The Week I Ruined My Life

by Caroline Grace-Cassidy

  He pulls an apple from the brown bamboo wooden salad bowl on the chrome countertop and examines it. Turning it over and over in his hand. As the world turns. It disappoints him, I see, as he makes a face and replaces it.

  ‘What’s wrong with the apple, Colin?’ I demand.

  ‘It’s gone off, Ali … It’s soft … withered.’ He stretches his arms high above his head and yawns very loudly, bringing his left hand down slowly to fix his hood.

  ‘So put it in the bin then, why did you put it back in the bowl?’ I yank the hot tap off and wipe my hands on the black-and-white chequered tea towel that’s on the countertop.

  ‘Why is it out if it’s gone off?’ he asks me.

  ‘Are you actually serious?’ I scratch my head hard – something I do when I’m stressed and he knows this. Once it was endearing. Now it makes him wince.

  ‘Stop scratching … Jesus, you are only up and already you have a puss on you … are you due or something? The never-ending period or what? Calm down … I’m going outside to look for our son.’

  ‘He’s on the road playing with Daniel, you know that.’ My voice is raised and I don’t mean it to be.

  He holds his right hand up behind his ear and screws up his nose. ‘I’m right here, Hilda Ogden … I told you before I don’t think he should be out on the road on his own, he’s too young.’

  He shakes his head at me. Another row is brewing. I’m conscious of Jade’s movements upstairs. She’s at the banister leaning over to listen, I just know she is. I lower my voice. I can’t let her hear another argument. My eyes are holding the anger though, I can feel them bulge. Through gritted teeth I say, ‘OK … OK, Colin, so every day after school Daniel calls in for Mark, they play football in our driveway. I can see them out the window. Just why do you want me to keep him in? It’s a cul-de-sac. I’m even slightly embarrassed now when Maeve, that’s Daniel’s mother by the way, comes to collect him that I won’t take her up on her offer of them playing in Daniel’s driveway occasionally because I know you’ll blow a fuse therefore making me look like a psycho, over-protective mother!’

  Colin is just staring at my mouth. His eyes never make contact with any other part of my face. I go on.

  ‘I,’ I bang my chest hard, ‘I, me, Ali – I am the one who has to rush home from work to pick them up at five every day from Laura’s, and then get a dinner ready by six o’clock for four people. Sometimes you join us, sometimes you don’t. You never bother to confirm that any more. I need the hour to do that without him under my feet pleading with me to go out and play … pulling out of me every second.’

  ‘Life is really tough for you, isn’t it, poor old Ali?’ Colin puts his bottom lip over his top.

  I want to tell him to Ffffffuck off! But I don’t. Inside my head I am screaming. I can’t let Jade hear me raise my voice.

  Yes! Sometimes it is tough. But I know it’s not that tough. I’m not unfortunate or hapless by any means. Yet he makes me feel like I shouldn’t ever have a little moan or complain about anything. I cannot vent. Cannot get stuff off my chest. Built-up frustration, however trivial, still needs an outlet. An ear. I don’t even think I do moan or complain, to be honest. I just get on with it but then sometimes, like just right now when he picks on how I am managing and points out the faults within my system, I can’t handle it. He just doesn’t refer to the fact I juggle it all. He never sees fit to thank me in any small, minute, miniscule, teeny-weeny way for keeping it all together. It’s like he just expects me to do it. Lunches, uniforms, homework, school pick-ups, parent-teacher meetings, extracurricular activities, play dates, my full-time job, the household – and it gets under my skin. I’m not looking for a marching band or a diamond ring, but now and then maybe a bunch of garage flowers would be nice.

  ‘Thanks for all you do, Ali.’

  ‘No problem, Colin.’

  He’s the major breadwinner. He has his own company, Devlin’s Designs, a green company who design greeting cards and sell on their own website and on the internet. It’s a growing company and doing quite well. Lately they have been getting their cards in independent newsagents all across the country. He employs four people and one manager, Maia Crowley, who is also a very green girl. Maia drives an electric car and has a compost heap in her front garden. She grows her own vegetables. She is also vegan. Maia looks vegan, I think. Colin used to work for Hallmark Cards but went out to set up on his own. Like I said, his cards are green. His cards care about the environment. His cards are made from waste material. The e’s in Devlin’s Designs logo are green and shaped like the globe with two hands wrapped around them. Caring. Me? I work as a coordinator for an arts’ centre in the inner city, very low wages, but I love my job and they are very flexible with my hours. If I need to be somewhere for the children, if the school rings in the middle of an important work meeting and they are running a high temperature, I’m OK to leave, to go do what I have to do as a mother. My boss is a woman with two grown-up kids, but she gets it. She understands the working mummy. Thank God.

