by Andrea Mara
“You are so far out of his league, you know that, right?”
I laugh and then choke a little on my wine.
“Seriously! You are a beautiful woman. How old are you?”
I’m so taken aback by her directness I don’t even consider not answering. “Forty.”
“Wow, you look amazing for forty. Your husband, not so much. He’s older than you, right?”
“Only by five years. I think he looks pretty good for his age . . .”
“Nah, he looks like a man who enjoys his wine and steak too much – you can tell by his skin and his eyes. You take good care of yourself, I can see that. You’ll meet someone new.”
“Jesus, I’m not looking to meet anyone new! I’m a forty-year-old mother of two teens with a busy job, a falling-down house, and a time-consuming mother. Meeting someone new is the last thing on my mind.”
She swirls her drink, staring at me as she does. It’s awkward and I drop my gaze to her wine, wondering if it’s going to spill over the side. But Cleo doesn’t seem like a person who ever spills wine.
“Don’t sell yourself short. I suspect you already have, so maybe don’t do it again.”
My mother is the only person I know who is this direct, but somehow with Cleo it doesn’t make me want to tear my hair out. In fact, I almost believe her. Touching my phone screen, I make the photo of Dave appear again. Maybe he has gone to seed a little.
“Anyway, enough about me,” I say out loud. “What has you living in Ireland?”
“Oh, I got restless in New York, and there may have been a spot of boy trouble.” She does one of her shrugs. Mermaid shrugs. “I like it there, people just leave you to do your thing.”
“From New York to Dublin – that must be a culture shock. What do you do? For work, I mean?”
“This and that. A bit of bar-tending, some graphic design. I manage social media for a couple of restaurants near where I live too. It’s cool – nothing that ties me to an office five days a week, you know? I’d hate that. What do you do?”
“Well, I guess I’m tied to an office five days a week.”
She grins. “Oh sure, each to their own – what kind of office?”
“I’m a counselling psychologist, so basically I spend most of my day with clients. It could be bereavement, work-related anxiety, anger management – whatever comes my way really.”
She cocks her head to one side and looks at me over the top of her wineglass. “I can totally picture you doing that. I bet you’re like this really serious, professional therapist on the outside, and inside you want to scream at your clients sometimes, right?”
I’m about to say no, then I laugh. “Yeah, sometimes I want to fucking throw things at them.”
She laughs now too, loudly, throwing back her head.
Ava looks over, and I realise it’s close to eleven, and we still have to finish packing. The protests I’m expecting don’t materialise when I call time; they say goodbye to their new friends without fuss. They’re all following each other on Snapchat and Instagram they tell me, so it’s not like really saying goodbye. Right so, maybe I’ll ask Cleo if she’s on Snapchat, I tell them. That earns me eye-rolls. To their relief, it’s one social media platform I haven’t gone near and no matter how often they tell me how it works, it makes absolutely no sense to me. Why would you bother posting a photo that disappears after twenty-four hours?
Back at the table, Cleo is watching the singer. Somehow I feel bad leaving her there to walk home on her own, but that’s silly – she’s travelling alone so must do that every night. Or at least when she’s not with beautiful men who may or may not be from Stockholm.
“We’re going to head off now, we’re flying home in the morning,” I tell her, not sure whether we’re at the hugging stage or not.
She stays in her seat.
“Well, it was nice meeting you, and who knows, maybe we’ll bump into each other in Dublin some time.”
“Exactly!” I say, but I suspect we don’t run in quite the same circles.
I wave as I follow the girls out of the bar and she watches me, still with that half-smile and I wonder if I asked her now would she even remember my name.
It’s cooler on the deck tonight and the candle flickers in an unfamiliar breeze. Ava and Rebecca are talking online to their friends from the bar but soon decide it’s too cold to sit out. I tell them to go to bed, but I don’t take my own advice – I want to eke out the last few minutes of the holiday all on my own on the deck. Pulling my cardigan tighter, I take a sip of my wine and sit back. It’s after midnight and, apart from the chirping of crickets, there isn’t a sound. I don’t want to think about what’s ahead, about Dave and Brian and Jonathan Oliver, I just want to enjoy this peace and think about nothing at all.
Then, as it always does, my phone breaks the silence. The noise seems louder than usual, and my hand fumbles when I turn over the phone. The little @ symbol at the top tells me it’s Twitter and my heart sinks. I think about ignoring it but my fingers move to do otherwise.
I can see you
Just four little words, but my blood runs cold. I pull my cardigan closer, scanning the darkness, and instinctively I lift my feet up onto the chair. I know I should go inside but I can’t move. Everything is heightened, and I can hear nothing beyond blood rushing in my ears. In my head, a voice tells me to get up, walk inside, and lock the door, but still I can’t move. I jump when my phone buzzes a second time.
I see you, sitting on your deck in the dark
I’m shaking now and freezing cold and I know I have to go inside. Holding my phone, I move to get off the chair but somehow my foot gets caught between the slats and I land on the deck, stunned and sore. Without stopping, I crawl to the door of the mobile home and reach up to yank it open. Pulling it behind me once inside, I turn the key and pull the curtain, then run to check on the girls. They’re both asleep. Back in the kitchen, I sink to the floor, trying to slow my breathing.
