The Break

by Marian Keyes

  Every life event of the Rowans seemed to be documented by Marcia – they’d gone to Portugal, the previous July, to a resort Hugh and I had been to three years earlier. First I marvelled at the coincidence, then slumped into sudden gloom as I understood I was merely a middle-class cliché.

  Here came a shot of Marcia in a bikini, then another – Jesus, fair play to her, you wouldn’t catch me in a bikini ever again, never mind posting photos on the internet for anyone to see. If I absolutely had to do beachwear, I went for a halter-necked one-piece, preferably with a little skirt. I pretended it was because of my retro-look but really it was just to camouflage my wobbly mid-section. And speaking of wobbly mid-sections – I wasn’t being bitchy, merely factual – Marcia could have done with knocking off the bananas. (Or was it only me who had those ads popping up on the internet? They were very effective because I now couldn’t even glance at a banana without feeling like I was overspilling my waistband.) But, modest amounts of belly-fat or not, Marcia looked very body-confident.

  I kept scrolling down through her feed – then my heart leapt at pictures of Josh with a squad of mud-spattered men. He was at the semi-finals of a five-a-side tournament! I felt wild with joy at my accurate assessment of him. This was a good omen – a great omen!

  Automatically, I almost liked it and managed to whip my hand away just in time – couldn’t have him knowing he was being stalked.

  My attention was split between spying on the Rowans and monitoring the Herald site, and by the time my plane was on the runway, nothing about Premilla had appeared online. The steward told me to switch off my phones. Superstitiously, I felt that while I was keeping an eye on things, nothing could go wrong. However, I complied in case the plane crashed. (Even if I was never convinced that mobile phones really do interfere with the plane’s instruments, because a few times one of my phones had been left on accidentally for the entire flight and no harm had befallen us. You had to wonder if the airlines only made us turn them off out of spite. Like the way we had to keep the window blinds up for take-off and landing, and all the other random hard-to-take-seriously things they insisted on.)

  The second we landed, I switched on my phone. To my alarm, I had several missed calls – and a very bad feeling. Rather than listen to the messages, I went straight to the Herald’s site and my heart began to pound as I reached the headline on their landing page: SOAP ACTRESS DRUG SHAME.

  With shaking hands, I scrolled through the grubby details of Premilla’s drug bust. Remembering how I’d thought Josh Rowan had been won over by Premilla’s sad story was humiliating. As if heralding the media storm I was facing into, both my phones started ringing simultaneously. Fuck you, Josh Rowan. Fuck you.

  24

  On Wednesday night, around eight o’clock, I park my car and eye my little house with something close to dread.

  It’s not as if my arrival home from London was ever treated with any fanfare – I was mostly only gone for one night and it was a commute that was built into our routine. Hugh would usually hug me, I’d go upstairs and half unpack – a wheely case sat permanently on the bedroom floor with stuff falling out of it – then go back down and he’d make me a cup of tea. Sometimes he’d have dinner waiting and sometimes he wouldn’t, and we’d sit and talk. Not talk talk, no full-and-franks, but we batted back and forth mundane stuff, like was it the week for the recycling bins and was it worth coughing up the money to send Kiara for extra tutoring in maths, the banality of marriage that gets mocked so frequently, but out of these countless threads of bin-conversations and cash-allocation, a life together is woven.

  I gather up my bags and resolve to be strong. Hugh would have had the front door opened by now, but we are where we are.

  As soon as my key turns in the lock, Neeve and Kiara flood into the hall. Even Sofie is here. What the hell’s up? I’m the head of the household now, and I get to do my worrying alone. ‘Hi! Is something wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. No. We just thought we’d …’

  They flutter around me. One of them takes my wheely bag and another hands me a glass of wine.

  ‘We emptied the dishwasher,’ Neeve says. Emptying the dishwasher is – was – Hugh’s job.

  ‘And we got you cheese,’ Sofie says. ‘The worst one on the counter. It smells like death.’

  ‘It’s really bad.’ Kiara is enthusiastic.

  ‘You won’t believe how bad.’ Sofie guides me to the kitchen. ‘Come and sit down.’

  Kiara pulls out a chair for me and Sofie helps me into it, as if I’m an invalid. It’s not unpleasant.

