by Melissa Hill
Neither of them said anything until they were outside the village.
“Where are you staying? Can I give you a lift?” Jenny said, anxious to break the silence, and unnerved by his close proximity.
“I’m staying at the Skylon, near the airport. I’d appreciate you dropping me back, I had to get a taxi out here.”
“No problem.”
They drove for what seemed like ages, without saying another word. Spurred by nervousness and anticipation, Jenny drove much faster than she would normally allow herself, especially on such narrow and winding roads. She was so aware of him, so conscious of the familiar scent of him. He looked good, she thought.
When they reached the main Dublin road, Roan finally said something.
“How have you been?” he asked, as he had back in Rathrigh, though this time gentler, with a little more feeling.
“Fine,” Jenny said, trying to keep her voice even. “I didn’t expect you to be here today. I knew that you and Shane had kept in touch, but I didn’t think you were that close.”
“Shane was a good guy,” said Roan, with a slight American twang, “he gave me his email address before I left, and for some reason, we just kept corresponding - Aidan too. It was pretty lonely out there at the beginning. New York is such a huge place. I didn’t know many others in the office, and the company put me in a hotel for the first few weeks, until I could sort out a place of my own.”
“Didn’t Cara Stephens go out there too?” Jenny asked bitterly, before she could stop herself. “I’m sure she would have kept you company.” Shit - why had she said that? Now he would know she still cared.
Roan took a deep breath. “It wasn’t like that, Jenny. There was never anything between Cara and I.”
“Oh, I see, I just imagined that night, did I? I just imagined seeing you wrapped around her in the corner of some nightclub.” Jenny’s noticed that her hands were sweating badly, as she grasped the gear-stick to move the Punto into fifth gear.
“Jen, this is why I caught up with you back there. I know you’re still angry with me, and you’ve every right to be. Look, pull in and we’ll go somewhere where we can talk properly – not like this. You’re getting yourself all worked up. Please – you’ll have us both killed otherwise,” he added, trying to make light of the situation and instantly realising that, in view of the day that was in it, the comment was in very bad taste.
Satisfied at the realisation that after all this time she was the one making him feel uncomfortable; Jenny had slowed off the accelerator and brought her speed back down to fifty. He was right. They needed to talk. Properly. Maybe then, Jenny thought, she could get some answers but then, a part of her wasn’t quite sure whether or not she wanted to hear them.
A few miles further down, close to Balbriggan, Jenny pulled in and parked the car at a small picnic area, situated in a lay-by just off the main road. Although it was heading towards teatime, some picnicking families were still present amongst the small wooden tables, undoubtedly taking advantage of the day’s unexpected fine weather, and the gorgeous view out towards Dublin bay.
Jenny and Roan sat side by side at the nearest vacant bench.
“Now that you’re here, I’m not sure what to say to you,” he said quietly. “I’ve rehearsed this conversation a thousand times in my head, but now I just don’t know where to start.”
For once, Roan actually looked a little unsure of himself, she thought. But she wasn’t going to be taken in by his little-boy-lost attitude. Not this time.
“How about, ‘Jenny, I’m sorry for lying to you, I’m sorry for cheating on you, and I’m sorry for treating you like shit throughout the entirety of our relationship?’ That would be a good start, Roan.” She noticed that her voice sounded bitter, more so than she would have imagined.
“You’re right, you know. I won’t argue with that.” He turned to face her, but Jenny concentrated her stare away from his, and out towards the sea. “I am sorry, Jenny, I’m sorry for everything. You deserved better.”
“Yes,” she said simply. “I did. You told me you loved me; we were living together, for goodness sake. And yet you still cheated on me, and lied to me all the way through. Why? If you didn’t love me, why not just finish it?”
He shook his head. “Jenny, I honestly don’t know why. When I said I loved you, I thought I meant it – at the time I meant it, but I suppose back then I had absolutely no idea what I was really saying.”
