by Emma Murray
I make a face and say nothing. What do I care what they think of Ryan or his ‘mean’ eyes?
‘Is he your boyfriend?’ my mum says in her teasing voice, but I can see more than a glint of disapproval in her eyes, and suddenly I am very pissed off.
‘Fuck off, the pair you!’ I begin, enraged. ‘He’s just a friend, and even if he wasn’t, what does it matter? It’s not like David is being exactly faithful.’
Then I stop, realising what I’ve said. It’s the first time I’ve uttered those words out loud and they sound dreadful… terrifying.
My mother and Jen stare at me, mercifully speechless for once.
Jen finds her voice first. ‘Hang on, Saoirse, are you telling us that David – your husband of five years – is shagging someone else?’
I look her straight in the eye, catch my breath, and my voice breaks as I say, ‘Yes.’
Wide-eyed, Jen turns to look at my mother and they lock eyes before doing something completely unexpected.
The two of them burst out laughing.
This is the first time I have been in the sea twice in one day, and it feels colder than normal, but I ignore it by thrashing it with my arms and beating it with my legs. Despite its freezing temperatures, it does nothing to cool down my rage and eventually I stop swimming and start treading water, wondering how far I have come. I am both gratified and slightly nervous to see I have swum well beyond the humping camels and I wonder how far I would have to go to end up like that poor swimmer whose name has been immortalised by Frank’s terrible graffiti on the cliff wall.
I brush away angry tears with salty hands and think about what happened in McGowan’s not yet an hour ago. It wasn’t the laughter that had made me storm out of the pub. It was something far worse. First of all, they picked holes in my story of how I had discovered the affair: ‘Sure, that text could have meant anything, Saoirse’ – my mother, and, ‘People work late all the time, Saoirse – it doesn’t mean anything!’ – Jen, and, ‘Sure, aren’t flowers a nice gesture?’ – both of them. And then Jen asked me why I hadn’t confronted David about it, and I told her because I needed time to process it.
Then my mother looked at me with eyes as narrow as slits and said, ‘Saoirse, I think I know why you haven’t said anything to David. It’s because part of you wants it to be true.’
And that was when I stood up, told them they could go fuck themselves, and raced back to the house for my swimsuit.
I stop treading water and start swimming again, this time towards the shore. Fuck them, I think ferociously. As if I want my marriage to dissolve; as if I want Anna to be without her father – and I swim and I swim to thrash away the niggling voice that comes from deep down and that whispers perhaps part of what my mum has said might be a little bit true. Maybe I want to think badly of David because I want a reason to leave him; one where the blame would solely be on his side, and not mine.
Ten minutes later, I am exhausted, my mind too numb from the cold to think any longer. I switch to breaststroke and start swimming to a place where I can stand. Two figures waving on the beach interrupt my pace. I squint my eyes and can just about make out my mother and Jen standing at the edge of the sea, waving furiously in my direction. I ignore them and continue my breaststroke. As I get closer, I hear them shouting. They want to talk to me. Well, they can feck off. I motion with my middle finger that it would be best to leave me be, but they fold their arms and stamp their feet and shake their heads, intent on staying where they are.
This is annoying. I can’t get out of the sea without passing them, and so I choose to stay where I am. A voice inside tells me that it’s a bit nuts to choose hypothermia over talking to the woman who gave birth to me and my long-time best friend, but there you have it. Either they feck off and leave me to it, or I stay where I am. This stand-off lasts another three minutes. Eventually, Jen starts making praying gestures with her hands and my mother starts shouting, ‘Ah, come on, Saoirse!’ and suddenly I come up with an idea.
I feel for the stony surface of the sea bed and stand with the water up to my chest. If they want to talk to me, they can damn well come to me. I do a beckoning gesture, and shout, ‘Come in!’
They look at each other and laugh nervously.
My mother cups her hands over her mouth and shouts, ‘And how can we come in if we have no swimsuits?’