  Neeve opens the fridge and as the smell of the cheese billows out in a chilly cloud, all three girls exclaim, ‘Ouf!’

  ‘Can you smell it?’ Neeve is so proud.

  I nod. ‘It’s appalling.’ It’s really not, but who am I to rain on their parade?

  ‘I know, right? Sofie nearly got sick in the car on the way home with it, didn’t you, Sofie?’

  ‘I literally had to roll down the window.’

  Gingerly Neeve removes the cheese from the fridge and, holding it away from herself, brings it to the table. ‘It’s a French one,’ she says.

  ‘Toulouse-Lautrec,’ Sofie says.

  ‘Camus,’ Kiara says. ‘That actually sounds like a cheese.’ They dissolve into giggles.

  ‘Get her a plate,’ Neeve orders. ‘And a knife.’

  These are produced in short order, followed by a jar of artisanal chutney, a selection of chi-chi crackers and seven pecan nuts, laboriously broken in half. My wine glass is refilled and the girls stand back to admire their handiwork.

  ‘Now!’ They beam at me, and they’re so very sweet.

  ‘Enjoy your cheese,’ Neeve says. ‘If such a thing is even possible.’

  ‘That’s a good-looking plate of food,’ I say, then instantly wish I hadn’t because it was one of the many in-jokes Hugh and I shared.

  Neeve frowns. ‘You what? Oh, what they say on Masterchef.’ Then she gasps. ‘The apple! We forgot the apple!’ She flings herself at the fruit bowl. ‘You cut it, Sofie.’ Sofie’s role in the family is to cut things, ever since she did an excellent job on a birthday cake years and years ago. Cutting food makes her highly anxious, but you know what families are like – rules are rules. ‘Thin slices, really skinny, like Hugh does.’ A few tense minutes follow, as Neeve crowds around Sofie and hisses, ‘Fan it. Like a fan. The way Hugh does it.’

  The apple appears, cut a little raggedly.

  ‘Okay,’ Neeve says. ‘Each of us has made a list of things you might like to do while he’s away. Kiara, you go first.’

  ‘No,’ I protest. ‘No! I’m fine, totally.’ I’m the adult here, and no matter how bad I feel, they cannot know. They need to trust me to take care of them: their world has been upended enough, they need one parent they can depend on. ‘I am fine. I’m here for you three. That’s my only plan for the next six months.’

  ‘We know you’re there for us,’ Sofie says. ‘But we have lives. We’re good.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re good, Mum.’

  In fairness, I have a life too, sort of. ‘But I’m the adult.’

  ‘If we find it weird without him, we’ll tell you,’ Kiara says. ‘Communication is key. But you need to know that we’re here for you too.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Shush now.’ Kiara begins with a little speech: ‘Most people in a long-term relationship never get an opportunity like this. If both of you use this time wisely, your relationship will be enriched by what you learnt while you were apart. It will be better.’

  It seems churlish to mention that it had been fine as it was.

  ‘Here is my list,’ Kiara announces. ‘Mindfulness. Meditation. Read a classic you’ve been curious about. Listen to inspirational podcasts while going on long walks alone.’ All of Kiara’s choices are solo activities because she doesn’t want me meeting another man.

  She needn’t worry. ‘Be open to personal growth,’ she finishes.

  The t
hing about personal growth, I’ve discovered, is that you rarely get any choice in it. It only ever happens as a side-effect of some loss or trauma. Judging by how shit all this is making me feel, I’ll be a personal Colossus at the end of it.

  ‘Okay, here’s my list.’ Neeve starts reading from her iPad. ‘Get Botox.’

  ‘I’d love to, but I don’t think Irish doctors accept payment in pebbles or old lipsticks.’

  ‘Sucks to be you, Mum.’ Neeve shakes her head in pretend sympathy. ‘Next suggestion, take up running.’

  That will never happen. I’m the wrong body shape: my Celtic thighs are too short.

  ‘I’ll run with you,’ Neeve adds.

  Even though her thighs are as short as mine, the fact that she’s offered to do anything with me is heartening. Perhaps I’ll use this time to strengthen the bonds with the people already in my life.

  Although the irony is that the one thing I won’t have is time. I’d almost none when Hugh was around, picking up a lot of the slack, so I’m going to have even less now that he’s not here.

