He's Got to Go

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  “Sounds good.”

  “Will I phone you?” he asked.

  “Will you?” She grinned at him.

  “Of course.”

  “OK then.” She reached into the pocket of her overalls and took out a dog-eared business card which she handed to him.

  “I’ll phone,” he promised.

  “Great.”

  She climbed into the van and switched on the ignition. She wasn’t feeling ropey anymore. The vestiges of her hangover had disappeared. She glanced over her shoulder as she eased out of the drive. He was still standing at the doorway of the house and he waved as she drove away.

  Cate didn’t have a hangover. She hadn’t drunk very much the previous night although she’d made sure that both Nessa and Bree’s glasses were always filled. But she hadn’t felt like drinking, hadn’t even felt very hungry which, she told herself, was an excellent development.

  She stood in front of the full-length mirror in the bedroom and looked at herself. Despite the constant dieting, she’d put on weight in the last month. Cate hated carrying extra pounds, she felt as though her body had betrayed her whenever she stood on the scales and realized how much she was over her target 112 pounds. She was always over her target, it was impossible for someone of her height and build to weigh any less than 119 pounds without starving herself to death. According to her height/weight ratio graph her ideal weight was actually 126 pounds. But she liked the idea of being underweight. It made her feel more self-confident.

  She didn’t weigh herself very often because she didn’t want to disappoint herself. Not hopping on the scales every day made her feel proud—she wasn’t a food junkie or a weight junkie or someone who couldn’t look at a slice of cake without mentally adding up how many calories it contained. She was simply a woman who could regulate her eating habits.

  But she knew that if she stepped on the scales this morning it would tip closer to nine stone than to eight. Much closer. If not over. She could see it in her shape. Less Biro, more blancmange, she thought. She wondered if people actually ate blancmange anymore. She couldn’t remember having ever eaten it herself.

  She studiously ignored the scales and looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Even if (and despite last night’s excesses) her skin looked good and her hair hung in a glossy sheen around her face, it meant nothing if she wobbled her way through the day.

  She pulled the fawn towel tighter around her.

  She couldn’t remember when exactly the thought hit her but she felt the sudden surge of panic and bile rise in her stomach. She swallowed hard and exhaled slowly to quell the rapid beating of her heart.

  That wasn’t possible, she told herself. It just wasn’t.

  She opened the bottom drawer of the bathroom unit and peered inside. She pulled out a box of Tampax and looked inside as she frantically started to do some mental arithmetic. The box was nearly empty. She remembered buying it—an emergency dash from the office to the chemist down the road one Monday afternoon. But which Monday afternoon? A warm Monday because she remembered wishing that she wasn’t in such a rush to get back into the office. It had been a difficult morning and she’d been bad-tempered and irritable and she’d had a row with Finn the night before. But that was ages ago. Before they’d got engaged. She frowned. Surely she’d had a period since then. Surely.

  She sat on the edge of the toilet seat and turned the box over and over in her hand. The sunlight streaming through the bathroom window reflected off the diamond ring on her finger.

  She stood up and let the towel drop at her feet. She stood sideways in front of the mirror and looked at her body. Were her breasts fuller? They’d ached a little last week but she hadn’t given it any thought. She cupped one in her hand and wondered if it actually felt bigger. Her stomach. Well, it was certainly rounder. But it did that whenever she ate too much. Which was why she didn’t. She rubbed it gently. Her skin was soft.

  She’d definitely missed a period. Definitely. She’d worked it out now. There hadn’t been one since the day she’d started it in the office. How could she not have noticed?

