The Week I Ruined My Life

by Caroline Grace-Cassidy

  I make a face.

  ‘Oh, I dunno, it’s been years since I smoked a joint … and even then I only tried it once at Croke Park seeing U2 because someone handed it to me. I’d nearly be afraid. It is a work trip, after all?’ I wince. I’m not good at being out of control.

  ‘Tell you what, you eat a little brownie and I’ll have a little joint. We will ask for something really light and mild and fun, because you know what, Ali, you really do need a laugh.’ He finishes his whiskey and places it dead centre of the square beer mat.

  ‘I really want to go and see the Teylers Museum today too though, I don’t want to waste a minute of this city.’ I bend over to the floor and pull my travel book out of my bag and flick through the thin pages.

  ‘Promise we will do both. Have you ever been to a museum stoned?’ He reaches out and takes the book from me just as I locate the marked page.

  ‘No!’ I shake my head wildly, my ponytail coming loose so I shake my hair out. I run my fingers through it, its gathering some length and I like this grown-out crop. It makes me feel younger. I’m not sure what it looks like, but I don’t care. I push my fringe to the side.

  ‘It’s amazing, trust me, Ali.’ He reads the page in front of him on the Teylers Museum.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose lightly. I feel a bit weak at the knees again. It’s the way he says the words Trust me, Ali. Like, I hear in them a romantic intent.

  I stare at him holding my travel guide, his amazing big brown eyes darting over the pages and I’d still love to strip him naked and ride him like Seabiscuit, but I can’t and that’s just the way it is. This might be the very last day I ever spend alone with Owen O’Neill. I knock back my whiskey. I am only thirty-five. Can you prefix thirty-five with the word only? I don’t know. I don’t know how old I’m supposed to feel. I still feel young, and today I’m going to have some fun. I’ve made my decision: on Monday I will hand in my notice to Colette and as soon as she can replace me I will be a full-time stay-at-home mum. This is somehow feeling like my ‘hens’ weekend: after this weekend I’m no longer a working mother.

  ‘Shall we?’ I stand, determined to enjoy these next two days, and outstretch my hand. He stands and takes it. Skin on skin.

  ‘Yes! Come on, let’s have a bit of craic!’ He lets go and hands me back my guidebook and I stuff it down deep into my bag as he shoves his arms back into his biker jacket.

  We stroll outside and hail a cab.

  ‘Smokey coffee shop alsjeblieft?’ He tries his best with the accent, in fairness.

  The car speeds off and we knock our heads together as we roar laughing.

  12

  Friday mid-afternoon. Smokey’s. Amsterdam.

  Smokey’s is nothing like I might have imagined inside. It’s very civilised and quiet, and cool-looking people lounge around, not fall around, chatting and laughing. A lot of people are drinking coffee and eating snacks. It all seems so normal and not choked with smoke like I had expected. There is sawdust on the old wooden floor and the bright yellow walls are hung with various pictures. A strange sweet tobacco scent is in the air. We take a seat on the soft fabric-backed chairs and look at the smoking menu propped up in front of us. It’s incredible that all this is legal. A waiter with dreadlocks approaches us, about the only cliché I can spot in here.

  ‘English?’ he asks in an English accent as he stands beside us.

  ‘Irish.’ Owen says.

  ‘Deadly buzz.’ He imitates our lingo and we laugh.

  ‘So you need any help with the menu, mate?’ the waiter asks Owen now. Londoner, I’d say. East End.

  ‘We do actually. I’d love a light, happy smoke and for the lady a light, happy hash cake?’ Owen looks up at him.

  ‘Just something chilled with the giggles, am I right, mate?’ He wipes the table with a dark cloth.

  Owen nods.

  ‘Right, we have hash which is solid or weed which is grass and we charge by the gram – I have pre-rolled joints available.’ He replaces the menu and turns to me.

  ‘Well, darlin’, I’d advise if you’re not a regular marijuana user, just half a hash cake first – just to say, don’t be tempted to eat the other half if you don’t feel anything after fifteen minutes, the drug can take a while to work its way into your bloodstream, it can also dip in an hour and come back, so you know the effect can be mildly hallucinogenic and often disorientating so just make sure you guys are all comfortable with that, we don’t serve alcohol and smoking regular cigarettes is illegal, we have hot drinks, sodas and snacks available though too.’ He says all of this very long sentence without taking a breath.

