by Marian Keyes
But was it the right one?
How could I know?
My head was spinning. I felt frightened and out of control.
Two possible lives were being offered to me. The one with James. And maybe one with Adam.
Was I throwing the wrong one away? Had I misunderstood my destiny?
Was the break-up with James meant to happen so that I could meet Adam and be a lot happier? Had I been given pain so that I would grow strong?
Had I misunderstood all the signs?
Had I gotten everything wrong?
But it was too late. I had made my decision. And I was going to go through with it. I’d make myself crazy if I kept changing my mind.
My future was with James. Adam no longer existed in my life.
I was probably just a good lay for Adam. Well, I liked to think that I was a good one. But maybe it was just about sex.
But, then again, maybe it wasn’t.
What should I do then?
I had to get over him. I would get over him.
Of course I would.
I had only known him about three weeks.
It’s just that, well, you know…he had an effect on me. He touched me in an unexpected way. He made me feel like taking care of him. He made me feel special and wonderful in a way that James no longer did.
Hey! Maybe this was all just down to my rampaging ego. James no longer made me feel good about myself. So I latched on to the next available man who did make me feel good.
But, in all honesty, I really didn’t think that was it.
Adam was special.
Adam and I were special.
Although not anymore.
Adam despised me now. For my stupidity in buying James’s crappy explanation. And for the speed with which I left his bed and went off with someone else. Even if that someone else was my husband.
It really hurt that Adam thought so little of me. Although I didn’t blame him. I didn’t have a lot of respect for myself either.
thirty-two
After the conversation with Adam on Tuesday, I worked hard at forgetting him. Every time I thought of him, I blanked it out. I tried to think of nice things, like the buzz of London. And the comfort of getting back to my own apartment. And how nice it would be to see all my friends again. And how interesting it would be to think about getting back to work. And how pleasant it would be to be back in a city where every second shop sells shoes.
And things would work out with James. I should be so happy. I had been granted everything that I’d absolutely ached for in the first month or so after he had left.
My life was going to be made all better. As though James’s little indiscretion had never really happened. Hopefully I could just edit out these three months or so and carry on as planned. Kate was going to have her daddy.
I was going to have my husband. We would restart our old life. And, if I had to take care to be quieter and less giddy and more serious and solicitous of James’s happiness and peace of mind, then that was a small price to pay.
I was sure that if I worked at it, it wouldn’t be as awful as it sounded.
I’d learn my new personality. It’d be good for me. And the dread that I was feeling would pass.
And, of course, some of the sadness that I was feeling was the wrench of leaving my family. Bad and all as they were, I’d kind of grown used to them over the past weeks. Their anarchic version of family life seemed infinitely more desirable than the calm, ordered existence that lay ahead of me with James.
I’d miss them. I’d miss Mum, I’d miss Dad, I’d miss Anna.
Hell, I might even miss Helen.
But maybe not.
I was finding this difficult. I still got terrible surges of anger and feeling mistreated by James. It was hard to resist the urge to pick up the phone and tell him what a selfish bastard he was. That he had no right to make me feel as if everything that had happened was all my fault. That I wasn’t a bad person. That I wasn’t even a selfish person. Or an immature one. But then I envisioned how he would respond to my rage. He’d be all rational explanations and condemnations. And I would feel even worse. More frustrated. As if I’d let myself down even more.
The one thing that made me able to contain all this rage was the realization that somewhere, somehow—entirely inadvertently, mind you—I had been wrong. The words that he said that night in the Italian restaurant kept echoing in my head: “If I’d been happy, why would I have left you?”
So I had no choice. I had to accept that it was my fault. He wouldn’t have left me, he wouldn’t have taken the terrible step of having an affair, of thinking that he was in love with someone else, if it hadn’t been my fault.
James was not a womanizer. James was not a frivolous person. James thought long and hard—too bloody long and hard, if you asked me—about everything. He didn’t do foolish and disruptive things just for the fun of it. He must have had no choice. He must have been at the end of his tether.
Things would be okay. Eventually things would get back to normal with James. It would just take a bit of time.
I was doing the right thing.
I finally decided that I would return to London the following Tuesday.
That would give me enough time to pack. But more importantly, to prepare myself to let go of my resentment against James, to be positive about my attitude to him.
On Friday afternoon, after two frantic days of packing clothes into a suitcase and then later finding them hanging in the back of Helen’s closet, removing them from the wardrobe, repacking them into the suitcase and then a few hours later rediscovering them under Helen’s bed, repacking them, etc., I decided to call James at work to tell him what time my flight was getting in on Tuesday. It was very odd. He had called me at least once a day since Tuesday, making inquiries as to when I would be getting back. He seemed almost… anxious to see me. As though he was afraid that I wouldn’t return. Of course, the nasty cynical part of me decided that he hadn’t had either sex or his washing done since he moved out of the place with Denise and it was no wonder that he was awaiting my return with some anticipation.