“Oh.” So he didn’t love her then, he had never really loved her after all. At least now, Jenny knew for sure.
“Look Jen, you were right when you said that I lied and cheated my way through our relationship. And to this day, I don’t know why I did that. It’s just that girls always seemed to really like me, and I just couldn’t help myself sometimes. I know that sounds pathetic, but it was true.”
“Like Cara, I suppose,” Jenny said, numbness spreading through her. Even though she had realised all of this a long time ago, and had come to terms with it in a way, it was still very difficult to hear him say it. Roan had never really loved her.
“Yes, like Cara. But that night didn’t happen like you thought it did. I know you won’t believe me, but that night, I actually had a crisis of conscience. I knew that Cara was up for it, and I thought to myself ‘Why am I doing this? What’s the point?’ I didn’t really care about Cara; I didn’t really care about any of them. All I was doing was hurting myself and hurting you, not to mention ruining any chance of our having a half-decent relationship.”
Jenny could feel the tears starting from behind her eyes, and she willed herself not to cry. They were all coming back now, all the old feelings of hurt, betrayal, and humiliation. Back then, she had fooled herself into thinking that they had more than a half-decent relationship. While she had put her very heart and soul into making it work, Roan had done everything to tear it asunder – tearing Jenny asunder in the process.
“I’m sorry, Jenny,” he said finally. “Really I am. I know you did your best and I didn’t know at the time how lucky I was to have someone like you. It was only when I moved away that I realised how few people really cared about me. I quickly found that I had nobody to rely on, that through my own selfishness I had driven everyone away. I thought that everyone, all my so-called friends back here, would be really impressed by my big-shot Manhattan lifestyle. I thought they’d all be clambering for invitations to visit, and I was looking forward to showing off. But after a few months, I realised that nobody gave a shit. I ring my mother once a month and once in a blue moon, if she wants something, she might ring me. But that’s it. I could be lying dead in the Bronx somewhere, for all they care.”
“What about the people you work with?” asked Jenny. “Surely you made some friends at Evanston?”
Roan shook his head. “I work with them, Jenny, but I don’t really know them. Americans are different from us – they’re much more independent. They don’t find it absolutely necessary to know everything about everyone else. They have their own lives outside work and they just get on with it. Look, I’m not trying to make you feel sorry for me. It’s just, I had a lot of time on my hands and I got to thinking a lot about my behaviour, not just towards you, but also towards everyone else. And I soon realised that I didn’t have anyone I could turn to. There was no absolutely no-one I could confide in. I couldn’t admit to anyone that I was finding it hard over there.
Then one day, I came across Shane’s email address in my wallet and I sent him a quick note, asking how things were. He replied the next day.” He looked sadly out towards the sea. “I’ve always had great time for Aidan and after a while, I wrote to him too. Hardly a week went by when we didn’t correspond. And it seemed easier to admit to them both that I was having a hard time, although I knew Shane had long since read between the lines, so to speak.”
“And that’s why you came back for the funeral?”
Roan nodded. “I had to pay my respects. He and I had got quite close, closer than you might ex
pect. I confided in him, and in return he confided in me. I knew he had been under a lot of strain there for a while, before he and Karen decided upon a date for the wedding. I think he felt that she was getting cold feet, and might call the whole thing off.”
Jenny was shocked upon hearing this. She was sure too, that Karen would have had no idea that Roan and Shane had been communicating like that. She was certain that her friend would have mentioned it.
“Were you really that miserable?” Jenny asked, wondering why he had stayed in New York if things had been that bad.
“At the beginning, yes, but after a while I got a place of my own – well, a house-share in Yonkers with a crowd of Dublin lads.” He shook his head in wonder. “Talk about living home away from home, Jen. Out there it’s much the same as living in Rathmines. Yonkers is where most of the Irish live in New York, and at the shop near my place you can buy Galtee sausages for your breakfast and Jacobs Cream Crackers for your lunch. They even stock all the Regional Irish newspapers. I buy the Leinster Post in there every week.” He laughed, relaxing a little. “I suppose all of this helped me settle. Then I met someone.”