Jesus Christ. That can’t have just happened, can it? I look at my phone, waiting for the next message, listening for noises outside. But there’s nothing. No tweets, no footsteps. I pull myself up to standing and put my hand through the gap in the curtains to check the door is locked. I don’t want to look outside. I switch on the porch light and the kitchen light, and check the girls again, and all the windows.
In my own room, I lie on the bed and wait for another message but nothing comes and eventually I pull the blanket over me and fall into a fitful, jangled sleep.
Chapter 6
The flurry of the journey home pushes the VIN messages to the back of my mind and, by the time we arrive in Monkstown, it all seems like a surreal bad dream. And it’s really, really good to be back inside our house. Well, for about ten minutes, then we discover the radiator in the spare room has leaked on the carpet. Sometimes I’m surprised the house is still standing at all – loose floorboards, cracked ceilings, and a hunk of plaster missing from the kitchen wall. We had such plans when we first moved in – it had everything going for it – a Georgian mid-terrace with high ceilings and bay windows, huge rooms and lots of light. I was the one who held back about buying it, worried it was too big and too expensive, but as always Dave swept me along. And I couldn’t help getting caught up in the excitement – the pale yellow outside walls, the gravel path and the granite steps up to the raincloud-blue front door. The hallway with its glittering chandelier and black-and-white tiled floor. The wide stairs, up to the bedrooms, and the narrower one, down to the basement. Sure, it needed work, but we’d get there he said. And here we are, in a house that looks just as it did fifteen years ago, only more faded, and no Dave.
The unopened letters on the kitchen table stare up at me, their plastic windows announcing nothing good. They can wait. Instead I shout up to the girls that I’m going out to pick up dinner. Bracing myself as I open the front door, I check to make sure there’s nobody going in or out of Nadine’s, then rush down the steps to my car, frustrated again at t
he unfairness. Of all the people he had to run off with, how could he end up living two doors from us? Well, that’s exactly how, I suppose: she was near to hand. All those dinner parties, all the barbecues, all the popping in and out of one another’s houses to borrow hedge trimmers or fix radiators or sneak upstairs for a quick shag. And now he thinks it’s fantastic he’s living so close to us – for the girls, he says. For fuck’s sake is what I say, though only when no-one is listening.
The rest of the neighbours fall into two camps: the ones who’ve taken my side and are therefore just about civil to Dave and Nadine, and the ones who are carrying on as normal, afraid to get involved. And apart from Clare next door, nobody says anything about it to me. We chat about the weather, the kids’ school, the pothole at the end of the street, but never about the fact that two months ago my husband walked out of my house and moved in with our neighbour. If it wasn’t for Clare, I’d go insane.
My mother calls just as I put the key in the ignition. I start to tell her about the holiday but she cuts me off – she wants to know if we’ve seen Dave yet. She’s certain that this is a mid-life crisis and we’ll be back together any day now.
“People from our family don’t get divorced,” she says. “You muddle through, Lauren – marriage isn’t meant to be easy. Your dad wasn’t always easy, God rest him, but we got on with it.”
“I was perfectly happy to muddle through,” I tell her, “but it’s pretty hard to do without a husband there to muddle with me. Mum, Dave is gone. We need to get used to it.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath, then silence. Is she crying? I don’t think I’ve ever heard her cry.
But her voice is steady when she replies. “I see. Well, you never know what might happen when he gets tired of that woman. Don’t let yourself go in the meantime, Lauren, that’s the worst thing you could do.”
Sure, Mum, that’s the worst thing I could do. Jumping off a cliff or running away would be fine, but for the love of God don’t gain a few pounds or stop wearing lipstick.
“Right. I’ll give you a call during the week,” I tell her, disconnecting and resisting the impulse to bang my head on the steering wheel.
When I look up, they’re there. Dave and Nadine, carrying shopping up the steps to her front door. I watch her rummaging in her bag for her keys, her blonde bob swishing forward as she dips her head. She’s the same height as him, I realise. Dave hates that he’s not tall – I think it’s one of the things he always liked about me – I’m smaller than him. Even as I watch, he pulls himself up straighter, conscious of her height. Ha. I bet she doesn’t wear heels any more.
She’s still searching for keys and he loops his arm around her waist, kissing the back of her neck. Slinking lower in my seat, I look away. Only when they’re inside do I start the car, wishing for the millionth time that he’d found somewhere further to stray.
By eleven, Ava is asleep but, when I put my head around her door, Rebecca is lying in bed reading. I nudge her and she slides across on her belly to let me lie down beside her, but doesn’t look up from her book.
“What are you reading?” I ask.
She flips the cover up to show me – a book on Greek mythology, her current obsession. Last month it was the Romans. Thank God for the library or I’d be broke.
“How does it feel to be home?” I try.
“It’s fine,” she says, turning a page.
“Was it strange calling down to your dad this evening after being away?”
“Not really.”
“I know it’s weird that we were away without him but you’ll get used to it, I promise.” I reach out to rub her back.