  ‘It’s on your head then. Look … I’m messing with you. I dunno what’s melted your sense of humour recently, but I’ll take them off your hands till teatime, like I do every single Sunday afternoon, feed them like I do every single Sunday afternoon.’ He moves away to the kitchen door, his large hand resting on the slim gold handle, and then he turns back. I’m not sure he gets just how bad things really are between us.

  ‘You know that I have had absolutely no problem with you having these Sunday gossips with crazy winky Corina Martin but I think Mark is at an age now where we should all be sitting down together for a family dinner on a Sunday.’ He takes a deep breath in through his nose and releases it slowly. ‘Jade had it for years, until you … well … so, why shouldn’t he?’ His dimple is pulsating, his floppy hair dropping down over his left eye.

  ‘I cook six days a week, Colin, I don’t want to cook on a Sunday.’ I pick up the chequered tea towel again and walk over to him, wiping my bone-dry hands. I wring it hard between my fists. I detest it when he calls Corina crazy and winky. Again, he knows this, just like I know the ‘until you’ was about to proceed into the whole ‘until you started working full-time’ tirade.

  ‘Well, I’ll cook then.’ He pushes his hair back and stares down at me. I’m around five foot five in my flats.

  Is he trying to put a stop to my Sunday lunches with Corina? Or am I so selfish that I don’t want to do a Sunday roast dinner for my family? True, I used to do a roast every Sunday before Mark was born. I’d start the prep at midday, peeling carrots, parsnips and potatoes to roast, stuffing a chicken or whatever we had and I’d sit down after cleaning up at five o’clock. I became weary of roast chicken, roast beef, roast lamb, roast potatoes, roast parsnips and carrots. The whole roast shebang. Most times Colin would rush it at the kitchen table to get back to see the match. Other Sundays he’d actually be in Manchester at the match. Or in Liverpool, or Southampton, or Birmingham, or Newcastle, or Blackburn. Wherever his Red Army were playing. Most of the dinner time I’d spend coercing Jade into eating the meat and the vegetables. Jade prefers lasagne, or spaghetti bolognese; she isn’t into roast dinners. Colin doesn’t allow food anywhere else in the house except at the dining table in the kitchen. I sigh internally. Maybe we should all be sitting down together. Maybe I’m not a good mother?

  ‘Fine,’ I give in. I want to be a good mother. I want to be a good mother more than I want to be anything else in the entire world. That is my one true desire. Always has been and always will be. I can’t state that enough. Moving back to the sink, I fold the tea towel neatly into fours once more and place it on the side of the draining board again. He releases the handle of the door with a rattle and follows me.

  ‘Ahh, look, we’ll see … It’s just … I always had a family dinner as a lad on a Sunday when me da’ was still relatively well … It was important. I loved it when we did it here, Ali. We talked …’ He picks the apple up again and from where he is standin
g, pulls down his hood, closes one eye and stands on the tippy-toes of his white runners then he fires it into the open bin.

  He misses.

  ‘He shoots! He misses! See ya later, OK? Have a nice gossip.’ He claps his four fingers and thumb together, opens and closes them repeatedly and he leaves the kitchen this time. He also leaves the apple on the floor for me to pick up. I could call him back and argue but everything is an argument these days and I’m tired of it. I’m drained.

  ‘OK,’ I manage. I have a lump in my throat. He moves away down the hall to the front door and I watch him go out to get Mark. Colin Devlin. My soulmate. My boyfriend at seventeen and then my husband at twenty-three. The true love of my life. Right now I just don’t want to be in the same room as him. What is happening to us?

  2

  Sunday afternoon. Malan’s Restaurant. Dawson Street, Dublin 1.

  ‘Are you maybe just over-thinking it all?’ Corina says as she twirls her large wine glass by the slim stem in front of her face and dips her nose in. She inhales the bouquet deeply.

  ‘Come to mamma, big boy,’ she echoes into the glass, fogging up the sides. I’ve just filled her in on this morning’s new set of arguments and how I’m feeling.