But at the same time, it was unusual to feel wanted or needed by him.
After the dismissive and patronizing way he had treated me while he was in Dublin, when he had given me the impression that he was doing me a favor by taking me back.
Now, although he was doing a good job of hiding it, he seemed insecure and uncertain of me.
But he needn’t have worried.
I was going back.
I might not want to. But I was coming back.
I called and got his office. Some man answered and said “No, I’m afraid Mr. Webster isn’t in the office just now.”
Now we all know what happens here. This is the part in the book when the disembodied voice continues and says, “No, Mr. Webster has gone to the abortion clinic with his girlfriend Denise” or “No, Mr. Webster has taken the afternoon off to go home and sleep with his girlfriend Denise silly” or something similar. And where I whisper “Thank you. No, there’s no message” and hang up with shaking hands and cancel the tickets back to London.
However, nothing of the sort happened. The disembodied voice asked,
“Who’s calling please?”
I had to think about that one for a minute.
Who was calling? Then I remembered.
“Oh, er, it’s his wife,” I said.
“Claire!” exclaimed the man, being ultrajovial. Probably to hide his awkwardness. “How are you? George here. Great to hear from you.”
George was James’s partner. And his friend as well. And, I suppose, in his macho, beer-drinking way, he was a friend of mine also.
George was a nice man. If you took certain characteristics of George as given then you would probably get along very well with him. For example, I wouldn’t malign the man by saying that he played rugby. But there was no getting around the fact that he did watch it.
&nbs
p; But he was kind. I liked him, and his wife, Aisling, was a good laugh.
We had all got drunk together on many an occasion.
“Hello, George,” I said, feeling a bit embarrassed.
This was the first time that I had spoken to him since the breakup and I found that I didn’t know what to say. Should I refer to it or not?
Should I pretend that nothing at all had happened? That everything was fine?
Or maybe I should just brazen it out. Deal with it head-on, as it were, by trying to turn it into some kind of joke, with rueful, self-deprecating remarks? Perhaps say “Hi, this is Claire. But you can call me Denise if it’s easier to remember.”
I realized that I was going to find myself in this kind of situation very often for the first couple of weeks after I returned to London.
God, it was going to be humiliating.
But George rescued me by launching straight into it.
“So, you’re coming back to him.” George laughed. “Well, thank God for that. We might get a decent day’s work out of him now.”
“Oh,” I said politely.
“Yes,” continued George with great joviality and bonhomie. Which made me suspect that he had had a long and liquid lunch. Well, let’s be fair. It was Friday, after all. “How can I put it, Claire? Let’s just say that it hasn’t been easy. I mean, you know what he’s like. Finds it hard to talk about his feelings—well, don’t we all, I suppose—and too proud for his own good.
But a blind man can see how much he loves you. And it’s been obvious just from looking at him that he’s been devastated without you. Devastated!
What! Don’t talk to me about it! All I can say is it’s a blessing that you took him back. We’d have had to fire him otherwise.” Big bellow of Three Beers at Lunchtime laughter from George.
What on earth was George saying?
He wasn’t…he couldn’t be…surely he wasn’t laughing at me, was he?
Hot angry ashamed tears filled my eyes.
Had I become a public laughingstock?
Was everyone having a good laugh at my expense?
Yes, yes, okay, to be honest, I admit that in different circumstances I’d have been the first one to laugh at a deserted wife welcoming her errant husband back into the fold with such grateful haste. And I would be a fool if I thought that people wouldn’t privately snigger at how pathetic I was being by taking James back so blithely.
But I couldn’t believe that George was being so openly mocking. I was well aware that James hadn’t been devastated without me. And George was aware that I was aware. Well, he must have been. I knew that they were both men, but surely they must occasionally have discussed something other than football and cars.
But George was usually so nice. I didn’t understand why he was joking about what had happened between James and me. Why was he being so cruel?
I felt so hurt. But I couldn’t cry. I had to stand up for myself. Nip this in the bud. Because if I didn’t everyone would think they had the right to make fun of me.
“Really?” I said with thick sarcasm to George.
Trying to convey in one word that, although James might have treated me with a total lack of respect, it didn’t make me some kind of public target.
James could treat me badly—well, he couldn’t but you know what I mean—but it didn’t give anyone else the right to make fun of me.
The nerve of George! And to think that I had always liked him.
But George didn’t respond to my “Really?”
Well, he certainly didn’t seem to take any offense.
Because he continued good-naturedly. “I’m no expert on relationships, but I’m so glad that the two of you have sorted this whole sorry mess out.
All I can say to you is fair play for forgiving him. It must have been awful for you. But I suppose when you saw the state of him—a bit like the living dead, wasn’t he?—you realized just how sorry he was.”
My head felt as if it was growing tighter with confusion.
What was going on?
Was George making fun of me?
I wasn’t so sure that he was. He sounded sincere.