  ‘Maybe I should go on Tinder?’ I’m aiming for jokey.

  ‘You?’ Sofie hoots. ‘Tinder?’

  All three dissolve into helpless laughter. ‘Sorry, Mum,’ Kiara tells me. ‘You’re too old.’

  ‘Anyway,’ this from Neeve, ‘you’d probably swipe the wrong direction and end up with all the eejits.’

  Young people are so patronizing.

  ‘Okay, Sofie,’ I say. ‘Let’s hear your list.’

  ‘I could only think of one thing. Get cushions for your bed.’

  ‘Ah?’ What the actual?

  ‘You love lots of cushions on your bed and Dad doesn’t.’

  This is true.

  ‘So here’s an opportunity to do something you enjoy.’

  You know, there might actually be something in this.

  ‘You could, Mum!’ Kiara is suddenly enthused. ‘Go on your sites and buy those embroidered fairy-tale things you like.’

  ‘Handcrafted by blind peasant girls in the wolf-inhabited forests of Moldova.’ Neeve is sneery.

  ‘It gives work to people who desperately need it.’ Kiara stares coldly at Neeve. ‘Go on, Mum, do it.’

  It’s not as if I need any encouragement to spend money.

  ‘But when Hugh comes back?’ Neeve asks.

  ‘She can move them to the living room.’

  ‘I don’t want to be looking at her twee cushion covers.’

  This can’t be allowed to pass. ‘Not twee! They’re naive.’

  ‘Twee.’ Neeve gives me a side-eyed smile.

  ‘Folksy renderings of idealized peasant life.’

  ‘Twee.’

  And I laugh.

  25

  Neeve’s phone beeps. She flicks it a look and says, ‘Dad’s on his way over.’

  I stare at her. What on earth …? Does she mean Richie Aldin? She can’t mean Richie Aldin.

  ‘Whose dad?’ Kiara sounds as surprised as I feel.

  ‘My dad,’ Neeve says.

  This is utterly outlandish.

  ‘What do you mean, he’s on his way over?’ Sofie asks. ‘Over where?’

  ‘Here.’ Neeve sounds impatient.

  But Richie Aldin doesn’t see Neeve more than twice a year. He’s flitted in and out of her life, and his absence is a source of chronic pain. And because it cuts her so deep, a source of sorrow for me.

  He’s a fairly shitty excuse for a man. Three years after he divorced me he got married again and his wife had a daughter, then another, then another, each new arrival tying Neeve up in knots of fear and longing. Over the years she’s made several attempts to infiltrate her clan of half-sisters and occasionally they’d admit her some of the way, then the next thing she’d hear they’d gone to EuroDisney or Alton Towers without her and we’d be back to square one, with her sobbing in my arms, saying all she wanted was to be part of ‘a real family’.

  On two separate occasions, I got on a plane and flew to Leeds just to beg Richie to include Neeve in his family holidays. I’d cover all costs, if they’d just let her come. Both times he said he’d see, but ultimately he let her down. Again and again, he’s hurt her.

  And yet I can’t ever be mean about him to her. He’s her dad and any relationship is better than none.

  ‘He’s doing a vlog for me,’ Neeve says. ‘On male grooming.’

  ‘Why tonight, honey?’

  ‘Only time he can do it.’

  Whatever she says, it’s no accident that he’s here on this night of all nights. Any fool knows that Richie and I will never be together again, but she still holds out hope. And that could break my heart, if I let it.

  ‘He’s a busy man.’ She’s acting defiant, like I might try to stop Richie coming into the house. Which would never happen. Mind you, I’d like to.

  He’s never apologized to me, he never will, and while I don’t hold a grudge, I heartily dislike him. Things always go his way – a lengthy and moderately successful spell as a soccer player in the UK, where he kept his head down and accumulated plenty of money. When that career came to its natural conclusion, he didn’t buy a pub and drink it dry, the way lots of ex-footballers allegedly do (according to an article I read somewhere). Instead he returned to Ireland and set up a football academy, which functions as a well-respected feeder for English clubs and, from what the press says, makes bucketloads of money.

  Nor does his personal life cause him any angst. A few years ago, he upped and left his second wife; according to Neeve, he was ‘bored’. I don’t know the details but it wasn’t a decision that seemed to generate soul-searching or guilt.