Jenny said nothing. She’d had a feeling that this was coming.
“Her name’s Kelly,” Roan went on. “She’s American but tells everyone she’s Irish-American, even though she’s never even been outside the city. She works as a radio dispatcher for the NYPD.” He smiled at Jenny’s expression, before he continued.
“I know what you’re thinking, but that’s not how we met. I haven’t been in any trouble over there – quite the opposite actually, the job is going really well and I’m next in line for promotion.”
Jenny listened in silence as he told her all this. It was incredible, she thought. Roan had another life now, a completely different life from the one they had shared. And he sounded happy with his new life, and his new love. He had moved on.
And now he was here, apologising, trying to explain, and asking for forgiveness, so that he could go back with a clear conscience to his nice new life, with his nice new girlfriend.
“I met someone too,” Jenny said, suddenly aware that she was using her words as both a shield against her own feelings, and as weapon towards his. She wanted him to be affected by this, maybe even a little jealous.
“I’m glad. You deserve it, Jen,” he said, and then he smiled that amazing smile, that genuine smile, the one that showed up the tiny dimples on each side of his mouth. It had been a long time since Jenny had seen that smile. Towards the end, Roan had rarely smiled at her, had rarely smiled at anything. Had she made him that unhappy, she wondered.
He gave a short laugh. “You won’t believe me, but I spoke to Shane about you shortly before I left, and I asked him to keep an eye on you.” He shrugged. “Arrogant of me, I know – because I should have realised you’d bounce back without help from anyone else.”
“It wasn’t that easy, Roan.”
“I don’t think that for second,” he said. “I wanted to tell you I was leaving for good, but by then it had been what – five, six months since we’d seen one another? Shane advised me against it, said that you’d moved on and it would be better if I just left you alone.”
“He was right, as it happened,” she said with a smile.
“I wanted to pick up the phone to you so many times, Jenny. I was such a bastard – I know that now. But believe me when I tell you that my stupid behaviour back then was absolutely no reflection on you. I had always been exactly the same – with Siobhan, with everyone else.”
“Tell me about Siobhan,” Jenny said bravely, even thought she didn’t really want to hear what she knew he was going to tell her.
He sighed. “I suppose if we’re being honest, I might as well tell you everything. That night in the pub, Lydia Reilly wasn’t lying about Siobhan and I being engaged.”
Jenny’s heart sank. She had thought that she couldn’t possibly feel any worse, but at this, she felt as though Roan had taken her heart and given it to a pair of Chinese ping-pong world champions to use in a final. She let him continue.
“We were together for a long time after that, right up until after the Venice trip. She was the daughter of a one-hundred-acre stud-owner, and we had been going out since secondary school.” He said this ashamedly, looking down at the grass. “She was the one I thought I’d eventually marry but, after Venice, I think she saw through me, realised that I’d been doing the dirt on her in Dublin, that I’d been doing the dirt all along.”
“And you were doing the same to me. Why? What was the point? Doing something like that was just plain cruel – to both of us.”
Jenny remembered only too clearly the naked pain she had felt the day she discovered he had gone to Venice with Siobhan. Still, she had suspected that they were still together, that they had never broken up as Roan had told her they had. In her heart of hearts, Jenny had known the truth all along.
“I know, and I’m sorry. Siobhan was supposed to have been away on a modelling shoot that weekend, and wouldn’t have been able to go. So I asked you. Then she heard about my winning the competition, and cancelled the shoot to go with me. I didn’t know what to do. Then we had the fight and …”
“Competition? You won the trip in a bloody competition?” Jenny cried. Enraged, she jumped off the wooden bench, not caring one whit about what the other picnickers thought of her. This revelation was way too much for her. By his own admission Roan was a lying conniving, cheating little rat, but this. How could anyone be so deceitful?