I give an exaggerated shrug in return. Secretly, I’m hoping that they will piss off and get their swimsuits, leaving my exit clear. But then they do something far more unexpected.
They start taking off their clothes.
Jen goes first, pulling her top over her head in one move, before wriggling out of her skirt until she stands there in a stunning gold bra and pants, looking like a twenty-something Victoria’s Secret model. My anger against her increases. We are the same age.
My mother hesitates for only a moment and then quickly strips off her polo shirt and tracksuit bottoms until she is down to her big pants, and I am also annoyed with her because for a sixty-nine-year-old woman she looks bloody fit, and seems to possess a flatter stomach and fewer stretchmarks than I do.
I start treading water again to keep warm, comforting myself in the knowledge that this whole charade will come to an end when these two amateurs hit the freezing water. Ha! They’ll be lucky to get in past their ankles.
They start walking smartly over the sand and both stop dead as soon as their feet touch the water. I remember doing the exact same thing when I first got in: the shock of something that cold hitting such a small part of your body, and how incomprehensible it seems to subject the rest of your body to the same treatment. It’s a real do-or-die moment. My mother shoots a wide-eyed look at Jen but Jen pumps both her fists in the air in a sort of ‘we can do this!’ gesture.
‘It’ll be grand once you’re in!’ I shout, unable to resist the most patronising phrase in the English language when it comes to reassuring reluctant swimmers about freezing water temperatures.
Jen gives me the two fingers, before throwing back her shoulders and marching through the water towards me with a steely look on her face. She must be bloody freezing. My mother follows at a more tentative pace, staring down at the water as if she is marginally surprised to see it rising up her body.
As they get closer, I start to feel a little nervous. I hadn’t banked on them actually coming into the sea and I have no idea what I’m going to say to them.
Jen is the first to reach me. The water is up to her shoulders. She stares at me for a moment and then splashes water directly in my face.
‘That’s for making me come in here, you fucking sadist,’ she says.
Despite my anger, I can’t help laughing.
‘See! I told you it would be nice and warm once you got used to it!’
‘Don’t make me splash you again,’ she says grumpily.
My mother joins us, the pain of the freezing temperatures written all over her weary face.
‘Well, if Muhammad won’t go to the mountain…’ she says, hugging her arms to her chest.
‘So, where were we?’ Jen says, for all the world behaving like someone who is simply carrying on a normal conversation that somehow had been interrupted.
‘You were telling me that I actually want my husband to have an affair,’ I say, and give a sulky sniff.
Jen looks at my mother and sighs.
‘Look, Saoirse. We didn’t mean to hurt you, but you have this tendency to…’ my mother says, and then she trails off.
Tendency to what?
‘You have a tendency to put off dealing with difficult situations,’ Jen says matter-of-factly.
My mother smacks the water in agreement. ‘Yes!’ she says to Jen. ‘I call it her “little box”. She did the same thing when her dad died, and she’s doing it again now.’
‘It was the same thing with Hugo,’ Jen says.
‘What about Hugo?’ I say, raising my hands indignantly out of the water. What’s my ex got to do with it?
�
�We had plenty of conversations when things started going south with Hugo. I remember that you spent a lot of time thinking about life without him and how much better it would be. Before you even broke up, you had already decided to chuck your job in and flat-share with Joss,’ she said.
‘So you’re saying I should have stayed with Hugo?’ I say, folding wet arms across my chest.
‘No, you did the right thing, but you never really opened up to him and told him how you were feeling. My point is that Hugo wasn’t the right man for you, but David is. I’m worried’ – here my mum gives her a nudge – ‘we’re worried that instead of confronting David about your problems, you’re persuading yourself that life is better without him.’
‘That’s utter horseshit,’ I tell them both.
‘What would life without David look like?’ my mother says, quietly, reaching out with one wet hand and touching my shoulder. And I don’t know if it’s the intimacy of the gesture that does it but suddenly everything just pours out.
