‘You’re missing a great party.’
‘I know, but I really need to go…’
‘I so enjoyed chatting to your mother, by the way. An amazing lady, a real trailblazer. I can see where you get it from.’
‘Emm…yes…she’s wonderful…’
‘Annie, I don’t mean to pry but…you’d tell me if there was anything wrong, wouldn’t you?’
‘Course I would.’
Another unexpected thing about marriage breakdown; turns you into the most shameless liar. The fib sounds lame, even in my own head.
‘Sure you won’t stay to enjoy the celebrations? You deserve it. We can now officially say the show is a smash hit, and you’re a considerable part of the reason for its success.’
‘I really have to go,’ is all I can say, unable to listen to another sentence from him, physically starting to feel my knees buckle.
‘You’re not well, come on, let me at least take you home,’ he says, gently steering me out the door. Just then Mum appears with my coat and our bags and politely says that she’ll take it from here.
Jack just nods wordlessly, hails a cab for us, sees us both into it and politely waves us goodbye.
Then he goes back to the opening night celebrations and I go home to face up to the shards of my broken marriage.
‘You were way too young getting married, I distinctly remember saying so at the time,’ Mum says to me the next morning over breakfast in my little apartment, all Hermès and pearls and serene, calm efficiency.
I’d spent so much money buying in gorgeous food for Dan and me, it seemed a crying shame to let it all go to waste, so I invited Mum over for cream cheese bagels and coffee. Well actually that’s a lie; it would be more correct to say she’s eating them, I just rearrange mine on a plate then shove it away, my appetite long gone. I couldn’t bear to think of all the other plans I’d made for Dan and me today; it still hurt too bloody badly.
‘What’s more, Dan’s family agreed with me too,’ Mum goes on, as calmly as ever.
‘See more of the world, I said to you both. Why rush into this? If you both still feel the same in a few years, then let’s talk about marriage. I did advise you at the time, dear. You must remember.’
‘I know,’ is all I can automatically reply, plonking two Tylenol into a glass of water, then staring at them while they dissolve. Funny thing; I feel like I’ve a thumping hangover even though I hardly drank at all last night the headache from all the crying is that bad.
‘But then, you’ve always been an old head on young shoulders and for that matter, so has Dan. And you were both just so in love with each other back then, it seemed futile to come between you both.’
If I had the energy to lift my eyes from the glass and give her the evil eye, I would. She’s only trying to help, I have to remind myself. She’s come all the way from Washington to be with me and now here I am, being rude to her. But then, that’s the thing about this depression business.
You’re too miserable to give a shit
‘But having said that, I still feel that marriage is not something you run away from lightly, you know. After all, it’s not like there’s any third party involved…’
I wince a bit at the ghost she’s just invoked. This would be Mum’s elegant and slightly oblique way of referring to Dad, who cheated on her all those years ago while she was busy working abroad, thus hammering the final death nail into their marriage. She looks at me expecting an answer and I know I won’t get away with just grunting back at her; gotta somehow find the energy to string a coherent sentence together.
‘It’s no use, Mum,’ I somehow manage to sigh. ‘You see, this isn’t just a one-off case of Dan letting me down, this is the culmination of three long years of constantly being let down and put last and glossed over, time and again. And I’ve reached break point. Long distant relationships are bloody hard enough when you’ve got two people who are prepared to work at it, but he just won’t. And I can’t go on like this anymore. As we say in showbiz, there’s no fool like an about-the-title fool.’
Then comes the unspoken thought that’s been playing like a loop in my head over and over again, all night, all morning, non-stop. I’ve spent the entire night tortured by malign, ghostly whispers, all saying one thing:
Yes, Dan was once my magnetic north, yes he was my mainspring, yes once our hearts used to beat only for each other…but that was then and this is now…because he doesn’t love me anymore. The fact is, our marriage has come to an end with barely a shrug on his side and it took something as momentous as this to happen, for me to finally open my eyes and see the truth clearly.
‘So what do you plan on saying to him, dear?’
Bloody good question. What do you say in these situations? He was my first boyfriend, I’ve never even been with anyone else, let alone broken up with anyone before. I’m told ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ is customary, but that’s hardly the case here though, is it?
‘I don’t know, Mum. Maybe, the truth. Maybe – it’s not me, it’s you.’
For once in my life, I don’t accurately predict what Dan will say or do, but then maybe all this geographic distance is making me lose my touch. When we do eventually get to talk, properly talk that is, as opposed to leaving approximately fifteen messages for each other or else him having to run off to vaccinate a cow against foot-and-mouth disease…there’s a resignation and acceptance in his voice. Like someone who knew exactly what was coming and who had the foresight to go ahead and build their own emotional, lead-lined, air raid shelter before the inevitable fallout.
He’s measured and understanding, compassionate even.
‘I know this is hard on you and I won’t even bother trying to make excuses,’ is all he says to me, simply. ‘You know how it is here, you know better than anyone what my life is like.’
‘Yes, I do. And I need you to understand that I can’t do this anymore. If you’re not prepared to make the effort, why should I?’
Then, the single sentence I never in an aeon thought I’d ever find myself saying to him.