  Of course it didn’t have to mean that she was pregnant. Besides, birth control was part of the fun for them. Finn told her that the way she rolled a condom onto him was almost a sex act in itself. And she enjoyed the sensation of the extra-ribbed versions that they often used. Was is possible that one of them had been damaged and they hadn’t even noticed? She shook her head. Surely not. Her heartbeat steadied a little as she took a deep breath and rewrapped herself in the towel. She’d been under pressure lately and everyone knew that stress could knock your cycle out of sync. Feeling bloated didn’t have to be because she was incubating a child, for heaven’s sake! That could probably happen if you were under stress too. And the last few weeks had been stressful, what with thinking that it might be all over with Finn and then suddenly, joyously, realizing that it had only just begun. They hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other since they’d decided to get married. They’d made love every single night and occasionally during the day too. Instead of feeling settled and familiar with him now that they were engaged, the whole thing had raised the level of excitement they felt with each other. She’d surprised herself by waking up at 3 A.M. a couple of nights earlier and reaching out for him, pulling him closer to her, then suddenly rolling on top of him so that his eyes opened wide in surprise. And he’d grinned at her and taken her breast in his mouth, his tongue playing around her nipple until she was almost frantic with pleasure. It had been the best sex ever. They hadn’t forgotten protection that night either. Although, she remembered, they’d used an older packet of condoms that had been lying in her bedside locker for a couple of months because with all the extra sex they’d run out of the ribbed ones.

  She couldn’t be pregnant, she told herself again. She couldn’t be. Being pregnant would ruin everything. And things had only just started to go right.

  9

  Sun in the 7th House

  Relationships with others extremely important, guard against emotional dependence.

  The Year Ahead for Cancerians had promised a quiet week and that was exactly what Nessa was getting. It was the week when Jill went to the summer camp organized by the school, which meant that Nessa had five almost full days to herself. She’d looked forward to this week ever since the beginning of the far too long summer holidays and she’d made lots of plans for her freedom days. She’d promised herself some time walking along the coast and simply chilling out but, in fact, she’d spent most of the week visiting the different shopping centers in the city and spending money that she didn’t really have. Monday had been Blackrock and Dun Laoghaire, Tuesday she’d gone to Blanchardstown, Wednesday had been the turn of Liffey Valley, and on Thursday she’d gone into the city center where she’d strolled up and down Grafton Street, a treat which she hadn’t managed to have in months. Usually when she went shopping, Jill came with her, dragging out of her hand and complaining that she was bored. The only times she perked up were when they went into HMV or Virgin where she demanded the newest CD by whatever happened to be the latest hot boy band or girl band, but the rest of the time she dragged her heels and scuffed her toes and drove Nessa crazy. Jill liked nice clothes but she wanted them to be brought home to her. She made lists of things she liked and the shops that they had to be bought in. Malahide was a hotbed of designer one-upmanship as far as eight-year-olds were concerned.

  It had been wonderful to wander around the shops all by herself, Nessa thought wistfully. Especially when she could sit in a café afterward for a cappuccino and doughnut without having to keep an eye on her squirming daughter. On Monday, her oldest friend, Paula Trelfall, had come with her on the shopping expedition and they’d giggled their way through Next and Principles, looking at clothes that were far too young for them but wanting to buy them anyway. Paula had married John the year before Nessa and Adam had married but, after six years and three children, John and Paula had split up.

 
Now Paula worked full time in the insurance company she’d left when she married and earned twice as much money because they were desperate to get experienced people and because they realized the value of employing women with children who weren’t likely to rush off and change jobs on a whim. It had taken Paula two years to sort out her life after John but she’d done it.

  “I admire you.” Nessa said it every time she met her friend.

  “There’s nothing to admire,” Paula told her. “I just got on with things. That’s what women do, Nessa. We get on with things.”

  “You hardly had a choice,” Nessa pointed out.

  “That’s why.” Paula grinned wryly. “You have three kids depending on you—well, you on’t have time to sit around wallowing in misery. At least, not when they’re up and about. You have to carry on. Pretend that everything’s all right. Even when it’s not.”

  “But everything is all right now?” Nessa beckoned the waitress in the café where they’d stopped for coffee and cakes and asked for refills.

