The Girl I Was Before

by Izzy Bayliss

  He looked sheepishly at me.

  “It’s not just a fling, Lily – look can’t you just try to be strong?”

  “Please don’t do this, Marc. Please, Marc, ” I begged. “I can change - I promise things will be different.”

  “I’m sorry, Lily, I truly am, but I think it’s the best thing for both of us. It frees us up to move on again.”

  Frees us up? I didn’t want to be free. I wanted my husband back. Where did he get this shit from? I bet it was all her! Had they sat in the car before he came up here concocting their little story and practising exactly what he was going to say like they were both rehearsing their lines for a scene? These were her words all right – there was no doubt about it. What was he doing? It’s me, I wanted to scream, me, Lily – your wife! Only three months ago we had skipped down the aisle together to the tune of the bloody Queen of Sheba’s march; we were married for fuck sake! We were good together, we were Marc and Lily, Lily and Marc; people like us didn’t separate! We were interrupted by the noise of someone sitting on a horn coming from the car park.

  “Look, that’s probably Nadia, we’re meeting friends for dinner – I have to go.”

  I watched my husband’s back as he walked out of our duplex without so much as a second glance back at me. I couldn’t get my head around what had just happened. Well I wasn't letting him go. I ran out after him.

  “Marc!” I croaked from the top of the concrete steps outside the door. “Come back, Marc. Marc! Please, come back.” I knew I sounded like Rose in Titanic when she was calling Jack to wake up, but I didn’t care. The curtains next door appeared to move by themselves. “Marc!” I pleaded desperately. He broke into a run and sprinted across the car park to where Nadia was waiting for him. Dear God, he was actually running away from me. I watched as he had to bend down to lower himself into the white convertible Audi. I tried to catch a glimpse of this woman who was causing all this pain and anguish, stealing my husband, my husband, but I couldn’t see her through the tinted windows. Then the car sped off out of the estate. I imagined the two of them together, tossing their heads back having a great laugh about it all.

  It hurt so bad, the pain seared through me so that it felt like every cell in my body was crying. For the last few weeks since I had discovered them in bed together, I had been able to blame it on so many things from Marc suffering from amnesia to him having a midlife crisis, they were all reasons I could accept, but the one reason I didn’t want it to be was because he was in love with her and not me. How did you marry someone and then a few weeks later fall in love with someone else? It just didn’t make any sense to me. One minute I was a fresh out of the box, loved-up newly-wed and the next – well the next I was a potential divorcée, rambling around alone in our negative equity laden duplex. I didn’t want to be a divorcée. It was an odious word, meant for older people – grown-ups – not someone who was barely in her thirties for God's sake. It was a hideous, embarrassing word to have to use about oneself. And besides how did someone who you might consider to be well-educated and to have a modicum of intelligence manage to rack up such an epic fail by the ripe old age of thirty-two? I was still trying to work that one out myself. In my head divorcées were sun-aged with wrinkly, leathery skin and filler plumped lips. They were normally poured into dresses that were too tight as they tried to relive their youth, and they almost always had unresolved “issues”. They were the people who cornered you at a party, that you tried desperately to get away from while they poured their heart out to you, launching into a bitter tirade of abuse about their ex. And before you knew it, they were tipping a gin and tonic all over your new shoes. They weren’t people like me; I wasn’t like that. And as for her - she knew we were married! I actually think we even sent her an invitation to the bloody wedding, but she had been off flaunting her bits in the Caribbean or something if I remembered correctly.

  In my desperation, I briefly thought about faking a pregnancy like they always did in Coronation Street but it would never work because (a) in Coronation Street the characters never get pregnant then when they need to and (b) my good old Catholic guilt from years of being educated by the nuns meant that I was a crap liar.

  All I knew was that I didn’t want this. I wanted to still be married to my husband, but it was only now that it was starting to hit me that he was gone for good. I felt powerless and out of control. Why didn’t I get a say in any of it? How come he got to be the one to make a decision that affected both of our lives irreparably? It wasn’t fair. I had to face up to the fact he wasn’t coming back, no matter how much I wished he was going to change his mind or how many rom-coms I watched where the man came running back and the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, there was no way back from here for Marc and I.

