She got up and looked out of the bedroom window. She felt nothing for him now. Nothing at all. She didn’t feel hurt anymore. Or betrayed. Or sad that their marriage was over. She simply felt incredibly angry that she might be forced to stay in the same house as him when all she wanted to do now was to get on with her life. It would be wonderful if getting on with it did result in losing weight and becoming incredibly successful, but right now it just meant coping. Yet she knew she could cope.
She didn’t want to stay with someone who could lie to her and cheat her and feel justified in doing so. She didn’t want that kind of marriage to be a role model for Jill. She didn’t quite know how she was going to tell Jill that she didn’t love Adam anymore but she did know that she’d be able to do it. And that, whatever it took to keep Jill from feeling as though it were partly her fault, she’d manage to do that too. She’d keep it together for Jill. And for herself. She didn’t need Adam. She wished that things had turned out differently but she didn’t need him for the lifestyle and for the family and for anything else because, if she didn’t love him, none of those things were worth anything anyway.
Cate got into bed and pulled the duvet around her shoulders. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut to block out the fizzy yellow light from the streetlamps outside the apartment building. She needed to buy curtains for the window—the previous occupant had obviously decided that nobody would be able to see in to the building and hadn’t bothered. But the light was too bright, it was keeping her awake and, when she finally did fall asleep, the early morning sun woke her again anyway so that she was tired before she even got out of bed. All the same, would there be any point in buying curtains for a place where she didn’t intend to stay for very long? she wondered. Wouldn’t she need all her spare cash for baby clothes and baby-minders and buggies and all of the paraphernalia that went with babies rather than blowing it on a pair of curtains?
I’m losing it, she thought, as she turned over in the bed. It’s only curtains! I can afford to buy curtains. Besides, if I don’t, I’ll never get any sleep. She pulled the duvet higher and willed herself to empty her mind.
It was the first night in a week that she hadn’t been able to sleep. At the villa she’d dropped off almost as soon as she’d climbed into bed and her sleep had been (if not quite as long as Nessa’s and Bree’s drink-induced comas) deep and satisfying. While they’d been in Spain she’d been able to put things to the back of her mind and not think about them or worry about them or constantly wonder what she should have done differently. But here she couldn’t help worrying about how she was going to cope and what things would be like in March when she had the baby and what would’ve happened if she’d simply gone ahead and had the abortion like she’d planned.
If she’d gone through with it she’d never have met Tiernan Brennan in the airport hotel and he would never have phoned Finn and told him, and her whole web of lies wouldn’t have come collapsing down on top of her. And she’d be in Clontarf right now, listening to Finn’s steady breathing and feeling the warmth of his body beside hers and everything would be exactly the way she’d always wanted.
Her hand slid over the gentle hill of her stomach. And she wouldn’t be pregnant. “I’m sorry,” she whispered softly into the darkness of the room. “I’m sorry for what I nearly did to you and I’m sorry about the life that you might end up living with me anyway. I’m sorry that you’ve been landed with such a hopeless fuck-up of a future mother when really you should have had it all. I’ll try and make it up to you but I know I never will.”
She closed her eyes and, quite suddenly, slept.
When Bree woke up the following morning she was shocked to realize that it was only seven o’clock but that she felt totally alert. She got out of bed and had a shower. The face that looked back at her from the mirror was softly tanned and her blue-gray eyes looked brighter than usual. She pulled her hair back into a curly ponytail and secured it with a black bobble. Then she dressed in a black T-shirt and her most comfortable pair of jeans.
She whistled as she put on the kettle for a cup of coffee. While she waited for it to boil she straightened the bedclothes on the bed, folded the jumper she’d been wearing last night and hung her trousers, which had been draped over the back of a chair, in the wardrobe. She closed the wardrobe door and then stopped in surprise as she looked around the flat.
It was neat and tidy and she’d just kept it that way. Perhaps, she thought, as she spooned coffee into a mug and then poured steaming hot water over it, perhaps living with both Nessa and Cate has rubbed off on me. Maybe I’m going to turn into a domesticated kind of girl after all! She grimaced. She didn’t want to be domesticated but after Cate had moved out she’d tidied up again. And she’d been pretty neat on their Spanish holiday too. Surely she couldn’t have changed in such a short space of time.
She sat on the windowsill and sipped her coffee. Domesticated certainly wasn’t on her agenda but she could see how life could be improved by just being a little bit tidier. She hated the idea of turning into a tidy person but maybe it was something that you couldn’t do anything about. Maybe Cate and Nessa were tidy simply because they were older than her.
She shook her head and drained her mug. They’d always been tidy. Their bad influence had obviously just rubbed off on her a bit. She looked at her watch. She wasn’t due in until nine this morning but it wouldn’t do any harm to be a little bit early. She got up and went into the tiny kitchen. She rinsed the mug and put it on the draining board.
A few weeks earlier she wouldn’t have rinsed it. She’d have left it there, along with a pile of other mugs and cups, until she was forced to wash it because she’d run out. She sighed deeply. Her sister’s influence had been much deeper than she’d thought. It was going to take a lot to change back again.
