by Alex Coleman
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe just … twenty winks.”
I half-expected her to catch on to what she’d said and, somehow, take it back. But she didn’t. “Up you go,” she said. “The boys should be back soon. We’ll have a nice dinner later and you can just chill out.”
I didn’t need a lie-down, but I wanted to keep the moment alive.
“Thanks,” I said and got to my feet. “That sounds nice.” God help me, I even yawned.
Upstairs, I read Brenda’s article in Your Story again, imagining how my own tale of adultery and revenge would sound if it appeared in those hallowed pages. That quickly became depressing, so I lay down and stared at the ceiling for a while. A few minutes later, Colm and Niall arrived home. Niall was very excited and making lots of noise. I could tell that Melissa was trying to calm him down and knew that it was because I was resting – or was supposed to be at least. The guilt was substantial, but manageable.
After half an hour or so, the doorbell rang. I heard footsteps, then voices, then an ominous silence. Christ, I thought. It’s Gerry. He’s come to throttle me. Someone came padding up the stairs. There was a faint tap at the door.
“Come in,” I said. “I’m awake.”
Melissa stuck her head in. “You’ve got a visitor.”
I closed my eyes and put my hands over my face. I wasn’t ready for this.
“It’s Robert,” she said.
My eyes flew open and my hands fell away. I sat up and looked at her.
“My son Robert?”
She nodded and retreated.
I bounded off the bed and took a look at myself in the mirror. The words “hedge” and “backwards” sprang to mind. I rearranged my hair as best I could and poked at the bags under my eyes which was, of course, pointless. Eye-bags don’t do a damn thing when you poke them.
When I made it down to the kitchen and saw Robert leaning somewhat awkwardly on the counter-top, I realised how long it had been since I’d seen him – it must have been more than a month. He had hair, for a start, an inch or so of it. Last time we’d met, he’d had it cropped right down to the scalp. But that wasn’t the only change. He was heavier now, not fatter but bulkier; time well-spent in the gym, I guessed. I’d never seen him look so much like his dad.
“Here she is,” said Melissa, who was sitting on a stool, trying to look casual. “I’ll leave you to it, go see what my boys are doing.”
“You don’t have to go,” I said quickly. “Stay, stay.” There was a good chance, I thought, that Robert would say this was all my fault – I wanted a witness in case things got out of hand.
I turned towards him and gave him a small smile. “Hello there.”
He stood up straight and marched towards me. Long before it was necessary to do so, he threw his arms wide. As he gathered me close to him, he put his mouth to my ear and said, “The bastard. I could fucking kill him.”
Surprise and relief did battle for control of my brain. Surprise carried the day, but not by much. I backed out of his embrace and asked, “How did you find out?”
He ran his hand around his jaw – an ancient habit – and said, “I rang him this morning.”
“And, what, he just confessed?”
“Not straight away. I could tell something was up and when I asked him if he was okay, he told me the whole thing. Fucking tool.”
“Don’t swear, Robert.” His language was just one of the many subjects we rowed about. When I brought it up, Robert usually pointed out that I wasn’t averse to an occasional volley myself and I usually told him not to be cheeky. This time he said nothing.
“Anyway,” I went on. “What did he tell you?”
“He was all over the place – I couldn’t even make him out at first. Kept saying he was stupid, that he’d done a stupid thing, he was a stupid man, why had he been so stupid. There were a lot of ‘stupids’ in there.”
“But what did he say happened, exactly?”
I wanted to hear his precise description because I’d often wondered how I’d have confessed myself, if that had ever become necessary. Robert looked down at me for some time before he answered. I knew it was uncomfortable for him, but I held his gaze. I really wanted to know.
“He said he’d been unfaithful. And you’d caught him. It was just once, he kept swearing that, like, all disbelief.”
“What couldn’t he believe? That he’d done it or that I’d caught him?”
“Both, I think.”
“Did he tell you who she is … was … is?”
