The Week I Ruined My Life

by Caroline Grace-Cassidy

  The fear still has a tight grasp on my heart over me sending such a terrible picture to Owen. I’m a mother of an eleven-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy; it’s inexcusable. I did it in temper, I know, and the timing had a part to play, but I did it nonetheless. I sent a dirty picture of myself to another man. The fear crushes down on my heart and it gallops at a million miles an hour. OK, Ali, I say in my head. You did it, it’s done, all you can do is apologise to Owen and tell him the truth as embarrassing as it is. The truth shall set you free. Forget all this Owen nonsense. You can do good work this weekend, programme a really great show for the centre and go home and fix your broken marriage. Everything happens for a reason, right? Maybe this is my rock bottom.

  Carefully I peel the white plastic lid from my coffee, steam billowing out. It’s still scalding. I open my cheese-and-ham toastie; the plastic is also boiling and sticks to the bread.

  As soon as it cools, I peel it off, then I eat and drink, and feel somewhat better that I have decided to tell Owen the truth.

  I draw my guidebook from the confines of the thick grey net. There is so much to see and do and I plan to see and do it all. This will possibly be the last trip I take on my own for some time.

  Maybe I do have to seriously consider giving up the job, as much as I love it, we can’t carry on like this. Perhaps I could do something from home. The thought of letting it all go, of rediscovering my normality, of simply giving in, actually mellows me out.

  Putting my seat back just a fraction, I sip my coffee and wade through my guidebook until I come to our hotel, Hotel Falcon Plaza. It’s a three-star in a great location, situated on Valkenburgerstraat. I thumb the pages, reading about the surrounding area.

  Like I told Owen, I’ve never been to Amsterdam before. I’m excited. A new city for my eyes to behold. The added buzz of seeing two new shows reminds me how much I adore being in the theatre. Colette is on the afternoon flight with Michael and she wants to meet in the hotel bar at six o’clock for a quick drink and a chat before we all disperse to go and see our various dance shows, theatre shows, art exhibitions. No idea what Owen booked to see, I think, as I nibble on the end of my toastie, head buried in my travel book. I mark off some sights I’d like to see as a tin tube flies me through the skies at a million miles an hour.

  10

  Late morning. Room 141. Hotel Falcon Plaza. Amsterdam

  The flight takes less than an hour and a half and the taxi transfer is twenty minutes. In the black taxi cab I take in every view. Every street. Its people. The city has fifty-one museums, fifty-five theatres and more than one hundred and forty commercial art galleries, I’d educated myself on the plane. The canals whiz by as I stare at the bridges and bare trees that accompany them. This is one busy city with the most incredible architecture. I check my phone, I have no messages. As we pull up outside my hotel and I pay, I’m feeling all right. Excited even. I like that Ireland switched to the Euro, a shared currency, it makes me feel as though I belong in every city I visit, even though I still love the tradition of the pound. Christmas is all over Amsterdam and especially the hotel. Red-and-green lights twinkle at the reception desk and a huge real pine tree sways slightly in the breeze at the entrance. There is no sign of Owen in the hotel lobby, I’m relieved to see. I check in and then dash to the gold lift as fast as I can. I’m on the third floor, room 141, so I hit the button and it lights up red. The doors close and a deep voice informs me first in Dutch, ‘Omhoog gaat,’ and then in English, ‘Going up.’

  I travel up. Locating my room, I take the key card from its white folder and slide it into the door handle slot. Red. Access denied. I try again. Red. Access denied. I miss keys. Last try or I have to go back down to reception. Green. Entry permitted. The door to the room next door creaks opens.

  ‘Goedemorgen, mevrouw.’ I hear the accented voice.

  Owen steps out onto the narrow corridor on the hotel carpet. I notice it’s navy, speckled with white stars.

  ‘Hoe gaat het?’ he says very seriously.

  His accent is so funny, I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. He is shirtless in navy jogging bottoms, drawstring loosely tied and in his bare feet. He laughs now too, leans in and pulls his room key card from the wall as his door clicks shut and he approaches me.

