Back in my office, I knew what I had to do. I sat down at my laptop to write my letter of resignation and two weeks’ notice. I could have easily clicked send and walked but being a creature of habit and a professional, I also printed out a hard copy, put it in a white envelope, licked it, sealed it and walked back down to Colette’s office. Michael had been sitting opposite her as I handed it over.
‘My notice,’ I’d said standing tall. Head pounding.
‘You could have done great things here, you know,’ was all Michael offered.
‘Oh, I will do great things, Michael, don’t worry about me and thank you so much for the opportunity.’ My head was held high.
Colette, feeling the atmosphere, had sat back, twirling the torn envelope between her finger and thumb, and then had said, ‘You can leave now, Ali, no need to work out your notice … with full pay obviously. Thanks a million for all your hard work and commitment to the centre, I will miss having you around. Whenever you need a reference just let me know, I’d be very happy to write you a glowing report.’ She had stood up and hugged me tightly, the pen falling out of her ponytail. I picked it up and handed it to her.
‘Keep in touch,’ she had said as she slid it back into her hair and held my chin in her hand, then turning my face, kissed me on both cheeks. I returned to my office, packed all my personal belongings into a SuperValu cardboard box and said goodbye to no one.
Unemployed.
I just wanted to go home. I wasn’t due back until teatime but I had nowhere else to go. Once inside No. 13, my home, I showered and happily started my clean up on the huge mess. I even changed all the beds and cleared out Mark’s overflowing drawers. By the time Colin arrived back with the kids I had a lasagne made, a big salad bowl and baked potatoes in the oven. The kids had been over the moon to see me, as had Colin, I’d felt on that evening. Mark and Jade had fought over who got to watch what on the TV and the ultra-sonic hum of their raised voices hadn’t bothered me at all. I welcomed it. Dinner was spent together as a family at the table and after, as he helped me wash up, I’d told Colin I’d been fired but I was going to look for another job first thing and I knew the exact job I wanted. He’d been really quiet but supportive. We had all gone to bed early and, as he promised, Colin had slept in the spare room and I had tossed and turned all night in our broken nest.
Tuesday morning, after the school run, I went straight to St Andrew’s Resource Centre and asked about the newly advertised Senior Citizens’ Entertainments Manager position. I got it on the spot. I was to start work the following Monday. Just one thing left to do and that was to fix my marriage.
* * *
It didn’t work out with me and Colin. I could go through the ins and outs of what happened over the next few months but it won’t change events. Colin couldn’t get over the fact I sent that picture and almost slept with Owen, not that I blame him.
We’d made it through the Christmas but it was horribly forced and fake. The festive-looking house was an un-festive place to be. No fights, no raised voices, just a whole lot of nothingness. Simply put, there was nothing left between us. He tried. I tried. We tried together. I remember as I’d dried up with my Rudolf tea towel after Christmas dinner, staring out at the frost covering my back lawn, the broken scooters and half bikes. I knew deep down, it would be our last Christmas as a family in the house.
In January we’d decided to look into marriage counselling and so followed three months of talking with Dr Jane Higgins on Monday evenings. Laura babysat for us. Colin had organised it all with her help. Turns out Colin’s opinion of shaky, old, past-her-sell-by-date Laura had changed dramatically. Neither or us complained or missed a meeting, we were model attendants and participants. In the end even Dr Jane told us that there wasn’t much room left in our relationship for growth. Like a dying plant, we could keep ripping off the brown dead leaves but they would always keep coming back. This time no one was to blame that the second chance didn’t work out.
‘But I’m willing to do whatever it takes!’ I had cried in sheer frustration and desperation one Monday evening, late into our run of counselling sessions.
And then I had seen the way Colin had looked up at me and that made me suddenly stiffen and stop. Dead in my tracks. I knew the look. It was the look he had for opposing managers or players after their team had beaten his beloved Manchester United. We were done. Cooked. Spent. I knew it.