His eyes darted around for a second. “Yeah … Jesus. She’s not much older than me. I see her out and about sometimes, you know. In town. In clubs. Surrounded by men.”
“You’re impressed with your dad.” “No!”
“It’s all right, Robert. She’s very beautiful, I know that.” “Jackie! You’re doing it again!” This was from Melissa, obviously.
“Doing what?” Robert asked, looking from his aunt to me and back again.
I gave her a pleading look. Not now. She backed down. “Nothing,” she said. “I think maybe I will … after all …”
She slid off her stool and left us alone.
“We might as well sit down,” I said to Robert. “Would you like a cup of coffee or anything?”
“Christ, no,” he said as he took a seat. “Are you joking me? I feel like I’m going to fucking split. How could he do this? What’s the matter with him? Aren’t you even angry? How can you be so calm?”
I glanced towards the open door, hoping Melissa hadn’t heard him.
“Of course I’m angry!” I barked. “What kind of a question is that? Jesus, Robert, do you really think –”
“Sorry, sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. But what are you going to do?”
“Well, in the short-term, I’ve wrecked the jeep – in the long-term, I don’t know.”
I could tell by Robert’s face that he had heard and understood the sentence but couldn’t quite grasp the meaning. His features rippled and contorted as he struggled to bring the concepts of Jeep-wrecking and My mother together. It looked as if his whole face was chewing. I tried not to feel pleased about his reaction, but I couldn’t help myself.
“You did what?”
“Wrecked the jeep. Well, damaged it, anyway. Scraped it against a pillar. Both sides.”
A grin slowly formed. It was the same grin that his alter- ego, Valentine Reilly, used on vulnerable young girls who knew better but couldn’t help themselves.
“Good for you,” he said. “Fuck him. What about her? Lisa? What are you going to do to her? She’s got that nice Beamer, hasn’t she, you could have swiped Dad’s yoke up against it. Two birds.”
“I’ve got no intention of doing anything to her, Robert. She’s not worth it.”
“No. Suppose not. The bitch.”
I drifted away for a moment to the alternative universe where Robert was telling Gerry that there was no point in taking revenge on Tony – the bastard. “Does Chrissy know?” I asked. “Yeah. I phoned her.”
“At work?”
“Yeah, well, I thought she should know right away.” “And?”
“And what do you think? She went nuts. Roaring and crying. I had to hang up on her in the end, there was no point to it.”
“Robert! For the love of –”
“It’s all right, I called her back a few minutes later. She was still bawling, though. I’m sure she’s stopped by now. She’ll be winding down anyway.”
“She’s her daddy’s little girl. This will hurt her very badly.”
He did another jaw-rub, then picked at his jeans. “Yeah, well …” Just for a moment, his man-on-the-up persona dropped away and he looked like what he was, a twenty-one- year-old who’d taken a kick in the guts. I tried to think of something comforting to say, but the words didn’t come easily. I was no longer used to comforting Robert, that was the problem. If he’d thrown one of his patented jibes at me, I’d have had a comeback to hand in a flash.
&n
bsp; “And you too, of course. I’m sure you’re not exactly thrilled.”
His recovery was immediate and total. “Don’t mind me, I’m grand.”
“Two pieces of bad news in two days though. First Jemima and now this.”
“Shit happens. It happens quite a lot, I’ve noticed.”
“Do you want to talk about it? About her, I mean. What went wrong?”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t want to tell you what went wrong.”
“You never know, Robert, I might be able –” “No, all right? It’s not … Just, no. Leave it.”
He’d raised his voice to the level he usually used when snapping at me about this or that. The experience was so familiar, it was almost comforting. I lowered my eyes and felt my head dropping, my shoulders getting rounder. It was the reaction of an animal that has been mistreated in the past and has learned to fear a certain tone.
“Ah, Christ,” Robert said, “I didn’t mean to shout at you.” He sighed. “She said I was too young for her. That was her reason. I don’t know how it took her four months to work it out, but there you go.”