  ‘Here, let me grab that for you.’ He takes my small case and we step inside room 141. I don’t even see what the room is like because I immediately turn to him. I can feel the colour exploding in my cheeks.

  ‘Owen, I need to explain the picture,’ I blurt out.

  He puts my case on my small bed and sits on the edge. The room is not spacious. A single bed near the window, a table and lamp and a desk with TV. He says nothing. I stall. He looks so amazing.

  His hair is freshly washed, I can smell almond shampoo. He looks bed-ready. He talks first.

  ‘Ali, look, I know you’re married and I know things aren’t great, but I was thinking, after last night … how about we park all … all the shit for this weekend only and just live in the moment? Drink beer, see some works, see the sights and, feck, maybe even eat a hash brownie. Let’s not discuss Colin or analyse anything for two whole days. What will be will be. The last thing I want is for you to feel bad about what you did. It’s not a big deal.’

  The room seems so small and I can smell him so close and I am honestly in a way in love with him. I can’t stop looking at his bare chest. It’s intoxicating.

  ‘It’s not a big deal?’ I tilt my head at him and scratch my head.

  ‘Nope, it’s just a picture. A very beautiful one granted, but I know you. I know you will be beating yourself up over it, so I think we don’t ruin our weekend by analysing it. Let’s just forget it ever happened.’

  ‘You sure?’ I ask.

  ‘Hundred per cent. Now …’ He pushes his hands palms down between his legs and pushes himself up.

  ‘Let’s just savour this time together. Let’s go and enjoy ourselves and this city. I hope you brought a pair of runners, did ya? ’Cause we have six whole hours before we have to meet Colette and Micko before we go see our shows tonight. I’d love if you spent them with me. What’ya say? Ja? Nee?’ He rubs his hands down his bare chest. Then he stands in front of me and opens his arms out wide.

  ‘Ja, you lunatic!’ I say and I step into him. We stand in the moment. I feel completely alive. My head is light and my senses on high alert. He steps back and takes my face in his hands.

  ‘You’ll figure it all out in time. Right now I better get dressed, be back in five minutes.’ He lets out a long slow breath as he opens my hotel room door. It shuts behind him.

  I won’t think about it.

  I take off my red coat and hang it over the back of the chair. Opening my case I take out my white Nike runners and my blue jeans. My shirt is fine, I think, as I unfold my brown leather jacket.

  I grab my phone and fly off a text to the kind mother who is collecting Jade and to Laura, just reminding them to still text or call Colin if they need anything but that I have now landed in Amsterdam, in case they need me. They know that already but it’s more for my peace of mind.

  I move towards the bathroom as Owen knocks on the door. Opening it, I let him in.

  ‘Two seconds.’ I grab my clothes to change in the bathroom.

  ‘Sure I’ve seen it all before.’ He bites his top lip and his smile runs along his top teeth.

  ‘Seriously, piss off! I thought we had forgotten about it? It’s still way too sore to be funny.’ I half-laugh, though.

  I shut the bathroom door and lean my back against it. Everything’s going to be fine.

  11

  Late Friday morning. De straten van Amsterdam (The streets of Amsterdam).

  We elect to go see Anne Frank’s house first, as Owen and I are both fascinated with her life story. Owen tells me it’s only a twenty-six-minute walk to Prinsengracht from the hotel or we can grab a cab and be there in fifteen. I choose to walk. I want to see it all. Connect with the city physically
. It’s cold but crisp and early Christmas shoppers rush past as we tourists gaze around in awe.

  ‘The museum is open on Christmas Day, that’s mad, isn’t it?’ Owen says as he reads and walks. His arm rubs against my shoulder. ‘Right, that’s not bad for a poor artist, nine euro in. You know the way the Anne Frank House is made up of the former business premises of Otto Frank, including the secret annex, together with the new building next door? We are gonna get to see that annex, Ali,’ he informs me in an amazed tone as he takes my elbow to manoeuvre me out of the way of a bicycle who’s rider is ringing his bell. I tremble at his touch.

