Mistake

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  ‘You have to decide if you’re going to forgive him or not,’ she says.

  The swinging pendulum. Forgive and forget. Or leave.

  ‘Do you think I should?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s entirely up to you,’ says Mum. ‘But you need to weigh it up. One moment of . . . well . . . whatever, against all the years you’ve been together. All the years you’ve had a really strong marriage. Two children. Your future. Life is so short, sweetheart. You don’t want to fill it with regrets.’

  The pendulum moves slowly from side to side. Which would I regret more, though?

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ she adds.

  ‘Not with the effing next-door neighbour,’ I say. ‘Not in my bed.’

  ‘It was an emotional time.’ Mum’s voice is even.

  ‘For me too!’ I cry. ‘Made twice as emotional by seeing that woman’s fat arse bobbing up and down in front of me.’

  ‘Roxy!’

  ‘It’s true. You weren’t there. It was . . . humiliating.’

  ‘Lots of people get over humiliation.’

  ‘So I’m supposed to go back home and live next door to her like nothing happened?’

  ‘Look, I’m not excusing Dave, I’m really not,’ she says. ‘But sometimes stuff goes wrong and you have to make up your mind how you want to play it.’

  I look at the photo of me and Aidan. And the one of Mica and Tom. I think about the options.

  ‘Dave is really sorry,’ she adds.

  ‘Has he told you that?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, which surprises me.

  ‘Have you been in touch with him?’ I ask.

  ‘He called me,’ she says. ‘He wanted to know how you were. He’s devastated, Roxy.’

  ‘Not half as devastated as me.’ But I like hearing that. I like knowing he’s unhappy. He deserves to be unhappy after what he did to me. And then I realise I’m wanting to punish him again. Is that what it’s really about? Do I want to go home but make sure he suffers first? If that’s really the case, I’m a horrible person.

  ‘If you can get over something like this, it can make you stronger,’ says Mum.

  But the thing is, I thought we were strong already.

  Until we weren’t.

  ‘I’ll think about it seriously over the next few days,’ I promise her. ‘I really will.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have left the house,’ she says abruptly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You should have stayed there with the children and made him move out, if that’s how you want to play it.’

  ‘The house is part of the problem,’ I tell her. ‘I couldn’t stay there knowing that Julie had been . . . Well, I couldn’t stay.’ I don’t tell her that I walked around every room after Dave had gone to work and that I felt physically sick at the idea of that woman touching any of my stuff. And that it had been almost impossible to go into the bedroom to collect the few clothes I did, because I could still smell her there.

  ‘I’m with you no matter what, Roxy,’ Mum says. ‘You know that.’

  I can’t talk about this now. I can’t. I shuffle through the photos again, a lump in my throat, until I stop at an overexposed picture of my dad and a young woman I don’t recognise. She has long dark hair tumbling around her face and is barefoot, dressed in a white T-shirt and flared jeans. Her arms are raised over her head and she’s laughing. Dad is also wearing flared jeans. His hair is almost to his shoulders and he has a kind of beardy growth on both sides of his face.

  I hold it out to Mum and an entire kaleidoscope of emotions pass across her face.

  ‘Christy was so proud of his sideburns,’ she says as she studies it. ‘They were all the rage back in the seventies.’

  ‘Who’s the woman?’ I ask the more important question.

  Mum is silent. She’s turning the photo over and back in her hands and I can see tension in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘Who’s the woman?’ I repeat.

  She still doesn’t answer, and I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

  ‘His first girlfriend.’ She puts the photo back on the table just as I’m thinking she isn’t going to say anything at all.

  You always remember your first love. Though unlike me, you don’t always marry them. I’m not surprised Mum is a bit upset at seeing the snap. I’d brain Dave if he kept a picture of another woman in the house. I’m surprised Dad did.

  ‘Did you know her?’ I ask. ‘Was she one of your friends?’

