by Tara Heavey
Aoife laughed. ‘You obviously haven’t heard the rumours about her.’
‘What rumours?’
She lowered her voice. ‘That she murdered her husband and buried him in the garden.’
‘This garden?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that why she won’t let us dig by the back wall?’
‘Could be.’
They resumed working the soil.
‘It wouldn’t surprise me. I’d say the old targer has it in her all right. She frightens the shite out of me.’
‘She’s just an old woman.’
‘All women are terrifying. Didn’t you know?’ Seth grinned at her. ‘Hand me the first plant, would you?’
Aoife turned it upside down above her palm and shook the tender little plant free. It came loose in a shower of compost. She paused to examine the intricate root system, like delicate white threads, only alive. She felt as if she was looking into the plant’s soul – staring at its innards. Learning its secrets. She almost felt she should ask its permission first.
‘I am waiting.’
‘Sorry.’ She handed the plant to Seth, who settled it into its new home – the hole he’d prepared for it – and firmed the soil around it. They both knelt back and admired it.
‘Do you want to do the next one?’
‘Yes, please.’ Aoife began to dig.
‘You know,’ said Seth, ‘it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d started the rumour herself.’
‘Mrs Prendergast?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘To frighten little children.’
‘But she’s great with children.’
‘So are you.’
Aoife, embarrassed, paused momentarily in her work. ‘I’m not that great.’
‘You are. It must be hard bringing up Liam on your own. His father –’
‘Mummy, you said I could water the ’matoes.’ The little boy charged over with his Winnie-the-Pooh watering can, bored in the absence of Kathy, who was with her mother.
‘Course you can. We haven’t planted them all yet.’
He plonked himself on Aoife’s lap and she wrapped her arms around him like a seatbelt. ‘I can finish up here, Seth. I’m sure you have other stuff you want to be getting on with.’
‘Right, then.’ He stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘Catch you later.’
She hoped she hadn’t hurt his feelings but she just wasn’t ready.
20
The thing that really got to Seth was that, to the outside world, it looked as if they had everything. He was handsome. She was pretty. He had his own thriving business. She was the attentive mother, famed for her superb cooking. They had a lovely home, with a garden people crossed the road especially to see. And the most beautiful baby girl anyone had ever set their eyes on. Yet behind closed doors they had nothing – except Kathy. She was everything they amounted to now and the only reason Seth stayed.
He didn’t have any more one-night stands. The level of his self-disgust was already at an all-time high and he didn’t need to add to it. Since that night, he and Megan had settled into an uneasy truce. They each did their own thing mostly. If friends invited them for dinner, they went, and when they’d gone everybody commented on what a lovely couple they were. The pretence made him despair. It also made him wonder how many other people were living a lie – cosied up in their sham marriages.
In truth, Seth was at a loss. He didn’t know what to do, and for the moment it was easiest to go along with the charade. He was petrified by the thought of losing his daughter. No court was going to take a one-year-old away from her mother. He’d have to move into some grotty bedsit, unable to hold his little girl first thing in the morning and bathe her last thing at night. The idea gave him such a pain in his chest that he avoided thinking about it. Instead he sat and drank his beer in front of the telly while Megan trotted off to the gym. She said she wanted to lose the baby weight. He couldn’t tell if she had or not because he made a point of not looking at her. His life became work and Kathy, Kathy and work. And it continued that way for a whole year.
He sensed a change in Megan. She breezed in and out of the house, her demeanour airy, her conversation light. She chatted to him as if they were friends. And she started giggling again – the girlish giggle he used to love. Now it annoyed the fuck out of him. What business did she have being happy when she’d made his life a bloody misery? He suspected she was having an affair. Though why he should care what she did was beyond him. But he was damned if she was going to start a new life while he was still stuck in the old one. He appraised her. She certainly looked well. She’d got her figure back, restored her tiny waist. And she’d done something to her hair – got yellow stripes in it. It was blonder. And, of course, when a person was happy, they looked better.
