by Marian Keyes
I know it’s for reasons she probably doesn’t understand but have everything to do with me no longer being married to her dad. And I’m powerless over that and powerless over her and powerless over everything, including Hugh going away, and I don’t like all these horrible feelings that I’ve no control over, and then I discover that the Marc Jacobs primer isn’t among the free stuff on the dressing-table, so I click to buy it and I’m furious to discover that it’s not available in Ireland and they won’t post it from abroad and the only place in London that sells it is Harrods and it’s impossible for me to go to Harrods because it’s like being trapped in an Escher painting.
Terrible memories of previous visits come at me, of going round and round, from hall to hall, every one of them filled with wired-up crocodile-skin handbags that each cost more than my car. Like in a nightmare, there’s exit sign after exit sign but a panicky certainty that the door will never appear –
Cripes, I’d better see how the dinner is doing!
Stealthily I relieve Mum of the Tom Ford eye palette, then go back down to the kitchen where Siena has managed to not burn anything. ‘I’ll take it from here,’ I say.
Vaguely she says, ‘Someone needs to bring the garden chairs into the dining room.’
There are so many of us that there are never enough real chairs to go round.
The front door slams again and this time it’s Jackson, Sofie’s boyfriend – he has his own key?
I suppose it’s no real surprise: he’s very much part of the family. Into the kitchen he wafts – there’s a lot of floaty-scarf action, skinny, skinny jeans and gorgeous, Versailles-style hair – and gives me a hug. I have to admit I miss him almost as much as I miss Sofie.
‘Sofie coming?’ I ask him.
‘Soon. Need anything done here?’
‘Aaah …’ Siena, drinking wine and gazing into her phone, seems to have no plans to fetch the chairs in. ‘Chairs from the garden.’
His look is wry. ‘You think I’m strong enough to carry them?’
‘Just about.’ Jackson’s weakling status is an on-going joke. ‘They’re only plastic.’
6
‘Hugh?’
No answer.
The house sings with emptiness, but it doesn’t stop me whirling through the living room, then the kitchen, then out into the ‘sun-room’ (a Plexiglas extension that’s Arctic from September onwards and in the summer months magnifies the sun’s rays so much that someone will eventually burst into flames).
Upstairs our bedroom is still and silent, the carnage from our busy week – discarded shirts and skirts and towels – frozen in artful crumples. It could be a painting: Life Abandoned Abruptly.
There’s no chance he’d be in Kiara’s room or in Neeve’s mini-warehouse or up in the converted loft where Sofie sleeps, so I check my phone. No text from him. With a sudden infusion of rage, I fire off a speedy Where r u? His six months haven’t started yet!
What’s called for is a trawl through the Outnet and a hefty glass of rioja – I don’t like how much I’m drinking but it’ll have to be addressed some other time.
To complete this happy tableau, I get my e-cig from my bag.
It’s been such a strange week. I’ve felt sick with shock and unable to separate out all the individual horrors storming around in me – terror, jealousy, sorrow, grief, guilt, incredulity – but the clearest feeling now is of ‘wrongness’. Or shame, to give it its correct name. (I learnt that from Psychologies magazine. I learn a lot from that publication.)
For so much of my life I felt ‘wrong’. When I was a kid, Mum was in hospital a lot and our home life was rackety. Dad did his best but his headmaster job took most of his time. Maura tried to be a parent, but she was only a kid like the rest of us, so dinners were sparse, patchy affairs, laundry didn’t always get done, or we’d forget to take baths because there was no one to remind us.
Poor Mum suffered the most. Not only was she sick – and she was very sick: she spent a full two years in hospital with the tuberculosis, followed by chronic pulmonary disease, which frequently rehospitalized her – but her guilt was colossal. Every time she had to go back into hospital she cried and cried. There’s a picture in my head of her tears spilling on to my hands as she choked out, ‘I’m sorry, Amy, I’m sorry.’ I don’t know which of her readmissions I’m remembering – it could have been one of several.
Only when I became a mother myself did I understand her agony. Having to leave us all, knowing we wouldn’t get fed properly or simply have her support and affection – the guilt, the grief.
