by Olivia Ryan
I’ve sat for hours looking at myself in the mirror, wondering why Richard didn’t fancy me, wondering what was wrong with me. It could drive you mad; in the end you give up caring.
Well, there’s this guy at the gym. Andy. He started chatting to me when we were on the rowing machines next to each other. It’s kind of hard having a conversation when you’re puffing and panting like that, and after a few weeks he asked me to have a coffee with him afterwards, to carry on the conversation. We were having fun. He’s divorced, no kids, teaches at the local sixth form college so he’s at the gym a lot during the daytime in the holidays. I started going there more often when I knew he’d be there. We got into the habit of having coffee afterwards every time. It wasn’t hurting anyone, was it? I felt so much better, looking forward to seeing Andy, having a chat and a laugh with him, feeling like someone was interested in me. Then one day he asked me to go out for a drink with him in the evening.
I knew this was a turning point. If I crossed that invisible line, I was making myself available for an affair. And I wanted to – desperately.
That evening, when Richard got home from work, I’d already put the kids to bed early. I put on soft music, turned down the lights, lit all the candles and cooked his favourite dinner. I served it wearing a black negligee with nothing on underneath.
He ate his dinner slowly, watching me carefully, without saying a word. When he’d finished I poured him some more wine and pulled him over to the sofa. I undid the negligee and sat astride his lap, put my arms round him, undid his collar and tie, started kissing his neck and his chest. Still he didn’t say a word. I pushed him onto his back and dangled my boobs in his face. Hold them. Suck them, I was saying. Take me. For Christ’s sake, Richard, fuck me! I grabbed his hand, pressed it against me, tried to take hold of him, but he wasn’t even hard. Please, Richard! Please! I begged, starting to cry.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, tonelessly, as if he wasn’t even remotely interested.
What’s the matter? I need you! I need you to want me! I don’t even care if you can’t do it – if there’s something wrong with you, if you can’t do it any more, it doesn’t matter, but I need you to at least WANT to!
He looked away from me and shrugged. That shrug made me so angry, I nearly hit him. I wanted to tell him: This was your last chance. If you wanted me, I wouldn’t go to someone else. Instead, I got up, got dressed, blew out the candles, put on the lights.
‘I’m going out,’ I told him, and went to meet Andy.
He turned on the TV as I went out of the door.
We’ve never discussed it since. Does he know I’m seeing someone else? He surely must have guessed. In a way, I’ve got even less respect for him because of this – although it does at least mean I don’t have to lie to him, as he never asks any questions.
Perhaps I should leave him. Andy wants me to, but I’ve got the kids to think about. They adore Richard, and as I say, he’s a great dad, and a good husband too in lots of ways.
So now you know. To be honest it’s a relief to talk about it.
Perfect Rick? The perfect Prick? Ha! You must be bloody joking.
ABOUT DUBLIN
‘D’you think he’s a closet gay?’ says Emily. ‘You hear about these things, don’t you. They get married because they want a family and respectability, but they don’t really want a woman.’
‘Or perhaps he just doesn’t like sex very much at all,’ says Jude. ‘Poor Lisa. Who’d ever have thought it?’
Emily yawns and looks at the clock. It’s half past two. Apparently Lisa went to sleep as soon as she fell into bed – tired herself out with talking – so Emily came round to our room and we’ve been sitting here talking about it ever since. We’ve used up all the little sachets of tea, coffee and milk in the room and have all completely sobered up.
I still can’t believe my sister’s having an affair.
‘She’s always been such a kind of shining example. I thought she was better than me at everything.’
‘Maybe she is!’ laughs Emily. ‘Sounds like she just didn’t get a lot of opportunity to prove it, with Richard.’
‘It’s not funny!’
‘No. But it gives a whole new meaning to that Truth or Dare game, doesn’t it!’
‘Poor Lisa!’ repeats Jude sadly. ‘Of all the unlucky questions for her to be asked – that one about begging for sex.’