  ‘No,’ she replies. ‘It was only a short-term thing. Your dad’s summer romance.’ She’s regained her equilibrium and shrugs. ‘I didn’t know he’d kept it. Sentimental old fool.’

  I take the photo from her and study it more closely. It’s difficult to see the woman’s face behind her mass of hair, but her joy in the moment is very evident. I find it hard to imagine Dad before Mum. Before us.

  ‘Did he tell you her name?’

  Again I think she isn’t going to answer, but eventually she says, ‘Estelle.’

  ‘How did they meet?’ I ask the question before realising that there’s no reason for my mum to know anything at all about the girl Dad was in love with before her.

  But she’s gazing into the distance, and it’s as though she’s travelling back in time.

  ‘Your dad went on a camping holiday with some of his mates,’ she tells me. ‘She was staying in a mobile home on a nearby site with her parents. They met at some kind of disco and it was love at first sight. According to Christy, anyhow.’

  ‘A summer of love.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Oh?’ Now I’m intrigued.

  Mum hesitates as though she’s going to dismiss it, but then releases a slow breath and starts to talk.

  ‘It was definitely a love-at-first sight moment for your dad, and I don’t blame him, do you? She was so pretty. Turns out, though, that she shouldn’t have been at the disco in the first place. Her parents were very strict and she’d sneaked out of the mobile home they were staying in.’

  ‘I suppose they found out and gave her grief about it. Did they split them up? Was it literally a one-night stand?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Mum picks up the photo and looks at it again. ‘They met a few times in secret. But it was always going to end in tears.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘One night her mum and dad realised she wasn’t in the mobile home and went looking for her. They found her and your dad together in one of the sheds on the campsite.’

  I try not to imagine my dad (a man I’ve never seen with long hair and sideburns) in a shed with a pretty young girl.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Her father nearly beat yours to a pulp, by all accounts,’ says Mum. ‘Told him to stay away from his daughter and never to touch her again.’ She picks up a different photo, one of Dad, and shows it to me. ‘Remember the scar on his face?’ I nod. It was a faint jagged scar that ran along his forehead. I always felt it gave him a slightly edgy look. ‘Well,’ says Mum, ‘that was a result of the beating.’

  ‘But that’s dreadful!’ I exclaim. ‘Did he go to the guards?’

  Mum shakes her head. ‘He was afraid it would make things worse for Estelle. From what she’d said, he reckoned her father wasn’t above giving her a beating too.’

  ‘He should have said something. So should she!’ I’m angry on behalf of them both.

  ‘Times were different then,’ says Mum. ‘Especially for girls. She was from the country. A farmer’s daughter.’

  ‘Even so . . .’ I try to imagine Dave beating Mica for anything, and thankfully I can’t. And it’s not because times have changed; it’s because it’s utterly wrong of a man to beat a woman. Especially his own daughter.

  ‘They left the following day,’ says Mum. ‘Your dad was devastated. And he always regretted not going to the police.’

  ‘That’s so awful.’ I feel sad for both of them. ‘Did Dad ever see her afterwards?’

  ‘Like I said, it was a different t
ime. When he went to look for her, they’d already packed up and left, and he had no way of getting in touch.’

  ‘Didn’t he know where she lived? Couldn’t he have phoned?’

  ‘He only knew that it was Carlow or Kilkenny, somewhere around that area,’ says Mum. ‘They hadn’t exchanged phone numbers.’

  I find it difficult to imagine a world in which you can’t find the person you’re looking for. Between social media and smartphones, it’s harder to stay off the radar than it is to be found.

  ‘On the one hand, it’s a tragedy,’ I say as I return Estelle’s photo to the pile. ‘She looks so happy in that picture. But on the upside, Dad found you, so it worked out in the end.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Mum.

  She picks up the photo and stares at it for a long time, a faraway expression on her face.

  I’m trying both to visualise and forget my dad as a young man chasing after a beautiful woman who isn’t my mum. But even though I’m horrified for Estelle and what might have happened to her, I’m glad that my dad didn’t get involved with her any further. Because if he had, I wouldn’t be me. And even though my life is difficult right now, at least I can be sure of one thing. That no matter what, Dave would never be violent to me or the children.

