ He holds his right hand ou
t. ‘We haven’t really met properly yet, have we? I’m Jon, by the way. No “h”, Jon Roper.’

  ‘Hello, Jon no “h” Roper, I’m Beth, Beth with an “H” Hall. Otherwise, I’d be Beth All and that’s just not true.’

  He smiles, a broad smile that changes his face completely. I find myself mirroring it, immediately offering my own best smile. ‘How do you know Nigel and Sylvia?’

  ‘I work with Nigel.’

  This makes sense. Nigel is a dentist. He has a thriving practice nearby in Woking. A sudden memory of Desmond and his dentistry brings a slight frown.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Jon no ‘h’ Roper asks.

  ‘I’m fine, sorry, just thinking of … Never mind.’

  ‘Well, Beth-all, I’ve decided that is what I’ll call you. Put him or her out of your mind. You’ll get wrinkles.’

  ‘And I have enough of them …’

  ‘Not really. You have a lovely face.’

  Shit. I’m fishing. That is exactly what I wanted him to say. I’m fishing and I’m flirting. I feel a red heat spread right across the top of my chest. I take my napkin and fan myself as discreetly as fanning myself with a white napkin allows.

  ‘Here comes the beef wellington.’ Jon leads the applause as Sylvia brings the already carved work of art to the table.

  ‘So, Beth,’ Nigel calls past Amy and Pete, Sylvia’s sister and brother-in-law. ‘What are our new neighbours-to-be like?’

  ‘A young couple, the Elliots, two children, both girls, aged about ten and twelve. She works from home, something in sales, and he’s in the City.’

  Nigel nods. ‘We’ll miss you. We’ll miss you both …’ He realizes what he’s said immediately. The daggers look from Sylvia brings a swift apology. ‘You know what I mean …’

  ‘I’m only around the corner, Nigel. As for Adam, I don’t know where he’ll end up, but I do know he’d love to hear from you.’

  ‘Veg?’ Jon leans towards me and whispers.

  ‘Yes, please, everything,’ I say. ‘You guys,’ I address the table. ‘You really don’t have to “not see him”, you know. We’ve all known each other a long time.’