Lessons in Heartbreak

by Cathy Kelly

  It was a busy scene but never frantic. Tamarin had a calming effect on people: as if the very bricks of the town murmured a message that there was enough time in the day for everything, and if there wasn’t, whatever was left could wait till morning.

  When she had a moment, Izzie decided, she’d come back and sit in Dorota’s and watch the town unfold around her, the way she used to when she was at school and would sit there with her friends gossiping and pretending they didn’t see the boys from school doing the same thing. For now, she only had time to buy a takeaway coffee of Dorota’s strong Colombian blend. Gran loved that coffee and Izzie decided that if she sat at her grandmother’s bed, the scent could drift over her. If Izzie’s voice had woken her up yesterday, maybe Izzie’s voice and that wonderful smell could wake her up today.

  She never got to try her theory out because when she reached the hospital with her coffee cup in her hand, she saw her aunt sitting on a bench in the small hospital garden to the right of the ambulance bay. Anneliese didn’t notice her: she looked as if she wouldn’t notice a meteorite unless it landed directly on top of her. The hospital was built high up on the east side of the town and looked out at the harbour. Anneliese was staring out to sea blankly.

  Watching her, Izzie fought the desire to go into the hospital and not confront whatever was troubling Anneliese. She didn’t have the energy for someone else’s pain. But that was the coward’s way out.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, sitting down beside her aunt.

  ‘Hi, Izzie,’ said Anneliese dully, then turned back to the sea.

  ‘It’s beautiful here,’ Izzie continued. When in doubt, make small talk.

  Anneliese nodded. ‘Beautiful,’ she repeated.

  Izzie took a deep draught of her coffee for moral courage. She figured that there was some problem in Edward and Anneliese’s marriage. She hoped it wasn’t serious. At home in New York, marriages flew into turbulence every day and such a thing was quite normal. But here, it felt different. As if the ‘till death us do part’ vow simply couldn’t be broken.

  ‘What’s wrong, Anneliese?’ she asked softly. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  She’d expected Anneliese to pause and to tell her slowly. But no. Still looking out to sea and in a voice filled with emotion and anger, Anneliese said: ‘Edward left me for Nell. You remember Nell, my best friend?’

  ‘What!’ said Izzie. ‘I can’t believe it. When?’

  ‘Nearly a week ago,’ said Anneliese, matter of factly. ‘I would tell you exactly how many days and hours, but that sounds too much like a smoker working out how long it is since her last cigarette, so I won’t do that.’

  ‘He left you for Nell?’ repeated Izzie.

  ‘I came home from Mass and they were together; not in bed together, although they might have been. It’s funny,’ Anneliese added, almost thoughtfully, ‘that sleeping with someone else is seen as the ultimate betrayal. Fucking someone else is believed to be the worst thing, isn’t it?’

  Izzie winced at hearing her gentle, elegant aunt use such harsh, crude language. In all her life, she had never heard Anneliese speak in such a way.

  ‘But you know, fucking isn’t the worst thing,’ Anneliese went on. ‘The intimacy, the closeness, the sharing thoughts: they’re the worst things, that’s what I keep thinking every moment of every day. I keep thinking about what they were doing. Did Edward phone her or text her at night, saying, “How are you, darling? I’m bored, wish I was with you.” And knowing it was all because he wasn’t interested enough in me, I wasn’t enough for him.’ She turned to face her niece. ‘Can you imagine what that feels like, Izzie?’

  Izzie wondered if her face was red with the flush of guilt. She had no idea what to say to help ease Anneliese’s pain. There wasn’t a lot she could say. But she had no right to say anything. Somewhere in New York was a married woman just like Anneliese and her husband was cheating on her with Izzie. He might have insisted he was no longer with his wife, but his actions proved otherwise.

  ‘And what did Edward say?’ Izzie asked, wanting to help, but knowing she wasn’t the right person to do it.

