The Woman Who Stole My Life

by Marian Keyes

  ‘Okay?’ Corinne repeated.

  Okay.

  … I lived in a city with constant sunshine and – Jesus! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

  I looked at Mannix; he was so white he was almost green. ‘What do you need to ask?’ He had his pen and paper out.

  ‘HOW MA—?’

  ‘How many do you think you’ll need?’ Mannix asked Corinne.

  She consulted her screen and said, ‘Ten. Maybe more.’

  Jesus. Well, I’d done two. I’d do one more. And after that, I’d do one more.

  Corinne was remarkably nonplussed. Presumably she had to face this sort of thing all the time. I supposed it was like when I had to laser a person’s hairy legs – in order to do my job properly, I had to disconnect from their pain.

  ‘Would you like to stop?’ After every bout she gave me the option of ending it.

  No.

  ‘Would you like to stop?’

  No.

  ‘Would you like to stop?’

  No.

  I focused on everything that Mannix Taylor had done, on all the red tape he’d battled, to make this happen. I didn’t want to let him down.

  It was hard, though. Each shock ate into my endurance, and on the seventh one the force lifted me off the table.

  ‘Stop!’ Mannix was on his feet. ‘That’s enough.’

  He was right. I couldn’t take this. It wasn’t worth it and I didn’t care any more.

  Then I had a flash of Dr Montgomery and his mockery if I bailed on this. Keep-Her-Going-There-Patsy and all his underlings would have a great old laugh, as would the shrill, angry consultant at this hospital. The nurses on ICU would probably break out a celebratory tin of Roses, because everyone wanted Mannix Taylor to fail, even my own husband.

  ‘NO.’

  ‘She wants to keep going,’ Corinne said.

  ‘Her name is Stella.’

  ‘Dr Taylor, perhaps you should step outside for the duration …?’

  ‘I’m staying.’

  Corinne had eventually settled for twelve readings and, as I returned in the ambulance to my own hospital, I felt extremely strange. The oddest chemicals were flooding my brain, a mixture of elation and horror, like I’d gone a little crazy.

  It was a blessed relief when Mannix Taylor asked the nurse to sedate me.

  ‘You need to sleep and sleep,’ he said. ‘Your body has been through hell. You need to recover, probably for a couple of days.’

  Now I was awake, and looking at my dad and still feeling a bit dazed.

  ‘That Taylor chap was in looking for you,’ Dad said. ‘He’ll be back. He says it was hard going for you, Dolly, but you were very brave. Will I read to you?’

  … Er … grand.

  Our current book was another hit from Georgie Taylor. It was about an imaginary despot in an imaginary country in the Middle East and told from the point of view of his wife. Dad was so impressed that, every couple of lines, he had to stop reading to marvel at how great it was. ‘Your man is one cool customer, isn’t he, Stella? Ordering all of them executions and then just calmly eating his couscous …’

  He orated another half-page for me, then put the book down to deliver a few more comments. ‘You’d nearly feel sorry for the man. There he is with a fine-looking wife, who seems like a decent woman, but he’s neglecting her, for the job. Overseeing that torture when he’s meant to be taking her out for her birthday. But could you blame him? His so-called allies plotting and scheming against him … One slip-up and he’s a goner.’

  He read on, but it wasn’t long before he felt compelled, once again, to pause the narrative. ‘Ah, dear, dear …’ he said sadly. ‘Heavy is the head that wears the crown.’

  A click-click of high heels announced the arrival of Karen. Her hair looked freshly done and her handbag was new. ‘How is she?’ she asked Dad.

  ‘Grand, I think. We’re waiting for the Mannix chap to come and give us news.’

  ‘Howya, Stella.’ Karen pulled up a chair. ‘You look a bit fucked, if I’m to be honest. I heard it was awful, but fair play to you. So tell us how you are.’ She took the pen and notebook from the sterilizer. ‘Go on. First letter.’

  I blinked, trying to say, ‘Tired’, but it got all messed up, I didn’t have the energy and Karen didn’t have the patience.

  ‘Ah, feck it,’ Karen said. ‘Leave it, it’s too hard.’ She tossed the pen and pad back into the sterilizer and snapped it shut. ‘I’ll read to you instead.’

