The Story of Our Life

by Shari Low

  ‘The train could have been late?’ she suggested.

  ‘Nope, I checked. It arrived on time. He’s not answering his phone. He hasn’t checked in. What if something’s happened to him, Lu?’ The pitch of my voice was strangled by the thought. ‘We had a huge fight tonight. Huge. The worst ever. He stormed out and… where is he, Lu? I need to find him. I need to say sorry, to tell him that I…’ Pause. Another realization. ‘This was the first time I can ever remember not telling him I love him as he went out the door.’

  ‘Shhhhhh,’ Lu murmured, with uncharacteristic softness as she wrapped her arms around me. ‘We’ll find him. There will be a simple explanation and we’ll laugh. I promise. It’s going to be fine.’

  The logical side of my brain knew that assurance was based on absolutely no fact or knowledge, yet the synapse that controlled desperation grabbed on to it. It was going to be fine.

  ‘Okay, fire up your laptop for me,’ she said, and call the hotel one more time.

  I did both. He still wasn’t there.

  When the screen came alive, Lulu clicked on to the MacBook Air’s Internet browser and I watched as she double-checked the train times. ‘It definitely arrived on time,’ she said, telling me what I already knew. She clicked on to a couple of news sites, then the Manchester police Twitter feed. Nothing to report.

  She sat back for a moment, thinking. ‘Do you know the password for Colm’s iTunes account?’ she asked.

  ‘Lulu, I don’t want to listen to music. I just want to find…’

  ‘It’s not for the music,’ she cut me off, her fingers manipulating the silver pad on the keyboard, the curser heading to the search bar, where she typed in iCloud.com.

  The sign-in box came up and she entered Colm’s email address, then paused at the next box. ‘What’s his password?’

  This felt wrong. It was an invasion of privacy. A step over a line. But I was worried sick that he was lying somewhere, ill or hurt, or – I tried to block the thought but it came anyway – worse. There was no line I wouldn’t vault over to find him.

  ‘Beth2001,’ I told her. Our daughter and the year we met.

  ‘Okay, we’re in.’

  I wasn’t religious, but thank God.

  She flicked across the screen of icons and clicked on a green square, labelled ‘Find My IPhone.’ Click.

  ‘How do you know this stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m an unfaithful woman with a suspicious mind. You’ve no idea the stuff that I’ve learned over the years. Dan can’t fart without me knowing about it.’

  Back on screen, a map appeared, then the focus zoomed in to a circle in the middle, going around, contemplating the answer. Eventually the map moved again and the circle stayed still. I tried to understand.

  ‘Zoom out,’ I asked, and Lu adjusted the screen. London. He was still in London? How could that be? Oh God, did he not even make it to the train? Did the stress of our fight cause some kind of blood pressure overload and he’d passed out somewhere? Was he in hospital right now only minutes away from here?

  Lulu zoomed in again, and this time I registered the street that the circle had rested on. A4201. Outer Circle. The road that ran around the perimeter of Regent’s Park.

  ‘Hang on, that can’t be…’

  Yet it was. Lulu switched to street view, and yes, there was the gorgeous crescent of houses, one of which was inhabited by Colm’s ex-wife and children.

  ‘He’s with Jess?’ I said, my comprehension struggling with the information.

  Lulu was equally perplexed, but slightly more pragmatic. ‘He must have gone to see the kids. Perhaps there was a problem. Or one of them was unwell.’

  ‘They’re fine,’ I said, using words that sounded so detached it was like they were coming from someone else.

  ‘How do you know?’

  I pressed a few buttons on my phone, opened the text I’d received earlier from Joe.

  Hi Jess. Can you tell dad we’re staying at gran’s house tonight? If he wants to play pool he can come over.

  I let her read it before clarifying. ‘It came in while I was sleeping. The boys are at Jess’s mum’s house. Nowhere near Regent’s Park.’

  Lulu could see where I was going with this and tried to head me off. ‘Shauna don’t. Colm would never do that. And besides, Steve will be there. Colm probably popped in, ended up having a beer and crashed on the couch.’

