The Other Side of the Story

by Marian Keyes

  I liked my new life. It was peaceful, devoid of drama and very little happened. I never saw any neighbours in the silent landings; no one else even seemed to live in the building.

  Even the nondescript weather conspired to numb me. Colourless skies and mild, still air guaranteed an absence of response from me. When we went on walks to nearby Regent’s Park, I felt nothing.

  There was no hope of me doing anything creative. After the succession of knockbacks, I had nothing to write and I was quite content doing press releases and leaflets. I had no grand plans, no vision for the future, all I wanted was to get through the day. I enjoyed my life’s smallness. Until recently everything had been done on a grand scale – novels and book deals and houses – and I was happy that it had all been reduced to bite-sized pieces.

  Anton had been right about one thing: I was angry with him for being so flaky with money. But since I had left him, it was as if my anger was happening to someone else; I knew it was there, I knew it affected me, but I could not feel it. All I could feel was gladness at being in charge of my own destiny.

  Not that every day was easy. There were some dreadful moments, like when Katya, a Russian friend of Irina’s, came to visit, bearing a beautiful brown-eyed baby boy, only six months old. He was called Woychek and he even looked like Ema. This plunged me into an awareness of all the other children that Anton and I would never have. The brothers and sisters that Ema already had in a parallel universe but that we would never meet. That started something terrible within me but before the grief had me fully in its grip, Katya said of Ema, ‘This child has werry beautiful skeen,’ and my attention was diverted. Had Irina been putting stuff on Ema? Again? The pore-minimizer? She was obsessed with it and pressed it, with evangelical zeal, on everyone. Yes, Irina admitted surlily, she had given Ema a ‘barely there’ layer of pore-minimizer. When pressed further she also confessed that she had used some glow gloop and in my irritation I forgot to be sad.

  One day clicked over into the next and all of them were interchangeable and without character. Not once did I contemplate the future, except in terms of Ema. Constantly I watched her, alert for signs of dysfunction. She did not wet her bed at night but that was because she had not yet been fully nappy-trained. Sometimes when she heard Irina’s key in the door she would widen her eyes and gasp, ‘Anton?’ But other than that it was business as usual.

  She had always been a hardy little creature, and perhaps her physical robustness was also an indication of emotional resilience. I had to admit she certainly did not seem shaken by her ruptured life. But I fretted that she was ‘internalizing’ and everything would emerge at age thirteen when she would become a shop-lifting, glue-sniffing termagant.

  My one comfort was that I had made what I thought was the best choice for her and I knew that being a mother means experiencing almost constant guilt.

  Even though she was living separately from him, she saw Anton frequently. Most days he took her to the park after work, and she stayed overnight with him on Saturdays. After the first few visits where his eyes were bleak with heartbreak, I could not bear to see him and asked Irina if she could oversee him picking up Ema and again when he returned her home. To my extreme gratitude, Irina agreed. This arrangement worked well, until one evening, perhaps three weeks after I had left him, when Irina was in the bathroom at precisely the wrong time and I had to open the door to readmit Ema.

  ‘Lily.’ Anton looked shocked to see me. As I was shocked to see him. He had always been thin but during the weeks since I had seen him, he had become haggard. Not that I was in imminent danger of gracing a fashion shoot myself. (If it had not been for Irina’s lavish generosity with her pore-minimizer, I would have needed a head transplant.)

  Ema scooted past me into the apartment and seconds later I heard the opening notes of The Jungle Book.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you…’ Anton said. ‘Look…’ He fumbled in his leather jacket and produced a letter. It was so crumpled and battered it looked as if it had been in his pocket for weeks. Regularly, he had been bringing my post but I knew this letter was different. ‘This is from me. I wanted to give it to you by hand, to make sure you got it. You won’t want to read it now, but you might want to some time.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said stiffly, unsure what to do. I wanted to read it but instinct was warning me not to. Horribly shaken by seeing him, I said goodbye, closed the door on him, then went into my bedroom, put the letter in a drawer and waited to forget about it.