  ‘He didn’t know what to say. I asked him to leave and then, when he left the room, bloody Nell insisted that I’d known about them all along. Because any fool would have known if their husband was in love with somebody else,’ she said bitterly. ‘And that’s the thing, Izzie: I didn’t know. I really didn’t. After thirty-seven years of marriage, you think you know somebody. Of course, that’s the other hard thing, one of many hard things.’ Anneliese almost laughed and she sounded a bit crazy, Izzie thought.

  ‘There are so many horrible things, it’s hard to pin down the worst, but certainly one of the startling bits of information out of this entire situation is the realisation that you really don’t know anybody. I thought he loved me. More fool me.’

  Anneliese was quiet for a moment. ‘God, Izzie, I hope you’re never betrayed like this. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I really thought Edward loved me. We’d been through quite a lot together and I thought we’d be together until the end. And now, it’s like everything wasn’t true, everything we did together was a big lie. I was looking at our lives one way and he was looking at it another way. Perhaps that’s where the expression rose-coloured glasses comes from,’ she said suddenly. ‘I had rose-coloured glasses on. I was looking at the truth and I simply didn’t see it. He must have been bored, fed up and hated me. Otherwise why would he want Nell?’

  Izzie quickly scanned her mind for Nell. Nell was nowhere near as attractive as Anneliese. Her aunt had those huge blue eyes, a graceful face and the amazing silvery blonde hair that made her look like a fey, other-worldly figure. As if she might dance down the street and disappear like a mermaid into the water. Compared to her aunt, Nell was shockingly ordinary. What had Nell got that Uncle Edward wanted? None of it made any sense.

  ‘Did you tell Lily?’ said Izzie. She knew how close her grandmother was to Anneliese. Maybe that had shocked her grandmother so much it had contributed to her stroke. But Anneliese had clearly followed her train of thought.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I hadn’t. I was too ashamed and embarrassed and all the things you are, when your husband walks out on you for your best friend. Now, I’m sorry I hadn’t told her. That’s what I do every time I see her: sit down, hold her hand and tell her, because she has that warmth, that wisdom. You understand, Izzie: you know you can tell her anything. There can’t be too many nearly ninety-year-old women with her open-mindedness. I know Lily would have had no problem grasping the fact that myself and Edward had split up, and she’d have been there to tell me how to move on with my life. And I didn’t tell her because I was so ashamed, and now I may not ever be able to tell her.’

  It was Izzie’s turn to be silent. The shame overwhelmed the guilt now. Guilt was too insubstantial an emotion for what she felt: it was pure shame.

  All her life, she’d been against the idea of dating a married man, and yet Joe had got under her radar before she’d had time to put up the barriers, so that by the time she’d realised just how complicated it all was, before her moral compass cranked into action in her head, her heart was trapped.

  Loving him was the only option.

  Hearing Anneliese’s story was like having a magnifying mirror held up to the biggest blemishes on her face. She could see every giant pore and big spot. Anneliese’s story had magnified Izzie’s under the cruellest light.

  Just as Anneliese had done, Joe’s wife might still think her husband loved her. That he was there for her, didn’t want anyone else to share his thoughts and dreams.

  The only difference was that Edward had left Anneliese for Nell. He’d had the moral courage to walk away to be with the woman he apparently loved. But Joe hadn’t. There was a nice simple message for her in all of this – Joe hadn’t loved her enough. Whether he’d been lying or not when he said he and Elizabeth were no longer together was immaterial: he hadn’t wanted to be with Izzie when she n
eeded him.

  Despite the guilt and shame, she felt as if she might cry.

  Anneliese gazed at her niece and felt incredibly guilty for having told her what was happening. It seemed so bloody ridiculous that with darling Lily lying in the hospital, here she was having to reveal the sad details of her own life.

  Poor Izzie, no wonder she was shocked, silent and tearful. And if Izzie was shocked, Anneliese didn’t even want to think about what Beth would do when she heard. Oh Lord, Beth. Anneliese knew she’d taken the coward’s way out by not telling Beth yet, but she simply couldn’t face it.

  She recalled her mother explaining the mother-child bond when she’d been pregnant with Beth: ‘It’s the greatest love,’ her mother had said. ‘The greatest. I can’t explain it to you, nobody can. In a few months, you’ll have this child who depends on you utterly, and nobody else matters, nobody, even Edward.’