  ‘OK, I’ll happily take your advice,’ I tell him.

  He removes the menu again from the table and points out different options to Owen. His nails are longer than would be usual on a man. Owen orders a pre-rolled grass joint promising a happy, giddy, mellow buzz and also orders two black coffees.

  ‘I’m a bit scared,’ I confess. It’s warm in here and I remove my brown leather jacket and open the top button on my white shirt. Owen remains in his jacket.

  ‘I promise there is nothing to be scared of and that you will thank me. You need a release so badly. You know that your shoulders are literally sitting up under your ears?’ He does an impression of me. He looks like Benny Hill.

  ‘They’re not,’ I say, and then I check them and they so are. I try to release them down; the shift in posture feels great. No wonder my neck has been sore a lot lately. I rub my shoulders with alternating hands.

  ‘Will Colette and Michael not see we’re stoned?’ I ask him.

  ‘We won’t be stoned by then, we’re aren’t getting bombed out of our minds, Ali, just a little light stimulant to make us relax and laugh. Then we’ll go see the museum with open minds and we will have had a huge feed and it will have worn off. You do know Michael is a regular marijuana user for his MS?’

  ‘Really?’ I didn’t know that.

  ‘Medicinal. Prescribed,’ he informs me.

  ‘I don’t have many conversations with Michael,’ I tell him.

  ‘He’s more of a man’s man, as he puts it.’ Owen scrunches up his perfect nose.

  The waiter is back and places my hash cake in front of me. It is cut into two halves on a normal plate sitting on a normal white napkin. It looks so innocent, like any slice of cake you’d get anywhere on a Friday afternoon. Owen takes his joint, a long, fat, white cigarette with twisted paper at the end. He strikes a match from the free strike-anywhere matches that are on the table, cups his hands and lights the fat end. The waiter places two huge yellow mugs of coffee in front of us.

  ‘Milk and sugar’s on the table, enjoy,’ he says as he takes his leave.

  ‘Bon appétit!’ Owen says. ‘I didn’t learn that one in Dutch sorry.’

  He inhales deeply and holds it in, his mouth shut tight.

  I take a tiny bite and a huge sip of coffee straight after, so I can’t really taste the cake. It’s amazing the weight I feel lifted off my shoulders, thinking how happy Colin’s going to be to get my text. Happy Colin equals happy kids.

  Owen exhales slowly. ‘Nice.’ He laughs through a bloom of smoke. ‘So if I go to France and you give up work, doesn’t look like we will see each other for a while anyway, hey?’

  He inhales again.

  ‘No.’ I take another bite on its own this time, it tastes like spicy chocolate. Still, I don’t feel a thing. I take another bite and drink more coffee.

  ‘I suppose the thing is, I simply can’t live a happy life if I feel I’m doing wrong by the kids, ya know?’ I lick some cake that is stuck to the prongs of the fork.

  ‘Yeah, I get that,’ he says.

  We sit in comfortable silence for a while.

  ‘It’s like my happiness is fuelled by their happiness. Maybe when they are eighteen or when they want to move out we can meet in here and run away together, start a new life somewhere … hot, on a beach preferably? Laugh our heads off day in and day out.’ I eat a bigger
piece now. It’s actually really good. Or as Jade would say, reaaalllyy reaaaally reaaaally gud.

  I stop. I didn’t have a panic attack thinking about Jade just there.

  I eat two huge spoonfuls. Chewing quickly, swallowing the calmness down. I try to think of the kids now but my brain is taking me somewhere else. I can see a golden sandy beach, blazing sun and coral blue skies. Where is that?

  Owen exhales smoke all around me.

  Oh, it’s a painting on the wall near the toilet. I laugh as I look around at the different paintings.

  ‘Do you believe in the one, Ali?’ he asks.

  ‘The one what?’ I ask trying to focus.

  ‘The one person for everyone out there. Your lobster. Your soulmate, get it?’ He drags hard and holds the smoke in again. ‘S. O. U. L. mate?’ he spells the word and chuckles as a burst of smoke erupts from his moth and out down through his nostrils. He coughs and splutters.

  I swallow and take a drink of my coffee, not really minding him.

