Too Good to Be True

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  He shook his head. “Help yourself.”

  Leah opened the cupboard and took out the mugs while Ben wandered back into the living area and sat in one of the armchairs. He couldn’t believe that Leah was here. She shouldn’t have come, even though he had to admit that she was being utterly straightforward. No lies and half-truths with Leah. She’d admitted her anger and apologized to him and — even though he felt uncomfortable in her presence right now — he was grateful to her too. He imagined that Freya had exchanged some pretty sharp words with her. Freya had been like a cat on a hot tin roof the past few days, and if she was feeling mad at Leah, then it was always going to be Leah who’d come out the worst.

  Though it was strange how Freya’s allegiance had shifted. She’d been totally against the marriage from the start and yet now she was hinting that he should call Carey and apologize and try to sort things out. But then Freya didn’t know that Carey had a lot to apologize for too.

  Ben wasn’t good at saying sorry, and much of the time he wasn’t sure why people wanted apologies anyway. He didn’t know whether it was a trait he’d inherited from his father or whether he’d developed the habit in his previous job, where admitting you were wrong about anything was corporate suicide. Anyway, it wasn’t up to him to apologize. There was no difference between his kissing Leah and Carey kissing that bloke. Except in location. He was fed up with feeling that he was to blame for everything! And, of course, Carey was being supported by her awful friends. He’d almost phoned her once more, had even picked up the receiver and started to punch in her number, but what was the point, when they were clearly sitting round in a man-hating coven together thinking dreadful thoughts about him. In the end he wasn’t sure whether or not he’d ever loved her enough to get over something like this. Or whether she’d loved him enough either. And even if they had loved each other, no matter how little or how briefly, they hadn’t known each other at all. Carey obviously still had feelings for her old boyfriend, maybe she’d started to regret her impulsiveness. It hadn’t seemed that way at the start, he admitted to himself, but everything had changed. It was unfortunate that he’d allowed himself to be carried away by his damned testosterone in the States, because that’s what it came down to in the end. He’d seen her, he’d wanted her, he’d married her. Fool that he was.

  “Here.” Leah came over to him with a mug of steaming tea. “Drink it.”

  “I’m not ill,” he said irritably. “You don’t have to fuss over me.”

  “I’m not.” Her tone was mild. “I’m just giving you a drink.” She sat down in the armchair opposite him. “Look, I know you probably hate me right now. I know that you’re probably feeling messed up. But I’m your friend, Ben. I care about you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I do,” said Leah firmly. “And I know that it’s partly my fault all this has happened. Personally, I think you’re right and it would’ve happened anyway. She was a nice girl, Ben, but not for you. Still, I might be biased.” She smiled, a cute lopsided smile that she knew melted Ben’s heart. “I was really mad at you because you behaved like a complete shit. Even if you’d come home with her, told me about her, married her later…” A lock of her dark hair escaped from her clip as she spoke and fell softly across her face. She pushed it back behind her ear in a languid move. “Still, it doesn’t matter now. I’m over it. And I came round to say that I never really wanted to make you suffer. I’m sorry if you’re suffering now.”

  “Leah, you’re right about one thing. I’m totally messed up right now,” said Ben. “I thought I’d found something and I hadn’t, and I’m feeling…” He shrugged. “Oh, well, who cares how I’m feeling? But I’m in a wanting to be alone with my thoughts mood. I do appreciate you coming round and everything, but I just don’t know what I want to do.”

  “Call me,” said Leah. “Over the last few years we’ve been through so much together, you and me. Remember when I split up with William? You were there for me. And when you split up with Annabel? We helped each other get through it. We can do it again.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m certain,” said Leah.

  They finished their tea in silence, then she took the cups into the kitchen, washed and dried them, and put them away. She looked around her. There were no signs of Carey’s presence, nothing to prove that she’d ever lived here. Leah folded the tea-towel into a neat square and told Ben that she had to go.