  Dad twitched, all set to start again with the book.

  ‘No, Dad!’ Karen was firm. ‘I’ve Grazia here. Put away that shit you’re reading her.’

  ‘It’s far from shit –’

  ‘Hello, there.’ Mannix had arrived.

  Dad jumped up off his chair. ‘Dr Taylor,’ he said with a mixture of innate humility and I’m-as-good-as-you chippiness.

  ‘Mr Locke.’ Mannix Taylor nodded.

  ‘Bert, Bert, call me Bert!’

  ‘Karen,’ Mannix said. ‘Nice to see you again.’

  ‘Nice to see you too.’ Karen managed to wrap her hostility in a veneer of civility.

  Dad blurted, ‘We’re reading another one of the books your wife sent in. She has excellent taste.’

  Mannix Taylor gave a little smile. ‘Except in husbands.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Dad blustered. ‘Aren’t you a great chap? Sorting out the test for Stella and everything.’

  ‘How do you feel?’ Mannix had automatically produced the pen and notepad.

  ‘Tired.’

  ‘Doesn’t surprise me. But you did good.’

  ‘So did you,’ I blinked back.

  In wonderment, Dad and Karen watched our exchange – me blinking and Mannix writing down the words.

  ‘God almighty,’ Karen said, the strangest expression on her face.

  ‘You’re very quick, the pair of you,’ Dad said.

  ‘Very quick,’ Karen echoed. ‘It’s nearly like a normal conversation.’ She narrowed her eyes at Mannix. ‘How are you so good at it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Mannix said, evenly. ‘Practice? Anyway, I’ve the results of the EMG.’ He waved a sheaf of printouts at me. ‘I’ll give you the boring details when you’re stronger, but here’s the gist: at the rate your myelin sheaths are growing, you can expect movement to start returning in about six weeks’ time.’

  I was stunned. I wanted to shriek and cry with joy.

  Really? Really? Really?

  ‘You’re going to get better,’ he said. ‘But remember what I keep telling you. It’ll be a big job. You need to stay patient. Can you do it?’

  Of course I could. I could do anything if I knew the end was in sight.

  ‘I’ll do a road map for you. I’ll tell you what you can expect, but it’ll be approximate. And we’re still looking at several months. It’s going to be a long, tough recovery. It’s going to ask a lot of you.’

  ‘How do you eat an elephant?’ I blinked at him.

  ‘How?’

  ‘One bite at a time.’

  17.14

  I’m lying on my bed, like a starfish, eddying on a Xanax and Jaffa Cake cloud and, in all honesty, things don’t seem that insurmountable. I am a strong woman. Yes. A strong, strong woman and … my phone rings and my heart almost jumps out of my throat. Very loud! Really, unnecessarily loud! Going round scaring relaxed people …

  Then I see who’s calling and my fear increases. It’s Enda Mulreid! Even though he’s my sister’s husband, he will always be a policeman to me …

  Quickly I sit up and clear my throat and try to sound together. ‘Ah, hello there, Enda!’

  ‘Stella. I trust you’re well. I’ll “cut” to the “chase”.’ I can almost see him doing the inverted-commas thing with his fingers. I will admit that the alliance between himself and my sister has always been a mystery to me. They are so different.

  ‘I hear,’ he says, ‘that you wish to involuntarily detain your ex-husband Ryan Sweeney under Section 8 of the Ment
al Health Act 2001.’

  Oh my God. When he puts it like that … ‘Enda, I’m just worried about Ryan … He wants to give away all his possessions.’

  ‘Are they his to give away? He’s not, for example, harbouring stolen goods? Or profiting from criminal activities?’

  ‘Enda! You know Ryan. How could you even think that?’

  ‘Is that a no?’

  ‘It’s a no.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘As there is not a serious likelihood that the subject in question may cause serious and immediate harm to himself or others, there is no legal basis for invoking the act.’

  ‘I see. Yes, you’re quite right, Enda. No need to, er, invoke the act. Thank you, you’re very good to take the time. Yes, thank you, goodbye now, goodbye.’ I hang up. I’m sweating. Enda Mulreid always does this to me.

  Jeffrey comes thundering into the room. ‘What? Who was that?’