  “Nessa, nothing is as perfect as you want it to be,” said Paula. “There are times when I’m fucking miserable! I look at myself and think that I’m thirty-four and I have three kids and what chance do I have of another serious adult relationship? Who takes on a woman with three kids? Who wants to? Besides,” she sighed as she added lumps of cane sugar to her coffee, “I don’t want to be ‘taken on’ by anyone anymore. I’ve worked things out for me and the kids and I’m happy about it. I’m not sure I could cope with some bloke tramping home and putting his size elevens on our brand-new sofa.”

  Nessa smiled at her. “Maybe when the kids are older?”

  “Don’t be daft, Nessa.” Paula withered her with a look. “By then I’ll be in my late forties and no man is going to look past my fine lines and wrinkles and think that underneath beats the heart of a twenty-year-old.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” asked Nessa.

  “Of course it’s not fair,” agreed Paula. “But it’s the way things work out!”

  Nessa mulled over the conversation as she packed her bag for the gym. This was her last day of freedom and she’d mapped it all out. A session (not too long) on the bikes and the ab crunch machines, followed by a couple of lengths of the pool, then a sauna and jacuzzi. Finally, a trip to the hairdresser to get her low-lights done and some shape on her untidy locks.

  And after that, she thought, as she zipped the bag closed, it was back to being Adam’s wife and Jill’s mother and she was so, so happy to be Nessa Riley, still married and still loved. Poor old Paula, she thought. It wasn’t easy for her and, of course, she had to live with the knowledge that her shit of a husband had found someone new. Paula hadn’t met the replacement woman in John Trelfall’s life and she didn’t want to. Bad enough to know that the bitch existed, Paula said, even though the bitch hadn’t actually been the cause of them splitting up. That had been the result of John’s brief but torrid relationship with his secretary.

  “I hadn’t thought that things like that still happened,” Paula had told Nessa miserably when she found out. “His fucking secretary, Ness! Don’t you think he could’ve been more inventive?”

  The sun was shining as Nessa opened the boot of the car and threw the bag inside. I should go to the beach, she thought, not the gym. I should jog barefoot along the strand and then plunge into the sea instead of the pool. She shivered at the thought. It didn’t matter how glorious the day was, the sea was always freezing.

  The gym was a ten-minute drive from the house. She swung into the car park and left the car near the entrance. Then she grabbed her bag and ran up the steps. My warm-up, she thought. It was months since she’d last worked out. She swiped her card and waited for the receptionist to laugh at her for even daring to show her face. But the raven-haired beauty behind the desk simply smiled a corporate welcome smile and waved her through.

  I should come more often. Nessa always had the same thought when she stood in the changing rooms and looked at the tanned and toned bodies of women who weren’t embarrassed to be seen in a bra and thong. Nessa knew that she’d never have the nerve to wear a thong, not with her cellulite. She’d long since decided that she was approaching an age when gravity starts to take hold and where she shouldn’t expect everything to stay in the same place as it was before. I need to work at being the sort of woman I used to be, she thought, as she pulled on last year’s support top and shorts. And even then I’ll never quite manage it. Not after giving birth to a ten-pound baby girl. After a few months of fruitless effort she’d accepted that it was impossible to get her body back to the exact shape it had been before, absolutely impossible. She didn’t know how actresses and models actually did it—even with their armies of personal trainers and macrobiotic diets. There were bits of you that had just changed beyond recognition and she couldn’t see how you could haul them back into shape no matter how hard you tried.

  But Adam liked her like this. He’d said so one night when she’d been feeling a bit down because Jill had a cold and had been fractious all day and because she hadn’t had time to wash her hair or even to brush a little bit of bronzer over her face like she normally did. When they’d gone to bed, she’d lain beside Adam and asked him, straight out, whether or not he fancied her anymore. Whether it was possible to fancy a woman with baby food in her hair and boobs which had tripled in size but which weren’t round and firm like the Baywatch babes.

  “I love you like this,” he’d said as he pulled her toward him. “I love to snuggle up to you and hold you tight and know that there’s actually something to hold on to.”