Cate walked into her office and sat down at her desk. She switched on her computer and while it was whirring into life she looked at the pile of white phone message notes that Glenda had left for her. Most of them were from sales reps and stores. One was from a market research company. And one was from Finn. She felt her stomach turn over at the sight of his name on the flimsy piece of paper in front of her. She blinked as she looked at the stark message in Glenda’s neat printing—day: Wednesday, time: 10:15 A.M., caller: Finn Coolidge, message: none.
Why had he phoned? Why had he phoned her at the office instead of on her mobile? She could have spoken to him if he’d called on her mobile. And then she remembered that Bree and Nessa hadn’t let her switch on her mobile while they’d been on holiday. If Finn had called he would’ve simply got her message minder. But he could have left a message, couldn’t he? If it was important.
She clicked on the training shoe icon on her computer to see a breakdown of last week’s sales. It’s probably not important, she told herself as the spreadsheet opened. It’s probably something stupid like wanting to give me some of the things out of the apartment that I left behind. Or to tell me that he has no intention of paying maintenance for the baby.
She looked down at her stomach. She was starting to feel solidarity with this baby. As though the two of them were taking on the world together. Even though she knew that was silly.
“I want to talk to you.” Adam strode into the kitchen and put his briefcase on the table. In the few days since Nessa had confronted him they’d barely spoken. He’d slept in the spare room and got up early every morning so that he’d already left the house before she came downstairs. A complete change of behavior, she noticed, from all the mornings when she’d had to call him again and again to make sure he got up at all.
Nessa turned from the sink where she’d been peeling potatoes. “Sure.”
“I spoke to a solicitor today,” he said. “He agrees that I shouldn’t leave the family home.”
Nessa swallowed.
“But I can’t stay here, can I?” He looked at her angrily. “You’ve ruined that for me.”
“For God’s sake, Adam!” She put down the pot
ato peeler. “You ruined it for yourself.”
“I told you I was prepared to give it a chance,” he snapped. “But you—you can’t be bothered to try. You’re acting like some tragedy queen, freezing me out, making life intolerable.”
“Oh, get real.” She picked up the peeler again and viciously dug an eye out of a potato.
“I’m going to move out for a few weeks despite his advice,” said Adam. “I can’t live like this. It’ll give you time to come to your senses anyway, to see what life is like without me. But I’ll still pay the mortgage, it’s still a family home and I’m very definitely not leaving you.”
Nessa shrugged.
“If you think for one minute that you can throw me out and hang on to everything I’ve worked for, you have another think coming,” said Adam.
“You slept with other women.” Nessa picked up another potato.
“I told you it was nothing,” said Adam angrily.
“How can you say that?” demanded Nessa. “How can you stand here and tell me that disregarding our marriage vows was nothing?”
“Don’t be so bloody sanctimonious,” retorted Adam. “You were never a Holy Joe, Nessa. Don’t start now just because it suits you.”
“I keep thinking that I’m in a bad dream and that I’ll wake up,” Nessa told him. “But I’m not. I’m married to someone who seems to think that being married means that there’ll always be someone to cook his meals and wash his underpants and run his home. I can’t believe that in the twenty-first century there are actually blokes who believe that!”
“Doing those things never bothered you before,” snapped Adam.
“No. Not when they were for someone who was supposed to love me,” said Nessa. “But for someone who’s shagging half of Dublin, it’s an entirely different matter.”
“Your language is disgraceful,” said Adam.
“Your behavior is disgraceful,” said Nessa.
“Why can’t you see the difference?” Adam looked at her pleadingly. “Love and—”
“Don’t start all that crap again,” Nessa interrupted him. “Love and lust may, in your book, be different. But there’s such a thing as respect too. You didn’t show any to me and I sure as hell don’t have any for you anymore.”
“I always respected you!”
“Oh, please!” Nessa laughed shortly. “You fooled me. That’s completely different.”
“I’m going to pack some things,” said Adam. “But not everything. Because I’ll be back, Nessa. You may be going through some silly feminist shit thing right now but you know you’ll come to your senses.”
“I just have come to my senses,” retorted Nessa. “I seem to have been without them for the last ten years!”
“Nessa, please.” Adam’s voice was suddenly conciliatory. “Listen to us. We don’t fight like this. We work things out. We can work this out too, honestly we can. Just tell me that you’ll think it over for a while.”
She dropped the potato into the sink. “OK,” she said eventually. “I’ll think it over.”
Jill watched him as he packed. “How long do you have to go away for?” she asked.
“A little while,” said Adam. “I have to go to work.”
“But you do go to work,” she objected. “Every morning.”
“It’s different this time,” said Adam grimly.
“Why?”
“It just is. I have to live somewhere else for work. But I’ll think about you all the time.” He turned to his daughter. “No matter what anyone says I love you very much.”
“I know that,” said Jill. “Mum told me too.”
“Did she?” asked Adam.
Jill nodded. ‘She says that both of you love me very much.”
“There you go.” Adam smiled brightly at her. “You’re obviously a very important person if we both love you so much.”