We kids handled her absence differently. Joe was the angriest – he often said, ‘I wish she’d die. Then Dad could get another mum for us.’
Maura, too, was angry and vocal about it, but the only time I was angry was when Mum produced Declyn. Why would anyone have another baby when they couldn’t care for the ones they already had?
I just wanted her to get better, and while she wasn’t in hospital for all of my childhood, the uncertainty was ever-present. Even when she was at home, we knew it wouldn’t last. There was one occasion she was discharged amid a great deal of ‘She’s been cured’ fanfare – but in just twenty-four hours she was gone again. In the last maybe fifteen years, she’s been much better, but we still treat her like she’s made of spun sugar. And the residue of shame still lingers. (‘I can’t play with you because my mum says you’ve got germs.’ And maybe I had – I was grimy, certainly. These days, I’m borderline OCD about personal hygiene.)
When I grew up and left home, that didn’t work out so well either – I found myself married, divorced and a single mother by the age of twenty-two. Other girls my age were getting drunk and buying shoes while I was working full-time and in sole charge of a child. Even though I’d felt physically and emotionally destroyed most of the time, I can see now that I was a little powerhouse, zipping around the place in Capri pants and snug polka-dot sweaters, baby Neeve under one arm, a vintage briefcase containing a pitch under the other. I could do my hair in a Victory roll in ten seconds and change a nappy in twenty. I was a steady-wristed expert at flicky eyeliner, a dab hand at d’you-wanna-make-something-of-it red lipstick and a super-speedy expresser of breast milk.
By the time I was twenty-seven, so much of my life had been lived feeling out-of-step that I’d accepted it was who I was. Then I met Hugh.
He was burly and handsome, beardy and broad-chested – but it wasn’t enough to make me jump into a thing. He persisted with steady, unspoken devotion and was gifted at gauging my needs. Like the night he’d arrived at my front door in London, bearing a giant chocolate muffin and a hot chocolate kit, right down to the mini-marshmallows. He’d even brought a shiny new oversized mug.
It was late, I was knackered, I’d had a hard day – he knew about it because we’d been working together – but I stood aside to let him in. However, he just handed over the goodies and left. Also impressive was that he’d brought nothing for Neeve – I was always a little creeped-out by those men who tried to win me over by being nice to my daughter.
Hugh saw me, the woman I was, not a woman who came as a job-lot with another human.
My eventual decision to commit was cautious and cool-headed but I’d never regretted it. Together we built up a life that’s been solid and good, and these days I’m part of a community: I feel accepted, I belong.
Okay, ideally I’d have the cash and body-shape to wear nothing but MaxMara, but from time to time I think, with pleasure, Even though it took me longer than most people, I got there in the end.
Only I didn’t, I hadn’t. I haven’t got anywhere. I’m still a misfit, a woman whose husband wants to do something unprecedented – he doesn’t want to leave and neither does he want to stay. Old sensations of shame are back in force.
Maybe Hugh might not actually go.
Several times during the week I’ve gone to him, white-faced with horror, and said, ‘Please don’t go.’
Each time he replied, ‘I’m
sorry, babe, I have to.’
But he hasn’t told the girls and this gives me hope.
Nevertheless life has been a million miles from normal. I’ve felt as if I’m lugging rocks in my guts and my sleep has come and gone in peculiar little spurts, like receiving a weak radio signal. Also, and this is downright freakish, I’ve been instigating sex every morning and every evening. Not in a desperate demonstration that he doesn’t need to go halfway around the world – it’s been for me. If it was possible, I’d crawl right inside him and zip us both up.
I should really call Derry – there was no chance earlier to pull her aside for a private talk amid the mayhem in Mum and Pop’s and I’ve never waited so long to tell her something this huge.
The impediment – and it takes a while before I’ve burrowed deep enough to identify it – is that the news will hurt her. My pain becomes her pain, and it cuts both ways.
