Lessons in Heartbreak

by Cathy Kelly

  Anneliese hadn’t the energy to practise telling her daughter the news. Goodness knows, she’d tried.

  Darling Beth, your father and I have decided…

  That wouldn’t work because it wasn’t true.

  She hadn’t decided anything, it had been decided for her. Try as she might, she couldn’t put a Beth-friendly spin on this one.

  Your father dumped me after having an affair with my so-called best friend sounded too like a television true-life confession. All she needed was a studio audience and an eager host with a microphone and a faux-worried manner and her spiel would be perfect. So no, that wouldn’t work either.

  Blunt was going to be the only answer. When Beth arrived, eager to see them, her father’s absence would start a conversation rolling. Anneliese wished Edward was the sort of man who’d be able to tell their daughter the news, but she knew he wasn’t. All the difficult talks in their house had been left to his wife.

  Beth and Marcus were due in Tamarin at lunchtime, so Anneliese had cold chicken and salad ready for them and had tried to buoy herself up to deal with her daughter’s tears.

  But when she heard Beth’s key in the door a little after one o’clock, Anneliese wished she could run away.

  Why hadn’t bloody Edward found the courage to phone his daughter and tell her…?

  ‘Mum!’

  Beth stood in the kitchen doorway, her dark hair framing her face, and Anneliese instantly realised that her daughter knew.

  ‘Dad told me this morning,’ Beth said.

  ‘Ah,’ Anneliese replied flatly. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I wanted to tell you and I didn’t know how.’

  ‘Mum, this happened ten days ago and you never said anything. Why didn’t you tell me when you rang to say Lily was in hospital?’

  Anneliese had no answer. Fear, she supposed: fear of falling apart when she told Beth the news and fear that if she began to fall apart, she wouldn’t stop. For a woman who’d tried to face life head on, this avoidance tactic felt strange but also, weirdly, like the only option.

  Beth was still raging on. ‘If I hadn’t rung on his mobile this morning asking if he wanted anything from Dublin before we came, I still wouldn’t know. I found out by fluke! Dad assumed I knew and hadn’t been phoning him on purpose. Did you ever plan on telling me? You’re my parents, I love you. I could have come, you needed me, you both needed me, what with Lily being sick and everything.’

  Anneliese smiled, Beth had always been a fair person. Even now, in the midst of her anger, she was gently telling her mother that she loved her dad too, that she wouldn’t be a pawn in any game between them.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Anneliese said, ‘there are no sides, Beth, you know us better than that. There’s no battle, no fight for your feelings. It’s not the sort of news you can say over the phone, is it?’

  ‘Of course it is. You could have told me when you phoned about Lily being sick, couldn’t you?’ Beth demanded. ‘I would have come right down.’

  Anneliese was about to say how she hadn’t wanted to worry Beth, but Beth was too angry now and interrupted her.

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you’d split up. You’re my parents, I have a right to know. You always think I’m weak and stupid, that I’m not able to cope with stuff and you can’t rely on me.’

  She looked so furious that Anneliese reeled back in shock.

  ‘I just didn’t want to hurt you.’ And I was hurting inside, Anneliese thought.

  ‘Life hurts people, Mum,’ Beth yelled. ‘Life hurts us all. You think you’re in charge of it, you can control the hurt, but you can’t. Lots of things hurt me and I have to deal with them, you’re not in charge of them. Have you any idea how hurtful it is to find that you and Dad have split up and nobody told me? I bet you don’t. But I know exactly why you were waiting till I got here to break the news to me. Because you were working out how to tell me, is that it?’

  ‘Beth –’ said Marcus. He was hovering in the kitchen doorway, as if waiting for the row to blow over before he came in properly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Marcus, I have to say this,’ Beth said. ‘It’s gone on too long. Stop controlling me, Mum. I’m not a child.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anneliese said and she felt as if the ground had been ripped away from under her feet. Beth didn’t seem to understand that she was in pain and shock. No, Anneliese, who had always been in control, must still be in control in Beth’s eyes. Somehow, she’d also been cast as the villain of the piece. She hadn’t broken up the family; Edward had, but she was the one getting shouted at. She’d hoped that she might get some sympathy from her daughter. ‘It hasn’t been easy for me.’