‘I’ve had enough…I think I want out.’
A long pause and I can hear the crackle of the wind down the phone from whatever field he’s standing in. I know I’ve hurt him, I know I’ve drawn blood.
And a small, petulant, childish part of me is glad. He hurt me, now we’re quits.
See how he fecking likes it.
Then Dan plucks out a quote from, of all people, Audrey.
‘My mother keeps saying over and over again that a marriage is something you can’t just take a gap year from…but Annie…do you think there’s any chance that you and I could try?’
‘I…I…don’t know what you mean.’
I’m wrong footed now. What’s he on about?
Silence, then more static over the phone.
‘What I mean is that yes, this is a strain on both of us and you’re right, it clearly isn’t working out. But seeing as how you’re away for a year anyway, then…well, what I’m suggesting is…let’s call this our gap year.’
‘Meaning what exactly?’
‘That we take a break from each other, a break from being married. That we have a marriage sabbatical, if you will. One full year of not being married. No obligation whatsoever on your part to feel the need to call or check in or try and keep us alive. No pressure, no long-distance relationship, no stress.’
A pause while I try to digest what he’s saying.
‘I’m saying that I’m prepared to let you go, Annie, for one full year.’
For once, I’m lost for words. He had this all worked out, I think, blood suddenly rushing to my head. He knew what was coming and was armed and ready with a counter-proposal.
‘But, Dan, then…what happens when the year is up?’
‘I wish I knew but I don’t. I suppose we just cross that bridge when we come to it, don’t we?’
In the last weeks, I’ve made a miserable discovery: that there’s a very unfair dichotomy
at work in the Universe. The intensity and depth of misery is not at all matched by the intensity and duration of joy. Not by bleeding half. I’m someone who used to believe in a fair and balanced Universe and now my whole belief system has crashed spectacularly. Turns out life isn’t like a stage play with clear directions for everybody; it’s a mess. It’s chaos.
Everyone around me is being amazing though, even on the days when, apart from going to work, basically you couldn’t blast me out of the apartment. Mum is back in DC, but the frequency of her phone calls is in direct proportion to how cheery or down I sounded the previous time we talked. But I’ve come to depend on her and need to hear her drip-feeds of wisdom as often as I possibly can.
Garbo-esque, most of the time I just vant to be alone, revisiting places where Dan and I were once happy, like the Rockefeller Center. Wandering around like love’s handicapped, minus the parking space. Wondering if I’ll ever be really happy and in love again. But then love is a bit like lightning, it doesn’t tend to strike twice, so things aren’t exactly looking rosy for me in that department.
Churchill once said when you’re going through hell, keep going and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do. At the theatre, I keep my head down and get on with the gig as best I can while everyone around me keeps a respectful distance.
Especially Chris, who tried to give me a well-meaning but ultimately misguided dose of tough love by telling me to snap out of this and to remember how lucky I was to have such a wonderful job.
Tough love? Yeah, right. Soft hate, more like.
I suspect Liz told her to back off though, because since then she’s kept her distance and now we just exchange curt pleasantries backstage, that’s when we have to talk at all. Liz is being terrific though, it’s as if she knows all I need is time and space and she’s giving it to me in droves.
This evening, she even manages to get me to come out for a quick drink with her after a Saturday night show, when all I want to do is crawl home, eat Ben and Jerry’s straight from the tub and watch Letterman. But she’s insistent and drags me off to The View, an amazing, revolving cocktail buffet-bar on the eightieth floor of the Marriot Marquis hotel on Times Square, with panoramic views right over the city, all the way out to the Hudson.
As she knocks back one vodka after another, I sip on a glass of white wine while she cracks jokes and reminds me that we all have a duty to strive for happiness, no matter how impossible a goal that may seem.
I know in my heart that she’s right, of course. After all, I was happy in New York when we first came here all those weeks ago and I know I will be again. I’ll gain on happiness yet. Some of us just need to work a bit harder on it than others, that’s all. For now though, my only intent is to feel better and by that I mean to feel nothing at all.
Soon I’m tired though, and I hug Liz before I wearily haul myself out of the bar, leaving her to a bus boy who works there that she’s been having an on-off fling with this last while. It’s a mild, pleasant night so I walk home, the stroll to and from the theatre so completely familiar to me now I could almost do it blindfolded. Liz is right. It’s time for me to let go and move on. Dan clearly has, so why shouldn’t I?
I’m at Times Square now, heading east, as ever almost blinded by the glare of the neon lights, so bright it could almost be twelve in the day and not midnight. The crossroads of the world they call it and it’s easy to see why. Right now, there’s a typical Saturday night buzz about the place, one I’ve come to know and love so well – taxis are blaring their horns as hordes of people head out to party into the wee small hours, girls dressed in skimpy evening dresses and ridiculous heels are staggering through the traffic, all desperately trying to hail down free cabs, rare as hen’s teeth on a Saturday night in Manhattan. The usual pandemonium and chaos you’d expect in the heart of the city that never sleeps.