  Freya sat in Dr. O’Donnell’s waiting room and read the notices on the walls. They were mainly about ensuring that elderly patients got their flu jabs or that young children were inoculated against the myriad diseases that could threaten them. Part of Freya wanted to rip them up and put up other notices instead, telling people to eat healthily and extolling the virtues of herbal remedies, but she knew she wasn’t as radical as all that. Besides, she thought, she was here now in an ordinary doctor’s surgery awaiting the results of a blood test because herbal remedies hadn’t had any impact on her sudden bouts of trembling, which always ended up with her breaking into a sweat and feeling panicked.

  She was 99 percent sure that it was stress. And 100 percent sure that the stress was being caused by Ben. Over the last few weeks she hadn’t been able to have a normal conversation with him even though she wanted to tell him that she and Brian had decided to get married. But she was afraid that talking about her own engagement would send him into a complete depression, and she’d told Brian that they should keep it quiet for a few weeks, until the whole Ben and Carey thing had blown over. Brian had been great about it, as always, and had told her that waiting a little longer wouldn’t make any difference when he’d been waiting for her his whole life. At which point he’d kissed her and they’d made love on her colored sofa — since he’d proposed to her, their sex-life had improved enormously!

  But whenever Brian wasn’t around she couldn’t help worrying about Ben. He never joined her for drinks after work anymore and he was spending hours in the office drawing up over-elaborate plans for marketing campaigns that they couldn’t possibly afford to run. His disastrous personal life was having a bad effect on his work, and it was stressing her out too.

  She’d told all this to Dr. O’Donnell when she’d first visited him, and he’d nodded at her, checked her blood pressure, listened to her heart and her lungs, talked to her in a general way about the state of her health, and then suggested the blood test. She’d had a phone call from the surgery the previous day to say that the results of the test were in; there was nothing to unduly worry herself about, but Dr. O’Donnell would like to talk to her. Freya was comforted by the “nothing to worry about” part of it and almost didn’t bother to come in for what she imagined would be a lecture about her lifestyle. She knew that despite the vitamin supplements, she didn’t always eat properly or get enough sleep or take enough time off to do silly things. But it wasn’t in her nature to be like that.

  “Freya Russell, please.” Her name was announced over the intercom and Freya got up and went into the consulting room.

  “Hi, Freya.” Dr. O’Donnell smiled at her from behind his small, pine-colored desk. He was a friendly man in his early fifties and his father had been the Russells’ original family doctor. “Take a seat.”

  She sat down and crossed her legs.

  “I needed to talk to you about the results of the blood test,” he said.

  “I was told there was nothing to worry about.”

  “And there isn’t, as such,” he assured her. “You’re thirty-nine years old, aren’t you?”

  “Forty next month.” She smiled at him. “I’m not worried about my age, Doctor.”

  “You’re unmarried?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t have any children?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Fortunately not.”

  “The thing is…” He glanced down at the piece of paper in front of him and up at her again. “According to these results, you seem to have entered the menopause.”

 
; Freya stared at him in stunned silence.

  “It does happen,” he told her. “A very small percentage of women have early menopause, sometimes much earlier than you.”

  She continued to stare at him in silence.

  “There are, of course, a number of things we can do about it.”

  “Are you telling me that whenever I break out in a sweat it’s a hot flash?” she said abruptly. “Is that it?”

  “Hot flashes are particularly symptomatic of menopause,” said Dr. O’Donnell calmly.

  “You’re telling me that my body is shutting down?”

  “Not your body,” he said. “Just your reproductive system.” He looked at her sympathetically. “This is probably a shock to you, Freya.”

  “Yes.” She felt as though the breath had been knocked out of her. “Yes, it is. Are you sure?”

  “Your levels of estrogen are almost non-existent,” he said.

  Freya felt the familiar rush of heat through her body and the prickle of sweat on her head. “It’s happening now,” she said. “The hot flash.”

  “Possibly,” agreed the doctor. “Or it could simply be reaction to the news. It’s not easy to take in.”