  I was standing at my second-floor window, still feeling my heart beating in every part of my body, when I saw Anton leave the building. When Irina was on duty, I never permitted myself even a sneaky glance but today the routine was ruined and I remained watching him. He walked along the pavement, a few yards from the front entrance door, then paused and his shoulders began moving up and down, as if he were laughing. I stared, wounded to the quick, and thought, what the hell is he laughing at? Meeting him face-to-face had upset me terribly but he thought it was funny? Then with a heave of dreadful insight I understood that he wasn’t laughing, he was crying. Crying with his whole body. I stepped back in horror and at that moment I thought the grief would kill me.

  It took me the rest of the evening and a quarter of a bottle of dog-rough vodka to regain my equilibrium. But then I was fine. I understood that inevitably this would be painful. Anton and I had been in love, we had had a child together and we had been each other’s best friend from the moment we had met. The ending of something so precious could only be bloody. But at some stage in the future the pain would stop and Anton and I would be friends. I just had to be patient.

  I knew that one day my life would be utterly different; full of feelings and friends and laughter and colour and with an almost entirely new cast to the one currently peopling it. I was wholly certain that some day there would be another man and more children and a different job and a proper home. I had no idea how I got from the small bare life I was now living to the full, colourful one I envisioned. All I knew was that it would happen. But right now it was a long way away, happening to a different Lily and I was in no rush for it.

  So complete was my passivity that I could not even feel guilty about Irina’s staggering generosity with her home and with caretaking Ema. Under normal circumstances, I would be a squirming mess, fashioning plans to leave as soon as we could and feeling like a wretched freeloader each time I switched on a light. Sometimes I had to borrow money from her – my copywriting paid spasmodically – and I even had no shame about that. Invariably, she handed it over without comment, except for once when I came in from yet another feeling-free walk in the park and said, ‘Irina, the cashpoint wouldn’t give me any money. Can you loan me some until I next get paid?’

  She replied, ‘Why do you hev no money? You got a big cheque last week.’

  ‘I had to pay you back, then I bought Ema a tricycle, all the other little girls have tricycles, then I had to get her hair cut into a Dora the Explorer bob, all the other little girls have Dora the Explorer bobs…’

  ‘And now you do not hev enough to feed her,’ Irina said. Slyly, she added, ‘You hate Anton for being bed vit money but you are werry bed too.’

  ‘I never said I wasn’t. I can’t help it, it was the way I was brought up. And it just goes to show what a mismatch Anton and I were.’

  She sighed and indicated a biscuit tin. ‘Help yourself.’ Then she handed me a postcard. ‘Mail for you.’

  I looked at it in surprise: a picture of three grizzly bears, standing in a stream, against a backdrop of pine trees and the great outdoors. It looked as if it had been sent from Canada. The biggest bear had a huge salmon between his jaws, the medium-sized bear was scooping a fish from the water and the smallest bear held a flipping fish in its paws. I turned it over and the caption read, ‘Grizzly bears at a weir’. But someone – a person with Anton’s handwriting – had crossed out the official caption and handwritten, ‘Anton, Lily and Ema enjoy a fish supper.’ To my enormous s
urprise I heard myself laugh.

  He had also scribbled, ‘Thinking of you both. All my love, A’.

  It was utterly imbued with the spirit of Anton; funny and clever and mad, and I thought joyfully, this is the start of the happy memories. I am finally getting to the point where I can look back at my time with him without feeling wretched.

  I felt happy all day long.

  A few short days later the post yielded up a postcard of Burt Reynolds, looking very matinee idol and luxuriant of moustache. Anton had written: ‘I saw this and thought of you.’ Again I laughed and felt hopeful about the future.

  I was starting to look forward to the postcards and soon another one arrived, this time of a vase bearing Chinese-style line-drawings of people and cups and stuff. The caption read, ‘Ming vase depicting tea ceremony’, but Anton had crossed it out and written, ‘Anton, Lily and Ema, circa 1544, enjoying a cup of tea after a hard day’s shopping.’ When I looked again, it even seemed like there were shopping bags beside the figures.

