Rainy Days & Tuesdays

by Claire Allan

  “Good to see you, Mrs Adams,” he says. “You look lovely.”

  I blush, and return the compliment and off we drive, down that familiar road to Donegal. “I thought we were going for lunch?” I say, gazing out at the fields as we pass by.

  “Who says we aren’t?” Aidan smiles, raising his eyebrow at me. I swear he has been watching the news just to learn a few moves from Dermot.

  “Are we going to Mamore Gap?” I ask and he shakes his head.

  “Nearly right, but not quite. I thought we would go somewhere a little quieter.”

  “Where’s that then?”

  “Wait and see,” he teases and switches the radio on, singing along in his inimitable style to James Blunt. I almost forget that we are estranged. This is how it used to be, driving the highways and byways, the pair of us singing badly, carefree and chilled out. Neither of us can get away from reality though and soon Aidan quietens down.

  “I know things aren’t good, Grace,” he says. “I’m not trying to ignore our problems.”

  “I know,” I say, “and it’s fine. Let’s just enjoy this. There will be plenty of time for talking whenever we get to wherever the hell it is you are taking me.”

  The winding roads of Donegal melt into each other as Aidan drives along, faster than I ever could in such circumstances. I may well love to drive, but I’m still nervous in comparison to my husband. After a short time we find ourselves at Kinnego Bay – a wonderfully secluded beach which seems to have fallen off the end of a cliff. Only one other couple, and their dog, are here too. They are walking in the distance and I can hear their laughter carried on the breeze. Aidan tells me to wait on the sand and then he returns to the car, taking out first a picnic basket and then a checked blanket.

  “Have a pew,” he says, spreading the blanket on the ground.

  I sit down, slip off my mules and slip my toes into the golden, warm sand – I love that feeling. It makes me feel that all is right with the world.

  “Would you like some lunch?” he asks and I raise an eyebrow.

  I’m always nervous when Aidan has prepared food. He is not renowned for his culinary skills – indeed I’m half- expecting to find some part-cooked chicken and mouldy cheese slapped between two halves of a stale bap. He surprises me though – taking out some crusty bread, carved ham and a selection of cheeses. With a bottle of Schloer grape drink and some fresh fruit. I can feel my taste buds go into overload. When he brings out a small of box of chocolates as well, I can’t resist but deliver that world- famous line: “Why, Aidan, with zeze chocolates you are really spoiling me!”

  He laughs – a hearty belly-laugh and I smile back while he starts to carve up the bread, dolloping on real butter.

  “Go easy!” I say. “Remember I’m on Weightloss Wonders.” I have to resist the urge to make some comment about being a pathetic big gulpen who loves her bread. It wouldn’t go down well.

  “Sorry,” he says. “You look great on it.”

  I reply with a quick “I know” and pour myself a glass of juice.

  “I didn’t mean what I said that day,” he says.

  I know this is the point when I usually interject and tell him never to worry about it and sure it’s all in the past – but I want to hear what he has to say. I want to make him explain why he is sorry, why he won’t do it again, why he was a prick. It’s actually a bit like the toddler-taming techniques I wrote about last month for Northern People.

  “I was pretty annoyed with you, Grace,” he starts. “I still am.”

  What? Him annoyed with me! I don’t think this was how the script was supposed to go. I’m the one annoyed with him – all his fecklessness, his messing me around. No, this was not in the script at all.

  He sees the look on my face, “Before you go running off again, Grace, give me time to explain.”

  “I’m not running anywhere,” I answer. “Whatever gave you that impression?”

  He rolls his eyes to heaven, then looks at me square in the face, his dark eyes a mirror of Jack’s, and he says: “Because that is pretty much what you have done lately every time the going has got tough or we have had a confrontation.”

  I start to tell him he is talking pish but I’m having a light-bulb moment. Yes, oh my God, how did I not pick up on this before? Christ, I have been running away! He challenges me about why I’m a grumpy fecker – and I run away to a hotel. Daisy gets cross with me for abandoning Jack overnight – something I always knew she would be annoyed about – and instead of fighting it out with her, I run away. Aidan tells me he is pissed off about me having a few (okay, seven) drinks – and I run away. I start to flush crimson. It all made perfect sense at the time – it all seemed to be the most reasonable response to the situation ever but now I realise I was being the world’s biggest coward. I’m dumbstruck. No words will come from my mouth, so Aidan chatters on – apparently unaware that he has just given me more insight into the last three weeks than have Dishy, Daisy, Mammy or Cathy combined.

  “I had been boasting about you all week at work,” he blethers. “I told the girls, Ciara in particular, about the locket and by Jesus wasn’t I the most popular man at work for a week? The girls were all rooting for you. Ciara was even talking about giving the old Weightloss Wonders a whiz herself. Every day they asked and I told them how I was so proud of you – you were so damned determined – and then you come into the bar with Daisy, who you think is so much more supportive than me, and the pair of you drink yourself stupid in front of all of them.”

