The Break

by Marian Keyes

  Of course Hugh had known! My giddiness, my arch hints, my insistence on having sex the night I got home – all the signs were there that something had happened with another man.

  And Hugh had been correct when he’d said I was different throughout the entire flirtation: I was moody – frequently irritable. Occasionally I overcompensated by being gushingly nice for very short bursts of time.

  I bought sexier clothes, higher shoes – even my underwear was saucier. I’ve memories of sitting opposite Josh in that restaurant we used to go to for lunch, turned on by the knowledge that my knickers and bra were made of sexy black lace.

  In the crowded ballroom, I turn away from him. I don’t want him to see me. More importantly, I don’t want to see him. Because I’m ashamed. I’m terribly, terribly ashamed.

  Worse, I’m sad. Hugh must have been so lonely during that time – which lasted about three months. Until then I’d been his best friend, his shared-brain and, abruptly, I was replaced by a callous stranger. As a result of selfishness, rather than cold-blooded cruelty, but all the same.

  117

  Wednesday, 17 May

  When I wake in Druzie’s spare room, last night’s shame is still with me and stays with me all day long. I need to talk to Hugh. I have to apologize.

  At the airport, waiting for my flight home, Derry emails to say she’s got summer jobs for Sofie and Kiara. Impulsively I ring her, I want to offload to someone.

  ‘Right!’ She launches into the news. ‘They’ll be chambermaiding in a glitzy health-spa in Switzerland. Very decent money. They’d better not let me down.’

  ‘They won’t, they won’t.’ Obviously I hope they’ll behave and, all credit to the pair of them, at least they know how to clean.

  ‘Ames, are you okay?’

  ‘Aaah.’ I squirm. ‘I saw Josh last night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, not like that, he didn’t see me. But I’ve got an awful bout of the guilts. About Hugh, I mean. All those weeks I was meeting Josh for lunch, Hugh knew something was up, and I know it’s two years ago but, Der, I feel shitty. I feel so guilty.’

  ‘Then Hugh ran away to Thailand. Get over yourself. The scorebook is even.’

  ‘Derry, there’s no scorebook. There are two wrongs here. It’s hard to face this but I was cruel to Hugh.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I want to make it right. I want to take his hurt away.’

  ‘It’s probably long gone.’

  That doesn’t make me feel better so I say my goodbyes and call Hugh. He answers after two rings.

  ‘Amy?’ He sounds worried. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Grand. Except. Can you come round to my – our, ah, the house later? Just for a quick chat. I’m about to get on a plane. I’ll be home in about two hours.’

  When I let myself in, Hugh is already there. Sofie and Kiara are flitting around. They look apprehensive – I suppose any unexpected meetings between Hugh and me are cause for anxiety. Broken marriages are truly horrible things.

  Hugh stands up when he sees me.

  ‘We’ll just, ah …’ Sofie and Kiara disappear.

  ‘Would you like something?’ Hugh asks me. ‘To drink? Eat?’

  His solicitude serves as a forceful reminder of this night two years ago: he’d just collected my cheese from the sorting office and fed me some when I got in.

  ‘Nothing, thanks,’ I mutter. ‘Let’s go to the living room.’ We have to leave the kitchen, I can’t take these memories.

  Once we’re seated, I start: ‘Hugh, I want to say sorry.’

  ‘For …?’

  ‘The summer before last, when I was, ah, flirting with Josh, and you knew. I’m sorry for hurting you, for worrying you. I did feel guilty at the time, but it’s worse now.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘It’s not. I did something terrible, you can’t just … let it go.’

  ‘I understand your reasons,’ he says. ‘The grind, the stress, the constant worry about money. Josh was an escape. Some people drink too much, or take up running, something to give endorphins.’

  ‘No.’ I don’t deserve absolution. ‘My life was lovely. But I wanted more. Something to look forward to. I don’t understand why.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘When you left, it was because you wanted two lives – to be a family man and a single man. I didn’t like your reasons but I get them now, better than I get my own.’

  ‘Look.’ He sounds weary. Maybe he’s just sad. ‘What’s done is done.’

  ‘I wish it wasn’t. Everything’s a big mess, and a lot of the time I just don’t understand how it all got so … bad.’

