The Girl I Was Before

by Izzy Bayliss

  She didn't waste time on pleasantries, and instead cut straight to the point. “Lily – I’m in the area. I had to drop Jacob off to Suzuki violin lessons, there is an excellent teacher out your way believe it or not! Who would have thought it, all the way out in little Ballyrobin? She was the second violinist with the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra. So myself and Joshua will be over in ten minutes, okay?”

  I groaned internally, I was not in the mood for a visit from Clara. She was the last person you would want a visit from when you were going through a shitty time. I would rather poke pins in my eyes than see her. Since Marc had gone, I had managed to avoid seeing her face to face but I knew she would catch up with me eventually.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

  I dragged myself off the sofa and picked up an armful of sweet wrappers and the pizza box that Frankie had brought the week before. I opened the window to let some air into the room and then I ran and jumped into the shower. There was nothing like a visit from Clara to snap me back into reality.

  Sure enough exactly ten minutes later the doorbell rang. With dread, I summoned the will to open the door.

  “Hi, Clara, hi, Joshua,” I said wearily.

  She was dressed in her Tod’s loafers, camel trousers cut off at the ankle and a navy blazer. It was the daytime uniform of all the yummy mummies where she lived.

  “Hi, Ni-ni,” my two year old nephew greeted me.

  I smiled down at him. He was getting so big.

  “Look at the state of you!” Clara said.

  And this was post-shower. I was glad she hadn’t seen me half an hour earlier.

  “Thanks, Clara!”

  “Sit down,” I gestured to the sofa. “Can I get you a coffee?”

  “No, no, we won’t stay long, it’s just a flying visit.”

  “Beebies, beebies,” Joshua kept repeating.

  “Pardon, Joshua?” Clara bent down to his level to understand what he was saying.

  “I think he wants me to turn on CBeebies,” I said. I had babysat Jacob and Joshua the month previously while Clara was at a wedding, and only for CBeebies I don’t know how we all would have survived the day.

  “But how does he know about it? We have a strict no TV rule in our house,” she asked in bewilderment.

  “I have no idea – he’s obviously a very intelligent child.”

  This seemed to satisfy her. “Yes, you’re right, Lily – he is.”

  She took out a jigsaw puzzle from her monstrous handbag and put Joshua sitting on the floor with it. "It has eighty pieces," she said proudly before walking over to the sofa, which she inspected closely before sitting down with obvious trepidation.

  “So Marc is gone then?” she whispered so Joshua wouldn't hear although I don't know why, he was two years old, he hadn't a notion what we were talking about.

  “Uh-huh,” I nodded.

  “But surely you must have suspected something?”

  I shook my head.

  “Lily, you can’t just arrive home from work and find your husband in bed with someone else. There must have been signs?”

  “Clara, believe me, I have thought about this over and over, trying to see if there was anything in hindsight that should have warned me, but it has been a complete bolt from the blue.”

  “I don’t know how you always manage to mess things up so badly for yourself. You were only married a matter of weeks!”

  “Clara, this really isn’t helping me.”

  “Well I’m sorry, Lily but you have to face up to this. Someone needs to be the sensible one here.”

  I stayed quiet.

  “Were there problems in the bedroom department?” she probed. “Was that it?”

  Dear God, I did not want to have this conversation with her of all people.

  “No, Clara. No, there weren’t,” I sighed wearily.

  “Well, Lily you know what men are like, if they’re not getting it at home -”

  “Clara, can you please stop. There was nothing wrong with our sex life.”

  “Keep your voice down," she instructed nodding over to Joshua. “Well maybe you weren’t being attentive enough?”

  “Attentive – that sounds like something from a Mrs Beeton manual!”

  “Scoff you may, Lily, but Mrs Beeton wasn’t too far off the mark actually. Men are simple creatures really. All it takes is a girl to come and pay them a bit more attention than their wife is giving them and bang – he falls into her arms.”

  “Wow, you are such an expert!”