But we approach life differently. She’s proactive, impatient, and if something breaks on her, she replaces it immediately. Nothing ever gets mended and nothing is given time to heal. Her response will be to try to find a new man for me. She belongs to some awful dating agency for rich people and before I know it she’ll have bundled me off to an elite club, where I’ll have to drink Krug and discuss tax avoidance. No. Extreme no.
Because it’s borderline illegal to phone a person ‘just for a chat’, I consider texting Posh Petra to see if I can ring. But there’s no point. Three years ago, at the age of forty-two, she had twin girls, who suffer from what she calls ‘Satan Syndrome’. (A condition unique to them.)
They put Joe’s three sons to shame: they appear not to sleep. If they’re not breaking an object, they’re smearing it with something disgusting, and the noise they create – yelling, banging, howling – would fray the hardiest of nerves. Poor Posh Petra …
It’s hard to know what percentage posh she actually is. Her accent is refined but not bad enough to generate instant dislike; her childhood family holidays were mostly spent in foreign art galleries, but instead of being bored witless like any normal person, she still goes into raptures about Dutch masters. Also, she calls dinner ‘supper’.
We’d met more than a decade ago while supervising an outing of five-year-olds – Petra’s daughter Anne was in Kiara’s class. Petra had surveyed the mass of squealing pinkness, and muttered, ‘What fresh hell is this?’
For me, it was like falling in love.
Of all my friends, Petra would most get how I’m feeling about Hugh. But a phone call is impossible because she has to break off every five seconds to shriek at the twins, and visiting her at home is worse because I usually leave with a plateful of baked beans in my hair. Seeing her in the outside world is also difficult because babysitters come once, then leave weeping, swearing never to return – usually with baked beans mashed into their teenage hair. The baked-beans treatment is the girls’ thing.
Petra’s husband and she cope by divvying up small amounts of time when each goes out alone. Sunday evening is Petra’s slot. I’ll have to wait until then.
Maybe I could text Steevie. We’ve been friends since secondary school, but since Lee left her, she won’t let a good word be spoken about any man and she’d probably heap spite and rage on Hugh.
Spite and rage that would be coming from a good place – she’d think she was hugely supportive. But she’d simply be channelling my stuff through the prism of her own experience.
If not Steevie, maybe I could try Jana. She’s the sweetest person alive but she’s also, unaccountably, friends with Genevieve Payne, and even if I beg her not to tell Genevieve, indiscretion is her middle name. I need Hugh to be halfway across the world before Genevieve gets wind of the news.
With each of my friends there’s something preventing a full and free vent, and it’s a shock that I don’t have an actual bestie whom I trust with every last part of me. I’m a pathetic saddo … unless it’s normal to have a selection of friends who all mean different things. Perhaps that’s the grown-up way. A ‘portfolio’ of friends?
Christ alive, that’s awful, and I’m never, ever going to think it again. Even if I suspect it may be true.
The reality is that, until now, Hugh has been my best friend.
I’ve almost no secrets from him and he’s always got my back, no matter what goes wrong for me – and, like for everyone, plenty does: regular bust-ups with Neeve, stressful stuff at work, and the downright weird and random (for example, a cold-sore in my eye).
Okay, I’m ringing Derry! No, not Derry. Posh Petra, then. No, no point. I go through the same list again, and the thing is, what would I even say? This limbo is so novel, there’s no language for it. It’s not the sort of thing you get in suburban Dublin.
But maybe I’m just the first of many. Maybe soon there will be an epidemic. I’d be an actual trend-setter and people will be saying, ‘Hey, aren’t you great, with your funny clothes and your modern marriage?’
God, the very thought. If Hugh goes, the next six months will be a nightmare. Could I disappear, then reappear when – if? – he comes back?
No. That’s impossible. I’ll have to spin the news the way I would a tricky work situation and make it sound mutual, positive, even desirable. I construct an imaginary press release.
Amy and Hugh are psyched to share a thrilling new phase of their marriage: a six-month sabbatical where they explore separate timelines in order to reconnect in an even more loving and loyal partnership. Yeah, and all you suckers, with your linear, monogamous marriages should feel embarrassed. No need to pity Amy. Instead you should envy her.