  ‘Amy, if you could go back to when you first met Josh, would you do things differently? Knowing how everything has played out?’

  ‘Yes.’ I’m certain about this. ‘You and I, we’ve lost something very …’ my throat hurts ‘… very beautiful. But it’s too late.’

  He nods. ‘Listen, I’ve found a flat.’

  This qualifies as good news, but it’s another turn of the blade that’s unpeeling our life together into two separate strands.

  ‘It’s in Tallaght.’

  Tallaght is way out on the western edge of Dublin. Poor Hugh, all on his own out there, so far away from his family. But we’re not his family any more – well, I’m not.

  ‘Is it … nice?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s fine. Small, but fine.’

  ‘I feel sad for you.’

  ‘Don’t. I deserve it.’

  ‘Stop. Let’s not talk that way any longer. Hugh?’ I ask. ‘Will we still buy each other birthday presents?’

  ‘Aaaah?’ He’s nonplussed by the change of subject. ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘What happens when my cheese club runs out in July? Will there be no more cheese every month?’

  He laughs. ‘A world without cheese, what a thought!’ He places his hand over his heart. ‘Baby, I promise you that, for as long as I’m alive, you’ll get your delivery of cheese every month.’

  Then it happens – my chest fills with warm feeling. It’s love. Love for Hugh. It must be the final stage of the grieving process.

  Obviously this isn’t the end end – two steps forward and one step back. There isn’t a full stop here so that everything stays on an even keel from here on in. I’ll probably regress to bitterness and sorrow and fury from time to time. But I’ve known the peace of acceptance, so there’s proof that it’s possible.

  118

  Thursday, 1 June

  ‘People joke about it.’ I step into my kitchen on a Thursday evening to find Hugh standing there. ‘But, I swear to God, the parents of children doing exams have a tougher time of it than the pupils.’ I dump a load of shopping bags on the table. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ I ask. ‘Physics?’

  ‘Physics.’ He looks very, very tired.

  Because the Leaving Cert is kicking off in less than a week, a fierce heatwave is building. It happens every year at exam time.

  ‘What have you here?’ Hugh helps me unpack.

  ‘Multi-vitamins for all-round good health, B6 and B12 for her nerves, kava-kava to keep her calm, ginkgo biloba to keep her alert. Rescue Remedy, but that might be for me. And those bottles of wine, they’re for me – and I suppose for you. Here.’ I open the bottle of multi-vitamins and give him one. ‘Take that. We’ve got to last the pace too.’ Sofie’s exams run until 20 June.

  ‘It’s going to be an intense couple of weeks.’

  ‘The health-food shop’s shelves were almost empty,’ I say. ‘It was like they’d had a riot. Every parent in the country must be at this lark.’

  I decide to open a bottle of wine and let Hugh unpack the rest.

  ‘What?’ He’s looking at bags of spinach and boxes of eggs. ‘Are they for her?’

  ‘Rich in B vitamins,’ I say, feeling like Smug Mummy. Two mouthfuls of wine and I’m already giddy.

  ‘Percy Pigs!’ he says.

&n
bsp; ‘Hands off! They’re hers, for when she’s doing the actual exams.’

  ‘I thought sugar was the instrument of the devil.’

  ‘But it gives short bursts of mental energy.’ Then I add doubtfully, ‘Apparently. God, it’s so hard to know what the right thing is.’ I give him a glass of wine. ‘There are times when I want to volunteer to sit the exams myself. But what do I know of physics and chemistry? You could do it.’

  ‘I’d hardly pass for Sofie.’

  ‘No.’ He’s too big, too hairy. ‘You need a haircut.’ Then I blurt, ‘Sorry. God, sorry. Time-slip! They’re not happening so often now, though.’

  ‘No, they’re not.’

  ‘And eventually they’ll stop entirely.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ He smiles. And, after a moment, I smile too.

  ‘Okay!’ Sofie bounds into the kitchen. ‘Let’s get to it. Is that wine? Dad, no! I need your head in the game.’

  They sit at the kitchen table and embark on some horrendous-looking equation. In a burst of sympathy, I quietly place the bag of Percy Pigs beside him.

