by Marian Keyes
And there was something strange about her clothes, they were…they were…what was it? They were nice.
And, to top it all, she was wearing red lipstick. She never wore lipstick, except to weddings. And sometimes to funerals, if she hadn’t liked the person who died.
I sat down opposite her, smiled awkwardly and wondered what it was she wanted to tell me.
Chapter 62
She was leaving my father.
That was what she wanted to tell me. (Although it was probably overstating the case to say that she wanted to tell me, it was more accurate to say it was what she had to tell me.)
The shock was nauseating, literally. I was surprised that she waited until after I had ordered a sandwich to break the news to me, because she deplored waste.
“I don’t believe you,” I croaked, searching her face for a sign that it wasn’t true. But all I saw was that she was wearing eyeliner and she had it on crooked.
“I’m sorry,” she said humbly.
My world felt as if it was falling apart, and that confused me. I had thought I was an independent twenty-six-year-old woman who had left home and established her own life, one who had no interest in whatever sexual shenanigans her parents might get up to. But right at that moment I felt afraid and angry, like an abandoned four-year-old.
“But why?” I asked. “Why are you leaving him? How could you?”
“Because, Lucy, it’s been a marriage in name only for years and years. Lucy, surely you know that?” she asked, urging me to agree with her.
“No, I didn’t know that,” I said. “This is all news to me.”
“Lucy, you must have known,” she insisted.
She was overdoing the calling me “Lucy” bit. She kept trying to touch my arm in a pleading sort of way.
“I didn’t know,” I insisted back. She wasn’t going to get me to agree with her, no matter what.
What’s going on? I wondered in horror—other people’s parents split up, but mine didn’t. Especially because mine were Catholics.
A stable home life was the only reason I had put up with Catholic parents and their nonsense for so long. It had been an unspoken deal. My part involved, among other things, going to Mass every Sunday, not wearing patent shoes on a date and abstaining from candy for forty days every spring. In return for which, my parents were supposed to stay together even though they might have hated each other’s guts.
“Poor Lucy.” She sighed. “You could never face up to anything unpleasant, could you? You always ran off or stuck your nose in a book when the going got rough.”
“Just fuck off,” I said angrily. “Stop picking on me, you’re the one in the wrong here.”
“Sorry,” she said gently. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Now that really shocked me, it was one thing for her to tell me that she was leaving my father, but this was another thing entirely. Not only had she not shouted at me for using bad language, but she’d apologized to me.
I stared at her, sick with dread. Things must be very serious.
“Lucy,” she said, even more gently. “Your father and I haven’t loved each other for years. I’m sorry this has come as such a shock.”
I couldn’t speak. I was witnessing the destruction of my home, and me with it. My sense of self was amorphous enough as it was. I was afraid I would completely vanish into thin air if one of my main defining features disintegrated.
“But why now?” I appealed to her, after we had sat in silence for a few moments. “If you haven’t loved each other for years, which I don’t believe anyway, why have you picked now to leave him?”
And suddenly I knew why—the hairdo, the makeup, the new clothes—they all made sense.
“Oh Christ,” I said. “I don’t believe it—you’ve met someone else, haven’t you? You’ve got a…a…boyfriend!” I had teased my brother with such a possibility, never dreaming it could be true.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I knew I was right.
“Lucy,” she implored. “I’ve been so lonely.”
“Lonely?” I asked in disbelief. “How could you be lonely when you’ve got Dad?”
“Lucy, please understand,” she begged. “Living with your father was like living with a child.”
“Don’t!” I said. “Don’t try and make out that it was his fault. You’ve done this, it’s your fault.”
She stared unhappily at her hands and didn’t say anything to defend herself.
“So who is he?” I spat, the taste of bile in my mouth. “Who is this…this…boyfriend of yours?”
“Please, Lucy,” she murmured. Her gentleness unsettled me, I was much more comfortable when she was scathing and sharp-tongued.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
She just stared mutely, tears in her eyes. Why wouldn’t she tell me?
“It’s someone I know, isn’t it?” I said in alarm.
“Yes, Lucy. I’m sorry, Lucy, I never meant for it to happen…”
“Just tell me who it is,” I said, my breaths coming short and quick.
“It’s…”
“Yes?”
“It’s…”
“WHOOOO?” I almost screamed.
“It’s Ken Kearns,” she blurted out.
“Who?” I thought, dizzily. “Who’s Ken Kearns?”
“Ken Kearns. You know, Mr. Kearns from the dry cleaners.”
“Oh, Mr. Kearns,” I said, vaguely remembering a bald old codger with a brown cardigan and plastic shoes and false teeth that seemed to have a life of their own.
The relief! Ludicrous as it seemed, I had been gripped with fear that her boyfriend was Daniel. What with the way he’d been boring on recently about his mysterious new woman, and the way Mum had flirted with him when he came to visit, and the way that Daniel had said that Mum was pretty…
Okay, so I was glad it wasn’t Daniel, but, honestly, Mr. Kearns from the dry cleaners—she couldn’t have picked anyone more awful if she had tried.