But when our marriage ended for real, for ever, it was a Friday night. Valentine’s night, would you believe, and we had booked Laura to babysit the kids and reserved a table at L’Ecrivain, a really exclusive restaurant on Baggot Street. I’d bought a new tight, red knee-length dress from River Island, had my make-up and hair done professionally in a local salon and wore a pair of strappy heels. He wore a suit. The kids were excited. Colin was still in the spare room and that was supposed to be the night: the set date when we were to try and go back to sharing a bed together, to make love and make it all, all right again.
Happily ever after.
* * *
‘What do you fancy?’ he’d enquired as we put down our menus at the same time.
‘Steak, I think. You?’ I answered.
‘Steak too, I think,’ he sort of answered.
No further questions.
We sat in silence. Not comfortable Corina silence, awkward silence.
Clearing of throats. Settling of cutlery. Twisting of glasses. Looking around. Various unnecessary toilet trips. Lame observations.
‘Lovely place,’ I said for the sake of speaking.
‘It is,’ he said.
‘Popular, isn’t it?’ I asked.
‘It is,’ he answered.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
‘Starving, are you?’ I poured more water into my already half-full glass.
‘Starving … yup … yup.’ He seemed to be struggling to fasten the second button on his cuff. Concentrating hard on it. His dimple strained under his contorted face. His brown floppy hair hanging over one bright blue eye.
He never fastened that button.
‘How was work?’ he asked again.
He had asked ‘How was work?’ every single day since we started counselling. He no longer believed that me giving up work was the fix-all solution. Our therapy sessions had taught him that much. Dr Jane had made him understand that part of me and he respected my decision to work both outside and inside the home. It was all very PC.
‘Good, yeah … you?’ I replied.
‘Good, yeah.’
I nodded.
‘Be your biggest month of the year, yeah?’ I’d already asked this on the drive in. We’d discussed it to death.
‘Yeah,’ he repeated.
And a split second before he spoke again, I noticed a tiny bead of sweat gathering on his forehead.
‘This is over, isn’t it?’ he said quietly and calmly.
‘It is,’ I answered. A lone tear out of nowhere squeezed itself out and trickled down my face.
Salty and expected, in my sexy red dress.
‘I’m sorry, Ali.’ A lone tear escaped down his face also.
‘I just can’t fix it.’ He wiped his sweating forehead with the back of his hand as tears gushed down his face.
I’d never seen him cry.
‘Neither can I.’
We reached out at the same time and held hands across the beautiful expensive white linen. Two people who’d met as kids and produced two amazing kids were now strangers again. All the familiarity and knowing and understanding were defunct. Just like that very first day Colin had walked into my classroom, messy shirt and tie, khaki bag slung over his shoulder, I had no idea who he was. We had come full circle.
‘I can’t stop thinking about you and him in that hotel room, all those messages between you … the picture … I can forgive you, I truly can because I fully take responsibility for my part in it all … but I just can’t forget it. God I wish I could, but I can’t.’ He
pinched his nose to stop it dripping.
‘It’s OK, Colin. I don’t know if I could ever forget either.’ And it was true I didn’t.
‘I think it’s the picture that bothers me most, Ali. It’s like I just never knew you. You aren’t the person I thought you were. You were the last person in the entire world I thought would send a picture of yourself in your underwear to another man.’ His voice cracked on every word.
It was never going to go away.
‘You know, when things were really shit, when we were rowing all the time and there was no sex … I wanted to say … I wanted to say … I-I-I …’
He had to take a second to compose himself, napkin covering both his nostrils.
‘I wanted to say … “Let’s go away, Ali, for a weekend on our own … I love you and I appreciate all you do … I’m just scared of losing you.” I saw what happened when my ma worked in Londis, she was never there any more, she was now a working mother … I know she had to … It just scarred me … That’s what this is all about … but I couldn’t … I couldn’t let it go … my pride … Couldn’t let you feel like you had won … beaten me … I knew how pathetic I sounded telling you I wanted you chained to the kitchen sink … and Jane is right, a lot was my making … my mantra now is: let go.’ He is inconsolable and sobs come hard and he struggles to catch his breath.
Let go.
Let go.
Let go.