  “Well I have been happily married for ten years now,” she said proudly fingering her wedding band and not picking up on my sarcasm at all. “Oh dear, look at the time! Poor Jacob likes me to come and sit in on the last five minutes of his lesson, I have to run.”

  “Yes, you’d better go. You don’t want to be late.”

  She gathered up the jigsaw and Joshua, and was just heading out the door when she turned back to me.

  “And by the way, why aren’t you in work?”

  “Eh, Clara in case you haven’t noticed, my husband has just walked out on me!”

  “Lily, you need to stop this and pull yourself together, moping around here in this tiny little apartment won’t help.”

  “It’s a duplex –” I said defensively. She was forever calling it an apartment and it infuriated me. I knew it was small but it was my home, only I was allowed to say anything negative about it. Just because Clara was older and she and Tom had had enough money to buy their house years before the crash, she was smug and felt she was an expert on the whole property market. She was one of those irritating people who claimed she had seen it coming a mile away and it was nothing at all to do with the benefit of hindsight.

  “Apartment/duplex, whatever you want to call it, Lily. Either way, you need to get your life together. Look at the state of you - lolling around here in your tracksuit! Only three months married and your husband walks out, you live in a poky flat in a poorly finished development in the middle of God knows where, and even though you have a degree in marketing you’re still working in the same part-time job that you had during college. You’re thirty-three years of age for God's-sake!”

  “Thirty-two,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Honestly, Lily, let’s not split hairs here. When I was your age, I had already been married for five years, I had just given birth to Jacob and I was next in line to be made a partner in McCann-Bateman-Foy, only that I decided to choose motherhood as the career path for me! You really need to give your life an audit. I have the number of a wonderful life coach. I will business card it to you later.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered, just to get her out the door.

  “Okay come along, Joshua”

  “Me give Ni-ni kiss”

  “No, Joshua, it is ‘I-want-to-give-Lily-a-kiss’,” she echoed back to him.

  He looked up at her in confusion.

  I bent down and swooped him up into my arms and planted kisses all over his crown of soft blonde curls.

  “Bye, bye, little man.”

  “Bye, bye, Ni-ni.”

  I stood and watched them walking back down the steps heading towards Clara’s SUV.

  As soon as I waved them off, I went back in and closed the door and took a deep breath. I knew what Clara was like, I knew to expect that sort of reaction from her, so why did I let her get to me so much? She was like a whirlwind, she would come in, totally turn my life upside down with her cutting words and then she would breeze back out through the door again, leaving me brooding and upset over all that she had said, whereas I knew she wouldn’t give her words a second thought. She didn’t need to be so horrible by insinuating that the reason Marc had left me was because I wasn’t keeping him happy at home! I knew she had a point about work though; there was only so long more I could get away with being absent. Sooner or later I was going to have to face it. And then it suddenly dawned on me - what if Marc had emailed me in work? Maybe he had sent me an explanation for all o
f this and it was sitting there in my inbox waiting for me all this time? I decided that the next morning I would have to brave the smell of urine and go back to work.

  Chapter 6

  My alarm woke me at bang on seven the next morning. I started work at nine, but I had to catch the bus at 7.45 to face the hour-long commute from Ballyrobin into the city centre. Usually I would sleep through my alarm clock and wake in a panic at half past seven and have to sprint to the bus stop, but that day I was determined to be on time.

  I dragged myself out of bed and hurried into the shower. After I had dried myself off, I went over to my wardrobe and took out a grey pencil skirt and crisp white shirt. I had just buttoned it up when I noticed there was a stain down the front. I vaguely remembered spilling pasta on it a few weeks ago. Damn it. I took it off again, and found a green silk blouse and put that on instead. I was amazed at how much easier my clothes now fitted me. If there was one upside to this break up, it was that I still didn’t have the appetite to eat. I decided to be brave and weigh myself, and I couldn’t believe it when the scales said I was a whopping full stone lighter. But it was a hollow victory when I didn’t even care about how much easier my skirt zipped up, or that for the first time since I was fourteen how I almost had a flat tummy again. None of it mattered when Marc didn’t even get to see it. I managed to find a new pair of tights and my black court shoes. I normally just wore black trousers and a cardigan to work, but I wanted to feel good that day. I needed the confidence boost of knowing I looked my best.

