The Birthday Party: The spell-binding new summer read from the Number One bestselling author

by Meaney, Roisin

  ‘I need you to be with me,’ she said. ‘I need you to want to be with Harry and me. Really with us.’

  A beat passed. He didn’t look away. ‘I am the way I am,’ he said. ‘I can’t change that.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to let me go, because I can’t deal with it.’

  He tipped his head an inch to the side, a movement so slight she almost missed it. Say something, she begged silently. Argue with me, fight for me – but instead he turned away to fold his arms and regard his canvas.

  The painting, almost completed, was of a young woman wrapped in a tangerine bath towel, sitting on a low stool and bent at the waist as she painted her toenails scarlet. The skin of her bare shoulders rosy and glowing, her hair caught up in a white turban, a few damp brown curls escaping. A gathering of small creases in the skin where her leg met her turned-up foot. Intent on her task, lower lip slightly pursed, a tiny glisten of saliva at its centre. Eyes masked by heavy lashes.

  War Paint, he was calling it. It was about eighteen inches by two feet. It would fetch thousands – tens of thousands, maybe more – at whatever auction it was put into. Like all his works, it was technically brilliant – but was it lacking, she wondered, in soul?

  Maybe nobody else saw it. Maybe it was just because she knew him so well. Seventeen years since they’d met, over fifteen as his wife. Mother to his third child for the past two years.

  Harry had been all her doing. She’d hungered for a baby, long before she’d met Luke. She knew he didn’t want another child, he’d always been open about that, so she’d tried to quell her yearning, but the hunger hadn’t gone away, had grown instead until she’d taken a chance at the age of forty and thrown her pills away.

  He hadn’t been pleased, of course, when she’d told him she was pregnant, but she’d remained steadfast and eventually, reluctantly, he’d had to accept it. A son, she’d thought, since daughters hadn’t done the trick. A son he wouldn’t be able to resist: a son would shift his priorities, make him want to put them first – and the Fates had smiled on her, and a son she’d had.

  And for a while, it had seemed like things were changing. Oh, he still painted, and his focus at times could be as fierce as it had ever been – he’d missed Harry’s Roone christening, preoccupied with an important commission – but overall he was spending more time with his little family, he was making an effort to be a father. The balance, she’d felt, was shifting in their favour.

  Until a few months ago, when there was no more balance, no more Luke Potter the husband and father. He’d reverted fully to Luke Potter the artist, Luke Potter the household name, and she had no idea what had caused it.

  He turned back to her. ‘It’s not what I want, your leaving,’ he said. ‘You must know that.’

  ‘How can I know, when you never show me? When have you last talked, really talked, to me?’

  He scratched at a point above his elbow. ‘There are—’ He broke off. ‘I have things,’ he said, ‘on my mind.’

  ‘What things? Tell me. Let me in, Luke.’

  He gave an impatient little toss of his head. He picked up a brush, pushed his fingers through its bristles. ‘Are you taking Harry with you?’

  She felt like weeping. Did they mean so little to him that he’d let them walk out of his life with such little protest? ‘Yes, of course I’m taking Harry.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Why do you care?’ she shot back, and immediately regretted it. She mustn’t lose her temper. She mustn’t turn this into a war of words.

  But he didn’t retaliate. He said nothing more. He dipped his brush into paint and worked in silence for what felt like a long time, as she stood in the doorway, still waiting, still clinging to a foolish, naïve hope that he’d suddenly become the man she desperately needed him to be.

  The studio air was heady with the sludgy smell of oil paint. It permeated the house, drifted into each room, seeped into every cupboard. It was on her skin and her hair and her clothes, it flavoured her dreams – but here, in this space where he created it, you could hardly breathe for it. Did he even notice?

  Eventually she spoke. ‘I’ll arrange for someone to collect our things later. I’ll be in touch when we find somewhere to live, so we can sort things out.’

  ‘Go if you must,’ he replied, without turning. ‘Just remember it’s your choice, not mine.’

  Her choice, when everything in her was screaming to stay. Not her choice, far from it, but the only option she could see.