“Jenny – ”
“Forget it.” she said, rummaging in her handbag for the car keys. “I’ve had enough, Roan, I don’t want to hear another word.” She raged past the group of teenagers on the next bench, who for the last couple of minutes had been watching the scene with interest, pleased with the unexpected entertainment this madwoman and her poor hen-pecked boyfriend were providing. “I’m out of here, and don’t think you’re coming with me. You can crawl your way back to Dublin, it’s the least you deserve, you fucking creep.”
Roan stood up in shock. He couldn’t remember ever hearing Jenny use such bad language. He followed her back to the car where she stood in tears, struggling to get the key in the driver door.
“Jenny I’m sorry, I really am,” he said softly, coming up beside her, and putting an arm around her.
She whirled around to face him, tears flooding down her cheeks.
“Do you know how much shit I went through last year, trying to figure it all out, wondering what I did wrong? Thinking that it was me, that it had to be me, that I wasn’t attractive enough for you, that I was too fat, that I was crap in bed, that I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. Did you have any idea?”
“Sssh, Jen, it’s OK.”
“And all that time, after wondering whether or not you were cheating on me, after trying my utmost to keep you happy, you turn around and tell me that I wasn’t the one who was being cheated on. I wasn’t even number one. I was just the other woman. She had dumped you so you had to settle for second best.”
“It wasn’t like that, Jenny. I cared about you a lot – I still do.” Clearly disturbed, Roan ran a hand through his hair. “Look, when Siobhan and I broke up I was determined to give things a decent shot with you and for a while there, things were going well and we were happy. But I don’t know, I think we got into some kind of rut – I got into some kind of rut. I wasn’t happy with my life, Jen, and I didn’t know why. But now I do – now I realise that I’d spent most of my life using other people, expecting them to keep me happy, while I gave nothing in return.” He walked closer to her. “Come here – please.”
He reached for Jenny and held her close to him.
Inside, Jenny felt that her heart was breaking all over again. “Did you have any idea Roan,” she said, sobbing miserably into his chest, “ever have any idea how much I loved you?”
Chapter 41
Much later, Jenny drove Roan back to his hotel. They were both silent for most of the journey,
and the atmosphere hung heavily between them. He had changed, she thought, glancing sideways at him as they approached the entrance to the Skylon hotel.
Breaking down in front of him like that had been incredibly embarrassing. He seemed to understand though, and had held her in his arms for a long time afterwards, saying nothing while she cried. He openly accepted complete responsibility for the failure of their relationship, and had admitted that he had been ruthless with her feelings, not to mention her health. For that, he said, he was truly sorry.
It had been a new departure for Jenny. Never once, throughout the course of their relationship, had he taken the blame for anything. She appreciated his sincerity, but still wasn’t sure how she felt about this new, improved, and obviously much more mature Roan Williams.
There had been a moment back there at the picnic area, a moment that Jenny was finding, now driving towards his hotel, very difficult to put out of her mind. When he had put his arms around her as she cried, Jenny had felt the almost unreal sensation of being in his arms again, immersed in the familiar scent of him. Then Roan had stared into her eyes with such a strange look on his face that Jenny was almost certain that he was about to kiss her. They stayed like that, eyes locked together, for what seemed like an age. Then Jenny looked away, the moment passed, and shortly afterwards, the two of them returned to the car.
Now she didn’t know what to think.
All she knew was that she had never felt so exhausted in her life, the hours of heavy, emotive conversation with him draining her entire being. Not to mention the fact that she hadn’t had a decent nights’ sleep in days. She pulled up outside the hotel entrance, kept the engine running, and put the car back into first gear. Roan got out.
“It’s close to seven o’clock,” he said, glancing at his watch, which Jenny noticed was an expensive looking Tag Heuer. He obviously hadn’t been lying about doing well in New York. “Do you want to come in for a while? We could maybe get something to eat? I know I’m pretty hungry after all that, and I’m sure you must be too.”