  I breathed in the cool morning air as I walked to the bus stop. It felt alien as I walked along listening to the birdsong and watching the spring buds that were starting to sprout on the branches of the trees. I hadn’t been outside in daylight since Frankie had brought me home the day after Marc had left. For once I made it to the bus stop in time to grab a coffee-to-go in the café next door to sip while I waited for the bus to come.

  Soon the bus pulled up and I climbed on board. I lowered my head when I saw it was the same driver that had brought me to Frankie’s the evening I had found Marc and Nadia in bed together. I hoped he wouldn’t recognise me as the bedraggled, tear-stained face that had sat on his bus only two weeks ago.

  When I got off the bus an hour later, I made my way up the quays to Rapid Response’s headquarters. I signed in at the reception desk at a very respectable ten to nine and walked up to my desk.

  I quickly switched on my PC and waited the usual ten minutes for it to load up. None of my team was in yet so it gave me a few minutes to get my story together about my severe case of food poisoning. I smelt his sickly aftershave before I saw him; Stephen Swan, the call centre manager and my boss, was standing beside me clutching a travel mug.

  “Well good morning, Lily – you’re back!”

  “I sure am,” I tried to sound enthusiastic, but I just wanted him to go away so I could check my emails to see if there was anything from Marc.

  “Feeling better?” he asked with a wry smile on his face.

  “Much better thank you.”

  “That was some bout of food poisoning you got. Two weeks?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Yeah, I know it was horrific, I’m never eating shell-fish again.”

  “Shell-fish, I thought you said it was chicken?”

  Oh shit. Everything had been such a blur the day after Marc left that I couldn’t remember what excuse I had made up to Stephen.

  “Well we weren’t sure – I mean I had shell-fish, Marc had chicken and I tried some of his but he was fine so it must have been the shell-fish.” I winced having to mention Marc’s name like all was normal.

  “Hmmh, well Rosie did a great job while you were away, didn’t you, Rosie?”

  I turned around to see a blushing Rosie Redford, had just arrived in and was taking off her woollen Orla Kiely coat and putting her gorgeous calfskin Prada bag with its soft buttery leather down onto the desk in front of her.

  Rosie was beautiful, five foot ten, with long athletic limbs. Her dark hair was always blow-dried to perfection, her nails were always the same length and neatly manicured. She dressed immaculately; her wardrobe was to die for. Today she was wearing a red dress that I was sure I had seen in a magazine as being from Victoria Beckham’s new Spring/Summer collection. She was also a champion show-jumper and had competed for Ireland before getting a bad fall, so now she just jumped for fun. She always had somewhere cool to go after work – art exhibitions, charity balls, film premieres or restaurant launches. And she didn’t just go to concerts – Rosie always managed to have “Access All Areas backstage passes” for concerts. Unlike most people, Rosie didn’t need to work, her Father owned The Savoy, Dublin’s swankiest hotel, as well as a huge property portfolio and he would gladly have taken his daughter on board the family empire, but Rosie maintained that she wanted to earn her own money and not to just live off the trust-fund that her Father had set up for her. Even her morals were gorgeous.

  “Lily, it’s great to have you back – it was so busy without you,” she said kindly.

  “Thank you, Rosie, and thanks for looking after things while I was away.”

  “Don’t mention it – I’m just glad you’re feeling better. It sounds like you had a horrendous bout.”

  “Yeah, it was terrible,” I lied. “I just want to have a quick check through my emails first and then we might sit down together and catch up on things for half an hour if you don’t mind?”