  She was going to Roone, to her stepdaughter Laura, who knew Luke as well as Susan did, who would understand why Susan was leaving. Her journey wouldn’t end on the island, but it would begin there. It would begin with two weeks of having to do nothing but let the dust of this departure settle and figure out what came next, to consider her options and pick the most promising – or the least intimidating.

  She needn’t go as far as Roone, on the other side of the country. She could go to Trish, or Rachel, or several other friends who’d known her before she married Luke, and who never criticised him to her face, but who had plenty to say about him, she imagined, among themselves. She could go to her friends, but she had to get out of Dublin, and she wanted Laura.

  For the time being she would avoid her mother, who’d never hit it off with Luke, the much older man who’d already been married and divorced – and who made her feel inferior, Susan suspected, purely because of his renown. Attractive, confident, used to attention, her mother resented it being focused instead on Luke whenever they were out together. Over the years, dinner invitations and the like had been dutifully issued, but more often than not her mother had found reasons to turn them down – and Luke, proud Luke, had never tried to win her over.

  Nothing would be said if Susan turned up on the doorstep announcing that her marriage had ended, but she would sense her mother’s quiet satisfaction, her poorly disguised relief, and she wasn’t having it.

  What would her father, she wondered, have made of her choice of husband? He’d died when Susan was sixteen, so his opinion of Luke would be forever unknown. Perhaps just as well.

  ‘Won’t you look at me?’ she asked, and he did, and hope flared in her. Now he’d speak, now he’d make promises – but he remained silent.

  They stood there, separated by just a few metres. It might as well, she thought, be an ocean that flowed between them, so far apart from one another they’d become.

  ‘Goodbye,’ she said, and left him, already brimming over with loss.

  In their bedroom, one floor below, she picked up the bag she’d already packed and brought it downstairs. There wasn’t much in it: a few changes of clothes for her and Harry, a few of pairs of shoes, cosmetics and toothbrushes. She wasn’t thinking beyond a fortnight. She stored it in the boot of her car and climbed the stairs again to her son’s room. She crossed to his bed and nudged him gently awake.

  ‘Come on, lovey, time to get up. We’re going in the car.’

  He opened his eyes – his father’s eyes, somewhere between blue and green – and regarded her sleepily. She lifted him out and dressed him. She slipped his feet into shoes and brought him yawning to the bathroom. Afterwards she fed him a banana and poured milk into his blue cup. He never ate much first thing in the morning.

  They left the house. She strapped him into his child seat and placed Toby, his beloved blue elephant, in his arms. She closed his door and slipped into the driver’s seat. ‘Daddy is staying here,’ she said, watching his placid little face in the rear-view mirror. Daddy, not Luke. He’d always been Luke to Laura, and he’d suggested the same when Harry had come along, but Susan wasn’t having that for her son. ‘Daddy is busy with his painting.’

  She turned to look at him, her precious only child. ‘We’re going to see Laura,’ she said. ‘And Evie and Marian and Poppy and Ben and Seamus.’ Cousins, she and Laura called the relationship between their children, although technically Harry was their step-uncle, if such a role existed. ‘That’ll be go
od, won’t it? You’ll like that, won’t you?’

  He nodded. His second birthday last month, and he had yet to utter a single word. Not a mama or a dada, no baby babbling. Nothing that could be considered an attempt at communication.

  He wasn’t deaf: he turned his head at sound. There was no physical impediment that his paediatrician could identify, nothing to explain his lack of speech. His vocal cords were in order: he laughed and cried like any another child, if maybe a little less frequently. He understood what was being said to him, or asked of him. He’s just a late developer, Susan was told. Give it time. Keep speaking to him, but try not to dwell on it. Try not to put pressure on him.

  The doctor’s eyes said different things though. Don’t fuss, leave him be, the eyes said. Stop wasting my time. Stop wasting your money. Was it Luke, she wondered, was it down to him? For all his earlier efforts with his son, Harry had received little physical affection from him. He wasn’t a natural hugger, an easy cuddler, a kisser of bruises. Had Harry sensed this? Had it trapped the words inside him, made him fearful of letting them out?