She turns another page. “It’s fine, Mum. I’m not a kid. I get it.”
I change the subject again. “Are you looking forward to starting second year? Are you going to meet up with the girls before you go back?”
She doesn’t reply but I feel her shoulders tense under my hand.
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Mum, I’m just really trying to concentrate on my book, okay?”
I kiss her cheek and roll back off her bed. “All right. Don’t stay up too late reading though – we have to get back on track before school starts.”
Nothing. I leave her, wistful for the days when she always wanted just one more story.
Downstairs, it’s just me and TV I don’t want to watch and a bottle of red from Venice. I switch the TV on for comfort and open the wine, then click into Twitter and start scrolling. There are all sorts of conversations going on but I’m late to the party and don’t feel like jumping in. I look for my usual online buddies – MollyRants72, CatherineW, AnnaRose and LillGalwayGirl but none of them are around. That’s the downside of Twitter friends – you never know when they might all disappear into the real world. There’s nothing on TV to distract me either – after a redundant flick through the channels, I scroll back through Twitter, and suddenly I feel lonelier than any other time in my entire life. Tears threaten and I don’t try to stop them; I’m just too bloody tired of pretending. I need something to make me feel better but I can’t even think what to do. Chocolate won’t help – I still can’t shift the 5lbs I put on at Christmas and I’m starting to think this is not Christmas, this is forty. I get off the couch and walk behind it to look in the mirror. Red-rimmed eyes, drippy mascara, pale cheeks. Not too many creases on my forehead but they’re coming. Stepping closer to the mirror, I examine the fine lines around my eyes. The cracks are literally starting to show.
I can hear my mother’s voice now: you spent too much time in the sun, the damage is done. And as for drinking my glass of wine – she’d have a field day with that. Never drink on your own, she always says, it’s a slippery slope.
Cheers, Mum, I think, sitting back down on the couch – that’s from me and all the other single people out there who shouldn’t have wine at home ever if we follow your logic. Although much as she drives me crazy, I wouldn’t hate it if she was here now, sitting across from me prattling on. It’s so bloody quiet. Pitch dark outside, and the only sounds are the creaks the house makes all night long. It’s cold too, but I’m being cautious about heating bills, and the lack of insulation is bitingly evident. I pull a blanket off the back of the couch to wrap it around my knees. Oh my God, this is pathetic – huddled on my couch under a blanket, drinking my wine, tears rolling down my face, all on my own.
And then finally my phone chirps up – there’s someone to talk to after all. But it’s not Molly or Catherine or Anna or Lill – it’s VIN.
I freeze, staring at the screen.
All good in that old house of yours? I’m not gone away, you know. I’m never going away.
Chapter 7
Just before three, Brian sticks his head around my office door.
“Oh, good, you’re back. You’ve been missed! You’re not going away again this year, are you?”
I smile and shake my head even though part of me wants to throw my stapler at him. I bet he doesn’t begrudge annual leave to any of the others. But because I don’t work full-time hours, he seems to think I shouldn’t get holidays at all. The drama when I put in for two weeks – like I’d asked for a year’s paid leave. Humming and hawing, stroking his wispy little beard, studying me with his tiny, piggish eyes. And now I’m being punished, via a three o’clock session with Jonathan.
“No, not going anywhere, and straight back into it here.” I nod at my laptop screen. “Just getting some notes done before my next appointment.”
“Oh, Mr Oliver’s here already, I’ll get him for you,” Brian says, with a glint of satisfaction, and seconds later he’s ushering Jonathan in and closing the door behind him.
Deep inside I sigh, then plaster on what I hope is a welcoming smile as I gesture for him to sit, and walk around to take the seat opposite him.
The chairs are Brian’s idea of what should be in a therapist’s room – oatmeal in colour, bland, utterly free of any kind of personality. They’re too
low and too deep, so I can’t sit back properly – I end up perching on the edge, which probably doesn’t put clients at ease. I tried asking for new chairs once, but Brian just laughed. He also laughed when I asked if we could paint the walls something other than stark white, but I’ve since managed to warm them up with paintings I brought from home. I glance up at my favourite – a small print of the bandstand on Dún Laoghaire Pier – and get ready to do battle with Jonathan.
“You were away,” he says, and it sounds accusatory.
“I was, yes, on annual leave, but I’m back now. How are you, Jonathan?”
“Who did you go with? Your husband?” he asks, pulling up the knees of his suit trousers so he can lean forward.
His suits always look expensive, and at odds with his boyish features – he’s tall, but when he’s sitting down he looks like a little boy who’s raided his father’s wardrobe.
“Jonathan, as we’ve discussed in the past, we need our sessions to be about you. How have you been feeling over the last two weeks?”
He locks his eyes on mine and holds my gaze for longer than is comfortable, his expression unreadable. I shift in the seat and tug my dress down over my knees.
Finally he shrugs. “Not great, to be honest. It was tough missing therapy. I thought about Sorcha a lot.”
“What kind of thoughts?” I ask.
“About the day she told me she was leaving. Wondering what she’s doing now. With him.”