  The night is so hot that Kiara and I sit outside in our postage stamp of a back garden. I drink a bit too much wine, lie on the grass and enjoy the sensation of stopping for rest in the midst of exhaustion. Enduring Sofie’s gruelling schedule is so taxing that my body actually aches. My lower back is enjoying the sensation of being pressed flat to the ground. When Kiara shoves me and says, ‘Mum, you’re snoring,’ I realize I’ve fallen asleep.

  In the kitchen Sofie and Hugh are still grappling with the physics conundrum.

  ‘Night,’ I say, ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Me too.’ Kiara yawns.

  Sofie and Hugh raise their heads, their eyes red-rimmed.

  ‘Dad,’ Sofie says. ‘Maybe we should stop now, get some sleep, and do another couple of hours in the morning.’

  ‘Okay.’ Hugh stands and stretches, his T-shirt lifting to expose his belly. For a moment I want to lay my hand on it. Our eyes meet and my face goes hot.

  ‘Don’t go home,’ Kiara says.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sofie agrees. ‘Stay on the couch, and we’ll both get up at six. Mum, have we a spare duvet?’

  ‘He can have Neeve’s.’ Kiara takes the stairs two at a time, reappearing with sheets, pillows and a duvet. She and Sofie do up a bed for him in the living room and make a big fuss of him as they tuck him in.

  ‘Sleep tight, Dad,’ Kiara says, and gives him a kiss.

  ‘Yes, sleep tight.’ Sofie also kisses him. ‘Mum, kiss Dad goodnight.’

  ‘Kiss him? You never know where that mouth’s been.’ I’d meant it as a joke but I sound bitter.

  ‘Mum!’ Kiara is shocked.

  ‘Well, sorry.’

  I look at Hugh. ‘Sorry. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ He’s got his mild voice on but I’m guessing that’s not how he’s feeling.

  As soon as Sofie and Kiara have disappeared to bed, I look down at him lying on the couch and say coldly, ‘I can be sore for as long as I like. There’s no time limit on it.’ I’m furious, as furious as I was the night I got back from Serbia.

  Just when I think the end is in sight, all the rage and sorrow kick off again. Will it ever end?

  The heat of his body was how I knew he was in my bedroom. He moved stealthily to the bed and I rose to meet him, taking his face in my hands, moving my palms over the roughness of his beard. My sigh was one of relief, then I put my mouth to his. He moved his lips to fit against mine and, oh, the shock of the beloved familiar. Hello. I’ve missed you.

  Everything, how he tasted, how he felt, it was all so right.

  This is the one, this is the right one.

  It was just like it always was – his size, his certainty, the confidence with which he played my body. We moved together in perfect synchronicity. Hugh had always been very good at knowing what I liked. No clumsiness, no clunkiness, just a fluid blend of sexiness and familiarity.

  After it had come to a thrillingly passionate close, I was left feeling – maybe an odd descriptor for sex – profoundly comforted.

  What rule said that sex could only be great if it was wild and frantic? Well-worn sex could be just as good as stranger sex.

  When I wake up, it takes several seconds for me to understand that it was only a dream. It had felt so graphic, so intense that I’m convinced I can still smell Hugh in the room.

  Why had I dreamt that dream? Maybe it’s a warning that Hugh and I are getting a little too close for comfort and I need to be careful.

  Or, more likely, it’s just one more part of my grieving. I’d been letting go of the sex part of our shared life. Soon every last thing will be gone and I’ll be free.

  119

  Thursday, 22 June

  Sofie did her final on Wednesday, and as soon as it was over, she and Jackson went out on the rip. She’s still MIA when I get home from work on Thursday evening.

  In fact, there’s nobody in the house – Kiara is babysitting Joe’s boys.

  This is something I’ll have to get used to because, in a week’s time, Sofie and Kiara are going to Switzerland. For the first time in forever, I’ll be living alone.

  I’ve known this for ages but because all my energy was in exam-mode I haven’t had time to feel it. It’ll be strange. The house will feel achingly empty. But I’ll get used to it. Painful as it was, I’ve got used to living without Hugh.

  All in all, he and I are doing pretty well. Okay, my occasional bursts of bile aren’t pretty, but things could be a lot worse.