  ‘I do. What a comedian you are. I’d say Peter Kay is shitting himself! I used to believe in the one … I don’t know now. Nah … I don’t think so. I’m definitely the wrong person to ask right now.’

  ‘Colin was the one once.’ He isn’t probing, he’s just interested.

  ‘Yeah, of course he was, Owen, but I was so young. I didn’t know who I was, let alone who he was … I had no comparisons, ya know?’ I try to explain.

  ‘Got it.’ Owen removes his biker jacket now and I am drawn to the tight black V-neck T-shirt and the body I saw underneath it this morning.

  ‘What do you get from relationships then?’ I ask him. ‘You are too clever to commit, you did the right thing staying single. I haven’t really known you to go on a date in the last six months. Have you?’

  ‘Oh, Jesus no! I don’t do dates. Awful things!’ He physically shivers.

  ‘So what if you like someone, and you want to get to know them better?’

  ‘I join an arts centre and feck off to Amsterdam with them for the weekend.’ He clicks his tongue off the roof of his mouth.

  ‘Got me there!’ I laugh as he talks at the exact same time.

  ‘Gotcha!’ He blows smoke of the end off a finger gun he’s pointed at me. I laugh now. I have a sudden vision of Owen in a suit, driving to his office, kids screaming in the back. I dunno why, but it’s really funny to me.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asks and I tell him. His expression changes.

  ‘I’d have liked to want to wear a suit and to drive a Lexus. I’d have fitted into this world easier. It’s not easy to explain to people that you are a poor artist hurtling a little too fast toward the big Four Zero with no partner, no house, no mortgage and no kids. Well, especially to family members,’ he tells me.

  ‘But who says that’s what we should all strive to have? Granted I wouldn’t change my kids for anything, ever, but I’d prefer to be single with them … Right now anyway,’ I add.

  ‘Would you really? Could you really see your life without Colin in it?’ He holds the joint between his first two fingers and I see his eyes are a little misty. I take the last bite of my first half. Still I feel nothing. I must have got a dud. Dud is a weird word, isn’t it? In fact words are weird, aren’t they?

  ‘If you are asking me right now, right in this very moment, then yes. I don’t feel like I’m in love with him any more. I don’t fancy him, I don’t like how he speaks to me, I don’t get that he doesn’t want me to be happy, but I’m willing to keep trying for the sake of my kids,’ I tell him.

  ‘God, do you know how beautiful you are, Ali?’ He leans in and balances the joint in a groove on the lip of the astray.

  My jaw drops.

  ‘Stop … I’m not …’ I put my fork down and lick my teeth with my tongue. He thinks I’m beautiful. He thinks I’m beautiful. Don’t say anything stupid, I tell the numskulls running my brain. Don’t speak at all. I can see the little people from Inside Out, Joy and Disgust and Fear, controlling my mouth and I’m relieved to see them with black gaffer tape gags on. I am safe.

  He is still talking.

  ‘You really are. You tick every box for me, Ali, every box – physically and intellectually … God, you are so easy to be around. I know it’s not ... we’re not ... Colin doesn’t know how lucky he is.’ He scratches his neck.

  I don’t scratch my head, instead I feel myself relax. I feel his words wash over me like warm seawater. I am thermal inside. I perceive our chemistry to be unique. I allow myself to feel it all. He looks to me to speak next.

  ‘That’s so nice of you to say. It’s just all so complicated now.’ I pause. ‘Life, I mean. It used to be so simple.’

  We have controlled eye contact.

  ‘It shouldn’t be complicated all the time, it should be enjoyed. We are here for a good time not a long time.’ He picks up his coffee.

  ‘In an ideal world, yes, but when you have a marriage and children it is work, Owen. It’s not always a party.’ I lick my dry bottom lip.

  ‘Work should be work and life should be life. It can’t be all work, Ali, where’s the enjoyment? I’m not saying it should be a party either, but it certainly shouldn’t be a funeral.’

  ‘Don’t they say nothing worth having ever comes easy?’ I sit up straight on my stool, push my fringe out of my eyes and I think. I really think for the first time in months. He’s so right. Where is my enjoyment? The children obviously bring me a unique and pure joy, but, yeah, I will admit to myself, here and now, they take work. It’s hard work being a mother. So what else do I enjoy?