‘What’s his name?’
It was dinner-time and they were all in the kitchen. Seth sat at the table, playing with his mashed potato. Megan suspended her search for ketchup in the upper press. ‘What did you say?’
‘I asked you what his name was.’
She laughed without humour. ‘That’s what I thought you said. Who are you referring to exactly?’
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’ He sat back in his chair and folded his arms, staring at his wife while his dinner congealed.
She shook her head and looked away. ‘You think I have another man.’
‘Well – don’t you?’
They watched their daughter as she transferred sticky handfuls of potato from her bowl to the floor, delighted with the splatting noise it made.
‘I can assure you, Seth, that the last thing I want in my life is another man.’
‘Well, what are you so goddamn happy about all the time?’
‘I’ve just got my life back, that’s all.’
He examined Megan’s face. Was it true? He couldn’t tell. On the one hand, it wasn’t as if he could accuse her of being a nymphomaniac. On the other, it didn’t quite ring true. No person could be so transformed just by ‘getting their life back’.
So he transformed himself – into a suspicious, paranoid obsessive. He began watching her, analysing everything she said. He even checked her bedside drawers when she was out. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Wasn’t it the wife who was supposed to behave like this? And then one day he followed her. No sooner had she pulled out of the driveway than he leaped into his jeep and sped after her, just catching a glimpse of her car turning right at the end of the road. She’d dropped Kathy down to her mother’s earlier so she’d be free to meet whoever. And he could have sworn she was wearing lipstick. He wove in and out of the traffic in an effort to keep up with her. She was going at some speed. Couldn’t wait to get to him, he thought bitterly. Then Megan indicated and Seth indicated too, and they both pulled into the local Spar. Seth parked at a discreet distance from his wife’s car and craned his neck. He could see her selecting items and bringing them up to the cash desk. Probably condoms. And whipped cream.
He slid down in his seat as she emerged. He tried to see what she’d bought. It looked like a newspaper and a sliced pan, but she could have other items concealed under the newspaper. She tore off again and he was right behind her, just two cars between them. He’d get her now. But – what was she doing? She was heading home. Shit. He waited five minutes before entering the front door himself. She looked up as he walked into the sitting room. ‘I didn’t know you were going out.’ Her voice was mild.
‘I just went to buy a lotto ticket. There’s a rollover tonight. Big jackpot.’
She laughed. ‘I just did the same thing. I was afraid I’d be too late. The draw’s on in a minute. Want to watch it together?’
‘No, thanks.’
He turned and walked out to the hall. He stood there for a few moments with his hands in his pockets. What a plank. It was time he copped himself on.
So he did. Normal life was resumed. He couldn’t claim to be ha
ppy but he was pretty much coasting in neutral, finding his joy in his daughter and his plants.
Then one day he forgot his phone. He was expecting an important call at midday so he had no option but to go home and get it. He could see it with his mind’s eye on the cabinet beside his bed. When he got home, Megan’s car was parked outside the house. This was strange because she normally worked on Tuesday mornings, ever since she’d gone back to her job part time. There was another car outside the house too. One he didn’t recognize. Maybe somebody was visiting the neighbours.
He let himself into the house and bounded up the stairs two at a time. All was quiet. His bedroom door was ajar. He pushed it open. His phone was on his bedside cabinet, as he’d remembered. But he didn’t see it. Instead he saw Megan, lying in the bed they hadn’t shared for more than two years. She was naked from the waist up. A sheet covered her bottom half, but he presumed she was naked from the waist down too. One milky, pink-tipped breast was exposed. The other was covered with the sleeping head of a dark-haired woman. The woman was beautiful in repose, long, curly hair and a generous bosom. Megan was awake, looking at him levelly. Without a word, she extricated herself ever so gently from the other woman’s embrace. The woman murmured and shifted her position but remained asleep. Megan put on a robe – Seth’s, because it was his room – and, still wordless, walked past him on to the landing and closed the bedroom door carefully.