  And that makes me the lucky one.

  Chapter 5

  I’m up early again the next morning for my airport pickups, and then I drive to the Gibson for Eric’s suit. I get there ten minutes ahead of schedule. I expect to have to wait – business executives nearly always make you wait – but Patrick’s doppelgänger is already outside the glass doors, and when I pull up, he walks across to the car before I have a chance to text him.

  He hesitates as I get out.

  ‘Are you my driver?’

  ‘Ivo Lehane? Kildare?’ I ask the question anyway.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re with me so.’ I open the door to the back seat.

  He gets in and I return to behind the wheel.

  ‘Whereabouts in Kildare?’ I ask.

  ‘Banville Terrace,’ he says. ‘Number two.’

  I’m surprised at this. I thought he’d be going to a hotel. But perhaps he has friends or family to stay with. His accent is Irish, after all, although it has a slight mid-Atlantic twang.

  I put the address into my satnav and start to drive.

  Ivo Lehane hasn’t bothered to take out his phone or his tablet or any papers. He’s simply sitting in the back seat without saying a word.

  It’ll take about an hour to get to his destination. I don’t mind driving in silence, but I want to give him the opportunity to talk if he feels like it.

  ‘I’m using the Port Tunnel,’ I say. ‘Then the motorway. It’s quicker that way.’

  ‘Whatever you think is best,’ he says.

  ‘Would you like some music?’ I ask.

  ‘Quiet is good,’ he replies.

  I take it he means me as well as no music. So I shut up and keep my attention entirely on the road. Although obviously my mind wanders. I think about Mum last night telling me I needed to make plans. I know she’s right. But I don’t see why I have to do it yet. I need time to come to terms with things.

  Since the first time I saw Dave after Rodeo Night, we haven’t been alone together. Our communication – his apologies and my replies saying that I can’t forgive him yet – have all been by text. The only times we’ve seen each other are when he’s picked up the children, and Mum has always been there too. I’ve been super-cool but polite, trying to keep our conversations to the bare minimum and not talking about anything important. I haven’t brought the kids to our home or collected them. I’m too mortified to be seen in the Beechgrove estate. I can imagine everyone peeking out from behind their curtains and the texts flying between them saying that I’m back. That’s what happens. When Johnny Maguire left Brenna and her three children, it was like a bush telegraph every time he turned up on his doorstep afterwards. We all texted each other, and after he left, we texted Brenna to check if she was OK. We thought we were being supportive, but she probably cringed at every one of our well-meaning messages.

  Maybe Mum was right and I should’ve told Dave to get out. But he might not have gone. You can’t tell someone to leave the house simply because they’ve cheated on you with the next-door neighbour. Dave is perfectly entitled to stay. I know this because Brenna dumped all Johnny’s stuff on the front lawn when they split up and he simply brought it back inside. And Brenna’s solicitor told her there was nothing she could do about it because there was no threat of violence. They shared the house for nearly six months until Johnny finally decided to leave. It’s fair enough. But it’s no way to live. And I can’t do it. I can’t move back in with Dave if I’m going to divorce him. Besides, we only have three bedrooms. Where would I sleep? On the sofa? Like I was the one to blame? Because I couldn’t possibly sleep in our bedroom, and I wouldn’t dream of asking Mica and Tom to share.

  My fingers tighten on the steering wheel.

  I wish I hadn’t gone home that morning. I wish I’d never seen them together. I wish everything was the way it was before.

  The satnav directs me to a small street a short distance outside the town. There’s a general air of neglect about the half-dozen small houses on each side, which I guess from their design were built sometime in the 1940s or 50s. I pull up outside the first house on the left-hand side. Like the others, it’s narrow, with a tiny garden in the front. The green paint is flaking off the hall door and the net curtain at the front window is grey with age.