This was the most personal information, in both quantity and quality, that he had given me in an age.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am.” This wasn’t even a lie. At that particular moment, I actually was sorry. “But she’s right. You were too young for her. Or rather, she was too old for you. I said as much, didn’t I? Plenty of times.”
For a moment, Robert seemed ready to go for me again. But he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say and changed the subject.
“So,” he said. “How come you came to stay with …” He cocked his head towards the door. “I would have thought you’d be straight over to Nancy’s.”
Robert and Chrissy both knew that Melissa and I had fallen out after Mum and Dad were killed, but they didn’t know the specifics. Gerry had once told me that they assumed it was something to do with the wills. We’d agreed not to correct them.
“Nancy’s in Paris,” I told him in an unnecessary whisper. “Right. I knew there had to be a reason. And how are you getting along with Rumpole of the Bailey?”
This was a nickname that he and Chrissy had come up with years ago when Melissa was still practising law. It shouldn’t have worked. She was a delicate Irishwoman, not a beefy British man and as far as I knew had never even seen the outside of the Old Bailey. Still, it had always cracked me up.
“Shhh. She’ll hear you. We’re getting along fine.” “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean, y’know … all right. So far.”
At that moment, La Cucaracha came weedle-eedling from my bag.
“Text,” I said and hopped off my stool. “Might be from Chrissy.”
It wasn’t. It was from Gerry. FOUND THE JEEP, it read. I UNDERSTAND. I’M SORRY. I LOVE YOU. PLEASE COME BACK.
My knees buckled and I only just made it back to my stool upright.
“What is it?” Robert asked. “Mum?”
I showed him the message. He read it without expression. Then he said, “Wow. He must be sorry. He loves that fucking car.”
“Christ … “ I said mournfully.
“What? Don’t tell me you feel guilty?”
I wanted to deny it, but I found that I just couldn’t.
Robert became very animated. “Now listen. Between the pair of you, there’s only one who should be feeling guilty and, lemme tell you, it ain’t you.”
“I know that,” I said, each word sticking in my throat like a cowboy’s spur. “He’s the one who … I didn’t …”
“Shhh. Don’t upset yourself.”
But it was too late. I’d upset myself. “Please don’t cry,” Robert begged.
I tried to stop, but the tears kept coming. Robert reached across, patted my knee and sat back again. It was quite obvious that he hadn’t a clue what to do or what to say. I felt sorry for him, which made me cry all the harder. After a minute or so, during which time he just sat there wringing his hands and staring at the counter, he suddenly leaped from his stool and more or less ran from the room. He returned seconds later with Melissa.
“What is it now?” she said as she arrived at my side. “What happened?”
“She got a text,” Robert said. “From Dad. About the car. Saying he understands.” Now that he had a woman on hand to help, he was all chat. “She feels guilty. She’s pretending she doesn’t, but she does.”
I thought, Melissa’s going to say I’ve done nothing to feel guilty about.
“That’s silly,” Melissa said. “What have you got to feel guilty about?”
I sobbed my biggest sob to date.
“So you damaged a car!” she went on. “Big deal! He had an affair!”
“It wasn’t an affair,” I blubbed. “It was a one-off. He made a mistake. People do that! He’s a good man!”
She took a tentative step towards me and, ever so slowly, as if afraid she might get scalded or pricked, she placed her hand between my shoulder blades. When she had satisfied herself that she was in no physical danger, she started to rub up and down, as if she was trying to burp me. It was surprisingly pleasant. She stopped when I showed her the phone message and then she started again, harder than ever. “Now, Jackie. Let’s not take any backwards steps. No excuses, no get-out clauses. You’re entitled to your anger. If he ‘understands’, well, good for him. That shouldn’t make you feel any differently about it.”
“Yeah,” Robert said, emphatically. He moved closer and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Okay,” I said, miserably.