Let go.
The words dance around both our heads.
And we did.
We physically let go of one another’s hands across the table, as he tried to compose himself, then he said, and I was waiting for it, ‘I’m never leaving my home though, Ali. I’m never leaving my kids. Please don’t make me.’ His uncontrolled breath still catching on each word.
‘I know you’re not, Colin,’ I said. ‘And you shouldn’t have to.’
We were both crying freely now.
‘I’ll go,’ I said.
* * *
It wasn’t an on-the-spot decision. I had been thinking about it for a while, to be honest. All through Dr Jane’s counselling I felt us slip away. In the beginning I thought maybe we could reinvent ourselves but as time passed and we began to speak openly to each other, I began to see Colin wouldn’t be able to. We were just a life-support machine waiting to be unplugged. Jane had mentioned a couple in similar circumstances to us, where the mother had moved close by and left the father in the family home. It had stuck in my mind and so, four months later, I left my family behind and moved out.
I cried for days and days. Colin cried for days and days. Our kids had cried for days and days. So why did I make that call? Why did I walk out?
Because shit or get off the pot, that’s why.
I made a tough, selfless decision. A heart-wrenching one, I will not belittle it, but one that I felt was the right one for all of us. For my kids. It was the only decision that would cause the least interruption to the kids’ lives. I knew I would cope way better on my own than Colin ever would. Colin would have crumpled. I could have battled to get him out of the family home, of course I could, and I would probably have won, but I didn’t think it was fair. Also, he is the main breadwinner, so it made more sense financially that he continue paying the mortgage, the household bills, and looking after all the things the kids needed. The norm remained in the home. I felt I could make my own way, rent a small place and my salary was better in St Andrew’s Recourse Centre than the City Arts Centre so I could get by independently. Just. Colin had offered me a few bob every week but I turned him down. The only thing I asked was that he still pay my tax and insurance on my car.
When we sat them down and told them, Jade had taken it way worse than Mark, obviously.
‘Why don’t you love Daddy any more?’ Anger, her first emotion. Her cross expression and folded arms, bright blue eyes blazing. Body language so closed off.
‘Oh, love, I do love Daddy, very much and I always will, but it’s just better that we have separate places to sleep because we don’t love each other that way any more.’ Dr Jane’s advice.
‘Is it because I told him that man was here that night and that Corina used his good wine glass?’ Her eyes were on the grey slate kitchen floor. Occasionally they darted up at me and then straight back down.
‘Not at all, love!’ Colin said.
‘No, darling.’ I gathered her into a huge bear hug. I pulled out the red kitchen chair and sat her on my knee.
Mark didn’t really bat an eyelid. He had so many friends in his class and on the Ranelagh Rovers Under 6s whose parents were separated, divorced or just never lived together to begin with. Nor does he bat an eyelid to mixed-race parents, same-sex parents, transgender parents – thank God for the changing, modern, accepting world we now live in.
‘Can I go out to Daniel’s now?’ was all he wanted to know.
‘Do you understand what we are tellin’ ya, pal?’ Colin looked across the kitchen table at him.
‘Yeah, Mum’s gonna be living in a different house and we’ll stay there too at weekends?’ The way he said it, it was so clear in his head we didn’t have much to add.
‘But we still love you and I will be around whenever you need me,’ I told him.
‘Can I get the In Space We Brawl: Full Arsenal Edition for your new place?’ he asked, all excited.
‘We’ll see.’ I uttered my magic words and that was enough to make him happy. Dirty football tucked under his arm, he set off with Colin to walk him up to Daniel’s.
My daughter and me remained at the kitchen table.
‘Mom … I do like it when you call me boo boo,’ and suddenly Jade burst into sobs, still sitting on my knee, her head now deep into my shoulder. Hot tears from a broken eleven-year-old heart. I’d closed my eyes tight and made soothing sounds as I’d choked back rock-hard lumps of tears. I did the whole ‘it’s not your fault’, but kids are kids and they will always think they are to blame. I have to live with that every day. We had sat at that table for over an hour just holding one another.