  ‘Ma, don’t be daft,’ Anneliese had laughed.

  ‘No, really,’ her mother had insisted. ‘Wait and see.’

  And she had seen. Anneliese had never thought of herself as particularly maternal until she’d had her daughter. Up until then, she’d felt she was capable, almost masculine in her ability to turn her hand to just about anything. She’d always loved the physical side of gardening – the digging, planting, hauling things around. She had such great strength and energy. So she thought she was one of those women who might not be terribly maternal. And then Beth had appeared, and it was like being hit hard over the head with one of her gardening spades: bash.

  Suddenly she was in love and enthralled with this tiny, squalling, mewling infant who screamed a lot. The first six months of Beth’s life, Anneliese had existed on practically no sleep.

  She’d gone half crazy, thinking that she could manage through sheer force of will to push the depression out of her mind. If only such a thing were possible.

  Her mother had been right: Beth had become her life. And now she had to tell that sweet, fragile person that her parents were splitting up.

  She only hoped that Beth wouldn’t stare at her and say: ‘You must have known!’

  Anneliese thought of a politician she’d read about in the papers, who’d told his wife he was gay an hour before he gave a press conference telling the whole world. His wife had stood beside him in front of the cameras and reporters, holding his hand, and somehow, that became the most talked-about part of it all. How could she? She must have known.

  The story was no longer about him. It came down to the question: How could she not have known?

  Years later, the woman gave her side of the story and made sense of the strange events of that day. She hadn’t known. They were married, they had a child, why should she doubt him?

  When he told her, she was stunned, and was still stunned an hour later when they stood together.

  ‘Anneliese,’ said Izzie, and Anneliese was sure poor Izzie was about to cry. She looked on the verge of it. ‘I thought I wanted this coffee but I don’t, actually. I’m going to get myself some water from the coffee shop. Will I get you something too?’

  ‘No thanks,’ Anneliese said. She didn’t feel hungry or thirsty these days. She couldn’t feel anything other than the big, black hole inside her.

  With Izzie gone, she could go back to torturing herself, thinking about the past. It was a movie reel she couldn’t turn off in her head. She kept going back over their lives together, analysing everything, working out when Edward had been telling the truth and when he hadn’t.

  At Christmas, Beth and Marcus had come to stay and the house on Milsean Bay had been full of laughter and joy. Anneliese had loved it. She’d gone overboard with finding the perfect Christmas tree, decorating it, turning the whole house into a Christmassy bower with lots of holly, mistletoe, shiny gold balls and enough Santas to sink a ship. On Christmas Day, she’d had a lunch party for seven: her and Edward, Brendan, Lily, Nell, Marcus and Beth. Nell had brought her famous dark chocolate meringue, which they’d had with raspberries.

  So often over the years, when they’d invited Nell to their house for something, Nell would say gratefully: ‘Thank you for having me.’

  And she hadn’t said it that Christmas. Anneliese remembered it most clearly because at the time she’d thought, with pleasure, that Nell had finally accepted that they were friends, that she didn’t need to thank them for their kindness every single time. How wrong she’d been.

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’ Beth had said, coming into the kitchen, looking like a Christmas fairy with her glossy, dark hair curling around her face and wearing a beautiful moss-green silky sweater, over a grey velvet skirt that twirled around her legs.

  ‘No, darling,’ said Anneliese, looking up from the cooker. She’d changed out of her Christmas outfit after church and had put on a pair of jeans and an old shirt for doing the cooking, which was terribly messy. She would change quickly as soon as dinner was ready. Meanwhile Nell had covered up her finery in a big apron. Nell was looking great, Anneliese thought fondly. Edward and Anneliese had bought her these beautiful handmade earrings shaped like little fuchsia drops and a necklace with a fuchsia drop pendant. Nell wore them with pride.

  ‘How’s the turkey doing?’ she asked Nell. Nell was the turkey expert.

  ‘I’d say another twenty minutes, just to be on the safe side,’ Nell said, sounding professional.

  ‘Right, I’ll open the oven if you manhandle it in,’ Anneliese replied.