  I shook my head, still trying desperately to make some kind of sense of this. ‘They’ve split up.’

  Lulu’s eyes widened. ‘What? You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nope. I overheard the boys talking at the weekend. Davie was telling Joe that Steve was moving out this week, but that their mum didn’t want anyone to know yet. I’d assumed I’d heard wrong, but now it makes sense. Colm is with Jess.’

  And there was no outcome to this that could be good for us.

  The thought that he’d run to her after we’d had a fight hurt.

  The other possible conclusion was… I couldn’t even finish the thought. He wouldn’t. Surely, he could never do that.

  Both our eyes returned to the tiny circle, on a map. The one that had just exploded a bomb in my life.

  36

  2009

  Shauna and Vincent

  Wordlessly, Vincent took me through to the lounge, where he sat me down, wrapped a soft throw around my shoulders, then knelt in front of me, his arms enveloping me. He held me, the silence only broken by our breathing, no words needed or wanted.

  I was numb. Void. Until slowly, with exquisite pain, an honesty unfurled inside me and I knew why I was there.

  ‘I need you,’ I whispered.

  I felt his body flinch, before he eased back, to see my face, to check what he’d heard. He saw that he was right.

  ‘Shauna, you don’t. Oh God, I wish you did. I so wish you did.’

  ‘Vincent…’ I reached over, put my hand on his heart, felt it beating under my touch, fast, hard.

  ‘Don’t do this, Shauna. Not like this.’

  I could hear what he was saying, but I wasn’t listening. ‘Please…’

  ‘No.’ It was soft, thick with sorrow. He ran his fingers through his hair, groaned, then touched my face. ‘I love you,’ he said simply, but he didn’t have to because right then I realized that I knew. Even before Carole told me. I’d always known. ‘I’ve been in love with you for so long I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t. But I don’t want it to be like this,’ he said. ‘Not when you’re vulnerable and hurt. It would feel… wrong. Like I was taking advantage of your pain. And I know… Don’t worry, I know. You love Colm. You always have. And I hate that he doesn’t see you, doesn’t know what he has.’

  ‘Vincent, please…’ I stopped, the words refusing to form.

  He stood up. ‘I’m going to go to bed now, before either of us says or does something that can’t be undone. And tomorrow, we’ll pretend this never happened, smile and carry on like everything is fine. The way you do every day.’

  Ouch, that last one stung, the puncture mark deeper because we both knew it was true.

  I watched him go, then lay back, closed my eyes. He loved me. Right now, right here, I felt like he was the only one who did. My parents gave nothing. Annie was gone. Colm and I were in a warped existence where I no longer knew what was real and what was fake.

  Vincent loved me. And just for tonight, no matter how selfish that made me, I needed to know what that felt like.

  Without making a sound, I stood up, crossed the room, climbed the stairs, leaving behind a trail of clothing as I went. His bedroom door was open, and I saw him in the half light, lying in top of the bed, his head turning to me as he registered that I was there.

  I walked to him, naked, raw, every nerve, every sense needing to touch him, lie with him, feel him next to me, inside me.

  ‘Shauna…’ he whispered, before I silenced him with the gentlest of kisses.

  This time he didn’t say no.

  37

  201
6

  Colm and Jess

  It was the light streaming in the window that woke me but the pounding headache that immediately followed was what delayed the realization of where I was. When it came, I felt an overwhelming groan permeate from every pore. Fuck. What had I done?

  The space beside me in the bed was empty, so I got up, and then had to put a hand against the wall to steady myself. My head was actually spinning. Thank you, tequila.

  I couldn’t see my clothes, so I grabbed a towel from the en suite and wrapped it around my waist, then headed out of the door, not even sure how to get downstairs. Bollocks. I was supposed to be in Manchester and instead I was in London, in my sons’ house, waking up after spending the night with their mother. This was so many levels of wrong, it made my head pounded even harder.

