She tries to push past me but for once I don’t let her. I block her way, with my arms folded and my face I’m sure looking like thunder at this intrusion. Rude, I know. Unwelcoming, I know, but just this once I don’t happen to care. This is my last precious night with Dan for God knows how long and she is NOT going to hijack it on me. Over my dead body. So I just stand in front of her, pointedly not inviting her in and I’m sure, given the way I’m dressed, looking a bit like the madam of a brothel in an amateur production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
‘Lisa,’ I manage to say as evenly as I can, ‘I didn’t expect to see you…’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Annie, it’s your last night! Did you honestly think that I was going to let you disappear off to the States without at least giving you an American wake?’
Shit, she intends staying then. Oh who am I kidding? This is the Countess Dracula, of course she intended to stay all along. I hold firm though and for once don’t let her bulldoze over me.
She looks at me, irritated.
‘So are you going to let me in or what, Annie? In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s bloody freezing out here.’
‘’Fraid not, Lisa. Really, really bad time. Couldn’t be worse. I’m expecting Dan home any minute now and I’ve sort of planned a dinner for the two for us. Just for the two of us, unfortunately. But it’s sweet of you to call and I’ll tell you what, why don’t I ring you before I leave in the morning…’
‘Oh for God’s sake, will you kindly let me in and stop being so bloody dismissive? Don’t worry, I’ll leave as soon as Dan gets home…’
I take this with the massive pinch of salt it deserves; the Countess Dracula has never once in her entire life under-stayed her welcome. One good thing though, if I’m not going to see Dan again in so long, I certainly won’t have to look at this one either, so does it really matter if I’m discourtesy itself right now?
‘Lisa,’ I say, trying my best to stand tall in my ridiculous little fluffy slippers, ‘ordinarily, you’d be more than welcome, but not this evening. Sorry, but it’s my last night and I really had plans to spend it with my husband. Alone. Anyway, I’d really better get going…’
She looks at me a bit winded, totally unused to my standing up to her and for one brief, shining moment I think I’ve actually won the day when next thing, the hall phone starts ringing.
‘Probably him,’ I say curtly, glaring at her with what I can only hope is a look of chilled steel. ‘So if you don’t mind, Lisa, I’d better get going, but thanks so much for thinking of me…’
‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, do you know all the trouble I went to to get out this evening? I had to practically strong-arm Charlie into babysitting the kids for the night so if you think I’m letting this free pass go to waste, then you’ve another think coming. Now, for the last time, will you kindly let me in before I catch my death standing out here? One quick little glass of wine, and then I’ll go.’
I’m glaring at her now, white anger bubbling up inside me, fighting the impulse to tell her a few home truths. I want to yell at her that she annoys me more than a little…oh and by ‘more than a little’, I actually mean more than any person I ever met in my life, ever.
I want to tell her that I’m calling an end to this pretence of a friendship because she’s not a friend at all and never has been, she’s a frenemy of the worst kind. And most of all…
Shit and double shit. Just as I’m mentally tearing strips off her, the answering machine in the hallway clicks in.
It’s Dan.
But even though I race to pick up the phone, I don’t get to the shagging thing in time, and his voice starts to reverberate around the massive stone hallway, echoing so loudly that Lisa hears him too, loud and clear.
‘Hi Annie? It’s me. Are you there? Look, I was on my way home when James rang to say that he’d had an emergency call-out to Paul Fogarty’s…he thinks one of his fillies is suffering from early parturition…’
My heart sinks. Even I know what that means. A miscarriage. Which means Dan could be out for hours more, at the very least.
‘…James can’t possibly handle this on his own, so it’s going to be a while longer before I get back…’
I manage to snatch the phone up before he says more and we talk a bit more privately. Well, as privately as I can given that the Countess Dracula has now jubilantly let herself in, whammed the hall door shut behind her and is now standing right beside me, peeling off layers of jumpers and scarves.