  ‘Enda Mulreid. Uncle Enda. Whatever name you have for him. Look, Jeffrey. Let’s try to put it from our minds that we considered getting Dad sectioned …’

  ‘It’s a no-go?’

  ‘It’s a no-go.’

  18.59

  My Xanax fog has finally lifted and I decide to ring Betsy.

  ‘Mom?’ she answers.

  ‘Sweetie. Something weird is going on with your dad.’ I explain everything and she takes it calmly.

  ‘I’m looking it up,’ she says. ‘Found it. Oh my gosh. Twelve thousand hits! I see what you mean.’

  ‘I just wanted to keep you in the loop.’ But if I’m honest, I think I rang her for advice.

  ‘It looks like he’s having a psychotic episode. It happens.’

  ‘Really?’ How does she know? How is she so wise? ‘It happened to a couple of guys Chad works with.’

  ‘Karen told me I should get him sectioned.’

  ‘Oh Mom, no,’ she says, softly. ‘That would be so bad. It would cause such bad feeling. And it would always be part of his story; he’d never be able to shake it off. But I do think you should talk with a doctor. Fast.’

  19.11

  It’s gone seven o’clock, so it’s too late to try to get hold of a doctor this evening, but I have the brainwave of ringing a mental-health helpline.

  A woman with a gentle, kind voice answers.

  ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘My ex-husband … I don’t really know how to put this, but I’m worried about him.’

  ‘I see …’

  ‘He’s behaving strangely.’

  ‘I see, I see …’

  ‘He says he’s going to give away everything he owns.’

  ‘I see, I see …’

  ‘All his money, everything, even his house.’

  The voice of the anonymous woman becomes animated. ‘You mean Ryan Sweeney? I just saw him on YouTube.’

  ‘… Oh … you did? Well, do you think he’s, you know, ill, mad, insane?’

  ‘I see, I see …’

  ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘I see, I see … But it’s not for me to say. I’m not a doctor. I couldn’t diagnose him.’

  ‘So what are you there for?’

  ‘To be sympathetic. Say if you were feeling depressed and you rang me, I’d listen and say, “I see, I see, I see.”’

  ‘I see.’ Tearful rage rises in me. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  23.05–02.07

  Sleep eludes me. My whales, normally so friendly, sound sinister tonight. As if, within their high-pitched cries and songs, there are coded threats.

  ‘Sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you get what you need and sometimes you get what you get.’

  Extract from One Blink at a Time

  I was thinking about sex. The way you do when you’re lying in hospital, entirely paralysed.

  Ryan and I, we never had sex – I mean, we’d been together eighteen years, be reasonable. No one had sex, well, none of the couples I knew anyway. Everyone thought everyone else was at it hammer and tongs, but once you got people drunk enough they’d admit the truth.

  I say Ryan and I never had sex, but of course we did – once in a while, when we’d been out for the evening and had a fair bit of drink on board. And you know what? It was grand. We had three different versions to choose from and it was always quick and efficient and it suited both of us just fine – with a job and two children, who had time and energy to devote to elaborate sexual shenanigans?

  But this was the wrong attitude, the magazines told me: you’re supposed to ‘work at your marriage’. Even before Fifty Shades of Grey came along, I felt under pressure to go way outside my ‘sexual comfort zone’.

  ‘Should we … try stuff?’ I’d asked Ryan.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. We could …’ It was such a dreadful word I didn’t know if I could say it. ‘We could … spank each other.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘… A table-tennis bat?’

  ‘Where would we get a table-tennis bat?’

  ‘… Elverys Sports?’

  ‘No,’ he said. The discussion was closed and I was relieved. I’d been thinking of buying those little chrome balls, the ones you insert into your ding-dong and leave there for the day. Now I didn’t have to, and with the money I’d saved myself I’d buy a nice pair of shoes instead.

  Karen, being Karen, was more determined to keep her sex life zinging, so herself and Enda did some role play where they pretended to be strangers who pick each other up in a bar. She even wore a wig, a black bob. But they couldn’t carry it off.

  ‘Did you laugh?’ I’d asked.