  ‘How am I over-thinking it? I’m not having sex with my husband; we can’t talk without it escalating into a fully blown row. I’m really worried, Corina. We really are in a bad place.’ I hiss across the table at her and stab my heavy-duty stainless steel fork into my chicken Caesar salad with extra dressing. I manage to collect a crunchy crouton, chicken and romaine lettuce all on the fork. Score. I push it all into my mouth and chew, releasing the flavours of the combination of Parmesan cheese, lemon juice, olive oil, egg, garlic, Worcestershire sauce and black pepper. Malan’s do a seriously tasty Caesar salad and this afternoon the restaurant is energetic. Both young and old enjoying a lazy work-free afternoon.

  A baby cries loudly and hysterically in the corner. As I crunch on my bite I glance over at the frazzled parents and make sure I catch the mother’s eye. She is standing, bouncing baby in one arm balanced on her hip with her fork full of twisted spaghetti in the other. Trying to wrap her mouth around it, she only serves to drop it all down the front of her dress. I smile widely but softly at her to show I understand and hope I give her some reassurance with my smile. I have been that spaghetti-covered frustrated soldier. But I think all children have a place in public restaurants until late evening. It’s great for the parents to get out together. If you want a silent meal, stay at home or wait until after nine o’clock.

  We are sitting in a booth at the window seat and I gaze across at Dublin’s Mansion House, where the Lord Mayor lives, as I wash my food down with the sharp-tasting grape. It is bad that I have no idea who the current Lord Mayor is. The building is monumental and always extra impressive at Christmas. I remember it well from my history books in school – the black-and-white pictures of an Irish crowd gathered outside on 8 July 1921 ahead of the War of Independence truce. Funny how some images from history books stay with you for ever. I love Dublin. I love being Irish. I’m very patriotic. I love feeling European too. I especially love being in the city centre on a Sunday afternoon, the feeling of being free, a day for me, all alone – not that I don’t cherish being a mother. Like I said, I do, I really do. I just like to have some me time on a Sunday. Is that selfish? Sometimes I feel so guilty about it. I work hard the other six days a week. The earlier threatening rain now sleets diagonally across the busy road. I live in a world of perpetual guilt.

  ‘Hello?’ Corina is waving her stainless-steel fork in front of my face.

  ‘Sorry, what?’ I answer, still chewing. That’s another thing I simply adore about Corina: we don’t need to talk all the time.

  ‘I was going to say I’m no expert, right, but you have two kids with an awkward age gap. Like, Jade was five and you were almost heading in a new direction when you fell pregnant with Mark. You had to start all over again. Nappies, bottles, sterilisers, teething, temperatures, sleepless nights … and you guys have lots of financial stress with your big mortgage, so many bills coming in, routines to stick to, school runs, and pick-ups, drop-offs, full time jobs, you never ever have a night out together …’

  ‘Because …’ I interrupt and spit a square of Parmesan cheese out as she raises her hand.

  ‘I know, I know because you can’t afford a babysitter, seriously that landed in my wine? I’m still going to drink it obviously but ew, Ali,’ she fishes the intruder out with her unused fork.

  Corina smiles at me. I don’t really feel comfortable lambasting Colin to Corina, as I am doing it so often lately, so I try not to. I tell her things are tough, and I have only recently admitted that things in the bedroom are bad too but I haven’t told her the whole story. I haven’t told her how he makes me feel physically. I’m not sure I understand it enough myself to explain it to another person, to be honest. More often than not I wonder if there is something wrong with me. It’s unfair of me to ask her to give me marriage advice. Also Corina is clever enough to know you never disrespect or slag off someone’s husband or wife too much because odds are they will reunite and you’ll be the one left with egg on your face.

  Corina and I have been friends for three years now. A new friend who breezed into my life and with her brought a Jo Malone, nectarine-blossom-and-honey-scented blast of glorious, fresh, jocular, buoyant, independent air. She was employed to help me plan the opening of the City Arts Centre’s new government-funded, sixty-eight-seat theatre, The Inner. I had more or less lost touch with any school friends as I married so young and had the babies. I have friends, don’t get me wrong, fantastic neighbours, some great mummies from the school. I’m really close to my older sister Victoria but she lives in Los Angeles so I don’t see her very often, maybe once every five years. Victoria works for Paramount Pictures and lives in a very different world to me. I love her, she’s my sister, but I didn’t have a Corina. Corina and I hit it off the instant our paths crossed. If we were lines on the palm of a hand, our perpendicular lines crossed right through one another.