‘I’m so sorry about this,’ Dan says to me, ‘I really wanted to be there for you tonight, you know that…’
‘I know that,’ I say, trying to mask my disappointment. ‘Don’t worry, it can’t be helped. I understand.’
‘It’s just that James is way too inexperienced to deal with this, and Paul is terrified he’ll end up losing the mare…’
‘It’s fine. Just do what you can and I’ll be here when you get home, OK?’
He’s driving as he’s talking and we lose the signal then. Just as I’m thinking, OK, for this last night, I’ll still be here when you get home, but…well…after tonight…then that’ll be all, folks, won’t it?
‘You see?’ says Lisa triumphantly. ‘He’s held up at work, so now aren’t you delighted that I stopped by? I couldn’t in all conscience let you spend your last evening sitting here all on your own, now could I?’
With that, she’s flung open the drawing room door, taking the whole room in at a glance.
‘Oh look! Lovely roaring fire and what’s this? A bottle of Chateau Margaux? Only my very favourite wine ever! How did you know? Run and get us two glasses, will you, Annie? My tongue’s hanging out for a glass of vino.’
Sure, Lisa, no problem, Lisa. Any other orders, Mussolini?
The shrillness of my mobile phone alarm wakes me up the next morning and I spring up, coming to with a heart-stopping jerk. Dan is beside me, completely out for the count, sleeping in the shape of someone who’s been crucified. Swear to God, I was so wiped out going to bed that I never even heard him come in last night.
The Countess Dracula of course, stayed till well past midnight, ignoring my yawns, knocking back most of the fancy wine and bitching about everyone she’d ever met in her entire life ever. And after she’d finally gone, somehow I crawled to bed, feeling like I’d been run over by a steam-roller, drained and wrecked as I always am after prolonged exposure to her company.
No, not the final night I had planned at all. Half of me wonders if I should wake Dan up for a last final seduction scene, but given that he probably didn’t get home till all hours, it just seems like meanness of the highest order to even think about taking advantage of him so shamelessly. He’s hardly my sexual bon voyage card, now is he? Plus, he’s probably so wrecked, it would be a bit like doing it with a corpse.
So, shivering with cold and still wearing my un-ripped off sexy nightie, I head for the bathroom and hop into the shower. Anyway, by the time I’m scrubbed clean with my hair washed, he’s up and dressed, still in our room and looking at me with a funny combination of deep exhaustion and…something else. An expression I haven’t seen on his face in so long that I barely recognise it. Takes me a minute or two to cop onto what it is.
It’s guilt. Pure and simple.
‘Annie…I can’t apologise to you enough about last night,’ he says gently, moving towards me. ‘I know you had plans for us, but…you see, there’s just no way I could have left James to handle the filly on his own…’
‘I know and it’s fine, really…’
‘You must hate me, and if you don’t…then what’s wrong with you?’
I smile, unable to remember the last time he even attempted to crack a joke with me.
‘So what happened to Paul’s horse in the end?’
‘We lost her.’
‘Oh…I’m so sorry.’
‘At least it was for the best that I was there; poor old James has never had to put an animal to sleep before and your
first time is always tough as hell. Anyway I took care of it for him, then ended up staying with Paul for a long time afterwards to calm him down. He’s devastated, but then you know what he’s like over his horses. Like surrogate kids.’
I nod silently, completely understanding where he’s coming from. It doesn’t seem like all that long ago when Dan himself had to put his first animal to sleep and I’m not messing, he grieved for days, torturing himself over and over again by asking the one question all vets have to deal with sooner or later – ‘could I have done more?’
He’s standing right beside me now, towering over me as always, and next thing, he’s slipped his arms round my waist. Instinctively I lean into him, snuggling into the deep, comforting, pulsating warmth of him, and we stay like that, peacefully and in silence. It’s tiny, it’s nothing, but it’s the closest and most tender we’ve been in weeks, ever since Christmas morning.
I think, OK, so if we can’t part as lovers, then let’s at least part as friends. There are yards of things that I want to say to him but this is the first soft, intimate moment we’ve had in an age and I don’t want to cast a ripple over it. Plenty of time on the long drive to Dublin for us to talk. To say what needs to be said, to say goodbye properly. For now, I just want to hold him, to hoard him, to memorise him.