  I turned to Irina and said, ‘I’ve been thinking. When Anton comes for Ema today, I think I can deal with it.’

  ‘Very well.’

  That evening when I opened the door to him, Anton did not even seem surprised. He simply exclaimed, ‘Lily!’ As if he was thrilled to see me.

  He looked a lot better than he had at our previous encounter, not remotely as drawn and gaunt. His aura of shine and vitality had returned; clearly he was on the mend, we both were.

  ‘Where’s Irina today? What’s up with her?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing. Just… you know… I’m ready, it’s time… Anton, thank you for the postcards, they’re so funny, they made me laugh.’

  ‘Great. And I’m glad I’ve met you because I wanted to give you this.’

  He handed me an envelope which triggered a guilty memory of the unread letter in my underwear drawer. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Dosh,’ he said. ‘Lots of it. Now that I’m back making infomercials, the money is rolling in.’

  ‘Is it really?’ This was the final sign I needed that we were better off apart.

  ‘Buy yourself and Ema something nice. I read in the paper that Origins has a new perfume out – and don’t forget to get yourself something too!’

  The twinkle was back in his eyes and I felt a huge rush of affection towards him that almost translated into me lunging at him in a hug. I restrained myself this time but wouldn’t have to for much longer. Soon we could embrace as friends.

  Gemma

  I thought I would never get over Owen, I had no interest in it, I was quite happy being totally miserable. So it came as a bit of a rude awakening when I came to one morning to find myself feeling really fine. Actually, it took a while to identify the emotion because it was so unfamiliar.

  Suddenly I saw the Owen thing differently: it was time for him to return to his own planet, Planet Younger Man, where Lorna was waiting to welcome him home.

  And I was prepared to acknowledge how interesting the timing was; he’d broken it off with me the very day Dad had returned home. It was like he’d been sent to me for as long as I’d needed him. I don’t usually believe in a kindly God (I don’t usually bother believing in any sort of God) but it made me wonder. I stopped focusing on how much I missed him, instead I felt grateful I’d gotten a go of him for as long as I had.

  OK, I was still a bit watery and wobbly but I couldn’t believe the change in me – it was like having one of those twenty-four-hour ‘flu’s. When you’re in the throes, you feel like you’re in it for the long haul, then you wake up the next day, unbelievably back to normal.

  To discuss my perplexing condition, I asked Cody to meet me for a drink and, to his credit, he agreed.

  ‘I promise I won’t start crying.’ But I’d said that the last time too.

  ‘We’ll go somewhere suburban just to be on the safe side,’ he said, and one hour later, in an anonymous pub in Blackrock, I confessed my new-found peace of mind.

  ‘And your problem?’

  ‘I’m worried that I’m very shallow,’ I said. ‘To get over him so quickly. Last week, even two days ago, I was still devastated and now I feel OK. I miss him, but I don’t feel like my heart is breaking.’

  ‘You did a year’s worth of crying. Anyway it wasn’t just him you were upset about. I spoke to Eugene about you.’

  ‘Eugene who?’

  ‘Furlong.’ One of Ireland’s most famous psychiatrists, often on telly. ‘He says your reaction was disproportionate because you were grieving for your dad.’

  ‘But my dad was back.’

  ‘Exactly. It was safe to do so.’

  ‘That makes no sense.’

  Cody shrugged. ‘I agree. Load of nonsense. I prefer the theory that you’re just really shallow.’

  I never got to work with Anton on making a film of Chasing Rainbows. Something happened with the actress and the deal fell apart. I was disappointed – but only because I thought it would have helped the book to do well and would be a right laugh, especially going on set and wearing a revealing dress and fake tan to the premiere – not because I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get up close and personal with Anton. Then I emerged from the little dip and discovered that actually I felt oddly relieved.

  Lily

  It was still dark outside when I emerged from sleep and reached for Anton; I discovered he was not there and for a moment, before I remembered all that had happened, I was surprised.