  ‘The original building has as far as possible been kept in its original state; imagine that, Ali?’ Owen holds the book down and looks up at me. ‘It’s still hard to get your head around, isn’t it?’

  I nod. It is.

  ‘How can a world so beautiful be such a revolting, dark, murderous place?’

  We have often had these conversations about our world, about the war-torn twentieth century all the way up to the present. Murder. Genocide. Terrorism. High school shootings. It’s a scary place. To be sitting at your desk at 8.46 on a sunny September morning and have a commercial aircraft flown deliberately into your place of work. To be sitting in a cafe in central Paris, eating a warm pain au chocolat and a frothy cappuccino, only to be shot in the head. To be a child born in Syria. To be the parent of that child, trying to escape terrorism, knowing you face drowning in open waters. Wrong place, wrong time. We haven’t come as far from Anne Frank’s world as we might like to think.

  ‘The museum has quotations from the diary, photos, films and original artefacts illustrating the events that took place in the hiding place. You know I was telling the Steffi Street kids as much as I could about Anne before I left for Belfast. In a weird way they could relate to it. James Rafter hid under his bed for two days when his da’ was in hiding from the police for robbing the post office in Balbriggan. I must see if I can bring home something for him from the museum.’

  We avoid another bell-ringing cyclist.

  ‘You’d have made a brilliant teacher,’ I tell him and I link his arm. It feels wonderful and I feel so completely free. His body heat immediately warms my cold hand. I’m free of all my responsibilities for two whole days. My responsibilities. It hits me. I can’t think of my children right now because if I do I will burst into tears.

  ‘I would have loved it but all I really want to do is paint, Ali, as shit as that is for me and anyone I may ever have to support or contribute financially to. I called Corina, did she tell you?’

  My heart skips a beat.

  ‘No, why?’ Am I jealous?

  ‘The exhibition, I’m finally going to do one. Apart from the fact I have to have one to apply for France, I think I’m ready to put myself out there to be judged. I have about four pieces I need to finish, which I’m planning to do after Christmas, and then I’m good to go.’ He raises his eyebrows at me.

  I nod.

  Why didn’t she tell me he’d called?

  ‘And Corina’s going to do the event for you?’

  ‘Yup, and she said she won’t take a penny! I insisted, of course, so she said if I sell anything on the night she will take her fee out of that sale, otherwise the deal’s off. There’s something so familiar about her, like I’ve known her all my life. She’s deadly, isn’t she?’

  ‘She is.’ We stop at the lights and I unfurl my arms from his. I turn him towards me.

  ‘Why don’t you have a girlfriend?’

  He does a double-take. ‘Where did that come out of?’

  The crossing lights make a piercing beeping noise and we cross.

  ‘I … I have … well, I suppose I’d never met anyone I wanted to be with day in and day out. A girlfriend isn’t just for Christmas.’ He smacks his lips together.

  ‘Hmmm,’ I say. I don’t want to think about him leaving to go to work in France.

  We walk along the river in silence until we reach the museum. Throngs of people are looking up, taking pictures on their cameras and iPhones. I get a chill immediately. This poor girl. This pretty average, middle-class Jewish family who tried to escape the horrors. This was the place it all happened. I cannot take it lightly. I stare at the plaque on the wall.

  Anne Frank Huis.

  My breath rises as the weather seems to turn colder. The secret annex was beyond incredible, I think as I look up. A true miracle. I know what Kitty Tead would say. The hand of God.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ Owen asks back with the tickets, waving them about in his right hand.

  I nod. He is as emotional as I am. He takes my hand in his.

  The warehouse is on the ground floor. We go up a short flight of stairs and into the office area. I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise as we study the various pictures together. I wish I could explain the smell to you but I can’t. It’s so unfamiliar. We move down, and in front of us we see the office of Otto Frank, then we take a right up another flight of stairs and there in front of me is the bookcase that I had read so often about, the bookcase that hid the entrance to the secret annex. One steep staircase and I am in her world.

  Anne Frank was here.

  Anne Frank was here.