  ‘Morning,’ Jess said, as I entered the kitchen. In bare feet and denim cut shorts, a white baggy T-shirt and her hair tied up on a ponytail, she was fresh-faced and functioning so much better than me. She clocked my outfit. ‘Sorry, I was going to bring your clothes up. They’re on the chair.’

  She gestured to the seats at the breakfast bar, where we’d been sitting last night. Oh fuck. We’d had sex there, on the counter. Then I’d carried her upstairs, with her laughing as she gave me directions on which way to go, and we’d made love again in bed. Her bed. Twice.

  Again. Fuck. What had I done?

  She slid a coffee in front of me, but I didn’t lift it. The irony wasn’t lost. A hot drink was how this had all started last night. Actually, that wasn’t true. The fight with Shauna was how it started. Oh God, Shauna. A flashback delivered snippets of what I’d said to her last night and I groaned.

  ‘Flashback?’ Jess said, sitting across from me this time. Her tone was tentative, almost sad.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied.

  ‘Thanks. Men always groan with horror when they realize they’ve slept with me.’

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t that!’ I rushed to clarify, even though I knew she was taking the piss. ‘It’s Shauna. Last night. We had a fight before I came here.’

  ‘I know.’

  I tried to remember if we’d discussed it. ‘Did I tell you about it?’

  ‘No, but maybe you should.’

  I shook my head. ‘Somehow that would feel… disloyal.’ Even as I said it, I realized how stupid it sounded. Yeah, repeating a conversation was disloyal. Screwing your ex-wife? A trifling misdemeanour.

  ‘Okay, let me have a shot at it,’ she said, softly, like she was teasing a thorn from my flesh and talking to me gently to take my mind off the pain. ‘Since you found out you have the tumour, you’ve gone to that place between denial and numbness, where you ignore the problem, pretend everything is going to be okay. You’ve convinced yourself that it doesn’t exist, even though something inside knows that it does. And it’s that bit of you that makes you angry, makes you want to push everyone away because you’re hurting. But you cover that up, act like it’s all easy, life’s a joke and you’re not going to accept the alternative.’ She stopped, looked at me. ‘How am I doing so far?’

  I didn’t need to answer. She could see the truth in on my face. She carried on, ‘Every time you look at Shauna it reminds you of what’s happened and what’s going to happen. So not only do you back off from her, but you get irritated, block out her feelings. You’re pushing her away with your indifference and you know she’s hurting but you can’t bring yourself to help her or be there for her because that means acknowledging the reality of what’s happening. If she shows even a glimpse of vulnerability, you close it down, brush it off.’

  She stopped, waited for a response.

  ‘How do you do that?’ I asked, aware that we both knew the answer.

  She told me any way. ‘Because history repeats itself.’

  We both sat with that one for a moment, the honesty of it searing, yet in a strange way comforting. There was something in the fact that Jess knew all this about me, knew my worst flaws and yet we were here, two decades later, sitting round the table, pretending to drink her coffee.

  Although, there was nothing comforting at all about what had happened here a few hours ago. Christ, what had I been thinking?

  ‘Jess… last night.’ It was as far as I got, before I ran out of words.

  ‘Last night was incredible,’ she said softly. A boulder of guilt came crashing down on top of me, only lifting when she went on. ‘I’m not even sure how or why it happened. The alcohol didn’t help, but I think I just wanted to…’ she paused, thinking it through. ‘… feel like I used to. Only I didn’t.’ We both know it was a one-time thing. We’re not those people any more. We’re not the teenagers who fell in giddy love. I’ll always love you, Colm, but I don’t want to go back there with you. I don’t think you want that either.’

  Once again I was struck by the wisdom of this woman that I’d married and somehow let go. ‘No, I don’t.’ But it wasn’t that simple. I struggled to find the right words to convey how I felt about her. In the end, I went for the truth. ‘You’re amazing,’ I told her honestly. ‘Except when you make coffee.’

  That made her laugh, but only briefly, before her body language became a rueful shrug.

  ‘Not feeling amazing right now. I don’t know that I’ll ever come to terms with sleeping with another woman’s husband. Not my finest moment,’ she admitted, tears pooling in her eyes again. ‘What are you going to do about Shauna?’