‘How humiliating for her. I could strangle bloody Perfect Prick. How dare he treat her with such… such coldness? Such bloody contempt? He could at least have pretended.’
‘Would you want a man to pretend to fuck you, though?’ points out Emily, and somehow this is so funny we all fall backwards on the beds laughing and yawning simultaneously.
‘Wake me up when it’s time for breakfast,’ I mutter, closing my eyes.
‘Jesus, God, are you not going to undress yourself and take your make-up off, Katie?’ asks Jude in disbelief. She should know me better by now.
‘No, I’m fucking not.’
‘Well, I’d best be going back to my own room,’ says Emily. ‘Night night.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ I start – but I’m asleep before I even finish the tomorrow, and fortunately, long before Jude’s finished in the bathroom and put out the light.
Some of us are quiet at breakfast in the morning, and several of us have difficulty looking a fried egg in the face.
First in the queue for black coffee is Mum, who looks like she can hardly bear the sunlight coming in through the dining-room windows.
‘How’s your head?’ I ask her gently, sitting down next to her with two slices of toast and marmalade.
‘Not good, dear, I’m afraid. Oh, move that food away from under my nose, please, if you don’t mind. The smell’s making me feel a bit faint.’
‘Sure you’ll be fine when you’ve got a bit of fresh Dublin air in your lungs, Margie,’ says Jude cheerfully, joining us and plonking her plate of sausages and fried potatoes down on the table. Mum winces and turns away, covering her mouth delicately with her serviette. ‘It’s a lovely day outside, so it is. I’ve been up since seven o’clock watching the world warm up.’
‘She’s a raving nutcase, Mum. She hasn’t been watching the world, she’s been doing her bloody hair and make-up!’
Mum tries to laugh but it obviously hurts her head. She groans and has a mouthful of coffee.
‘I hope I wasn’t embarrassing last night,’ she says somewhat stiffly, ‘while I was feeling under the weather?’
‘Not a bit of it, Marge,’ says Jude stoutly, ‘You were grand altogether. Sure and we were all fluthered, were we not?’
‘Fluthered?’
‘Hammered, so we were – but didn’t we have a great time and all? Is it beating the shit out of your own hen night at Southend, do you think, Margie?’
‘Southend… did I mention Southend last night, for God’s sake?’
‘Of course you did, Mum! You never left off going on about bloody Southend!’ I laugh. ‘It must have been fan-bloody-tastic, I’ll give you that – the amount you keep going on about it!’
‘It wasn’t,’ she says, dropping her coffee cup into the saucer with a crash. ‘It wasn’t good at all.’ She looks stricken, like she’s going to cry. ‘I don’t know what I was blabbing on about last night, but I’ve never told anyone the truth. It was a terrible day. It was the worst day of my entire life!’
‘I feel awful leaving Mum and Auntie Joyce behind,’ says Lisa as we leave the hotel a little later. ‘Are you sure they didn’t want to come?’
‘I think Mum still feels a bit hungover. And Joyce looks knackered. I reckon she didn’t get a lot of sleep – she says Mum was groaning and carrying on in her sleep all night. They’ll both be fine if they stay here and rest, this morning.’
I haven’t said anything to Lisa about Mum and the Southend Hen-Night Outburst. I feel pretty sure she’s just feeling tired and over-emotional, like we all do when we’re recovering from a piss-up
, and probably didn’t mean it. Anyway, I’m hardly going to bother Lisa about it when she’s spent half of last night spilling the beans about her own personal disaster.
‘Are you feeling OK this morning?’ I ask her quietly as we walk down the street together.
‘Course I am!’ she says sharply. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Christ, has she forgotten it all already? Sobbing in our arms about the night her husband wouldn’t look her in the eyes, or under her negligee? Confessing to an affair with a younger guy who wears black Lycra shorts and a sweatband? It was such riveting stuff, you could have heard a pin drop in that bar last night.
‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she goes on, giving me a sideways look and a sly grin. ‘I feel better than I have for months. I should have told you about it ages ago.’
Something about confession being good for the soul? Blimey. Maybe we should play Truth or Dare more often.
Today Jude’s in charge. Emily asked her to organise some sightseeing, as she knows Dublin a lot better than any of us. We’re all wearing the pink ‘Hen Party’ T-shirts and getting a few smiles as we walk through Temple Bar arm-in-arm. And a few comments.
‘Is “Rather You Than Me, Love” the mainstay of Irish conversation about weddings?’ I ask Jude a bit tersely after the fifth of these remarks from passers-by (all women).
‘Can you blame them, when you look at what they’re married to? Sure yer average Irish husband is a complete eejit, out on the piss every night of the week and about as much use to his wife as a babby.’
‘That’s a bit harsh!’ laughs Emily. ‘Maybe you should look for a nice English guy for yourself, then, Jude – or is Fergus the exception to the rule?’
She flushes and smiles.
‘Well, to be fair to Fergus he does not go out on the booze every night, so I’ve no complaints in that department, now.’
‘And what about the other department, eh, Jude?’ Karen calls out, with a suggestive gesture that nearly stops a group of lads in their tracks as they’re passing us in the street.
‘Be off with you, you and your dirty mind!’ But she’s laughing and blushing and I think to myself – I hope this Fergus realises just how sweet and lovely she is.
‘He’d better bloody treat you right,’ I tell her fiercely, ‘or I’ll be over here to sort him out.’
‘I’ll let him know that, so I will, Katie! Now then, are y’all paying attention to your tour guide? As you know, we’re in the Temple Bar area here, where most of the bars, live music and nightclubs are, so…’
‘So we’ll just stay here then, shall we?’ says Karen.
‘No, we shall not be staying here, there’s a city to explore and sure you’d not want to go home without visiting the famous Guinness Storehouse, would you now?’
‘Now you’re talking,’ says Helen appreciatively. Helen’s a beer drinker and she spent most of last night on the Guinness, informing us with every single pint that it was the best she’d ever drunk. By the time she got to the last one I was surprised she could even remember the others, but there you go.
‘Lead on, then, MacDuff, or should I say O’Duff?’ quips Lisa in a lousy imitation of Jude’s accent that makes us all laugh.
‘Well, I thought we’d get ourselves a trip on the city bus tour. You can see some of the sights from the bus, and we’ll get off at the Guinness building. Is that OK for you all?’
‘Abso-bloody-lutely, Judy baby!’ says Lisa, flinging an arm round her extravagantly. ‘A bus would be great. I’m not up for walking too far on these bloody cobbles.’
‘Jesus, God, will you listen to her giving out! Sure it’s only in Temple Bar you’ll see the cobbles, Lisa, and it won’t kill you for a few minutes to walk on them either!’
‘Yeah, Lisa, stop whingeing and keep up with the rest of us!’ I tease her. ‘How far to the bloody bus stop, Jude?’
We sit on the top deck of the bus, half listening to the commentary as we pass close to Dublin Castle and St Patrick’s Cathedral. Suze, who’s been frighteningly quiet this morning and didn’t manage any breakfast, has fallen asleep by the time the bus arrives at the Guinness Storehouse, and we enjoy shouting in her ear to wake her up.
‘Come on! Lovely Guinness!’ says Emily cruelly, and we all laugh as she turns a bit green and clutches her stomach, promising never to drink again as long as she lives.
‘Yeah, right,’ mutters Karen. ‘I’ll give it a couple of hours at the most…’
Not everyone likes Guinness, but Jude tells us it’s definitely impolite to refuse the complimentary pint in the bar at the top of the Storehouse, the highest bar in Dublin. After traipsing around the building looking at how it’s made, I think the least we can do is enjoy a pint of it, and I’m gasping with thirst anyway, so it goes down a treat. Helen, however, is sipping hers reverently, with her eyes closed, like it’s a religious experience. It’s supposed to be the best Guinness you’ll ever taste in your life. I nudge her, making her swear furiously when the beer splashes onto her jeans.