  I rattle around the house, unable to settle to anything. After the gruelling route march of Sofie’s exams, this sudden nothingness feels like falling off a cliff. Hugh, having been my comrade-in-arms these last few weeks, seems the right person to ring. ‘What are you up to?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing much. It’s weird. Suddenly I don’t know what to do with myself.’

  ‘Me too! I was thinking,’ I say, ‘we deserve an end-of-exams celebration too. We worked as hard as Sofie – well, you did anyway. Will we go for a drink?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘The Willows. It has a garden. How soon can you be there?’

  ‘Depends on the Luas.’

  ‘I’m leaving now. Hurry.’

  I change into high sandals and a proper 1950s dress in periwinkle cotton and call a taxi, in which I have to work hard to neutralize the driver’s wrath when he discovers he’s ferrying me less than two miles. ‘You could have walked,’ he grouses.

  ‘Not in these shoes. I’ll give you a decent tip. Shush now, I’m in good form, I want to stay that way.’

  ‘Meeting a man?’ He eyes me in the mirror.

  ‘No. Well, yes.’

  Astonishingly, when I arrive Hugh is already in the beer garden and has bagged a table.

  ‘How?’ I demand.

  ‘You told me to hurry. You look nice,’ he says. ‘One of Bronagh’s finds?’

  ‘Yep. Never worn before. At least, not by me. You look nice too.’

  ‘That dress makes your eyes look very blue.’

  ‘That shirt makes your eyes look very blue.’ It’s a black-and-blue check thing, one of my favourites of his.

  ‘Make up your own compliments,’ he says. ‘Stop stealing mine.’

  A glass of white wine is being put on the table, with a bottle of beer for Hugh.

  ‘What’ll we drink to?’ I ask.

  ‘To Sofie getting As in everything?’

  ‘We’re not being too ambitious for her?’ I ask anxiously. ‘Maybe we should just drink to her happiness.’

  ‘How about “To Sofie being happy, and if that happiness includes getting As in everything, then we don’t mind”.’

  ‘Excellent!’ We clink drinks.

  ‘I feel like we’ve spent the last month living underground, never washing, eating crap … I’m wrecked,’ I say. ‘Are you wrecked?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He doesn’t look it. He looks great. Still too thin
, but clear-eyed and groomed. His shirt is ironed, his beard is neat and his longish hair is – ‘Oh! You got your hair cut.’

  ‘You told me to.’

  ‘And you do everything I tell you to?’ At the start of the sentence my tone was light and teasing, but by the end, I’m inexplicably tearful.

  ‘Babe? Are you okay?’

  Accusingly I say, ‘Now her exams are over, there’s no reason for you to be round all the time.’

  His face is stricken.

  ‘I’ve got used to it,’ I say. ‘And I’ll have to start detaching all over again.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone away.’

  ‘I wish I hadn’t.’

  ‘Don’t ever fucking do it again.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Hey, do what you like. You’re your own man now.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ll always be your man.’

  I stare at him in silence, then quickly gather my stuff. ‘I’d better go home,’ I say. ‘Sorry. I thought I was able for this. But –’

  When I get back, Sofie has reappeared. She’s flanked by Kiara and, astonishingly, Neeve. To the best of my knowledge Sofie and Kiara have barely spoken to Neeve since her no-show at Robert’s memorial over two months ago.

  ‘Mum,’ Neeve says, without preamble. ‘There’s something you need to see.’

  ‘Oh?’ I’m instantly anxious.

  ‘I’m not asking for your permission. This is simply a courtesy.’

  What on earth? ‘Go on.’

  She hits play on her iPad and something starts running. A home-made video by the way it’s wobbling all over the shop. It’s in black-and-white and someone – a woman, from the look of her shoes – is walking through a busy space, which at first I think is a shopping centre but then, with creeping dread, recognize as Dublin airport.

  Then Neeve’s voice issues from the speaker, ‘During their lifetime one in three women worldwide will have an abortion.’

  My heart drops like a stone.

  ‘Ireland’s abortion rate is the same as the global average,’ Neeve’s iPad says. ‘But in Ireland abortion is illegal, so women have to travel outside the state to access the service.’