  She wiped the perspiration from above her eyes. “So — so what about children?” she asked.

  “It’s highly unlikely that you’ll have children.” His voice was gentle. “Not completely impossible, because nothing is impossible, but it’s not something I think will happen without significant medical intervention.”

  “You mean my stock of eggs has dried up.” She looked at him accusingly. “That’s what happens, isn’t it? Women have a finite number of eggs and mine are finished. So I’m having the menopause.”

  “I have a lot of literature here,” he said. “Not specifically about premature menopause, of course, but about the change generally.”

  “But none of that literature will say that it’s possible for me to have a child.”

  “Not naturally,” said Dr. O’Donnell. “And, of course, you’re somewhat at the upper age for some of the other techniques too.”

  Freya swallowed. “You mean that as an almost forty-year-old woman I’m totally washed up?”

  “Not at all.” His voice was still gentle. “Of course you’re not washed up, Freya. Reproductively time has rushed on for you, but you’re a young woman still.”

  “Oh really.” Freya was horrified to realize that she might cry. She blinked hard a couple of times before looking at the doctor again.

  “The thing is,” he told her, “you have to make a decision about this. One of the problems that menopausal and post-menopausal women face is the effect that the lack of hormones has — such as osteoporosis. Particularly osteoporosis, in fact. I’m sure you know that brittle bones can be quite serious in older women. We need to address that issue.”

  “For God’s sake!” She looked angrily at him. “You’ve just told me that I’m young. Now you’re telling me that I need a damn Zimmer frame.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Dr. O’Donnell. “I am telling you that you need to think carefully about this. In cases like yours I really do recommend hormone replacement therapy. But I know your background, Freya. I know you don’t like conventional medicine.”

  “Just because I own a herbal-remedy shop it doesn’t mean I’m an idiot,” snapped Freya. “But clearly I’ll research the alternatives.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” She stared at him. “Do you understand what it’s like for someone to look you in the eye and tell you that you’re nothing but a reproductive husk?”

  “Freya, you don’t have to see it like that.”

  “How else?” she demanded.

  “Why haven’t you had children before now?” he asked.

  “Oh, it’s my fault for waiting, is it?” She gritted her teeth. “How perfectly male of you to think like that.”

  “I don’t think like anything,” he said. “I just asked you, was there a reason? Did you never want children perhaps?”

  “What difference would it make whether I wanted them or not?” she asked. “At this point it’s pretty damn irrelevant, isn’t it?”

  “Are you in a relationship?”

  “Oh, give it a rest, Doc!” She sighed. “I suppose there’s probably some counseling thing that you do for people like me. But I don’t need your counseling. I don’t need your sympathy.”

  “I’m not trying to counsel you,” he said. “There are people much better than me at that. But I want to make sure that you’re OK.”

  “I’ll have to be, won’t I?” She stood up. “It’s not as if I can change things, is it?”

  “Make an appointment with my receptionist to see me again,” said the doctor. “When you’ve had time to think through what you want to do.”

  “Maybe,” said Freya.

  “I’m sorry,” Dr. O’Donnell told her.

  “Don’t be.” Her smile was weak, but it was a smile nonetheless. “I don’t have a life-threatening disease. I don’t have some serious illness. I’ll live, won’t I?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. O’Donnell.

  “So I’ll be fine.”

  “Make an appointment,” he repeated.

  She nodded and walked out of the consulting room as quickly as she could. She paused by the receptionist’s desk, but then hurried on her way, pushing open the surgery door and stepping outside.

  The wind rushed along the Rathmines Road, swirling occasional leaves and discarded paper around her legs. She turned right along the canal towards Ranelagh, hugging her wool coat close to her, noticing every woman who walked past and telling herself that they were normal, fertile women while she was someone whose clock had stopped ticking before it had even started.