“I still don’t want you to have to live somewhere else,” Jill said.
“I’ll phone you every day,” said Adam.
“OK.” But Jill’s voice was full of doubt.
“I promise,” said Adam.
“Every day?”
“Every day,” he assured her.
The last thing Nessa wanted to do was to have to tell Miriam. She felt that her mother had gone through enough with Cate’s pregnancy and Bree’s accident and she also felt, that as the eldest, she should be the one for whom everything was going right. Miriam had always gone on at her about being a good example to her sisters when she was younger. Nessa had taken her role as a good example very seriously. She didn’t phone Miriam until Jill was in bed and then she spent ages talking about inconsequential things.
“What’s happened?” asked Miriam eventually.
“What d’you mean?”
‘For heaven’s sake, Nessa, I know there’s something the matter. You’ve been rambling for the best part of fifteen minutes. There’s something you want to tell me, isn’t there?”
Nessa sighed. “Adam’s gone,” she said baldly.
“Gone?”
“He—oh, Mum, he was having—there were other women.” To her horror, Nessa began to sob convulsively.
“I’ll come to Dublin,” said Miriam firmly.
It would be nice to have Miriam fussing over her, thought Nessa. But she didn’t want to be fussed over yet. She couldn’t face being fussed over. She took a deep breath and got her sobbing under control.
“I’d love you to come,” she said. “But not just yet. I need to be on my own for a while.”
“Is he gone for good? Are you going to get a divorce?”
“I haven’t thought as far as divorce yet,” said Nessa tiredly. “He wants me to think things over. But I have been thinking things over. I don’t want him back.”
“I knew there was something wrong when you phoned me from Spain,” said Miriam. “I should’ve done something.”
“Don’t be silly, there was nothing you could do.” Nessa sniffed. “But, you know, I’m OK on my own, Mum. I can cope on my own.” She clutched the receiver more tightly. “I never realized that before. I thought Adam was the cornerstone of my existence, I never would’ve believed that I could even live without him. But I can. I know I can.”
“I liked him,” said Miriam. “But he was always a bit too sure of his charm for his own good.”
“He was very charming,” agreed Nessa. “Oh, Mum, in loads of ways he was a great husband. But when you don’t trust someone…it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t trust them, does it?”
“‘No,” said Miriam.
“I’m really sorry.” Nessa felt her eyes sting with tears again.
“Sorry?”
“For messing it up. For getting it wrong. For becoming your separated daughter. And now Jill will be brought up in a single parent family.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about,” said Miriam vehemently. “Nothing. You’re a great daughter and you were a great wife and you’re a great mother. Jill is lucky to have you. So don’t start apologizing, Nessa.” Cate was the same. I can’t have been much of a mother if you both think you need to say sorry for how your lives have turned out.”
“That’s not true,” said Nessa. “You were great. But you got it so right and we got it so wrong.”
Miriam sighed. “Your Dad and I worked hard at our marriage,” she said. “Sometimes things were wonderful, sometimes they were lousy. But I’ll tell you now, Nessa, if he’d ever betrayed me with another woman I would’ve thrown him out there and then. It’s not your fault that Adam has done what he’s done so don’t blame yourself. And don’t feel as though you’ve let me down. You would’ve let me down if you’d done nothing about it.”
“Really?” asked Nessa.
“Absolutely,” said Miriam. “I want my girls to be strong. And they are.”
“But we’ve all managed to have disastrous relationships,” said Nessa.
“Not disastrous,” said Miriam. “You and Cate did find love. And maybe it all went pear shaped b
ut at least you know what it’s like. I do believe in the cliché that it’s better to have loved and lost. Really it is. I’m hoping that one day Bree will find someone to love too.”
Nessa was silent. She didn’t think that Miriam was ready to hear that Bree had fallen for a forty-five-year-old widower with three children. There was only so much she could expect her mother to take at any one time.
“I’ll see you soon,” she said eventually. “Perhaps Jill and I could come to Galway for a few days rather than you having to drag yourself up here.”
“That’d be lovely,” said Miriam.
“Thanks,” said Nessa.
“For what?”
“For understanding”
“Take care of yourself,” Miriam said. “Take care of Jill. And call me every day.”
“I will,” said Nessa. “Goodnight, Mum.”
“Goodnight,” said Miriam.
She replaced the receiver and looked at Louis who was sitting in the armchair opposite pretending to read the newspaper. Her heart swelled with love for him and gratitude that they’d been lucky enough to have had a long and happy marriage. Louis had never looked at another woman in all their time together. Well, she conceded, he might have looked once or twice but he’d never done anything more than that. And there’d been that awful time when he’d lost almost all their savings on some sure-fire investment which had opened a rift between them and which had taken a lot of time to heal. But it had healed. And they’d grown stronger as a result.
“Problems?” he folded the paper and peered at her over his reading glasses.
“Nessa,” she told him. “Adam and Nessa. I always thought she’d go to pieces if anything went wrong between them. Not that I thought anything would go wrong. But now that it has, she seems to have found a strength I never knew she had.”
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