‘Life would be easier on my own. I wouldn’t feel so bloody trapped. I would finally be free to do whatever I wanted,’ I say angrily.
Then suddenly I can’t stop talking. I tell them if David wasn’t around I wouldn’t have to deal with the petty house shit that causes so much resentment between us; that I wouldn’t have to keep reminding him of routine stuff for Anna that he should really know by now, like what she eats for tea or what toy she likes to snuggle up to in bed. That I could watch all the shit reality TV I wanted without him complaining all the way through.
I wouldn’t have to worry about his sheer insensitivity for having a go at me for not changing the towels to clean ones because I’ve been distracted by one of Anna’s horrific meltdowns, or feel beyond irritated when he refolds his T-shirts after I’ve spent ages on them. And I wouldn’t have to spend day after day holding my breath just because I don’t want to get into yet another argument about all this meaningless shit.
When I finish ranting, Jen waits a moment before saying, ‘Do you still love David, Saoirse?’
And the words spill out of my mouth before I can stop them.
‘Of course I do!’ And then I realise that I really do. For all his flaws and irritating habits, I love my husband. There might be moments of relief that he’s absent when he is away and I’m on my own with Anna, but after a couple of days, I start to miss him. It’s just sometimes harder to be with him. And then there are all these other feelings I have been experiencing lately. If I really loved David, why was I so attracted to Ryan?
I look at Mum and Jen and they are smiling, and then I ruin it all by saying, ‘It’s just that I think sometimes love isn’t enough.’
My mother’s expression darkens.
‘Do you think you’re the only one who feels this way when the kids come along? I had all this with your father, Saoirse. God forgive me, but he was bloody useless when you were little. In fact, it’s a good thing he’s already dead because I might have murdered him myself,’ she says, wiping her wet hand across her forehead.
I am in shock because my mother has never said anything bad about my father – ever. In fact, throughout my existence there has been no pedestal high enough for him.
Jen pats my mother on the arm, and says, ‘Look, I don’t have kids but I know relationships are hard enough without kids. There were times when I wanted to smother Liam in his sleep.’
I look at her curiously. They had both seemed so happy together. I’m dying to know why she wanted to murder him as he slumbered.
‘Saoirse, you love David. You’re meant to be together. There’s nobody else on this earth who loves you as much as he does,’ my mother says.
But something in my expression must alert her because her eyes widen and she says, ‘Saoirse! Tell me there’s nobody else!’
And I tut, look skyward and tell her not to be so ridiculous, but I can see by Jen’s raised eyebrows that she’s not convinced.
‘So, here’s my theory,’ she says, glaring at me. ‘People who leave the person they are married to in order to act on their fantasies of a particular person eventually end up in the same position but just with a different person.’
I take both hands out of the water and shake them in a ‘what the fuck?’ motion because I have no idea what she’s on about.
My mum says, ‘She’s saying that if you leave David for Ryan, you’ll have great sex for the first six months and then it will be back to the same boring domestic routine and griping as you have now. Except it will be worse because a child will be involved.’
I don’t know which shocks me more, the mention of Ryan or my mother using the word ‘sex’.
‘Ah, for fuck’s sake,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to run away with Ryan. Sure, I barely know him!’
‘He fancies you, Saoirse,’ Jen says.
‘Fuck off, Jen,’ I reply, but secretly I’m flattered. I mean, look at him.
‘It’s always nice to get a bit of male attention, as long as you don’t act on it,’ my mother says, wagging her finger. ‘Mind you, if I was thirty years younger, I’d be tempted meself!’
Jen and I burst out laughing at this and the mood lightens. Then my mother starts doing jumping jacks in the water to ‘warm up’ and the sight is so comical that Jen and I start to giggle all over again.
When we are finally quiet, my mother says, ‘Listen. I want you to promise me that you’ll talk to David about everything, including this supposed affair.’
I know she’s right. It’s only fair that I confront David about it.