  I’m surprised that a man like Ivo Lehane might be staying here.

  He doesn’t move and I glance in the rear-view mirror, wondering if he fell asleep on the drive and is still sleeping. But he’s looking out of the window.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’ He gathers himself and I actually hear him taking a deep breath.

  I recognise it. It’s the kind of breath you take when you’re steeling yourself for something you don’t want to do. I wonder if Banville Terrace is where Ivo Lehane grew up. If it is, he’s moved a long way from it and clearly doesn’t want to be back.

  I get out of the car to open the door for him. Often my male passengers don’t wait for me to do that. Like Desmond Ryan, they’re uncomfortable with a woman opening the door – at least at first. But Ivo is still sitting in the back seat as I stand beside the open door. It takes him another few seconds to get out of the car.

  ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘That was a very pleasant journey.’ He gives me the merest hint of a smile but it transforms his face and takes years off him. I’m actually hopeless at guessing people’s ages, but Ivo must be around the same age as me. Early forties at most. There’s a kind of grittiness about him that you don’t often see in the polished, groomed businessmen that are my bread and butter as a driver. His stubbled chin is more a reflection of not shaving than a carefully studied designer style. His hair is tousled, but that’s because during the journey he kept running his fingers through it. And there’s a touch of hardness behind his blue eyes.

  It sounds as though I’m studying him, but I’m not really. I notice people. It’s a trait that’s useful in a driver.

  ‘If you ever need me in the future, you have my number,’ I say.

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’ He takes a wallet out of the pocket of his suit and removes some notes, which he hands to me. I count them out and then return fifty euro to him, telling him he’s overpaid.

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ he says.

  ‘I really can’t accept it.’

  ‘Honestly.’ He looks from me to the house. ‘It’s a tip, that’s all.’

  ‘But—’

  He puts up his hand in a gesture that means he won’t take the money back, and almost immediately walks towards the house.

  ‘Enjoy your stay in Kildare,’ I call after him, still stunned by the amount I’ve earned for this trip.

  But he won’t enjoy it.

  That much is
obvious.

  Chapter 6

  I make everyone’s favourite, spaghetti bolognese, when I get home, and we all sit around the table together: me, Mum, Mica and Tom. Nobody is using a device and the TV is switched off, so we have to talk. Even though Tom is the more reflective of the children, he’s also the chattiest, and he’s talking about the football club because of me going to the fund-raiser later.

  ‘I hope we get new kit,’ he says. ‘That would be awesome.’

  ‘Ooh, yes.’ Mica looks enthusiastic. ‘My top has a hole in it.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘Where Shannon Wilson tackled me,’ Mica says. ‘Total foul, Mum, but she wasn’t even carded.’

  She sounds like her dad when she talks about football. I smile at her.

  ‘Maybe she’ll get it knocked out of her in summer camp,’ says Mum.

  ‘Nah.’ Mica shakes her head. ‘She fouls because she can’t tackle.’

  ‘But perhaps she’ll learn.’

  Mica looks a bit disconcerted by this. She’s by far the best girl on the mixed under-12s team she plays for, and I’m thinking that she doesn’t like the idea of Shannon getting better. I say that it would be a good thing for everyone to improve.

  ‘Yes.’ She nods and then shakes her head. ‘I don’t think Shannon can. She’s not fast enough.’

  ‘Mica’s fast,’ agrees Tom. ‘I bet she’ll be the best at the camp.’

  His sister hugs him and I feel proud that my children support each other. I know I sometimes think I’m a crap mother, but actually I’ve done a reasonably good job. Then Mica takes the last piece of garlic bread and Tom goes mental and the two of them are shouting at each other and I stop the self-congratulation.

  ‘If you’re not quiet, neither of you will be going to summer camp!’ I have to yell to make myself heard. The silence is instant. They’ve been looking forward to the camp, which starts in a couple of weeks or so, ever since the start of the holidays. ‘Thank you,’ I tell them.