  “Why don’t you then?” she’d asked and was rewarded by him hugging her fiercely and making love to her with the same kind of passion that he’d shown on their first night together.

  Maybe I’ll take the initiative tonight, she mused, as she slung her towel around her neck and headed for the treadmill. I’ll cook him a nice meal and shove a bottle of Chablis in the fridge and later on, when Jill is in bed, I’ll jump on him. She giggled aloud at the thought. Actually, she told herself, much better if she didn’t do any cooking and they just sent out for pizzas as they had done when they were first married. They never did that anymore; in her quest to become the domestic goddess of his dreams she’d invested in every celebrity cookbook ever written and had even learned to make her own pizza dough.

  Her breathing grew more labored as she increased the incline on the machine. I’m so out of condition, she muttered as she gritted her teeth. I used to be more able for this.

  Ten minutes later she’d had enough and wandered down to the pool where she swam a lazy couple of lengths before heading into the sauna. She poured water over the coals and lay down on the top bench, using her towel as a pillow as she let the dry heat penetrate her bones.

  The door opened but she didn’t bother opening her eyes. She wasn’t in the mood for casual chit-chat today, she simply wanted to relax and recharge her batteries. A whole week of shopping had taken it out of her although she had to admit that her tiredness was pleasurable rather than the drained exhaustion she often felt by Friday afternoons.

  “So tell me what happened?” The sound of a girl’s voice broke the tranquility of the sauna. For a brief moment Nessa thought that the girl was talking to her. She half turned but before she’d even opened her eyes, another voice answered.

  “He just told me it was over.” The second girl’s voice was flat and emotionless, though vaguely familiar.

  “What a shit.”

  “He didn’t even try to deny it!” She raised her voice slightly. “I mean, Terri, you’d think he’d at least try to deny it, wouldn’t you?”

  “How could he?” asked Terri. “I’d seen him with her, hadn’t I? He knew you’d believe me.”

  “I didn’t want to believe you. I wanted to think that everything was great.”

  “They’re all the same,” said Terri sympathetically.

  “I know.” The other girl sighed. “You trust the
m. You invest a whole heap of emotion in them and they still let you down.” She sighed again, even more heavily. “But I thought that this was going somewhere. Six months, Terri.”

  “Portia, you’re far too young to get that involved.”

  Nessa’s eyes flickered open. She remembered that name. The name of Mitchell Ward’s girlfriend. The girl whose father’s car Adam had reversed into. She’d called Mr. Laing after talking to Portia in the kitchen and had explained everything. They’d sorted things out without having to resort to the insurance companies. Was this the same girl? She sounded like the same girl. Honestly, thought Nessa, if she was, then Mitchell hadn’t behaved awfully well if he’d two-timed her!

  “I know I shouldn’t be thinking about serious involvement,” said Portia gloomily. “But he was so gorgeous, Terri. And why couldn’t he have told me it was over before I found out about the other girl?”

  “They’re all the same,” said Terri resignedly. “Want to have their cake and eat it too. All of them.”

  “You’re right, I suppose.” Portia sighed. “I saw his next-door neighbor the other day. Remember I told you about the incident with him? Lovely wife, lovely daughter. But there he was in the Old Stand with his tongue down some woman’s throat.”

  There was a moment’s silence while Nessa felt as though she’d just been thumped in the chest. A wave of nausea washed over her.

  “What a shit.” Terri sounded indignant.

  “I know,” said Portia. “And she was so nice to me and everything. Gave me a cup of coffee, phoned Dad.”

  Nessa released the breath she realized she’d been holding. It couldn’t be the same Portia, could it? It sounded like her, she knew it sounded like her, but if it was…That would mean that she, Nessa Riley, was lying in a sauna listening to two girls talking about her husband kissing another woman. A bed of sweat trickled down the side of her face.

  “Do you think she knows?” asked Terri.