  ‘I could have helped,’ shouted Beth.

  You’re not helping by screaming at me, Anneliese wanted to yell right back but she didn’t. She never yelled at her daughter.

  ‘But you didn’t give me the chance to be there for you. You are so controlling, Mum!’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to control things,’ Anneliese said with absolute honesty. Or at least, the only controlling she’d been doing was trying to keep her own life under some control so she wouldn’t fall apart.

  ‘Yes you were,’ Beth interrupted. ‘This is all about controlling how you told me, Mum. Please, give me some credit for understanding you. I’m not a child any more, I have to face things, OK? And if you’d told me when it happened, that would be better, because then I wouldn’t have to get all this information on the day when I want to tell you something very special. But you’ve ruined it now.’

  ‘What?’ breathed Anneliese.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ Beth said. ‘Three months. Marcus and I are going to have a baby.’ She laughed, but there was no humour in her laugh. ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to worry you until I’d passed the three months’ mark and knew everything was all right. You see, Mum, you’ve brought me up perfectly! You tell me nothing because you don’t want to worry me and I tell you nothing because I don’t want to worry you. We’re a fabulous family. No wonder Dad left.’

  It was like being shot, Anneliese thought. She’d never experienced a bullet, but she imagined it must feel the same, that sudden arc of pain and weakness and the feeling of blood draining out of your body and everything going dark. How could Beth say that about Edward? Like it was all Anneliese’s fault. He’d left her, didn’t Beth realise? Or had he said she’d pushed him away? She felt sick at the very thought of what Edward might have said in an attempt at damage limitation, but she couldn’t collapse, not here, not in front of Beth. Not after hearing this news.

  She summoned up every ounce of strength from inside her.

  ‘I am so thrilled for you both,’ she said. ‘It’s the most wonderful news. I love you, darling, and you’ll be the most incredible mother.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It was like a magic cloth had rubbed away the anger from her daughter’s face and now Beth looked serenely happy.

  She’d been the same as a child: able to flick a switch between her passions. It was what made Beth so different from her mother. Beth’s moods changed like quicksilver and Anneliese had always envied that ability. It was as if Beth’s mind said, ‘OK, that’s horrible stuff, let’s not deal with that now, let’s deal with something nice.’

  ‘Marcus, I’m thrilled for you both,’ Anneliese said and she put her arms round Beth, willing herself not to faint. She would have a grandchild, how wonderful that would be. But the pain and the ache was still there, because there was a fault line in her relationship with Beth, and that was horrific. Beth blamed her for everything, and in her fury hadn’t even acknowledged the pain Anneliese must be going through. The love of a beautiful new baby couldn’t mend that, surely?

  ‘Thank you, Anneliese,’ Marcus said proudly. ‘It’s wonderful, but scary too!’

  ‘It’s taken me quite a while to get pregnant. We were trying for well nearly a year and then just when we thought we better get some help, it happened! We had a scan – I’ve pictures here,’ Beth s
aid.

  The proud parents-to-be crowded round and they looked at the scan. Anneliese kept her arm around Beth and tentatively touched her daughter’s gently budding belly. There was no kick from her future grandchild in there, and she thought of how often she’d longed for this news. How ironic that it had to come today of all days.

  Yet she was happy to think that her daughter would experience that great mother-child love that she’d had. Except, they never told you, when your baby was little, that it could bring such heartbreak too.

  ‘I’m so sorry, darling,’ she said, a lifetime of suppressing her own needs allowing her to do so again. ‘I’m sorry that you had to find out about me and your dad today, but let’s just forget about that, that’s not important: this is important –’ she touched Beth’s belly again ‘– this new life. I am so happy, let’s focus on that. Maybe your dad and I are better off apart, who knows?’ There, she was doing it again, making everything nice and safe and sanitised for Beth. And Beth seemed to like it.

  ‘I hope you’re right, Mum,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand what’s going on in Dad’s head –’ She stopped. ‘We don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want. I’m sorry I shouted at you. It’s just that what with Lily and now this…I wanted everything to be perfect when I told you about the baby.’