  His voice isn’t angry; it is more resigned. I embarrassed him. Christ, I’d have his knackers in a vice and smoosh them to smithereens if he showed up and embarrassed me in front of the folks at the office like that. I can’t believe I’ve been so fecking blind to all this – so caught up in me to realise what I was doing.

  I took Aidan’s son away – his baby – because of a few drinks and some fecking toast. I did that because I couldn’t see that Aidan had a right to be annoyed. I didn’t wait to find out what had happened – I just ran, like the silly little schoolgirl who never faced a single confrontation in her life. I’m the person who didn’t deck Lizzie O’Dowd square across the jaw for being such a god-awful bitch and I’m the silly, stupid little girl who threw the letter from the dance school in the bin without even opening it, because I was damned afraid that it might tell me I was shite when I knew, I still know, I was bloody good.

  I look at him. He has stopped talking now, and is looking out towards the bay. I can tell he is worried – worried that what he has said will make me run again, so I reach out and take his hand in mine.

  “I’m sorry, Aidan,” I say. “I never realised.”

  “I know that,” he answers, “and I know I was still an arse. I know I’m not blameless and I’m not looking for you to take all of this on yourself, but as long as we both understand, do you think we could start trying to work things out?”

  “I’d like that,” I say, resting my head on his shoulder and looking out over the azure sea of the bay with him.

  “Good,” he says, kissing the top of my head and moving to pour me another glass of juice. “And by the way, Grace, would you fecking email my sister back? She thinks you have dropped off the planet.”

  ❃ ❃ ❃

  To: Máiréad@ntlworld.co.uk

  Subject: I’m so sorry!

  Hi Máiréad,

  Aidan tells me I’m not in your good books. I’m so sorry for not getting back to you sooner. As you can probably imagine things have been crazy here. I think I’ve had one of those wee nervous breakdowns your mother is always threatening to have.

  Thanks for your concern about our relationship and thanks for not emailing me just to tell me what a god- awful person I am for walking out on your brother and taking his baby son with me.

  I’m sorting my head out. Rest assured, and tell your mum that Aidan did nothing wrong – well, nothing majorly wrong. He was a bit of a feckwit – as all men can be, but this is all about me and m
y brain.

  I would try to explain it all, but I doubt the internet has enough memory to hear the whole saga. Needless to say I’ve been unhappy for a while, with myself and my life, and I’m trying to deal with it.

  The doctor says I have depression – please don’t tell your mother that one. She would probably take out an ad in the Derry Journal to tell everyone what a bad mother I am. I’m not saying Máire can’t be a good Christian woman when she wants to be, but we both know she doesn’t hold court with mental illness. (What was it she referred to depression as that Christmas? An excuse for laziness and dressing badly? Something like that anyway.)

  You should know that Aidan and I met today and we are going to start working towards a reconciliation. I’m not moving back in just yet. We are going to try and recapture the magic for a bit – I don’t know how possible that is – but at least we both know we aren’t heading for the divorce courts just yet.

  I’ll explain the full story to you when you next come over. There is a bottle of wine with your name on it in Jackson’s.

  Take care, you groovy chick, Grace

  X

  I press send, close the laptop. I stare out over the garden and take a sip of my water. My head is buzzing – doing that weird combination of feeling really excited about the prospect of getting back with Aidan and at the same time fighting feelings of shame and regret about how I treated him. Why could it not have made sense to me before? Why did I not realise I was behaving in a destructive manner? My God, I’m lucky. Lucky that he seems willing to try again. Lucky that he isn’t totally fecked off at how I’ve treated him. My God, if my coming into the bar half-cut embarrassed him, I dread to think what the news of me moving out has done. I mean, this is Derry – nothing happens in Derry without everyone knowing about it. If Louise, who only seems to care about Hello! magazine and other celebrity rags, had heard about it then I’ve no doubt Aidan was hounded for the last week by his colleagues.

  Ciara won’t have let this lie. She will have been itching to know all the details and won’t have bothered to think about how anyone was feeling. In fact, now that I think about it, it was probably Ciara who told Louise. After all, Ciara is Briege’s sister and Briege is Louise’s equally anorexic best friend.

  I cringe at the very thought, but thankfully a screech of a car outside the house and the subsequent explosion of noise from the backseat is enough to distract me.

  “Mammy, Mammy!” Jack shouts, running through the house towards me. “We went swimming and to the park,” he declares proudly, showing me a scrape on his knee.

  Lily isn’t far behind, her face aglow with freckles from her day in the sun. Daisy looks remarkably fresh for one who has spent the better part of the day entertaining two hyper children. Shooing them indoors, she looks at me, hoping for some sort of clue as to how my day has gone.

  Giving her the thumbs up, I raise a wry smile. There is no need to explain all the nonsense that is going on in my head when she is getting ready for DDWD. For tonight anyway I want her to believe, for once and contrary to her own previous experiences, that things can work out and love can have a happy ending without complications.

  “Do you little ones want to watch the Barney movie?” I ask and the children almost combust with excitement. Settling them onto their beanbags in front of Daisy’s widescreen TV, I walk into the kitchen, where Daisy has developed the pallor of a condemned woman, and I open a bottle of wine.