  My hands started to tremble, my mouth started to water; I could feel the nausea rising up my throat. I ran back inside and somehow found the toilet before I puked and collapsed into a tear-sodden heap on the tiles.

  Chapter 10

  Frankie’s number flashed up on my phone. I knew she was probably looking for an update on how things went with Marc, but I couldn’t face talking to her. I let it ring out to my voicemail. She had been right the whole time. She had only been looking out for me and I had been ratty with her. I didn’t deserve her as a friend. This just made me feel even shittier. Twenty minutes later her number came up again, and again I let it ring out.

  I went into the kitchen to find something to drink – something strong to numb the pain. I opened back the red shiny laminate presses one after the other. God how I hated those presses – they had looked so cool in the show-house, but now they were already looking a bit dated. I had to open the doors carefully because they were starting to hang off at the hinges, due to the shoddy workmanship. I was searching for alcohol, but as I opened them one by one there was none to be found in any of them.

  “Dear God if you are listening could you not give me a break? Just a small one,” I begged aloud. Then I remembered, the bottle of Jameson whiskey that Marc had won at some charity fundraiser that he had gone to a few months back. He was always going to events like that, not because he was particularly charitable but because he wanted to raise his profile. He wanted to be seen by the “right” people, and there were always important people, and of course the press, at these events. I could remember Marc banging on about it being a single malt and how he reckoned it would be valuable in a few years, so he had kept it up on the top shelf in his wardrobe. I went into the bedroom and opened up the doors where I saw his treasured bottle teasing me from up high. I got a chair from the kitchen, climbed up and lifted it down.

  “Aha! You might just have ruined my life, Marc Glover but I will have this, thank you very much!”

  The thing was that I didn’t even like whiskey but I would have drunk paint stripper at that stage to numb the pain. I went back out to the living room and poured myself a generous glass, letting the golden liquid fill up the crystal tumbler (another wedding present). I raised it to my lips and sipped it back. It tasted bloody awful, it burned my mouth on the way down, but I didn’t care. I poured myself another glass and did the same thing again. It wasn't long before I felt warm and fuzzy and detached, exactly how I had wanted to feel. Soon after I heard the doorbell and I wasn’t sure if it really was the bell or not. I could hear someone calling my name. I listened again, and there was definitely someone knocking too. Wearily I pulled myself up off the sofa and made my way across the living room to answer it. I stumbled over the footstool and realised that I was drunker than I thought I was. I eventually managed to pull back the door and saw Frankie standing there.

  “Frankie, pleased to see you,” I slurred as I held out my hand to shake hers.

  “Are you drunk, Lily?”

  “Yes indeedy, my friend, yes indeedy, and it feels marvellous. Come on into my humble abode.” I gestured roundly with my arm.

  “I take it things didn’t go too well with Marc then?” Frankie said closing the door behind her
before walking over to the sofa and picking up the bottle of Jameson. “Jesus, whiskey, Lily? Since when did you drink whiskey?”

  “Oh no, Frankie – it’s not just any whiskey. It is a Jameson 1980 single malt. It might actually be worth something in a few years, but oops we’ll never know now will we?” I sang.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “About what?”

  “What happened with Marc – I’ve been trying to ring you! I guessed when you didn’t answer that it didn’t go well.”

  “Well spot on Sherlock, because Marc, my husband, wants a formal separation!”

  “He wants to separate?” For once Frankie sounded completely shocked, it took a lot to shock her but I think this had done it. “So it really is over then. God, Lily I’m sorry.”

  “He reckons by formally separating it will 'free us both up to move on again' and then sure down the line we can apply for a divorce. Isn’t that awfully considerate of him?”

  “Yeah, you got really lucky when you met him!”

  “I want to go out and get drunk. So drunk that I can’t even remember his name. Actually no, I want to get so drunk that I can’t even remember my own name.”