  ‘Forget everything else,’ Anneliese insisted. ‘It will all work out in its own good time. Your news is what matters now.’

  Beth grinned. ‘It’s so exciting. Will you come and stay with us when the baby’s born? Because it’s going to be difficult, and you know I don’t know anything about babies. I was saying to some of my friends that they’re lucky to have older sisters and brothers so they have nieces and nephews. But being an only child, well, I don’t have that experience. I suppose I’ll learn!’ she laughed. ‘I was thinking that it’s going to be hard to tell Izzie,’ Beth went on, ‘because, well, I never really knew if she wanted kids or not and there’s nobody special in her life, so –’ She broke off and sighed. ‘I sort of thought there was someone. She referred to a guy in emails, but she sounded a bit vague about him so I didn’t like to pry.’

  ‘She hasn’t told me about anyone,’ Anneliese said, surprised. She and Izzie spoke a lot. But then, she hadn’t been on the phone filling Izzie in with her own life-changing details, had she?

  ‘She was probably afraid to tell you and Gran, because you’d be planning the wedding as soon as you heard and, well, it doesn’t work like that nowadays,’ Beth said wryly.

  Yes, Anneliese thought grimly, that’s me – poster girl for marriage.

  Once she’d started talking about the pregnancy, Beth kept going. Marcus took their bags upstairs to the spare room and got his wife some water, while she told her mother how she felt tired at night, how she hadn’t really had morning sickness but the nausea had been quite intense, although it was improving now. And she’d developed a burst of energy the past week. Some people found that after the first trimester, she explained.

  ‘You sound so knowledgeable,’ Anneliese smiled. ‘You must have been reading loads.’

  ‘Yes, tons. Actually, last night, I was reading a baby magazine and it mentioned this new book about the first year with your baby. I’d love to get it,’ Beth said. ‘Maybe we could try the bookshop here?’

  ‘Of course,’ Anneliese said. ‘I’ll just run upstairs and brush my hair.’

  In her bedroom, she found the tranquillisers and took another one. Right now, she needed some help, and since divine inspiration seemed to be in short supply, medical inspiration would have to do.

  After they’d bought a couple of books – Anneliese paid – the three of them went down to Dorota’s and drank herbal tea, looking out over the bay. There was no fear of meeting Nell or Edward now, Anneliese decided. Nell wouldn’t dream of turning up, and even if Edward did, she could cope with him, thanks to both her little tablet and the presence of Beth and Marcus.

  After a while, Marcus went back up to the counter to order more tea.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Beth asked, taking her mother’s hand and patting it.

  Anneliese smiled at her pregnant daughter.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she lied.

  ‘Dad says there’s a whale stuck out there in the harbour,’ said Beth idly when her husband came back. ‘Poor thing, how does that happen? Do they get lost or something?’

  ‘Nobody knows for sure,’ her mother replied, looking out at the sea. It was such a beautiful, clear day, but there were volcanic-looking dark clouds over to the right on the horizon, a summer storm coming in. ‘There’s a marine expert here and apparently he says it’s something to do with the whale’s sonar getting messed up. They get stuck and then they can’t get out again. Quite often they die.’

  ‘How long has the whale been here?’

  ‘Nearly two weeks, I don’t think she’s going to last much longer. They say she’s weak.’

  ‘Oh, poor whale,’ said Beth. ‘Why can’t they just put her to sleep, or does that not work?’

  ‘I think they can do that if the whale is actually beached, but here, she isn’t and it would cause her even more distress if they tried to get close.’

  ‘Oh,’ sighed Beth.

  ‘They tried to coax her out into deeper water with a diving team, but it was a long shot and it didn’t work.’

  Anneliese had watched the rescue operation from the high point between the two bays. Lots of people had been there in the harbour, silently watching and willing the plan to work.