  I raise my hand to Owen to signal I am still very much in deep thought. He relights his joint catching his fingers on the match as he does so. He shakes his slightly burnt hand repeatedly.

  Work. I enjoy work.

  But that’s causing so many problems, it’s becoming tainted. Corina! She pops into my mind’s eye, waving, winking, chatting, laughing, eating, drinking, dancing.

  ‘Corina. Our once-a-week Sunday afternoons. I love them! I enjoy those few hours so, so much.’ I clap my hands together.

  ‘Do it twice a week, so,’ he exhales.

  ‘Ha! Are you having a laugh? I barely get that one Sunday afternoon with her, and there is always an atmosphere when I return. In fact, Colin wants me to give up the Sunday afternoons too … He thinks we should all be sitting down to a family dinner on a Sunday.’

  I know I’m not exactly painting a brilliant picture of my husband to the man I’m getting stoned with, to the man who has just told me I tick all the boxes for him, but it is the truth. Owen starts to hum. I know the tune. I listen. My hearing is heightened, I can hear various conversations around the room also. It’s that Taylor Swift song that Jade plays over and over. It’s Karen’s ringtone on her phone – another bone of contention between Jade and me, Karen being allowed an iPhone. Owen’s still humming but I know the name, what is it now? Oh, yeah. ‘Shake It Off’.

  ‘You’re right.’ I start moving on my stool as the song spins in my mind. I spotted a jukebox in the corner at the entrance of the bar as we came in.

  ‘I wonder,’ I say and my voice sounds very high-pitched as I pull my purse out and get up. Over at the music-making machine I flick through the titles, and there she is. Madam Swift. I am way too old for Taylor Swift, but right now I don’t give a damn. I wanna hear this song. I punch in my selection, R and 2, and push down on the red button. It springs to our ears. Owen laughs from the end of the room. I start to move towards him. I’m not walking, nor am I dancing. I’m prancing: I’m on a catwalk and it feels wonderful. Strutting now, as Taylor hits the chorus, I raise both my hands and brush myself down just as Taylor does in her video. This song should be the national anthem. The lyrics are so good. I hit our table with both hands and Owen jumps up. And then we dance.

  We dance around our table like two silly, carefree teenagers. He seems to know all the words, I know a few, enough to get by. He takes my hands and twirls me and I spin. I spin and I
spin.

  So many haters in the world, she is right. So many people who don’t want the best for others. So many people who want to hurt one another. My fringe is in my eyes and I throw my head back and let the music wash over me. The music is just so intense.

  What great advice for one so young. Shake it off.

  Shake it all the fuck off!

  Who knew I was such a good dancer? It’s been so long. I feel incredibly sexy as my body gyrates to the music. Owen is playing air guitar now and then I start to laugh. This is all so absurd so I laugh more. I snort laugh. I start to laugh so hard I have to hold onto my stomach. It aches. I am doubled over. I wish it would stop. It’s so funny, I’m sore. Owen’s just staring at me, hand in the air waiting to strum his imaginary chords but then he looks down at his non-existent guitar and he starts. His laugh is so contagious; he slaps his knee when he laughs and suddenly the two of us are literally crying with laughter, our heads thrown back, standing up, tears rolling down our cheeks. This is the best chocolate cake I’ve ever had in my entire life!

  ‘Everything all right here, guys?’ Our waiter is back. ‘Good stuff, mates, yeah?’ he enquires, his eyes narrowed at us both.

  ‘Brilliant, sorry, apologies, mate. They were playing our song.’ Owen holds up his hand and wipes the palms of his hands across his wet eyes.

  ‘No need to apologise, it’s a happy house! Belly laughs are greatly encouraged, they keep us in business.’ He removes the empty yellow coffee mugs. ‘Refills?’ he asks.

  ‘Please,’ I say. My stomach aches. I try to catch my breath and sit down holding my upper torso up straight. I’m actually sweating. There are two little wet patches under the arms of my white shirt.

  ‘Oh, man, I haven’t laughed like that in years … like, not since I peed myself on the headmistress’s floor for drinking the communion wine,’ I pant.

  ‘Ahh, me neither, that was brilliant.’ He sits back down now too. He inches his stool from across the table to beside mine. And when we settle, he says, ‘I meant what I said though.’