And it’s funny, but in a weird way, some of the exhilaration and sheer joyousness of the city is slowly, very slowly starting to filter through my pores, perking me up again and filling me with an utterly unfamiliar sensation…hope. Something I never would have thought possible.
I cross at Broadway, head down West Forty-Fourth Street and stop by a street vendor who I now know by name. I root around for a five-dollar bill and buy Sunday’s papers; typical New York, already-printed and available to buy the night before.
‘Hey there, Irish,’ he greets me cheerily, his nickname for me. ‘How was the show tonight?’
‘Great thanks, Fred.’
As I hand over the bill and wait for change, I even manage a slight smile.
Slowly the past is beginning to dissipate and now, I force myself to think, it’s all about the future.
I’ll get through this, I know I can.
After all, this is America, a country where happy endings are a religion.
Maybe my happy ending will be that somehow Dan and I end up as friends.
It’s just a question of saying…and somehow meaning, this one simple thing.
Goodbye old life. And hello new.
Chapter Nine
Already Easter Sunday. It’s a stunningly warm and sunny April day, one of those days that make people roll their eyes at each other and say ‘uh-oh, global warming.’ Anyroadup, by now myself and the rest of the cast have already settled into a sort of pattern come the weekends: we do a matinee performance at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, then we’re free till the following Tuesday’s show, as on Mondays, Broadway traditionally ‘goes dark’ for the night. So, in other words, we have the sheer, unadulterated luxury of two blissful nights off, back to back. Believe me, after a long, hard week of eight shows plus two matinees and in the state of mind I’ve been in of late, two whole nights to myself is pure ecstasy.
Given the day that’s in it, we all decided to book a cast meal after the Easter Sunday matinee at Cipriani’s restaurant on Forty-Second Street. My first proper night out with the rest of the gang since the horrors of opening night, so this is something of a minor breakthrough for me.
Cipriani’s, by the way, is the sort of place you’d only ever go to for a rare treat – the entrées alone cost as much as it would take to clothe a small child and when you factor in bottles of wine on top of that, it’s makes for a fairly pricey night out. But it’s Easter Sunday and we’re all in a Broadway smash hit; a double celebration, so Liz books a table for the lot of us and off we trot after work.
The restaurant is completely stunning, and as we arrive and are whisked off to our table by the maître d’, I’m glad we decided to push the boat out this evening for my own little private re-induction back into society. Cipriani’s is inspired by the Italian Renaissance; all towering marble columns and soaring ceilings with Chihuly chandeliers gracefully catching and reflecting light in twinkling prisms around us. Everyone is in great form too and some of that seems to rub off on me as if by osmosis; we’ve had a long, hard week, we’re all longing for the two-night break ahead, but most of all, our tongues are collectively hanging out for a decent glass of wine after the sheer slog of today’s matinee performance.
There are seven of us in total for dinner and once we’re seated, my eye unconsciously wanders around the table resting on each face in turn, pondering on how, in our own way, each of us has come so far since we first arrived in New York.
Funny, but as the weeks have worn on, somehow we’ve really copper-fastened into a proper little family unit, however dysfunctional. Like all families, at times we’re all getting along and at times there are daft, silly rows that flare up out of nowhere, last for a day or two, then blow over like a tropical storm. Usually involving Chris, it has to be said, who’s just one of those people who has to be permanently at the dead nucleus of everything, arguments included; like her whole life is one big clenched fist. But that aside, for better or for worse, somehow an incredible bond has been forged between the lot of us, something which in my drifting, aimless state, I for one am particularly grateful for.
And so, in our little fam
ily, Blythe has definitely morphed into the Mammy figure; always worrying about the rest of us, fretting and lecturing, but never nagging; her concern for all of us manifests in a more warm-hearted way, worrying whether we’re all eating enough green veggies or getting enough vitamin D, that kind of thing. Just like a slightly dotty favourite aunt, but one that you could confide absolutely anything to. For instance, that your husband wants a gap year off from being married to you, that sort of thing.
She and I have grown close in the past few, Godawful weeks and I know she was deeply worried when the news first broke about me and Dan. Often she’d phone me in my blond apartment during the long, lonely afternoons before we were due at the theatre and invite me upstairs to her own apartment for tea, buns and a nice soothing chat. I’d always accept, mainly because spending so much time alone was frankly starting to wreck my head. My apartment, I was beginning to think, meant nothing just that…a place to be apart.
Blythe would listen to me sympathetically and when I thanked her for being so understanding, she told me why. It seems she’d been through the whole thing herself and this to her, was little more than history repeating itself.
The theatre is a cruel mistress that effectively broke up her marriage too, she calmly told me, doling out yet more English breakfast tea. (Vile over here; what is it about tea at home that’s so much nicer?) She was about my age at the time too, touring with a play out in Sydney for a full twelve months and…and same thing really. The long distance relationship thing was way too much for her husband to handle, so by the time she came home, it was all over bar the shouting.
I baulked a bit at this and insisted that my marriage hadn’t really broken up as such, we were just having a little gap year off. Nothing more. Blythe said nothing though; just looked at me with understanding and pity in her little sultana eyes. As much as to say, window dress it all you like, love, but I know a broken marriage when I see one.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow Page 18