Melissa started her strange rubbing again. I cried on for another few minutes, not sure if I was doing it because I felt bad about Gerry or because I felt good about having Melissa and Robert’s sympathy. Either way, I wasn’t proud of myself.
* * *
I expected Chrissy to call over that night, but she didn’t. She phoned instead, not long after Robert left. It wasn’t really a conversation, as such. I did all the talking. Chrissy just cried. In the end, I managed to arrange a time for us to meet by making suggestions and then interpreting her sniffs and moans as yeses or nos. The time and place we settled on, as far as I could tell, was the café in Arnotts at two the next day. I didn’t like hearing my child so upset, but it was nice to be the one doing the comforting for a change. It was honest work.
Colm disappeared that evening to attend some golf club do. Niall stayed up until way past his regular bedtime; he was engrossed in a finger-painting session which Melissa was reluctant to disturb on the grounds that it was a creative activity, as opposed to a ruinously destructive one, and made a nice change. He showed me some of his compositions and, in fairness to him, reacted well when I failed to recognise the subject of a single one (“Is that a space-ship?”; “No, it’s a CLOWN!”).
After he went to bed, Melissa rose from her chair and asked me if I wanted a drink. I wasn’t sure what she meant; I doubted that she was talking about something alcoholic. We hadn’t shared so much as a glass of wine since Mum and Dad died. I told her I could murder an orange juice and waited to see if she’d try to press something harder upon me. She didn’t – she returned with two OJs and got settled in again. I realised that we were staring down the barrel of our first couple of hours alone in God knew how long and felt a shot of adrenaline course through me.
For the next hour or so, Melissa’s attitude was like that of a nurse who’d been lumbered with an extra patient whom she could have done without. She was perfectly civil (Was I warm enough? Cool enough? Did I want another glass of orange juice? Another cushion? Was Heartbeat all right or did I want to watch something else?) but still, hardly chatty. I wasn’t exactly full of beans myself. Every time I thought of something to say, I gave it a trial run in my head and found it too frivolous, too perky. I was the wounded wife, I reminded myself; it was not traditionally a speaking role. Gradually, however, Melissa began to open up. She started small with observations about TV commercials and such-li
ke but really came to life when she got on to the subject of her neighbours. The couple on their left had lived there forever and were two of the most unpleasant people she’d ever met. He was a retired civil servant and she was a retired head- mistress. They were both desperately keen on capital punishment and managed to crowbar it into almost every conversation, as if it was the burning issue of the day. On Ash Wednesday the previous year, they had set upon Melissa as she emerged from her car and demanded to know why her forehead was cross-free. At first, she’d tried to explain that she hadn’t made it to mass yet – a lie, she never went – but eventually she’d lost her cool and told them, more or less, to piss off. They hadn’t spoken to her (or Colm or Niall) since and she was perfectly happy with that. The couple who lived on the right were much more fun. He was a director of television commercials and she was a bigwig in the National Museum. They were middle-aged but acted twenty years younger. They had no children but plenty of parties; Melissa had once spotted Jeremy Irons coming out of one. One afternoon the previous summer, Melissa had seen the husband walk the length of his back garden in a miniskirt and heels, turn at the bottom, and come straight back the way he came, like a sentry on duty. He glanced up as he turned and saw her at the bedroom window. She dived out of the way, but it was too late. Half an hour later, he showed up at the front door (in jeans and a T-shirt) and told her everything. His wife knew and didn’t mind, so long as he didn’t do it in public. She’d kill him if she knew about his occasional jaunt down the garden and back, which he did once in a while to “ease the tension”. Melissa promised to keep mum but to this day had a terrible urge to tell the neighbours on the other side, just to see what would happen. I took great delight in these and other similar stories, but was saddened to think that I hadn’t heard them before. What else had happened in her life that I didn’t know about?
The conversation – or rather, the monologue, for I was careful to restrict my own contributions – went on until well past midnight. It never strayed beyond the trivial, but that was fine by me. I hadn’t missed having deadly serious discussions with my sister. I’d missed talking shite.