  Anneliese had brought her binoculars and she’d spotted the marine guy, Mac Petersen, in the middle of it all. Now that she knew who he was, she realised she had seen him before on the beach near Dolphin Cottage. He had a small boat, a corach like the old island fishermen used to use, and he went out to sea in it occasionally. He had a dog too, a woolly scruffy thing that was just the sort of dog he ought to own, and she’d seen him on the beach with it.

  When she saw him on the beach, she went the other way. She didn’t have what it took to be polite to strangers any more.

  Thanks to her binoculars, she’d seen his head hang low on his chest when the rescue plan had failed, and she felt a pang of sorrow at having been so nasty to him the time they’d met. He did care about the whale, after all.

  ‘You know, I think I might have another muffin,’ Beth decided. ‘I’ve been reading up on pregnancy food and muffins are really good for giving you your energy back. Milk’s good too, I’m drinking lots of milk. And then maybe we’ll go and see Lily. I don’t want to stay too long,’ Beth confided. ‘I don’t know if I could cope with it. I don’t think it would be good for the baby if I got upset, but I need to say goodbye to her.’

  ‘OK,’ said Anneliese, feeling her heart break. She didn’t want Lily to go. But everything was changing in her life and it was as if she had no power to prevent it all.

  She thought of the whale, lost in the bay, life ebbing out of her every day, and thought that it might be quite nice to dive in and sink to the bottom with the whale.

  ‘Mrs Kennedy,’ said Dr Whelan, looking up from his writing as she entered the surgery. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘A lobotomy,’ Anneliese said easily. ‘I just need a bit off. A trim, so to speak. It would be nice if you could do that with brains, take out the tricky, difficult bits, like removing split ends.’

  The doctor put down his pen. He was younger than she was, which Anneliese liked. Younger doctors were always up to speed on the latest treatment. Old Dr Masterson had been a nightmare when it came to talking about depression. Despite the alphabet of letters after her name, she was one of the ‘pull yourself together’ merchants who felt that depression was entirely controllable by thinking happy thoughts. Anneliese had ended up moving to another doctor in the centre of town rather than visit her, but then Dr Whelan had come along. He’d been in Tamarin for ten years and in that time, Anneliese had visited him twice over her depression. He’d been friendly, helpful and kind. But
none of these things made it any easier to discuss her problems with him.

  If Anneliese felt like a failure because her head was flattened by this black dog in her mind, then it was hard to convince herself that he would feel any different.

  ‘Lobotomies aren’t much in demand nowadays,’ he replied, falling into the same light manner she’d used. ‘Certainly not on an out-patient basis,’ he added. ‘What’s wrong, Mrs Kennedy?’

  Anneliese closed her eyes. She hated this, hated it. Being the supplicant in the surgery, having to ask for help.

  ‘I’m depressed,’ she said. The desire to burst into tears was dampened down by the tranquilliser she’d taken before she’d driven there. It was her last one. ‘I need to go back on antidepressants.’

  Damn Edward and that bloody bitch for making her have to do this.

  ‘Is there any particular reason?’ Dr Whelan asked, joking manner gone.

  The little white tablet gave up the ghost and the tears came.

  Half an hour later, Anneliese had a prescription for the antidepressant that had worked for her before, along with a short-term script for an anti-anxiety drug to tide her over until the big boys began to work.

  ‘Come and talk to me anytime, please,’ Dr Whelan said kindly as she’d left, trying to mop up her red eyes before she headed back into the reception area.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anneliese, knowing that she wouldn’t. She felt as if nothing could help her, even the various tablets he’d prescribed. They were short-term things. She wanted a guarantee of happiness and she didn’t know if that was possible any more.

  At home, she made herself some tea, took one of the anti-anxiety drugs, and lay down on her bed. Her head ached from all the crying. Perhaps if she had a little rest, she’d have the energy to get up and cook dinner for herself, Beth and Marcus. They were going home the following morning and had been at the hospital with Lily that afternoon, giving Anneliese a chance to make her secret trip to Dr Whelan. She hadn’t told Beth how she felt and Beth hadn’t asked.

  It was understandable: Beth wanted to protect her unborn child from stress. Any mother would do the same. But still, Anneliese felt a part of her ache inside at this evidence of her daughter’s ability to shut out other people’s pain.