  I am completely overwhelmed. I think I am overwhelmed for lots of different reasons. I know the story, of course I do, so does every living person on this planet I imagine. As I stare at a chart on the wall recording the children’s growth, a lump the size of a golf ball chokes into my throat and I find I can’t swallow.

  Selfish. I don’t know who you are any more Ali. Selfish. The words hop around my brain.

  I should be at Jade’s gymnastics.

  Should I?

  Am I selfish? Or am I just a working mother?

  Slow tears drop and Owen sees me and quizzically looks but he just hands me a crumpled up tissue. Here were parents who did everything for their children to protect them, to give them life. I try to compose myself as we move into Anne’s bedroom, her pictures on her wall, her writing desk, her diary. It’s all too much for me and I turn to Owen with free-flowing tears and sobbing runny snot.

  ‘I have to get out of here.’ I turn and he follows.

  He puts his arm around me. Protecting me.

  We push past the tourists and out into the air. He cradles my sobbing head into the crook of his arm and we walk, straight down the road and into the Two Swans, a bar and cafe. Owen leans over the bar.

  ‘Toiletten alsjeblieft,’ he says.

  The woman points to the back of the bar and I go. I can’t stop crying. I must look a complete mess. I enter the toilet and grab a roll of yellow toilet paper, tear some off and wet it in the sink. I dab my eyes. I miss my children so much. I’ve a physical ache in my tummy now. I want them to have a happy life and if that means me giving up my job and making my marriage work with Colin then so be it. Decision made. I take my phone out of my brown leather jacket’s inside pocket and I text Colin.

  Colin, I don’t want to fight any more. I’ll hand in my notice at work.

  I send the message and watch it go and I clean myself up a bit more. I feel better already.

  At the back of the bar Owen has secured a free low table and two drinks.

  ‘You all right?’ He jumps up.

  ‘Sorry, yeah. I’m so sorry … I ruined Anne’s house for you.’ I pull out the small wooden three-legged stool and sit down.

  ‘No, you didn’t, I promise. Here, I got us a whiskey each, and there’s water in the jug if you like?’

  ‘I think I’m going to give up the job, Owen,’ I say as I sniff and sip my smoky whiskey. It burns my throat and the pain feels great.

  ‘What? Why?’ He slides off his motorbike jacket and I take in the tight black V-neck T-shirt he’s wearing underneath it. He tugs at the sleeves a bit.

  ‘Because I’m a shit mother and my children will have shit lives if I don’t.’ I take a sharp breath in through my nose to stop any more crying.

  He reaches ac
ross and takes my cold hands.

  ‘You’re a brilliant mother, Ali. I’ve seen you with the kids, you talk so proudly about them all the time, why are you saying this?’ He runs his thumbs across my knuckles.

  ‘Because the main thing Colin and I flight over is this job: he doesn’t want me to work outside the home,’ I explain.

  He doesn’t jump in, he just removes his hands from mine, sips his whiskey and swirls the golden liquid around his glass.

  ‘I won’t … I can’t comment on your marriage, Ali, I’m just not that type of guy. That’s your personal business, you and him, but you are my friend, and you are exceptional at your job, and like millions of mothers all over the world you do both jobs amazingly well. I think you are incredible.’

  He raises his glass and I raise mine and we clink.

  My phone beeps. I grab it out from the inside pocket. It’s not Colin, it’s Corina. The text is a reminder. I never heard it beep.

  Hey. I’m going to go over early to Jade’s gymnastics competition so don’t fret I’ll send you some videos and loads of pics so you won’t miss a thing.

  God, she’s wonderful.

  ‘OK?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah, Corina’s going to go see Jade’s gymnastics rehearsals.’ I push the phone into the back pocket of my jeans now. It’s strange Colin hasn’t replied to that text.

  Owen pushes the jug of water out of our way.

  ‘OK, this is a bit out there, but it’s still early and we have till six p.m. I propose we go to a coffee shop, have a little smokey joe and then take our raging appetite for a slap-up lunch of tagliatelle and linguine, or seafood, whatever, with some great red wine.’