  ‘Sorry, I am reeking of garlic and eminently hung-over,’ she informed me immediately and oh so matter-of-factly the first time I greeted her at the door of the City Arts Centre.

  ‘Corina Martin.’ She extended her hand. I took it. Firm handshake. Warm. If it were a teenage movie, a bolt of electricity would have been visible when we touched. Connected.

  ‘Ali Devlin, and don’t worry I can’t smell anything, probably because I’m reeking of garlic too: I made a very strong chilli last night. This way.’

  She followed me into our small staff kitchen behind the centre’s cafe, Beans and Other Stuff.

  ‘Coffee?’ I offered.

  ‘I’d ride Shane MacGowan in a mankini with his old teeth for a strong coffee right now: black, two sugars. Don’t supposed you’ve a choccy biccy going?’ She had pulled herself up onto the countertop, legs swinging. Then she went on.

  ‘So, Ali … Alison?’ She raised her gorgeous well-shaped eyebrows at me.

  ‘Ali,’ I confirmed.

  She goes on. ‘So, Ali, get this: I have been seeing this guy the last three weeks, right, nice enough, had a job, his own hair, still hadn’t sent me a dick pic … all good signs … but last night he just stood me up. I sat in the Trocodero restaurant and waited. Then I texted him, three times – it was on Whatsapp so I could see he was reading them. It had the two blue tick marks. No reply. Then I called and his phone was turned off. I even tweeted him. Jesus, why did I tweet him? Anyway, then I simply took off my long wraparound, stomach-hiding cardigan, slipped off the bastard high heels, loosened my elasticised belt and ordered for one. Garlic prawns in filo for starters, garlic chicken with asparagus and honey mash for mains, extra gravy, a bottle of Merlot and a messy nest of fresh cream strawberry meringue. I rolled out of the place, Ali.’

  We never looked back.

  I relish having her around me; she makes me feel so at ease and God
she makes me laugh so much. Corina loves life and is the type of person everyone wants to be around. Corina, simply put, is loyal, funny and great craic. Three ingredients I adore.

  ‘So are you going to Amsterdam or not?’ She cuts into her medium-rare steak with ease and pops it into her mouth. Corina loves her grub.

  But I still can’t tell her how much I fancy Owen. Owen O’Neill. I know she’d be horrified, rightly so, and immediately put me in my place on that one. I get that I just have to cop myself on. Corina just wouldn’t understand it. I don’t understand it myself. I still can’t believe I actually fancy another man. I mean I haven’t properly fancied anyone since I clapped eyes on Colin Devlin in sixth year. He’d strutted into our classroom, 6A2, white shirt hanging out, the top button open and the blue-and-white stripy school tie loose and messy. Something happened to me. I kind of saw him in slow-motion. I was lolling at my desk by the window – Mr Woodcock had just opened it a little, as it was an unusually warm, bright April morning – and I heard the hum of a faraway lawnmower but could still smell the freshly cut grass. Mr Woodcock held Colin at the top of the classroom, clasping his shoulder tightly and introduced him. I was transfixed. Him. That guy. Holy cowabunga. Yer man standing up beside the confusing pie-charted blackboard with a graffiti-covered khaki canvas bag slung over his shoulder. Not a word of what Mr Woodcock was saying went into my head. A massive Manchester United Football Club crest was sewn onto the bag. Long Live the Red Army written underneath it. Busby Babes inked down the side. The names Whiteside and Giles written in white Tippex. Funny how I’ve come to despise that Red Army over the last number of years. If only I’d known the number of overnight trips to Manchester, the Champions League games weekends in Barcelona, Turin, Berlin, the lost Sunday afternoons, and the mood he falls into when they lose. I just find it, nowadays, all so idiotic and childish. Anyway back then Colin Devlin had just moved from Belfast to Rathfarnham in south county Dublin. Today his Belfast accent is less accentuated but still very much there. Owen O’Neill. If I don’t say it out loud, this crush, because I know that’s what it must be, a pathetic adult crush that might just go away. It’s certainly not helping my marriage crisis. It’s not the reason for my marriage crisis; at least I don’t think it is.