  It was all very well for Dr. O’Donnell to ask her if she’d put off having children because of her career or her lifestyle, but despite anything she might say, it was as much because she’d never before met the man that she wanted to have children with. She hadn’t realized that Brian was that man. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to realize that Brian could be that man because she’d always been convinced that one day he’d leave her. When, instead, he’d asked her to marry him, she’d been surprised at how content and how happy it had made her feel. He’d also said that he wanted them to be a family. Family meant kids, didn’t it? Well, no chance of that, she thought bitterly as she strode briskly alongside the weed-choked water. I’m a dead duck as far as Brian’s son and heir is concerned.

  She shivered as she waited for the traffic-lights at Ranelagh Bridge to change. Then she crossed the road and continued on towards Baggot Street. She had no idea where she was going, but she knew that she had to walk. She wasn’t able to keep still. Of course, she told herself, I probably have to do more exercise than normal people now. To keep my muscles from wasting away. But I’ll have to be careful that my damned brittle bones don’t snap while I’m doing them. She bit her lip. She didn’t want to feel like this. She didn’t want to be a young person trapped in an older woman’s body. And then she told herself that no matter how young she considered herself to be, thirty-nine wasn’t that young at all. They tried to tell you that it was, but how many thirty - nine - year - old blokes went round looking for thirty - nine - year - old girlfriends? They wanted younger models, prettier models, models who didn’t have reproductive organs the same age as their mothers’.

  But Brian, her forty-plus-year-old boyfriend, wanted to marry her. He’d asked her and she’d said yes. And he must have known that he was risking the child thing by suggesting it. He must have taken into account that maybe they wouldn’t have any, even though he wanted a family.

  She sighed and thrust her hands deep into her pockets. Brian probably hadn’t thought about it at all. It wasn’t the kind of thing that men did think about. They just assumed that everything was in good working order. And she had no idea how he’d react when he found out otherwise.

  Chapter Nineteen

  PEPPERMINT

  A
n oil that’s invigorating and refreshing and good for tired muscles

  The sound of the sirens in the distance caught Ben’s attention, although, as he told everyone afterwards, the sirens had nothing to do with what happened. However, their banshee wail made him look up from the display of Bach flower remedies and out of the shop window. Not that there was much to see initially, other than the rain pelting furiously against the glass. Ben hated rainy days which meant that people didn’t bother shopping and the takings were down. The ideal weather for him was slightly overcast, not too warm but mild enough for everyone to want to be outside.

  He put the bottle he was holding back on the shelf and looked out of the window again. At first he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing, but his body reacted more quickly than his brain and he yelled out a warning to Susie, the shop assistant, while at the same time vaulting over the nearby counter as a metallic red Mitsubishi Jeep plowed through the plate glass and past the spot where he’d just been standing. Shattered glass cascaded over the shop in a glittering tidal wave as bottles, jars, and containers flew into the air before the 4x4 finally came to a halt against the back wall.

  “Ben!” Susie’s voice was an agonized shriek. “Ben, are you all right?”

  “I’m OK.” Ben got up from the floor behind the counter hardly able to believe his eyes. The entire front of the premises had disappeared and was now open to the pelting rain and gusting winds. Shelves had fallen from the walls, their contents strewn across the floor in a rainbow of colors. He looked at the battered Jeep and its occupants. “But I don’t think they are. Call an ambulance, Susie.”

  He crunched over broken glass to the Jeep, conscious that his ankle hurt and that while his heart was racing his legs trembled. He could see a small group of people begin to cluster round the gaping hole of the shop and he pushed the thought of looters to the back of his mind, annoyed that in a crisis he should be thinking of his livelihood. He opened the door of the Jeep and looked at the driver. He was a young man, in his early twenties, Ben guessed. “ABC,” he muttered to himself as he pulled himself onto the door-sill. Airways, breathing, circulation. The driver was knocked out but was breathing raggedly. Ben looked at the passenger and inhaled sharply. It was clear that the passenger, another young man, was in worse shape than the driver. Ben wasn’t so sure that he was breathing at all. He jumped down from the driver’s side and ran round to the other side.