“Tell me if I’ve got this right,” I said, in a daze. “Mr. Kearns, with the false teeth that are too big for him, is your new boyfriend.”
“He’s getting new ones,” she said tearfully.
“You’re disgusting,” I said, shaking my head. “You are truly disgusting.”
She didn’t shout at me or berate me like she would normally have done when I said something disrespectful to her. Instead she acted all martyrish and humble.
“Lucy, look at me, please,” she said, tears jostling at the corners of her eyes. “Ken makes me feel like a teenager, can’t you see—I’m a woman, a woman with needs…”
“I don’t want to hear about your disgusting needs, thanks very much,” I said, shutting out the appalling mental image of my mother and Mr. Kearns rolling around amongst the coat hangers.
And still she made no move to defend herself, but I knew her. Sooner or later she’d run out of cheeks to turn.
“Lucy, I’m fifty-three years old, this could be my last chance of happiness. Surely you can’t deny me that?”
“You and your happiness! Well, what about Dad? What about his happiness?”
“I’ve tried to make him happy,” she said sadly. “But nothing works.”
“Rubbish,” I sputtered. “You’ve always tried to make his life a misery! Why the hell didn’t you just leave years ago?”
“But…” she said feebly.
“Where are you going to live?” I interrupted, feeling sick.
“With Ken,” she whispered.
“And where’s that?”
“It’s the yellow house across from the school.” She tried, but failed, to keep the hint of pride out of her voice. Ken, the Dry-Cleaning King, obviously had accumulated a fair bit of money.
“And what about your wedding vows?” I asked. I knew that would really hit her where it hurt. “What about the promises you made, in a church, that you’d stay with him for better, for worse?”
“Please, Lucy,” she said in a little voice. “I c
an’t tell you how I’ve wrestled with my conscience, I’ve prayed and prayed for guidance…”
“You’re such a hypocrite,” I exclaimed—not that it mattered to me on any moral ground, but I knew it would upset her, and that was my highest priority. “You’ve rammed the teachings of the Catholic Church down my throat all my life and stood in judgment over unmarried mothers and people who’ve had abortions, and now you’re no better yourself! You’re an adulterer, you’ve broken your precious seventh commandment.”
“Sixth,” she said, her usual self making a guest reappearance.
Hah! I knew I’d break her.
“What?” I asked in disgust.
“I’ve broken the sixth commandment, seventh is stealing, didn’t they teach you anything in catechism classes?”
“You see, you see!” I crowed in bitter triumph. “There you go again, standing in judgment, setting yourself up as a moral watchdog. Well, let he who is without sin cast the log out of his own eye!”
She hung her head and twisted her hands. Back to being a martyr.
“And what has Father Colm to say about all of this?” I demanded. “I bet he’s not so friendly with you now, now that you’ve become a…a…a home wrecker…. Well?” I asked again, when she didn’t answer.
“They’ve told me not to do the flowers for the altar anymore,” she finally admitted. A single tear ran down her cheek, leaving a little white line as it washed through her inexpertly applied foundation.
“Quite right,” I snorted.
“And the committee wouldn’t take the apple tart that I’d made for the sale of work,” she said, more tears streaking down her face. She looked like a deckchair.
“Quite right too,” I said hotly.
“I suppose they thought it might be catching,” she said
with a little smile. I stared coldly at her and, after a few seconds, her smile vanished.
“And you picked a great time to tell me,” I said nastily. “How am I supposed to go back and do an afternoon’s work after hearing this?”
That was unfair of me because Ivor was out and I wouldn’t have done anything anyway, but it wasn’t the point.
“Lucy, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But I wanted to tell you right away. And I couldn’t have you finding out from someone else.”
“Okay,” I said briskly, picking up my bag. “You’ve told me. Thanks a lot and goodbye.”
I put no money on the table. She could pay for my sandwich as she was the reason that I hadn’t been able to eat it.
“Wait, please,” she urged. “Don’t go yet, Lucy. Please just give me a chance to say my piece, that’s all I ask of you.”
“Go on then,” I said. “This should be good for a laugh.”
She took a deep breath and started.
“Lucy, I know you’ve always loved your dad more than you’ve loved me…”
She paused, in case I needed to contradict her. I stayed silent.
“…but it was very hard for me,” she continued. “I had to be the strong one, I had to be the disciplinarian, because he wouldn’t. And I know you thought that he was a great laugh, and that I was mean and miserable, but one of us had to be a parent to you.”
“How dare you,” I demanded. “Dad was twice, ten times, the parent you ever were.”
“But he was so irresponsible…” she started to protest.
“Don’t talk to me about irresponsible,” I interrupted. “What about your responsibilities? Who’s going to take care of Dad?”
Although I already knew the answer to that one.
“Why should anyone need to take care of Dad?” she asked. “He’s only fifty-four and there’s nothing wrong with him.”
“You know he needs to be taken care of,” I said. “You know he can’t look after himself.”
“And why’s that, Lucy?” she asked. “Lots of men live alone, men much older than Dad, and they’re well able to take care of themselves.”
“But Dad’s not like other men, and you know it,” I said. “Don’t think you can get off the hook that way.”