  “Get this down your neck,” I smile, clinking our glasses together. “To fun times, good-looking doctors and getting your freak on!”

  She smiles back, gulping the wine down as if it contains some magic ingredient to steady her nerves. “So how did it go with Aidan?” she asks and I smile.

  “Better than I thought, but there is no way we are discussing this right now when we have to beautify you for the big date.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if this is such a good idea,” she says. “I mean, I don’t exactly have an impressive track record when it comes to men.”

  She’s right, of course. She doesn’t have an impressive record when it comes to men, but by my reckoning that means she is in line for some good luck soon.

  I can’t pretend to really know Dishy as such, but I get the impression he is a far cry from TMF who had the audacity to walk out on Daisy and his own daughter all those years ago. TMF was the type, as it eventually turned out, to charm his way into your pants but use the time you were reaching to the bedside table for a condom to rob you blind. Dishy didn’t seem like that. He seemed nice – like a Clark Kent to TMF’s Lex Luthor.

  “Daisy Cassidy, I will never forgive you if you don’t go through with this. I mean he might fall out with me and not be my doctor any more.” She looks momentarily horrified, and I grin. “I’m only joking. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go but I’ll bet my bottom dollar that come ten o’clock tonight when the kids are in bed and I’m drooling over Dermot you will be kicking yourself.”

  “You’re right,” she says, sipping her wine. “Fuck it, if you can get weighed in public, I can go and get me a man.”

  If anyone else had said what Daisy had just said I’m pretty sure I would take great pleasure in putting their head through a wall, but she understands what an effort it takes for me to reveal my weight just as I understand the effort it will take for her go through with this.

  “Go and get your clothes and make-up out,” I order. “I’ll run you a bath and top up your wine. The kids are fine with the TV, so enjoy this peace and quiet.”

  “Yes sirree, boss,” she replies and we go our separate ways.

  Once the bath is filled and Daisy is soaking her cares away, I load the children in the car and take them to McDonald’s. The last thing anyone needs when preparing for a once-in-a-lifetime date is their four-year-old daughter demanding a makeover.

  By the time we return, my normally chilled-out and casual friend has transformed herself into a sex kitten and I have to usher Jack quickly to the bath before he smears her new outfit with the remnants of his tomato sauce.

  “Mummy, you look like a princess!” Lily enthuses, demanding that Daisy does a twirl for her. She rushes over, cuddles into her mother and kisses her cheek. “You are so pretty, Mummy!” she says and I can see a little tear pricking in my friend’s eye.

  “Don’t even go there, girly,” I say, reaching into the cupboard and pulling out the bag I bought just for tonight. “I’ve filled this with tissues, some lip-gloss, a mini- hairbrush, enough money for the taxi home and –” I add with a wink, “some protection. Now go and pour yourself a glass of water to freshen up and I’ll get the children ready for bed.”

  She nods, hugs us, and heads for the garden table to sit and wait, just as I did several hours before. I know she is nervous. I would be too. I just wish she could see herself as others see her. I know she sees a short, young-looking girl with nondescript hair and bazookas that are on the buxom side. What others see is a youthful ball of energy, with silky hair we would kill for but would never be able to manage, dazzling blue eyes and a figure that most of the mothers at Little Tikes (to say nothing of Weightloss Wonders) can only dream of. When dressed to the nines, on occasions such as tonight, she is breathtaking.

  I’m midway through conditioning Lily’s hair when the doorbell rings and I hear Daisy shout her goodbyes. I scream a quick good luck down the stairs and set about settling Jack, before Lily and I take our place on the sofa with a selection of lotions and potions to beautify ourselves.

  At ten thirty Lily is snoozing soundly on the sofa, her finger and toenails painted a pale pink with her peachy skin now moisturised to within an inch of its delicate life. I’m treating myself to a glass of wine when my phone beeps into life.

  “All going well. Dishy very dishy. X”

  I smile and text back saying I won’t wait up. When the phone beeps again, I’m sure it’s the next instalment of Daisy’s life but instead I see it is from Aidan.

  “Loved seeing you
today. See you tomorrow. Always yours, Aidan x”

  His words give me hope, especially as I know he has taken time out of a busy night at work to send them. I wish I could go to Jackson’s now and show Louise and Ciara and anyone else who wants to see that we are not defeated yet. We might be bruised and battered and a little bit scared. I might feel as though I may vomit when I think of what I’ve put him through this last week, but he loved seeing me and tomorrow when we go for a family drive together he will love seeing me again. I’m sure of it.

  Chapter 21

  I’m just drifting off into a rather saucy dream where both Aidan and Dermot Murnaghan are offering to service my every need when the door of my bedroom creaks open and I hear Daisy try to grab my attention without waking Jack.

  “Are you awake?” she says, a little more loudly than she should, and I blearily open my eyes. She is grinning from ear to ear and she has the look about her of someone who needs to talk before they self-combust with excitement.

  “I am now,” I say, struggling to open my eyes. “Put the kettle on, I’ll follow you down.”