Next thing, he’s running his fingers through my hair and I’m stretching up to kiss him.
‘Oh Annie, my little Annie. What in the hell am I supposed to do without you?’
For all of about three seconds I contemplate not going at all.
I think about staying here with Dan instead. My mainspring. I think about trying harder to make things work…making more of an effort…
‘DAN? ANNIE? ARE YOU BOTH STILL UPSTAIRS? I JUST WONDERED IF YOU BOTH WANTED TEA BEFORE YOU LEFT FOR THE AIRPORT?’
Mrs Brophy and just like that…mood instantly shattered. Hot on her heels, we both hear James and Andrew clattering in through the front door, demanding tea/juices/breakfast/whatever’s going. All the normal Monday morning chaos.
‘There’s our cue,’ he sighs and I can feel him lightly kissing my hair. Next thing, we’ve broken apart as he goes downstairs to them, while I do a last-minute check of the bedroom and bathroom, making sure I’ve left nothing behind.
The goodbyes downstairs are brief and to the point, like I’m just heading off for a long weekend and will be back before anyone even notices I’m gone. No rudeness intended, it’s just that as per usual, the phones have started hopping and everyone is suddenly swept up in the usual pandemonium that’s all part of life at The Moorings.
Virtually unnoticed, Dan and I walk side by side to the car, him carrying my heavy carry-on luggage for me and easily swinging it up into the boot. Car door clunks and we’re off. Our last and final two hours together for a full year. I have it all planned out; that he’ll walk me right up to the boarding gates…I’ll finally get to introduce him to Blythe and Chris and Alex, to prove to them that I actually really do have a husband and that he really does exist, thanks very much. That we’ll have coffee and hold hands and kiss passionately at the point of no return, when they’re calling my flight. We’ll be like a couple in a nineteen forties black-and-white movie, I think romantically, like Brief Encounter, with him starring as Trevor Howard and me as Celia Johnson.
But surprise surprise, it’s not to be. Practically the minute we get onto the motorway, his mobile rings. Paul Fogarty, from last night, asking Dan if he and James can bury the mare that had to be put to sleep last night, that between the three of them they should be about able to manage it. Course, Dan says obligingly, except I’m on my way to Dublin airport now and won’t get back to Stickens till lunchtime at the earliest, blah-di-blah-di-blah. I hear the whole conversation playing out like a radio play on Dan’s hands-free phone. But burying the mare will take hours and will have to be done before nightfall, insists Paul, the subtext being that Dan better dump me at the drop-off bit of the airport, then race back.
Ooo-kaaay then, I think numbly. So no coming inside the terminal to meet all the others, then. No romantic farewell at the boarding gate. Jeez, it’s a minor miracle I even got him to drive me to Dublin in the first place.
Then other clients start calling him, non-stop, one after the other, it seems every single one of them yet another emergency: more and more people demanding a piece of him. And it’s the same, old same old. By now, we’re almost halfway there and we’ve barely said two words to each other.
‘Sorry about this,’ he keeps saying to me over and over, and I nod and manage a watery smile as I stare dully out the window.
‘By the way, Annie, when we get there, is it OK if I just drop you at the terminal door? Paul really needs me ASAP and that’ll be another two hours’ drive back.’
‘Fine. Whatever.’
I even throw in a shoulder shrug to convey complete flippancy. Because if saying goodbye means so little to him, then why should it mean so much to me? What did I expect anyway? I think, suddenly, irrationally furious. That Dan might…perish the thought…switch off his mobile so we could have this last, precious time together? And of course, the usual thing, not his fault…can’t be helped…all beyond his control…yadda, yadda, yadda. I rummage round for a feeling but can’t find a single one. Nothing but the same dull acceptance of everything I’ve been putting up with, year in, year out. Of all the disappointments and let-downs he’s put me through lately, this is a relatively minor one, so why, I wonder, am I even bothered?