  Edward had come in when they were finished. ‘How are my two favourite cooks?’ he said cheerily.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Anneliese, going over to poke around in the saucepan where the sprouts were steaming away.

  ‘Everything is going wonderfully,’ said Nell. ‘Doesn’t it smell amazing? I know you’re ravenous, Edward, it’s going to be fabulous though. Better to take that teeny bit longer and have it just perfect.’

  ‘You’re the expert, Nell,’ he said.

  And dinner had been perfect. Every moment of it. Anneliese had felt proud to think that so many people fought like cats and dogs over Christmas dinner, while her family and friends enjoyed this warm, civilised meal where they laughed over appalling cracker jokes and reminisced about Christ-mases past.

  That night, when everyone had gone home and Marcus and Beth were downstairs watching something on the TV, Anneliese and Edward had lain in bed and held each other.

  ‘It was a lovely day, wasn’t it?’ Anneliese said.

  She was exhausted. All that standing around in the kitchen was so tiring and she’d wanted to make the day just right. It seemed to have gone just right anyway, but she still felt the need to be watching, a bit like flying and never going to sleep, as though the psychic will of all the people with their eyes open could keep the plane in the sky, and if they concentrated hard, the plane would land safely. That’s how she felt about days like Christmas.

  ‘It was wonderful, darling,’ Edward said, giving her a chaste kiss on the forehead and turning over. ‘You’re tired,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Let’s go to sleep.’

  Once upon a time, they made love at night after big events like anniversaries and birthdays. It had become a part of their marriage, Anneliese remembered now. She should have realised there was something wrong then, when Edward didn’t want to hold her and undress her gently, making love to her with the combination of passion and gentleness that came after thirty-seven years of marriage. She should have known something wasn’t quite right. But she hadn’t because she was so busy concentrating on the wrong thing.

  Was that going to be her epitaph? Anneliese kept her eyes open so the plane would stay in the air, but she’d watched the wrong plane?

  No matter how angry she was with Edward, Anneliese realised that she felt even angrier with herself. She hadn’t seen what was happening and she couldn’t forgive herself for that.

  It was no good: she couldn’t face seeing Izzie again and seeing the shock on her face, not when she felt this close to screaming. She’d come back t
o spend time with Lily later. Better to go home and have Izzie briefly wonder where she’d gone, than to fall apart in front of her niece.

  At home, she could give in and take one of the tranquillisers she had left over from years ago. There were a few left in a small bottle in her bedside table, enough to do her until she went to the doctor. There was no point putting that off, either. She’d fought it, determined not to have to go back on bloody antidepressants again, because taking them felt like such a sign of failure. But the time had come for the big guns: if Dr Whelan had something to take away the grim darkness in her head, then she needed it. Lots of it. Otherwise, who knew what might happen?

  It was seven that evening when she returned to the hospital, in a state of tranquilliser-induced calm. She hoped that Izzie’s jet-lag meant she’d have left and returned home to her father by then, but even if she hadn’t, Anneliese could cope.

  It was amazing how one little tablet could make her feel better. Well, not so much better, but calmer. As if she was on a tiny lifeboat in the middle of a huge, deep ocean, and with the little tablet inside her, she didn’t need to look over the edge of the boat to see the vast inky blueness beneath her. It was still there, she knew that. But she didn’t need to look at it. She could exist and not look, which was much nicer than forcing herself to stare at it and feel the anxiety flooding in.

  The hospital was busy with visitors rushing to and fro, carrying flowers, bottles of mineral water and magazines in to their loved ones. Anneliese smiled at them all serenely. People were so kind, really.

  When she got to Lily’s ward, she was surprised to see a woman sitting by Lily’s bed, holding her hand. It wasn’t Izzie: it was a younger woman, perhaps late twenties, and she had long streaked blonde hair piled on top of her head in an untidy knot, and wore the loose trousers and thonged shoes that Anneliese always associated with students on gap years in Thailand.

  ‘Hello,’ she said curiously.

  ‘Oh, hello.’ The girl leapt to her feet and her lightly tanned face looked anxious.