But if he wasn’t mocking me, then what the hell was he talking about?
What did he mean “living dead”? Were we talking about the same James?
The same sanctimonious, judgmental James who came to see me in Dublin?
But before I could gather together my confused thoughts, George was off again.
He was in the mood to talk. Friday afternoon boredom and three beers at lunchtime had obviously loosened his tongue.
“Now, Claire,” he said, mock stern, “I hope you were a sensible girl and didn’t forgive him straightaway. I hop you held out for at least a couple of serious pieces of jewelry and a holiday in the Maldives.”
“Are you joking?” I thought in bewilderment. “I was lucky that he took me back at all. I nearly had to promise him the jewelry and the holiday.”
“Um…” I said.
But George kept talking.
“He loves you so much and he thought he had no hope at all, do you know? He thought that you wouldn’t have anything further to do with him. And, in a way, who could blame you?”
“George!” I interjected forcefully. I had to establish just what was going on! “What are you talking about?”
“About James,” he said in surprise.
“You’re saying that he was sorry that he and I split up?” I asked.
“Well, ‘sorry’ is one way of putting it,” said George with a little laugh.
“Devastated would be a better word in my opinion.”
“But how do you know?” I asked faintly, wondering where George was getting his information from. Because it was obvious that he had been sorely misled.
“James told me,” he said. “We do talk now and again, you know. It’s not just women who have the monopoly on frank and open discussions!”
“Yes, but…I mean, are you sure?”
“Of course I am,” said George indignantly. “He was tortured by the thought of being without you. Tortured! He kept saying to me, ‘George, I love her so much. How can I get her back?’ and I just said to him, ‘James, tell her the truth. Tell her you’re sorry.’ He was driving me crazy!”
“Is that right?” I stammered.
That was all I could manage to say. My head was spinning. This was nothing like what had actually happened.
So what was going on?
“And Claire,” said George in a sympathetic tone, “I know it must have been very hard for you. But I’m sure it was very hard for James also. Because you know how he hates to be wrong. Let’s face it, he very rarely is. So for him to admit that he’d made a terrible mistake, and then to apologize for it, must have been damn near impossible for him. Although, having said that, I’m sure you feel that if you hear the word sorry ever again you’ll puke. You must be sick of hearing it!”
Another bellow of laughter from George.
By now I was sure that George wasn’t making fun of me. That this wasn’t some kind of elaborate and cruel trick. George sounded very serious. But I couldn’t understand why his version of events was so different from the one James had presented to me.
I wasn’t sick of hearing the word sorry. I would have dearly loved to hear the word sorry. But I didn’t think I would have recognized sorry—certainly not from James’s lips—if it jumped up and bit me.
But I had to pay attention because George was off again.
“The weird thing was that James always thought that you’d be the one to have an affair and not him.”
“Why’s that?” I asked. Although I kind of knew what he meant. I was always perceived as the rowdy one and James as the Goody-Two-Shoes.
“Because you’ve always been the party animal,” said George. “The lively, charismatic one. And James never thought he was good enough for you,”
continued George. “Never! Al
ways afraid that he was too serious and boring for you. Us accountants don’t have an easy time with the women, you know. They think we’re not exciting enough, would you believe?”
“I never knew that James thought he was too serious and boring for me,”
I said faintly.
“Come on now,” said George disbelievingly. “Wouldn’t you agree that of the two of you, you’re usually the life and soul of things?”
“Yes,” I tentatively agreed, desperate to keep George talking.
“And James!” George laughed. “Well you couldn’t find a better bloke but at the same time he wouldn’t exactly be surrounded by people and keeping them all in stitches, now, would he?”
“No, I suppose not,” I said. “But if I was to quiet down a bit, then maybe he wouldn’t feel so boring.”
“But what would be the point of that?” exclaimed George. “Then you wouldn’t be you.”
“I know,” I thought frantically. “But that’s what James wants me to do.”
“Well, maybe James didn’t enjoy living with someone as noisy and lively as me,” I suggested to George. “Maybe I got on his nerves.”
What I was doing was unforgivable. I was now blatantly fishing for information from George. I was encouraging him to shop his mate.
“Don’t be so silly.” George laughed. “Of course you didn’t get on his nerves. He did find it difficult sometimes. But that was only his ego and his insecurity playing up. It can’t always be easy living with someone who’s a lot more popular than oneself.”
“Oh,” I said faintly. “I see.”
And, do you know something? I think I did. I think I had started to understand.
Should I tell George that?
But I had to think about everything I had just heard. I couldn’t listen to any more or my head would burst.
I started to ease my way out of the conversation with George.
“How come you’re such an expert on relationships all of a sudden?” I asked him teasingly. “You’ve gone all sensitive and new-man-nish on me.”
“Oh, er,” he said, sounding both embarrassed and pleased, “Aisling bought me a book about it.”
“I see.” I laughed. “Well, thanks a lot, George, you’ve been a great help.”