  She looked through the car window at the beautiful red-brick house that was, that had been, her marital home. Luke’s studio, a replacement a few years earlier for the one at the bottom of the garden, took up the entire top floor and was lit by windows front and back in addition to two huge skylights. She pictured him there where she’d left him, painting alone, nobody to bother him now. He’d get someone in, she thought, to cook his meals and make his bed, like the woman he’d employed in the period between his marriages. He’d replace Susan with someone who demanded nothing of him but a weekly envelope with money in it.

  His love had taken her completely by surprise. She couldn’t believe that such a commanding figure, so important and self-assured, could possibly be interested in her. He’d pursued her with a single-mindedness that had amazed and thrilled her. He’d told her that he needed her, that he couldn’t function without her. He’d said things she’d loved to hear; he’d whispered them to her and they’d made her giddy with happiness, made her feel like she could raise her arms and the rest of her would follow, that she could float all the way to the moon.

  And of course his fame had appealed to her, though she knew how shallow it made her sound to admit it. She was aware of people watching them when they were out together; she sensed the envy of other women, and was gratified by it. She’d feel his palm resting lightly in the small of her back as they followed a waiter to a restaurant table. Heads would invariably turn when he was recognised, and she’d marvel that she was the one he’d chosen, when he could have had anyone, or almost anyone.

  Where had it all gone? Where had they gone? Try as she might to find a cause, no cause presented itself. Why had he changed from the sometimes distant but ultimately loving man she’d married? What had moved him out of her reach? Did he still love her? Was it there somewhere, buried beneath, smothered by his obsession for work, or had it flown for good?

  She felt a heat behind her eyes, but she refused to give in to it. She opened the handbag she’d bought last Christmas with Luke’s money – Get what you want, he’d said, like he always did – and checked for their passports. Ready for every eventuality. ‘Right then,’ she said aloud, stowing the bag in front of the passenger seat. ‘Let’s go.’

  She reached for the small remote control that lived in the pocket of her driver’s door. She pressed a button and the big metal gate slid slowly to one side with a low rumble. She started the engine and left the driveway, and heard the gate sliding back into place behind her. Shutting her out, shutting him in.

  She drove through the streets to the motorway, the traffic thankfully light in her direction, everyone coming into the city at this still early hour. Rain fell; wipers swished it away. She left the radio off, preferring the silence. She crossed the country as clouds grew dense above her, pulling down the sky, as the rain fell more solidly the further west she travelled.

  Shortly after noon she exited the motorway. In a village café she ordered an omelette for Harry and mushroom soup for herself. ‘Your brown bread is delicious,’ she told the woman who’d served it to accompany the soup, and the woman thanked her. ‘My daughter’s the baker,’ she said. ‘I leave it to her’ – and Susan wished for a normal family, with a daughter who baked bread.

  By the time they reached the pier it was heading for four o’clock, and Harry had had an hour’s nap. As the Roone ferry approached, Susan phoned Laura. ‘We should be at the hotel by half four. Don’t come if you’re busy.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come. Gav is on dinner duty: he’s doing his special meatballs, so I’m free as a bird. See you soon.’

  They remained in the car for the twenty-minute crossing, Susan’s only interaction a brief exchange with the ferryman, who probably recognised her face but maybe wasn’t aware of her connection with Laura because she’d never made it known to him. ‘Have a nice trip,’ he said, and she promised him she would.

  The hotel façade had had a fresh coat of paint since her last visit to the island, just before Easter. The apricot it had worn for as long as she’d known it was gone, replaced by a rather nice aquamarine. She parked as close to the main door as she could and got out, stretching her cramped muscles. She opened the rear door and unbuckled Harry, and collected their joint bag from the boot. They made their way inside and booked in, and were shown to their first floor room.