  He has never seemed to have a crisis of confidence or conscience. He does exactly what he wants and gets away with it.

  These days he has a succession of pretty, charming girlfriends but I don’t see him often enough to keep track.

  Does he know that Hugh is gone?

  Actually, I don’t care.

  ‘When’s he coming?’ Kiara is grave. She disapproves of him.

  ‘He’s on his way.’

  ‘I wonder what car he’ll have,’ Sofie says. ‘Something flashy, I guess.’ She’s none too keen on him either. ‘Maybe an Aston Martin.’

  ‘Or a Lamborghini,’ I say.

  ‘Definitely expensive?’ Kiara asks.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘If I had to have a car,’ Kiara says wistfully, ‘I’d love a Citroën Dyane.’

  ‘Until it broke down for the seventeenth time in a mile,’ Neeve says. ‘Then you’d be begging for a Beemer.’

  ‘It’ll be a Ferrari,’ Sofie says.

  ‘Not a Ferrari.’ Neeve defends her sorry excuse for a father.

  The doorbell rings.

  ‘Here already?’

  All four of us go, keen to see what Richie is driving … and on the step stands Genevieve Payne. Holding what looks like a casserole. ‘Hi!’ She beams. ‘Just dropping this over.’

  ‘What is it?’ Neeve demands.

  ‘A casserole.’

  ‘Why?’ Neeve asks. ‘No one has died.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘My step-dad has gone away to self-actualize. He totally rocks. Keep your casserole.’

  Genevieve attempts panicky eye-contact with me. ‘Amy, I –’

  But Neeve is shutting the door.

  And then the door is actually closed and I’m backing away down the hall, shocked and giddy and afraid of repercussions.

  ‘What a dick!’ Neeve says.

  ‘Neevey!’ Sofie exclaims. ‘Slay! All day! Total badass!’

  She is a total badass. When she’s on your side, there’s no one more loyal and fierce.

  ‘ “Keep your casserole”,’ Kiara exclaims, in admiring tones. ‘Bow down.’

  ‘But, daaaaamn, casseroles are for when people be dead!’

  ‘We ain’t playin’!’

  ‘We ain’t playin’.’

  ‘Drag that bitch’s ass!’

  I can glean the
meaning of the words but I’d never be able to use them with confidence myself.

  ‘ “Keep your casserole”,’ Sofie says, and unexpectedly, we’re all convulsing. I laugh until my face is wet and finally the spasm calms.

  Then Kiara says, ‘ “Keep your casserole”,’ and we’re all off again.

  An Audi with flashy headlights pulls up outside.

  ‘Damn,’ Kiara says. ‘None of us wins.’

  ‘Hi, Amy.’ Richie Aldin is standing in the hall and gives me a polite kiss on the cheek. He smells of some expensive man-perfume. He never smells of just himself. Maybe it’s a footballer thing, them and their incessant showers. ‘You look good,’ he says.

  He looks good too, again in a footballery sort of way. His red-gold hair is ‘tended’, cut modern and tufty, and he’s compact and muscular, not tall but powerful. He probably still trains, what with running his lucrative academy and all.

  ‘Hi, hun.’ He hugs Neeve.

  ‘Hi, Daddy.’

  It hurts to see how happy she is. Could he not have been kinder to her these past twenty-two years? What makes it even more painful is that they look so alike – those scornful glinty eyes, the scattering of freckles across their noses, their shining rare-hued hair.

  ‘Hugh not around?’

  I freeze. ‘Um, no.’

  ‘What?’ He looks from me to Neeve. Nosy feck.

  ‘C’mon, Dad,’ Neeve says. ‘Let’s get started.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I’ll explain,’ she says.

  26

  Thursday, 15 September, day three

  Thursday is late-night shopping and my plan is to go on a looking-at-lovely-things outing when I finish up at work. But my phone rings. It’s Mum and my heartrate rockets.

  ‘Amy, I need you to come over tonight. Dominik’s let me down and I’m going out.’

  ‘Oh! But … where are you going?’

  ‘Out.’ She sounds almost huffy. ‘For a drink.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘Friends.’

  ‘Mum, what friends?’

  ‘Friends of mine,’ she all but hisses. ‘And Dominik is getting too big for his boots.’