  ‘I don’t know. How do I tell her this? She doesn’t deserve it. Jesus, I’m a prick. I can’t even begin to explain how much she’s put up with, everything she’s done… But that’s the problem. She said last night I resented her for coping, for taking care of everything. I think she’s right. Now I think maybe she wasn’t coping as well as I thought.’

  ‘She was being strong for you,’ Jess added, as always going straight to the truth of it.

  ‘I see that now, but at the time I think that made me feel… The truth? I think it dented my ego, because she was the one taking everything on and not me.’

  Jess nodded. ‘But she couldn’t win, because if she’d fallen apart and looked to you for support, you wouldn’t have been there for her because you’re doing what you always do. Bad stuff isn’t happening. What was it you always used to say? “Blind faith and optimism”.’

  ‘Christ almighty. What a prick I am,’ I said again. I could keep saying it all day, yet it still didn’t begin to cover my stupidity. ‘How did I ever get you two to fall in love with me?’

  ‘You have an unusually large penis.’

  ‘Do I? How did I not know this?’

  ‘No,’ she retorted, giggling. ‘You really don’t.’

  Suddenly I was laughing, then in an emotional repeat of last night, there were tears. Nothing for twenty years then twice in twelve hours. What was happening to me? There was more I wanted to say, stuff I suddenly needed to share, but I knew that I would be sharing it with the wrong woman. I needed to see Shauna.

  I needed to tell her what I’d done, tell her how I hated myself for it, beg her to forgive me. I loved her so much and I’d completely fucking blown it, right from the minute I’d walked out the door last night, being a stubborn dickhead. I hadn’t even told her I loved her before I left. I couldn’t stand the thought that she wouldn’t believe me after this.

  ‘What am I going to do, Jess? She’ll never forgive me.’

  ‘Don’t tell her.’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘Why? To make yourself feel better? To salve your conscience? Telling her will only cause her even more pain and you’ve no right to do that. Go to Manchester this morning, have your meeting, come home, and love your wife. Make it right. Don’t add to her heartache. She doesn’t deserve it.’

  She was right. I knew she was. I just didn’t know whether I could live with the guilt… or die with it.

  38

  2009

  Then There Was Everything.

  I kneeled on the grass and closed my eyes, waiting for the
image to come, so that I could tell her my news. My incredible news.

  When I woke up this morning, this wasn’t in the plans. Colm had rolled over and hugged me, kissed me good morning and then we’d made love.

  That happened sometimes. It was all part of the healing that had started five months ago, on that night with Vince when we… I didn’t finish the thought. Vincent had been right in everything he’d said that night, every reason he’d given that we shouldn’t go there was true. I should have listened to him, but I’d been too damn selfish. Or maybe I just hoped it would be the answer. Perhaps all those years, when Vincent was always there and I thought of his as nothing more than a friend, maybe somewhere deep inside I was wondering what it would be like, how it would feel.

  Now I knew.

  The morning after I spent the night at his house, I’d woken up, and my answer was there.

  He wasn’t Colm.

  Vincent was beautiful, and caring, and he’d stayed right by my side when I needed him. He’d shared the most painful thing that had ever happened to me, held me up, refused to let me drown. And perhaps for a moment I’d thought there should be more than we already had. Maybe even hoped…

  But even through the tidal wave of guilt, I knew that I didn’t love him the way I’d loved Colm. Colm was my heart, he was everything. No-one else had ever, or could ever come close.

  Silently, I’d slipped out of bed, left before Vincent opened his eyes, regret and overwhelming guilt leading the way. Later, he’d come to the house, let himself in and stood, lines of tiredness on his beautiful face, leaning against the door frame, a few feet away from where I sat at the kitchen table.

  ‘Hey…’ he said.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘You left.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I had to.’

  The flicker of pain across his eyes told me he understood. It took a moment, before he spoke with resigned sadness, only a hint of a question in there. ‘It was only once?’