  “But it’s almost eleven o’clock, on a Wednesday night, there won’t be many places still open.”

  “We’ll make last orders in one of the pubs down the village. Come on, quick!”

  ***

  The next day I groaned when the alarm went off at seven a.m. I peeled my eyes open to find that I was back in the bedroom. I looked across to see a sleeping Frankie with her mouth wide open drooling onto the pillow beside me. I pressed snooze and next thing I knew the red LED display told me it was after eight o'clock, and bearing in mind I was due to start work in Dublin city centre in less than an hour's time, I was in trouble. I was dying with the hangover from hell. My head was pounding, and my hands were shaking. It was bad. I vaguely remembered getting into bed after three. The pub had given us a lock-in. It had seemed like a great idea at the time – now, not so good.

  I tried shaking Frankie to wake her but she told me to get lost so I left her alone. I hopped out of bed and stubbed my toe on the end of the bed frame as I tried to run into the bathroom and jump into the shower.

  I am not a morning person, even as a child I would surround myself with a wall of cereal boxes at the kitchen table so Dad or Clara wouldn’t talk to me. I’m convinced humans are not designed to get up at that time of day. Why couldn't we just have a working day that started off at ten or eleven o’clock? Whoever invented early starts should be taken out and shot. My resolution of making an effort with my work wardrobe was fast put to one side as I grabbed a tracksuit and trainers from the wardrobe. I dressed quickly and sprinted to the bus stop.

  The bus finally arrived twenty minutes later. There were no seats free, so I had to stand the whole way for the hour-long journey. My legs felt weak and beads of sweat were running down my back. My hand was clammy and kept slipping down along the chrome pole that I was holding onto. When we went over a ramp I could feel the vomit making its way up my throat. I put my hand over my mouth and thank God it went back down. I wished the journey was over so I could get some fresh air. Of course we hit every red light in the city and the traffic was awful.

  It was after ten when I finally rocked up to the office. My heart was beating furiously because I knew I would have to deal with Stephen. There was no way he would let this go. I tried to walk subtly past his desk, but the man must have psychic powers because he peeped his head up from the paperwork he was supposedly busy looking at, just at the very moment that I walked past.

  “Lily?”

  “Stephen?”

  “Late again I see,” he tapped his watch as if I was an imbecile.

  “Yeah sorry about that I was –"

  “The meeting room – in five minutes, yeah?” He looked me up and down taking in my get up of a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms. Then I remembered I had forgotten to brush my hair. I reached my right hand up to my head and tried to smooth it down without making it too obvious, but I could feel bits sticking out and long strands hanging loose from the ponytail.

  Oh dear this was not good. I was not in the mood for another verbal dressing down from Sleazy Stephen. I went and put my bag down on my desk and gave my team a weak smile. They had heard the whole conversation with Stephen.

  “Are you feeling okay, Lily? You look very pale?” Rosie asked concerned. She was of course immaculately dressed, wearing a wine leather pencil skirt and a sheer white silk blouse, which I’m sure Stephen was enjoying immensely.

  I was only able to shake my head at her because I had to run to the bathroom to be sick.

  I felt much better when I stood up again after having heaved my guts up into the toilet bowl. I went out to the sink and rinsed my mouth out, and then washed my hands. I looked at my appearance in the mirror, my face was the colour of the white wall tiles and my skin was all red and blotchy – alcohol really was a poison.

  “Are you sure you're okay, Lily?” It was Rosie. “Sorry to follow you into the bathroom, but Stephen sent me to get you,” she said with an apologetic smile.

  “I’m okay thanks, Rosie, just one of those stupid stomach bug things. I’d better run – I don’t want to keep him waiting on me.”

  “Sure – well I’ll get started on those weekly reports for you while you’re in with him then.”

  Christ I had forgotten all about my weekly reports! They were just routine reports about the volume of calls, the general nature of the problems – I did them every Thursday for Stephen to present to the directors in their weekly meeting. If I wasn’t there I usually briefed one of my team on what to write, but I had completely forgotten this time.