  “Sure, Lily, let me know when you’re free.”

  Stephen was still standing there with his mouth hanging open, drooling over Rosie.

  “Stephen is there anything else you want to talk to me about?” I asked.

  “Eh, no – that’s it.”

  “Well I’m going to get stuck in here and make a start on some of this backlog if that’s okay?”

  “Eh, yes . . . of course.” Embarrassed, he took the hint and walked off.

  I quickly scanned through the new messages in my inbox but was sorely disappointed to find that not one of them was from Marc. Why had I allowed myself to get my hopes up so much? If he wasn’t going to ring me, he was hardly going to email me. All of my excitement and resolve from that morning quickly evaporated and I was starting to feel like shit again. Rosie had typed me up a report outlining all of the calls and complaints she had dealt with for each day during my absence. I had to admire her efficiency; I would never in a million years have thought of doing something like that.

  It didn't take long before I was back dealing with all the problem calls. The first was from a woman asking why her test result wasn’t positive, I tried to explain to her as nicely as possible that it meant that either she had tested too early or that she actually wasn’t pregnant, but she just wouldn’t accept it. She listed off all the pregnancy signs that she had had that month, then she just broke down on the phone and started to cry, saying that this was the tenth month that she and her husband had been trying for a baby. I had to do everything in my power not to cry with her. My heart broke for people like her. I tried to be nice and to listen, because I knew she was just looking for someone to talk to. When I had hung up on that woman, I could hear Rosie at the desk beside me consoling a woman who obviously didn’t want to be pregnant, and was asking if a positive test could ever be wrong. If only we were able to swop the test results of both women. Sometimes I thought we ought to be trained counsellors.

  When lunchtime came, I picked up my bag and strolled outside into the spring sunshine. I had emailed Frankie to see if she was around for lunch. She said she was proud of me for going back to work and we had arranged to meet outside the Merrion deli. We grabbed a sandwich and sat on a park bench as the sound of bright birdsong mixed with the hum of the city. Frankie looked cool as usual, wearing a printed silk tunic, ribbed leggings underneath, black biker boots and a fitted leather blazer with a silk scarf around her neck.

  “It’s good to see you back, Lily – you look great. I presume you still haven’t heard a dicky bird from h
imself?”

  I shook my head.

  “He’s gone isn’t he, Frankie?” I said glumly.

  “Don’t think like that now, wait until you see him.”

  “But it’s been over two weeks. He’s hardly coming home now.”

  Frankie said nothing.

  “I can’t believe I’ve a failed marriage at the age of thirty-two.”

  “Yeah you’re a wild child, Lily McDermott – you would fit in nicely in Hollywood!” She smiled at me.

  I nudged her shoulder playfully.

  “Dear God, it’s such a mess though, isn’t it?”

  “Just take each day as you find it.”

  “But everything – my whole life – is a joke. I know I’ve been saying this for years, but I really need to get out of Rapid Response. You should see how well Rosie managed things while I was away.”

  “Rosie is gorgeous,” Frankie sighed. “I think I fancy her.”

  Frankie had met Rosie a few times, on some nights out in town and at our wedding.

  “Me too,” I sighed in agreement.

  “What was she wearing today?” Frankie always asked me what Rosie wore to work. Every day.

  “A red Victoria Beckham dress, tan Louboutins and her Prada bag – that’s my favourite one.”

  “I love her Hermès Birkin bag,” she said wistfully.

  “It’s amazing,” I agreed.

  “Look maybe now is a great time to really start thinking about what you want to do with your life, Lily?”

  “You sound like Clara.”

  “No I mean it, you’ve been saying for years that you need a change, and now is the perfect time to do it.”

  “Hmmh, maybe you’re right. But what could I do?”

  “Well something you enjoy and are passionate about! Start thinking about it.”

  “Shit! What time is it?” I said hopping up off the bench.

  “Nearly two.”

  “Damn, I’m going to be late back, and I was doing so well today!”