  ‘No.’ Karen had seemed uncharacteristically depressed. ‘It wasn’t funny. It was just cringy. In fact,’ she said, ‘seeing him across that bar … Tell me, Stella, were his ears always that big? In normal life, I practically never look at him. And to get a proper gawk at him after so long, well … there was a moment when I felt horrified that I was married to him, to be honest with you …’

  I wondered if Mannix Taylor and his Scando-type wife had lots of sex. Maybe they did. Maybe that was his hobby, seeing as he didn’t play golf.

  Yes, him and his fabulous wife would be the type to put the rest of us to shame.

  Georgie Taylor would come home from a hard day of colour-swatching to find her house silent and lit only by candles. Before she had time to be alarmed, a man (Mannix Taylor, of course) would step up behind her, press his body hard against hers and say with quiet authority, ‘Don’t scream.’ A silk blindfold would cover her eyes and she’d be led to a candlelit bedroom, where he’d strip her of her clothes and bind her arms and legs to the bedposts.

  He’d brush her nipples with feathers and, agonizingly slowly, drop by drop, trail fragrant oil between her breasts and down to her stomach and further …

  Naked, he’d straddle her and toy with her for a long time before finally he entered her and her body burst into orgasm after orgasm.

  Well, lucky Mrs Taylor.

  ‘Tell me more about your family.’ I blinked out the words to Mannix Taylor.

  ‘Oh … okay. I’ll tell you about my sisters. They’re twins. Rosa and Hero. Hero was called that because she almost died when she was born; she spent six weeks in an incubator. They’re not identical – Rosa is dark and Hero is fair – but they sound alike and all the big things in their lives happened at the same time. They had a double wedding. Rosa is married to Jean-Marc, a Frenchman who’s lived in Ireland for … God, twenty-five years? They’ve two sons. Hero is married to a man called Harry and they also have two sons, almost the same age as Rosa and Jean-Marc’s. It’s absolutely spooky how their lives mirror each other’s.’

  ‘But tell me about your kids.’

  A strange expression flickered across his face. He looked wounded and almost ashamed. ‘We don’t have kids.’

  That was a huge surprise. I’d spent so much time in my head and in the imaginary life I’d created for him that I’d really believed he had three chi
ldren.

  ‘Today,’ he said. ‘I’m going to do a run-through of your reflexes, to see if there’s any response. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘We’re trying for a baby, Georgie and I.’

  Oh?

  ‘We’ve been trying for a long time. It’s not going so well.’

  God! I didn’t know how to reply.

  ‘We’re doing IVF,’ he said. ‘It’s a secret. Georgie doesn’t want anyone knowing until it’s all okay. She doesn’t want everyone’s eyes on her, wondering if this time it’s worked. She doesn’t want anyone’s pity.’

  I could understand that.

  ‘So I haven’t been able to tell anyone.’

  But he was telling me. Then again, did it matter, seeing as I couldn’t speak and I’d never meet his wife?

  ‘Well, I’ve told Roland, obviously.’

  What was obvious about it?

  ‘Because he’s my best friend.’

  That surprised me a little and Mannix bristled. ‘Roland is a lot more than someone who buys cars he can’t afford,’ he said. ‘He’d do anything for anyone and he’s the best company you could ever have.’

  Right, that was me told.

  After a short tense silence, Mannix began talking again. It was as if he couldn’t stop. ‘We’ve had two rounds of IVF already. Both times the embryo implanted and both times Georgie miscarried. I knew the stats weren’t in our favour, but still, when we lost them, it knocked us sideways.’

  I was shocked by this tragic story; it was so unexpected. I managed to blink, ‘I’m very sad for you.’

  Mannix shrugged and studied his hands. ‘It’s far tougher for Georgie – all the hormones she has to be injected with. Then she tries so hard to hold onto the embryo and I can do nothing to help. I feel like a big, useless eejit. At the moment we’re on round three and Georgie is PUPO – Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise. We’re holding our breath.’

  Desperately trying to convey encouragement, I blinked out, ‘Good luck.’ Sometimes language was so useless. Even if I’d been able to speak I couldn’t have communicated how much I hoped this would work for him and his wife.

  He kept talking. ‘I was forty last year, Georgie this year, and suddenly everything seemed meaningless if we didn’t have kids. We should have started trying earlier, but we were … stupid, delusional. We thought we had more time than we did.’ He lapsed into silence. After a few moments he spoke again.