  “God, Rosie, I’m so sorry – that would be great if you could start them for me. Thank you.”

  “Not at all, I’ll just use one of your templates and update it.”

  We walked back out together, and I could see Stephen standing up now and walking towards the meeting room in his machine washable pinstripe suit and plastic loafers. “Okay, I won’t be long so we’ll catch up when I’m out?”

  “Great!” Rosie smiled. Her perfect gnashers could have featured in a Colgate advert. Why did she have to be so beautiful and lovely? She was the kind of girl that you really, really wanted to hate, but you couldn’t because she was just too damn nice. I went into the meeting room and my heart started racing.

  “Stephen?” I tried to sound cheery, “What’s the matter?”

  “Take a seat, Lily” He gestured to the high-backed swing chair before walking over to close the door shut behind me. It was just me and him. Him and me. In a three-metre square room and I started to break out in a sweat. I was never drinking again.

  He sat down on the other chair opposite me, but we were so close that I could smell the garlic that he must have eaten for dinner last night off his breath. I’m sure he could smell the whiskey on mine, so we were even on that score.

  “Well, Lily, I suppose we’ll get straight down to business then shall we?” He was stroking his ginger goatee. “Your behaviour over these last few weeks has been well – nothing short of –,” he paused for the right word, “disappointing,” he said solemnly.

  “Look, Stephen – I’m sorry, I just have a few –” I was starting to feel claustrophobic in the room. Sweat was breaking out across my back.

  “This company needs team players, and as you well know, Lily, there is no “i” in team! We need someone who is reliable, who lives and breathes the company’s values – someone who wants to reap the rewards of picking the low hanging fruit. Especially someone in a senior role like yourself.”

  “I do – I do all of that but I –”

  He raised his hand to tell me to stop.

  “Lily, I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go.”

  “What?” I said in shock. “But you can’t – I’m sorry, I’ve just had a lot on my mind but I’ll change. I promise.”

  “
It’s too late, Lily. Too late for that now. I never know in the morning if you’re going to show or not. I need somebody who I can rely on.”

  “Hang on, Stephen – I was absent for two weeks due to illness, and I was late this morning, but before that I hadn’t had a sick day in I don’t know how long.”

  “We've warned you about your tardiness before, so I'm afraid there can be no more chances.”

  It was true Stephen had hauled me into this same room a few months back to give me a verbal warning about my timekeeping, but I had never thought that he would actually fire me. “Even your presentation, Lily – this is an office and you turn up here wearing tracksuit bottoms with the word ‘teaser’ printed across the behind. And trainers? It’s hardly very professional now is it? And please don’t take this the wrong way, but did you even brush your hair today?”

  I suddenly wished I had rethought my choice of outfit that morning.

  “I mean look at Rosie. She always manages to look professional. She always turns up well-groomed.”

  There he goes again, I thought, banging on about perfect Rosie.

  “Look, Stephen, you fuck-face I know you’re in love with Rosie, and you think that by giving her my job she’ll sleep with you, but Rosie has far better taste than a two bit wanker like you.”

  Of course I didn’t actually say this – I wish I had though. Instead I begged: “Look, Stephen, I completely see your point – I’ve let my standards slip but I will change, I promise.”

  I spent a few more minutes pleading desperately for my job back, but he wouldn’t back down. I asked if I could return to my desk to gather up my stuff, but he said that as I was no longer an employee of the company, for insurance purposes they couldn’t allow me to stay on the premises anymore so my “effects” would be sent on to me. Then he frog-marched me on the walk of shame back through the office where everyone knew by my demeanour that I was a goner. A few brave folk peeped up from their work and gave me sympathetic smiles but most people chose to look the other way, fearing they would be next in line if they showed me any solidarity. Before I knew it I was standing outside on the street without my coat or bag in total shock at what was after happening. I didn’t even have money for the bus fare home. I pressed the buzzer to reception to get back in.