  She was hanging the few items of clothing she’d brought, and Harry was sitting on a cushion on the floor watching cartoons, when Laura arrived. ‘How’s my main man?’ she asked him, crouching to ruffle his hair. ‘Can I have a hug?’ He submitted to her embrace, and returned to his programme when it was over.

  ‘Good to see you,’ Susan said, kissing her cheek, and being kissed in return. They sat side by side on the room’s small navy couch, fingers intertwined. Susan eased her shoes off one by one and let her weight sink into the couch. She felt drained, as if the leaving had sucked all the vitality out of her, as if her energy had remained behind in the big house in Dublin.

  ‘I think I know why you’re here,’ Laura murmured, squeezing Susan’s hand.

  She’d guessed. Of course she had. Susan studied the beautiful back of her son’s head, the shock of dark hair above the pale slender neck. ‘I hate that it’s come to this, but he’s left me with no choice.’

  Laura made no reply.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind that we’ve come here – I mean, with him being your father. I’d hate for you to feel caught in the middle.’

  ‘Caught in the middle?’

  Something in her voice made Susan turn. Laura’s face was full of puzzlement, a crimp in the skin between her eyes.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. ‘Why would I be caught in the middle?’

  ‘Well, with us splitting up—’

  ‘Splitting up? You’ve left him?’

  Clearly not what she was expecting after all. ‘Yes, I’ve left him,’ Susan said, darting a glance at Harry. ‘What did you think this was about?’

  Laura’s frown didn’t shift. ‘I – I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.’

  ‘But you just said—’

  ‘Well, I just thought you might need a break, that was all. I didn’t expect this.’

  It sounded to Susan like an accusation. She let the words sit in the air between them, feeling utterly disheartened. She’d thought her stepdaughter of all people would understand, would accept Susan’s decision without question. Would even show some sympathy. Then again, however she might feel about him, he was her father.

  ‘Sorry,’ Laura said, giving her hand another squeeze. ‘Sorry, I didn’t meant to – it was just … a surprise. Do you want to talk about it? Can you tell me what happened?’

  Susan pulled a hand through her hair, feeling again the weariness in every muscle, every move. ‘Nothing happened. I mean, nothing specific. It’s just lately – well, you know what he’s like, so focused on his work—’

&n
bsp; ‘I know. I do know – but that’s just Luke.’

  Susan shook her head. ‘It’s different now. It’s as if he’s not even living with us any more, you know? As if he’s put a giant wall between us. I can’t connect with him. I can’t find him.’

  ‘He might have things on his mind.’

  ‘Well, of course he—’

  ‘Have you tried talking to him? Have you asked him if anything is wrong?’

  ‘Of course I have,’ she replied, a little more tartly than she’d intended. ‘I’ve tried all I can, and I can’t get through.’

  ‘So—’ Laura began, and stopped. And began again. ‘Maybe you just need to persevere, Susan. I mean, splitting up is so final, isn’t it? Maybe he just needs more time to open up to you.’

  All the times Laura had moaned about him to Susan, all the times she’d voiced her resentment of how absent he’d been as a parent – and now here she was telling Susan to have more patience. It would seem, when it came down to it, that blood really was thicker than water.

  ‘Sorry,’ Laura said again. ‘It’s between you and Luke, and none of my business. I just hate to see you separating, that’s all. He never deserved you, but he was so lucky to have you.’

  Susan gave a bitter smile. ‘Pity he can’t see that.’

  ‘I think he can,’ Laura replied, nodding slowly. ‘I’m sure he loves you, Susan. I know he does.’

  The remarks only served to irritate Susan. ‘How can you possibly know that? You haven’t seen him in well over a year. How can you have the smallest idea how he feels?’

  ‘I just know,’ Laura insisted. ‘I can’t explain it, but I do. Lord knows I’ve no illusions about him, but I just … I wish …’

  She trailed off. Silence stretched between them. Susan watched a cartoon man being chased by a big yellow animal that could have been a dog or a dinosaur.

  ‘So what will you do now?’ Laura asked eventually.

  ‘I’ll get a job, and I’ll find a place to live.’

  ‘Where?’