She went downstairs and he followed her to the kitchen where she filled the kettle. ‘Coffee?’
He didn’t reply. Just slid into the nearest chair and, elbows resting heavily on the table, held his head in his hands. ‘How long?’
‘Siobhan and I got together about five months ago.’
Siobhan. So that was the other man’s name.
‘No. How long have you known?’
Seth watched Megan as she shovelled three times the usual amount of sugar into his mug and stirred it vigorously. She placed it in front of him and he followed the foam as it swirled on top of the dark brown liquid. He knew he wouldn’t be able to touch it. Megan sat opposite him and they faced one another. Her expression was completely without artifice, so much so that he hardly recognized her. He knew that he was going to get the truth and the prospect terrified him. ‘Something happened when I was pregnant with Kathy. Something to do with carrying a girl. I can’t really explain it.’
‘Try.’
‘It was like… I don’t know. I just realized I needed to be with a woman. To share my life with one. And that I couldn’t be with a man any more. Seth, don’t look at me like that, please.’
‘What do you expect?’
She swallowed and raked her hands through her hair. He thought she looked ashamed. Good.
‘I was afraid to do anything about it at the time. We’d just had Kathy and I was all over the place. I suppose part of me hoped it would go away. Although I knew it wouldn’t. So I just tried to get along with life the best I could. Then Kathy got older and a bit easier, and I started to get out and about and feel better about myself. I met Siobhan at the gym and…’ her voice got smaller ‘… we made a connection.’
Seth winced.
‘We were just friends at first. For ages that’s all it was. Then this one time – well, I’m sure you don’t want to know the details. I’m sorry, Seth. I was building up to tell you.’
‘You should have told me the second you knew.’
‘I know, I know. You’re right. I should have told you a long time ago.’
‘You let me waste the last two – more – years on you, when all the time you knew you could never –’ He broke off and stood up. He walked around the kitchen table, put his hands into his pockets and stared out of the window at his much-admired garden. He supposed he’d have to leave it now. ‘And the whole time you never loved me.’ He hated how choked he sounded.
‘Oh, Seth, that’s not true.’ Megan got up and stood behind him. ‘I did love you.’
‘No, you didn’t. How could you? Not properly.’
‘I loved you as much as it was possible for me to love any man, Seth. How could I not love you?’
‘Spare me.’
‘It’s true. I thought I was in love. I didn’t know any better. I guess I thought everyone felt the way I did.’
‘What? Fancied women?’
‘I wasn’t going around fancying women all the time. I had the odd feeling every now and then but I thought it was normal. You hear about women having lesbian fantasies and I assumed that was all it was. I had boyfriends, growing up. You weren’t the first man I’d been with. And it was different with you, Seth. I thought I’d found – my soul-mate, I suppose.’
‘So did I.’
The silence hung in the air between them and buzzed in Seth’s ears. He longed to put on the radio so that some inane talk show would block it out. Outside, the morning was clouding over, and he felt that nothing in his life was ever going to be right again.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Megan. ‘I really and truly am. For everything I’ve put you through and for being too much of a coward to tell you before.’
‘I’m sorry too – that the last five years of my life have been a joke. A lie. A big fucking waste of my time.’ He could feel the anger building now. ‘Tell me, Megan, were you just using me for the sperm? Is that what it was? You decided you wanted a baby and I had the one thing you couldn’t get from a woman. You used me, was that it?’
‘No – it wasn’t like that at all. And can you please keep your voice down?’
‘Don’t tell me what to do, you lying bitch.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘I can call you whatever the hell I like.’ He was shouting now. ‘Sneaking around behind my back. Having your affair.’
‘I wasn’t the only one.’
‘That was one night, Megan. One lousy night out of years of – nothing. Nothing!’