“And why isn’t your dad like other men?” she asked.
“You know why,” I said angrily.
“No, I don’t,” she said. “Tell me why.”
“I’m not having this discussion with you any longer,” I said. “You know Dad needs looking after and that’s that.”
“You can’t face it, can you, Lucy?” she said, looking at me with this infuriating saint-like, doe-eyed expression, all faux compassion and socialworkeresque concern.
“Can’t face what?” I asked. “There’s nothing I can’t face, you’re talking even more nonsense than you usually do.”
“He’s an alcoholic,” she said gently. “That’s what you can’t face.”
“Who’s an alcoholic?” I asked, disgusted by her manipulations. “Dad is not an alcoholic. I see what you’re up to, you think you can call Dad names and say terrible things about him just so people will feel sorry for you and say that it’s okay for you to leave him. Well, you can’t fool me.”
“Lucy, he’s been an alcoholic for years and years, prob
ably before we even got married, but I didn’t know the signs then,” she said.
“Rubbish,” I snorted. “He’s not an alcoholic, you must take me for a complete fool. Alcoholics are those men in the street with dirty coats and big beards, who talk to themselves.”
“Lucy, alcoholics come in all shapes and sizes, those men in the street are men just like your dad, except they were a bit more unlucky.”
“They couldn’t have got more unlucky than being married to you,” I threw at her.
“Lucy, do you deny that your father drinks a lot?”
“He drinks a bit,” I admitted. “And why wouldn’t he? You’ve made him miserable all these years. You know, my earliest memory is of you shouting at him.”
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” she said, tears spilling down her face. “But it was so hard, we never had any money, and he wouldn’t get a job, and he’d take the money that I had put aside to buy food for you and your brothers and he’d drink it. And I’d have to go down to the local shop and give them some made-up story about not getting to the bank on time and would they give me a bit of credit. And they knew damn well, and I had some pride, Lucy, you know. It didn’t come easy to me to do that, I was brought up to expect more from life than that.”
She was crying hard now, but it meant nothing to me.
“And I loved him, so I did,” she sobbed. “I was twenty-two and I thought he was gorgeous. He kept telling me that he’d give it up and I kept hoping that things would get better. I believed him every single time, and every single time he let me down.”
On and on she went, a catalogue of accusations. How he was drunk the morning of their wedding; how, when she went into labor with Chris, she had to make her own way to the hospital because he was missing, presumed drunk; how he stood at the back of the church at Peter’s Confirmation and sang Irish drinking songs…
I didn’t even listen. I decided that it was time for me to go back to work.
When I stood up to leave, I said, “Not that you’re worried about it, but I’ll take care of him, and I’ll probably do a far better job than you ever did.”
“Is that right, Lucy?” She sounded unimpressed.
“Yes.”
“Good luck,” she said. “You’ll need it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you any good at washing sheets?” she asked cryptically.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ll see,” she said wearily. “You’ll see.”
Chapter 63
I went back to work in a state of shock.
The first thing I did was call Dad to make sure he was okay, but he sounded incoherent and dazed, which worried me sick.
“I’ll be out to you right after work this evening,” I promised. “Everything will be all right, please don’t worry.”
“Who will
take care of me, Lucy?” he asked, sounding very, very old. I could have killed my mother.
“I will,” I promised fervently. “I’ll always take care of you, don’t worry.”
“You won’t leave me?” he asked pathetically.
“Never,” I said, meaning it as I’d never meant anything before in my life.
“You’ll stay the night?” he asked.
“Of course I will, I’ll stay with you always.”
Then I rang Peter. He wasn’t at work, so I presumed that Mum had already broken the news to him and, Oedipal idiot that he was, he had gone home to lie down in a darkened room, waiting to die of a broken heart. Sure enough, when I rang him at home, he answered the phone in a hoarse, grief-sodden voice. He, too, said that he hated our mother. But I knew it was for an entirely different reason and that he and I didn’t share any common cause. Peter was devastated, not because my mother had left Dad, but that she hadn’t left Dad for him.
Then I called Chris and discovered that Mum had informed him of her news that morning. I was annoyed with Chris because he hadn’t called and tipped me off. So we had a brief argument, which was nice because it took my mind off Dad for a while. Chris was wildly relieved when I said that I was spending the evening with Dad. (“Jesus, thanks, Lucy, I owe you one.”) Chris and Responsibility weren’t on the best of terms, they had never really seen eye to eye.
Then I called Daniel and told him what had happened. He was a good person to tell because he was so sympathetic. And besides, he’d always been fond of my mother. I was glad to give him an opportunity to see what a bitch she really was.
He didn’t comment on my runaway mother. He suggested that he’d drive me out to Dad.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“No way,” I said. “I’m very upset, I’m no company, it’s a long, boring drive and, when we get there, I just want to be with my dad.”
“Fine,” he said. “But I’d still like to be with you.”
“Daniel.” I sighed. “It’s obvious that you need to seek psychiatric help, but I really don’t have the time at the moment to deal with your mental problems.”
“Lucy, be sensible,” he said firmly.