Would it fool anyone? Who knows? But it might salvage some of my pride. Meanwhile, I’ll need a couple of people I can be truly honest with – although they’ll be sworn to secrecy because the shame of the real story going viral would turn me into a local landmark. Everywhere I went, people would give me sidelong sympathetic looks and say, ‘She gave her husband six months off to go and ride rings around himself. What kind of a cretin is she?’
But am I a cretin? (And I probably shouldn’t say that word.)
The thing is that, in the normal run of things, Cheating Man = Complete Bastard. We’re all agreed on that, right? Like my first husband. Richie Aldin = Complete Bastard, no doubt about it: the square-shaped Complete Bastard in the square-shaped hole. Or like Steevie’s Lee. He’d fallen for his assistant at work, and we all knew where we stood: Lee = Complete Bastard; Steevie = ‘Cry Me A River’. After many months Lee tried to reclaim his old friends but even though some of the menfolk might have met him under cover of darkness, everyone knew: Lee = Complete Bastard. He was shunned.
As more time elapsed, Steevie’s equation evolved from ‘Cry Me A River’ to ‘I Will Survive’ to ‘I’m Gonna Dance On Your Grave One Day, Play Maracas and Sing Olé’, but Lee’s remained Complete Bastard.
Hugh isn’t a Complete Bastard. He loves me, causing me pain is killing him, but having compassion for the person who is hurting me is too weird for words.
A fair dent has been put in the bottle of wine and there’s a Ganni box-bag in my basket when the front door opens. I jump up and go to the hall. It’s Hugh, in a Joy Division T-shirt that was once black but has been washed so often it’s faded to a soft charcoal. It suits him. I’ve been seeing him through different eyes these last few days and his sexiness is almost shocking – it’s easy to understand why Genevieve Payne keeps putting the moves on him.
‘Hey.’ He pauses, looking awkward.
‘Where’ve you been? Why didn’t you text me? You haven’t actually left yet so lean the fuck in.’
His hands are laden with carrier bags and there’s something big and bulky half hidden behind him.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask. ‘Were you shopping?’
‘Yeah, um …’
I twist around him to get a look at whatever he’s trying to smuggle in. When I see what it is, it’s like being punched in the stomach. It’s a massive rucksack.
This is real. This is
actually happening. I’d been a total gobshite to have told myself it might not.
‘Big rucksack.’ My tongue isn’t working properly.
‘I didn’t want you to see this.’
‘What’s in the bags? Can I look?’ Why do this to myself? Wouldn’t it be better to know nothing?
‘Amy, no, don’t –’
‘Really, it’s grand. I’d like to see.’ I want to show that I’m a good sport, that I’m cool with all of this.
‘Okay.’
We go into the living room where, reluctantly, Hugh reveals several colourful T-shirts – way too cheery-looking. They’d never have got the green-light from me. It’s weird and awful to be excluded from his life like this.
Now he’s produced a white linen shirt, the sort you’d wear for an expensive dinner in a hot country. This is close to unbearable but I keep going. ‘And this?’ I’ve found a small blue terry-cloth thing.
‘One of those towels that dry really quickly.’ He unfurls it to reveal a full-sized bath towel. ‘You use it, then it’s bone-dry in twenty minutes and rolls up tiny again. Takes up nearly no space in the rucksack.’
‘That’s … handy.’
‘Come on, Amy, let’s stop this.’
‘Are you really going?’
‘I’m sorry, babe.’ He looks sad and shamefaced.
‘When are you going to tell the girls?’
‘Tomorrow. We’re meeting here at ten.’
‘Even Sofie?’
‘Yeah.’
My heart thumps hard. Here we are with rucksacks and arrangements. ‘This is really difficult.’ My voice sounds strangled.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know that no person owns another, but I’ve got into the habit of thinking of you as mine. And now I have to … share you.’
He nods awkwardly.
‘Even your penis, I’ve thought of it as mine.’
Again he nods.
‘I feel you’ve no right to leave me, that you’ve no right to have sex with anyone other than me, you know?’
‘I know.’