  The next night I awoke again and this time his absence caused me to weep. Since I had left him I had slept very well, considerably better than when I had been with him. I could not understand why this was happening now, when we were so close to the end of the process that we were almost ready to be friends. Before I had even left him, I had already made my peace with our situation. Grief had not incapacitated me and it did not occur to me to question why I was coping so well. I was simply grateful to have been spared.

  So why, two months after I had left him, did I feel sadder than ever?

  The following morning when the post came, Irina handed me an official-looking envelope and I asked, ‘Anything else for me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Like a postcard?’

  ‘I said no.’

  A thought jumped into my head: I need to go away for a little while.

  A visit to Mum in Warwickshire was long overdue – it had been a long time, too long, since I had given her a scare about living with her.

  I was worried about the income I would lose by not working but when I opened the official-looking envelope, I found it contained a huge royalty cheque for Mimi’s Remedies. The royalty cheque – the money that could have saved our home, had we received it last December.

  Tears sprang to my eyes. How different would our lives be? But I dried my wet eyes and admitted that, knowing us, not very. In January, we had been due to start regular monthly payments and regular income had never been our strong point.

  It was terribly odd getting the cheque, it belonged to such a different part of my life that it was like a message from a long-dead galaxy. Nevertheless, it was the ‘sign’ I needed; it meant I could take a break from work, so I rang Mum and gave her the good news.

  ‘How long do you plan to stay?’ she asked. Anxiously?

  ‘Ages,’ I said. ‘Months. Before you start to hyperventilate, about a week. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  I went to pack and, a couple of strata down in my underwear drawer, I ran into the battered letter from Anton. It lay in a bra cup, and I watched it, almost expecting it to move. I itched to open it. Instead I picked it up by a corner and chucked it in the wastepaper basket; something I should have done weeks ago.

  Then I loaded up the car (Irina had let me borrow her new Audi – another gift from Vassily), mostly with cuddly toys.

  It was a clean spring morning and it felt good speeding along the motorway, as if I was leaving danger behind me i
n London. Less than two hours after we had left we were turning off the motorway. ‘We’re almost there!’ Then, ‘Whoops!’ as my carefree twists and turns brought us up right behind a lorry laden with columns of concrete bollards, rumbling along at about fifteen miles an hour. The road was too narrow and bendy to overtake, but, ‘We’re in the country now, Ema. No need to rush.’ Ema agreed and we launched into the four millionth verse of ‘The Wheels on the Bus.’

  Bellowing, ‘Swish, swish, swish!’ we crawled along behind the lorry when suddenly – and it was rather like watching a film – it bumped over a hump in the road and the bollards had broken free of their chains and were flying loose, like so many concrete skittles. Raining down on us, bouncing off the road, flying right at me; there was not even time to be surprised. One glanced off our windscreen and, as if by magic, the glass had morphed into an opaque shield that sagged inwards. Some hit the roof of the car and it buckled down on us, I could not see in front of me, my foot was on the brake but we were still moving. At some stage we had stopped singing and I knew, with crystal clarity, that we were about to die. I was about to perish with my child on an A-road in Warwickshire. I’m not ready…

  In the child mirror my eyes met Ema’s and she looked puzzled but not alarmed. She’s my child and I have failed to protect her.

  The skid went on for ever. It seemed that years had passed: Ema had started school, gone through adolescence and had her first pregnancy scare before I became aware we were even slowing down. It was like being in a dream, where you want to run but your legs refuse to work; the brake was pressed to the floor but would not respond.

  Finally, eventually, we reached a halt. I sat for a moment, barely believing the stillness, then turned to Ema. She extended her hand. There was something in it. ‘Glass,’ she said.

  I got out of the car and my legs were so light I seemed to be floating. I retrieved Ema from her babyseat and she too seemed to be weightless. Her Dora the Explorer hair was studded with hundreds of little nuggets of glass – the back window had caved in on her head, but the strange thing was that she did not appear to be injured. Neither was I. Nothing was painful and neither of us bore any sign of blood.