Worst of all though, for the brief spells when he’s not on the phone, we’ve got nothing to say to each other. Me because I can’t seem to properly articulate everything that’s going through my head right now, while he just stares tensely at the road ahead, occasionally filling awkward, dead air by commenting on the traffic. No mention of the fact that I’m going away for so long, no promises to call me when I arrive, no talk of him coming to New York to see me, nothing.
Then disaster; when we finally arrive at the turn-off for the airport, there’s been an accident on a roundabout, and the traffic is backed up for what looks like half a mile. It’s not budging either and now it’s getting scarily close to check-in time.
Next thing an empty taxi pulls up beside us which Dan spots immediately.
‘Annie, I could be stuck here for another hour at least and you’re going to be late…what if you grabbed that cab and let it take you the rest of the way? At least the driver could use the bus lanes so you’d get to the airport on time. Then I could turn the car round here and make it back to help out Paul that bit faster.’
Seems I’ve no choice if I want to make the flight so I say yes, fine.
And so this is how I end up saying goodbye to Dan. On a busy motorway in the middle of a traffic jam, with car horns blaring all round us.
The airport scene is even worse. I’ve often thought that airports are like giant amphitheatres of emotion, with security lines and check-in desks designed to interrupt the sheer awfulness of being wrenched apart from loved ones. Designed to muffle the pain of separation.
As soon as I get to the terminal building, I can see Chris hugging her husband and little boy, all three of them in tears and I feel a quick stab of jealousy. Because they’ll all be reunited again in a few weeks for the opening night. Whereas God only knows when I’ll see my significant other again.
Blythe is here too, wearing a coat that looks like it was made out of cut-up bus seats and sniffling away as she bids her thirty-something son/pride and joy goodbye. But then she brightens a bit when she realises she still has duty-free ahead of her to bargain hunt in.
No sign of Liz, so I figure she’s either gone on through to clear security or else knowing her, she’s already holed up in the airside bar, doubtless with an eye-opener on one side of her and a single man on the other. Then I spot Alex in the distance heading for a bookshop, with a giant oversized backpack strapped to her and looking to all intents and purposes like she’s going off InterRailing for her gap year.
‘Hubby not here to see you off, then?’ says a voice at my ear, nearly making me leap with fright.
Jack.
Looking as effortlessly cool and unruffled as ever, in a bespoke suit, carrying an ipad in one hand and a latte in the other.
‘He was…that is to say…emm…we got stuck in traffic outside the airport, so I jumped in a cab to take me the rest of the way,’ I manage to say evenly enough and without any tell-tale cracks in my voice.
‘Good last weekend together though?’ he asks politely, keeping pace with me as I make my way through the crowds to the Aer Lingus check-in desk.
‘Wonderful,’ I lie stoutly, wondering why I’m even bothering. What does it matter now? Who even cares?
‘And I’ll finally get to meet him on opening night, of course?’
‘Of course you will.’
Which sounds false, even to me.
‘Well, I’ll see you on board then. God, don’t you just hate airline travel? God’s way of making you look like your passport photo.’
I force a wry half smile at this, but luckily there’s no further awkward chit-chat though, as Jack is flying Premier class and so after a few more wisecracks about having to practically get half undressed at airport security, he nods goodbye, then makes for the posh check-in desk – the one with no queue, where you just sail through.
I queue up at economy, collect my boarding pass and head for the security gates.
And then, totally alone, I head through the gate of no return.
SPRING
Chapter Seven
Stop the world, I want to get on! It’s unbelievable. It’s extraordinary. I’m in love. Head over heels in love. But not with a bloke, with New York City. And just like any first love, it’s the most massive and overwhelming head rush. It’s completely swept me up in its wake and I cannot remember the last time in my life that I was this ridiculously, insanely bird-happy. I actually wake up singing, like some demented cartoon heroine; in fact, all I’m short of is a little Disney robin landing on my shoulder and helping me do the laundry, à la Snow White.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow Page 13