So when we all felt ready, Colin and the kids helped me find my new home. It had to be within walking distance to the house, that was a deal breaker. I’d seen this block of apartments, Ros Mor Heights, which were a five-minute walk down the road. Colin negotiated the rental lease for me and a car park space and I began my move slowly at first, a night here and a night there, making the transition as smooth as possible. Heart-wrenchingly harder than I had ever imagined.
Jade, bouncing back to my delight, complained at the beginning once I had fully moved myself in, and I brought them to show them their room.
‘Uh, do I have to, like, share a room with the ant?’ Blowing her newly cut blunt fringe up in the air. But when she’d seen the bunk beds and her white princess pull-around privacy curtain her face involuntarily lit up.
‘OK … that seems cool, Mom,’ was all I got as her Uggs climbed up the small wooden ladder and pulled the curtain.
Mark had loved them.
‘Oh, Daniel is gonna be so jealous! Green face! Can he come for a sleepover, can he, Mummy, can he, can he?’ he’d begged.
My apartment isn’t a new building, but it’s well maintained, with quiet occupants. Myself, I’m based in the small bedroom, which fits a double bed, a bedside table and my bedside lamp from home. I’m on the first floor, 1B. The sliding doors from my living area open onto a little patio area, where I have treated myself to a wicker table and two chairs and some potted plants. The wicker reminded me of home. It’s a compact living area and kitchen combined; with Corina’s expert eye we have decked it out in creams and yellows. Cream carpet and sharp glossy yellow tiles in the tiny kitchen area. The walls are papered in a cream diamond pattern. The sofa is black leather and on the facing wall is a plasma TV. One bathroom, with no bath just a toilet, sink and shower. That’s it. My new home.
21
A gloriously hot summer’s day. Malan’s Restaurant. Dawson Street. Dublin 2.
I gaze a
round my little apartment now as I stand on the small red button on my Dyson vacuum and the cord zips away. I have always wanted a Dyson. My power toy. It’s not eco-friendly but by God does it give the carpets a great clean! My compact apartment is neat as a pin. The air is heavy with the scent of the lavender Shake n’ Vac I’ve just liberally sprayed all over the carpets. I walk to the small cloakroom and store my little Dyson away. Moving into the double room, I run my hand down the soft maple wood on the bunk beds and tuck Jade’s privacy curtain up under her pink pillow. Tomorrow night my two babies will be snuggled up in here and I can’t wait.
It hasn’t been easy on them, any of it, but I can’t change the past I can only move forward and be the best mother I can be. Jade has grown up a lot over the past few months but Mark still seems to have come through it all fairly OK. I think ever since he got to play on the Ranelagh Rovers Under 6s he’s been in a world of his own. In the end, I had to have a quiet word in Erik Clancy’s shell-like. Sometime you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.
Four months pass and, like the old saying goes, time is a great healer. I gave up my right to stay in the family home and now I have come to terms with that. I wholeheartedly stand by my decision. My mistake. My punishment. Don’t get me wrong, I am acutely aware of the part Colin played in our eventual demise. But I’m still devastated I was the straw that broke this family.
If Colin and I had kept going. If I had left my job as I had intended to, to be a stay-at-home mummy and none of the rest of it ever happened, I still would eventually have come to resent being at home full-time again. I love my kids so, so much, but to be the best mother I can be, I need to work outside the home too.
Colin is a good guy, but even if what happened with Owen hadn’t happened I think it would have ended eventually. Probably not for many more years. We would have got on with it, like so many other couples do, and made it function, but that’s not right either, is it? How is that fair on either of us? I hope one day that Colin meets a fantastic woman. I truly do. In the meantime, we’ve arranged it so that I have the kids from Friday after school to Monday morning, when I drop them to school, and he is happy for me to help put them to bed every Wednesday night at No. 13. Believe it or not, afterwards I usually have a quiet cup of tea with him. One day, he may want me as a friend. Not yet, but I am going to keep trying. After our cuppa, I wash the cups and then I say goodnight.
The Week I Ruined My Life Page 23