‘Some things don’t stack up, Saoirse; there has to be another reason for that text and all the late nights. He’s too in love with you to mess around. I mean, he barely even looks at me,’ Jen says, giving me a wink.
I know she’s joking but it is true: Jen is a total knockout and David has never given her as much as a polite glance. Mind you, neither has Ryan. STOP IT!
My mother’s teeth start to chatter and we decide to head back to the shore. As we stumble over the gravelly bits towards the beach, my mother says, ‘Ah, Saoirse, you wouldn’t survive a day without David. You’re bloody hopeless on your own.’
‘Well, you did it!’ I say, defensively.
‘True, but you don’t have to,’ she says, throwing an arm around me.
And I let myself lean in to the embrace, because she’s absolutely right.
19
I wake up the next morning with the usual feeling of missing Anna, but today there is something else there, and it takes me a minute to figure it out. Then I remember the day before and smile. After we came out of the sea, shivering and blue, we traipsed up to The Cube for hot showers and large glasses of wine. The three of us sat there until midnight, drinking and laughing and exchanging juicy stories. My mother cracked us all up with untold and not exactly flattering stories about my father (‘He was the type of man who would prefer to rub sticks together to light the fire than spend a few pence on the matches’); and Jen caused even more hilarity by describing Liam’s first efforts in bed as ‘strictly vanilla’. (‘Honestly, the only orgasm he was interested in was his own.’)
And as always happens when high quantities of alcohol are consumed, there were the confessional moments too.
My mother: ‘I should have given you and David a chance to spend more time together without Anna.’
Followed by Jen: ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about breaking up with Liam.’
And me to my mother: ‘I should have asked more for your help.’
And me to Jen: ‘I’ll be here whenever you need me.’
And then we all had a little cry and more wine, and then, ‘Who wants Prosecco?’ before Jen finally ordered a taxi home (‘I like to wake up in my own bed’), and my mum and I retreated into our respective bedrooms.
This morning, with woolly heads, my mother and I sit down in our nighties to an early breakfast of good old-fashioned porridge with a bit of toast. It’s time I started eating healthily again after abusing my bo
dy with red wine and pizza for the last seven days.
The toast pops up, and Mum springs up to get it. When she puts the plate down in front of me I notice she has buttered it and cut it into four triangles, just the way I used to like it when I was a child. This tiny act makes me feel oddly emotional and, in a rush, I start to tell her about the motherhood book, what I need to do to pitch for it and the ideas I’ve had so far. All the time she listens in her usual way – with her head cocked to one side.
When I have finally finished, she pushes her plate away from her and wrinkles her forehead.
‘I was twenty-nine when I had you,’ she begins, ‘and truth be told, I didn’t know what hit me. As I told you in the sea yesterday, your father was useless, but so were all men in those days. A man’s work was outside the house, earning a living, and the woman’s was inside the house raising the children.’
‘So how did you cope?’ I say. This is the first time my mum has spoken to me so intimately about life after I was born and I am breathless to know more.
‘I had a group of friends from school, who were all in the same boat,’ she says, with a wistful look in her eye.
Then she interrupts herself to ask me if I remember Joan with the lazy eye, and Trish who used to play tennis on a Sunday. I nod, not because I remember Trish and Joan but because I’m desperate for her to continue.
‘Anyway, you’d go round to one of your friend’s houses with your screaming baby in one arm and a bag of nappy cloths in the other, on your knees from being up half the night, and you’d walk out of there an hour later, crying your eyes out from the laughter,’ she says smiling at the memory.
‘So, no judgement then?’ I say.
‘Ah, no, these would be my closest friends. The judgement came from all those snobby cows at mass on a Sunday. They’d bring their babies dressed up to the nines, parading them up the aisle at Communion, desperate to show off the latest fashion. If your baby gave as much as a squeak, they’d give you the biggest glare. And don’t get me started on their disapproving views about breast-feeding.’