‘Better than sex, is it?’ I tease her.
She takes another sip, closing her eyes again, obviously considering this carefully.
‘It’s a close thing,’ she says eventually. ‘And it certainly lasts longer.’
The other girls fall about laughing at this all-too-obvious crack, but I smile back at Helen, because I know her, and she doesn’t joke about things like this. I think she actually does prefer the Guinness. Maybe she’s got a point.
We get back on the bus afterwards and finish the rest of the tour. Jude’s doing her best to encourage us to listen to the commentary but by the time we end up back at Temple Bar again, Suze isn’t the only one who’s fallen asleep.
‘Will you look at the lot of you – what a shower of bloody eejits!’ she says in disgust. ‘And there was I thinking you’d be up for a spot of lunch in one of these fine hostelries, with a little live music, but of course if you’d rather be back in your rooms asleep on your beds…’
We all seem to have woken up miraculously at the mention of lunch and hostelries.
Lisa takes it upon herself, despite complaints about the cobbles, to go back to the hotel to bring Mum and Auntie Joyce out to join us for lunch. We find a table in one of the biggest bars, where the live music consists of a lone singer, accompanying himself on the guitar.
‘He could do with cheering up a bit,’ I whisper to Jude. ‘Music to slit your wrists by, or what?’
‘Oh, he’ll liven up in a while,’ says Jude with surprising confidence. ‘Come on, let’s get something to eat, for God’s sake – it’s been hours since breakfast and me stomach feels like me throat’s been cut.’
That’s another strange thing about Jude. For someone so slim and petite, she’s got the appetite of a horse. Where does she put it all? Why doesn’t she ever get an ounce of fat on her bones? And why am I already feeling like I’m two dress sizes bigger than yesterday, after just one night of booze and junk food? Why is life so full of unfairness and contradiction? Why am I sitting here feeling sorry for myself in the middle of a gang of riotous crazy friends whose only mission in life is to get me pissed?
‘Get that down you,’ says Emily, plonking a glass of white wine in front of me.
Seems churlish to refuse, really.
Within ten minutes we’re all back on the booze, even those who pledged only a few hours ago to give it up forever. We’ve ordered sandwiches and we’re getting stuck into packets of crisps and nuts as if we’ve never eaten before. It must be the fresh air.
Mum’s sitting next to me, sipping delicately at her glass of wine, giving it the occasional suspicious look as if something’s going to leap out of it and bite her.
‘Just take it easier today and you’ll be fine,’ I tell her quietly.
I feel a bit sorry for her, and guilty for letting her get drunk last night. Lisa and I should have kept more of an eye on her. She’s not really used to the amount of drink we were putting away.
‘I know. I
’m not daft,’ she says tetchily. ‘You don’t have to treat me as if I’m five years old.’
‘I’m not! Sorry! I just thought, as you’re not used to it…’
She gives a little laugh that isn’t really a laugh, and mutters something into her wine glass at just the same moment that the singer suddenly leaps to his feet, grabs a violin from under the table, and is joined by another guy who’d been sitting, apparently half asleep, at a neighbouring table, who produces a tin whistle out of his pocket. Without seeming to pause for breath they immediately launch into a frenetic Irish jig, swaying together dangerously, fingers moving like sparks of electricity on the whistle and the fiddle, tapping their feet and nodding their heads in time to the music but never passing a smile or even a blink towards each other. The explosion of this music into the bar is so dramatic and unexpected that we’re all sitting up, staring, open-mouthed, for a good two or three minutes, before a couple of people at the back of the room start clapping in time, and amazingly, someone else produces a mouth organ and begins, still sitting at his own table, to join in with the tune.
‘This is bloody great!’ exclaims Emily. ‘I can’t believe it!’
‘You’d never get this down the White Hart at home on a Friday night!’ I agree.