‘Are you all right, Meg?’
Neither had noticed Siobhan opening the kitchen door. They swung around now to look at her, framed in the doorway, fully dressed.
‘I’m fine, Siobhan.’
‘Oh, Siobhan, is it? I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on. I’m Seth, Megan’s husband. Or is that “Meg” to you? Come on in and join the party. Oh, I forgot. You already had a party. In my bed.’
‘You’d better go, love.’
Love.
‘Yes. Even better idea. Why don’t you go? Get the hell out of my home and don’t come back.’ Seth started to advance towards Siobhan, his eyes blazing.
Megan held on to him, one hand on his chest, as Siobhan retreated. ‘Stop it, Seth.’
He heard the front door being opened. ‘Nice tits, by the way,’ he shouted.
The front door slammed.
Seth slumped into a kitchen chair before his legs buckled. He folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them. Neither said anything for quite a while. Then: ‘Can I get you anything?’ she said.
With great difficulty, he lifted his head. ‘How about the last five years back?’ He groaned. ‘What a waste.’
‘Don’t say that. We have Kathy, don’t we?’
Yes, there was always Kathy. Fear overtook him. ‘You’re not taking her away from me. She’s all I’ve got.’ Tears stung the back of his eyes and he covered them with his hand.
His wife sat down beside him and laid her hand on his shoulder. When he didn’t shrug her off, she squeezed it gently. It was the tenderest touch he’d felt in years. ‘I’d never do that to you, Seth. Never.’
* * *
As it turned out, Seth didn’t have to move out of the family home: Megan moved in with Siobhan. True to her word, she agreed to a joint custody arrangement. Maybe she was afraid of losing Kathy too. Luckily, Kathy was too young to understand what was going on and, to everyone’s relief, adapted beautifully to her new living arrangements. Which was more than could be said for Seth.
The house felt over-large and echoey when Kathy wasn’t around. And although he�
�d barely admit it to himself, he missed Megan too. He would have sold up and moved out but he didn’t want to cause his daughter further disruption. Besides, the house wasn’t just his to sell. He spent as little time there as possible, and when Kathy was with her mother, he sat anaesthetized with booze in front of the telly – unless he was in the pub – eyes bloodshot, cheeks unshaven, well on the way to developing a beer gut.
A lot of the time he didn’t bother going to bed. He’d fall asleep in front of the box and wake up with a crick in his neck some time in the early hours, a mad infomercial blaring at him. He’d turn down the volume, rest his head on a cushion and cover himself with his jacket. He’d wake up in the morning, judge the time by the brightness in the sky, and turn the volume back up. Then he’d have his coffee and, if he was feeling up to it, a vitamin pill. Sometimes he’d shower, sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes he changed his clothes and sometimes he wore the same outfit three days in a row. He couldn’t even consider another woman. He felt so completely emasculated that he doubted he’d ever be able to get it up again. He went to work, thanking his lucky stars that he didn’t have a boss, because if he had, he would have been well and truly sacked.
Then his mother died – and it was as if someone had pulled a cosmic rug out from under him. Let’s all laugh as Seth falls flat on his back again. Let’s see if he can get up this time.
But Seth made it. Just about. He, his father and his brother united in their grief, making each other strong. And life went on. The legal separation came through. And Seth started to shave again and change his underwear on a more regular basis. And then one day his father rang him up and told him about this garden.
21
All month long they came, the men in suits, the speculators. They paced around the garden, incongruous in their formal garb. Sometimes they came in twos and threes, but often alone. Sometimes one would inadvertently step on a plant. ‘Sorry,’ they would say. So you should be. The odd time, one might even enquire about the garden – about the work they were doing. ‘Such a shame,’ they might say, as they walked away, pressing down the newly dug topsoil with their shiny shoes. ‘Well, don’t build on it then,’ Aoife would scream silently in her head. But never out loud. Because she was used to keeping things in.
