by Marian Keyes
All morning they avoided each other. She ironed her uniforms and the kids’ clothes but picked out everything of Ed’s and left it, wrinkled, in the basket.
Had Ed gone actually insane? It was impossible to understand why he was making such a thing of this. But his mind worked in straight lines. Everything was black or white: there was no room for nuance.
Is this the hill that we die on? she wondered. Then, This can’t actually be happening. Hanging her crisply ironed shirts in the wardrobe, she was infused with sudden happiness. In far less than a second, a scenario played out like a movie: tomorrow morning leaving for work fifteen minutes early, stopping off at Tesco in Baggot Street, scooting round the aisles, picking up her favourites, sitting on ‘her’ bench, visiting ‘her’ bathroom, then showing up, bright and breezy, to start work at 10 a.m.
It was astonishing – after Friday night, her decision had been final: there would be no more of that behaviour. But the thought had popped back into her head, ambushed her, despite her iron resolve. This was Ed’s fault. All his talk of eating disorders had half convinced her that she had one. Hand on heart, she had to admit that she could no longer be a hundred per cent certain that she wouldn’t buy chocolate tomorrow. How utterly mortifying would it be to pass out, have a seizure, whatever it was, at work? They’d have to sack her. And what were her chances of getting a good reference?
For several minutes, she remained in the bedroom, trying to recapture the rigid resolve of earlier that morning, but it remained out of reach. No matter which way she thought about it, the desire to overeat wouldn’t go away.
‘Ed?’ she yelled down the stairs. ‘Ed.’
‘Yes?’
In tears of frustrated fury, she said to him, ‘Tell me about the day-patient option.’
‘… Right.’ He took a few moments to compose himself. ‘Four weeks, Monday to Friday, ten a.m. to four p.m. You’ll have one-on-one every day with a counsellor, go to lectures and be under the care of a dietician. You’d get an eating plan. They’d prefer if you were residential so they could monitor your food. But this is better than nothing.’
‘Starting when?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Okay. But only because you’ve forced me. You’d better ring Henry and break the happy news.’
‘You ring him. You have to take responsibility for this,’ he said.
Despair surged but she picked up her phone and stared at Henry’s number. This was so difficult. Then, taking a nervy breath, she hit call.
SIXTY-THREE
Fifty years of age today. A half-century, surely old enough for all of her struggles and worries to be long behind her? So where was her lovely life? Her happy marriage? Her feelings of contentment? Why was she in bed, alone, the curtains drawn, with no intention of getting up?
After poor Cara had been ferried off in the ambulance on Friday night, Jessie had hoped they could knock the whole sorry shambles on the head and go home early. But Rionna and Kaz were insistent that, no, the murder-mystery weekend could be salvaged. They’d thought they were helping: it just meant that Jessie’s agony was prolonged by another thirty-six hours of ‘great fun’.
During the excruciatingly long hours of Saturday and Sunday, she didn’t address a single word to Johnny. Because she was having such ‘fantastic craic’ with the others, she reckoned nobody had noticed.
That mattered: she had her pride.
Johnny worried about money, she knew that. But it was her fiftieth birthday: that was surely a big deal.
It was disgraceful to be that upset about spending a weekend in a crappy hotel. First World problem if ever she’d heard of one. But this wasn’t simply a tantrum. Since forever, Johnny and the kids had behaved as if she was a bit of a tyrant: she gave orders and, after much complaining, they complied.
Until now she’d always felt it was affectionate. Not any more. Now she was wondering if they despised her for real.
It didn’t take much to pitch her back into her younger self, always hovering on the outside, wondering if everyone was laughing at her.
Johnny had said some very weird things during that horrific weekend of his parents’ wedding anniversary: he’d talked about feeling hollow and worthless. She’d been concerned, but when the Hagen Klein drama had blown up, she hadn’t had time to address it. With the benefit of hindsight, it had sounded like the beginnings of a confession.
Over the past four days, she’d been visiting and revisiting the possibility that he was seeing someone else. He really could be and the idea was horrible.
She should ask him. But maybe she didn’t need to: maybe his behaviour was proof enough.
As soon as they’d got home from Gulban Manor, she’d chucked his razor and toothbrush out of their bathroom and onto the landing. Let him figure out that that meant he should sleep elsewhere.
When Monday morning had rolled around, she drove herself to the office, leaving him to make his own way. The entire day had passed without her speaking to him. Several couriers showed up, bearing orchids or bottles of wine from various business acquaintances. In other circumstances, she’d have loved the whole circus.
Now it was Tuesday morning, her fiftieth birthday, and she couldn’t face going to work. This had literally never happened before. Even after Rory had died, she’d shown up every day unless there was an emergency with the kids.
‘Mum, are you awake?’ Dilly stuck her face up close to Jessie’s, then darted off the bed. ‘Mum’s awake!’ she shouted down the stairs.
Oh, here we go.
In they came, her five children, singing ‘Happy Birthday’, their faces radiant in the light of a cake bearing fifty candles. Bringing up the rear was Raccoon Man, Johnny. The whole scene could have been lifted from a movie about a happy family.
This was Johnny’s transparently pathetic attempt to fix things. He’d probably had to bribe the kids to be nice, because, let’s be honest here, none of them gave a shite about her either.
Except Dilly.
And Saoirse.
And maybe Ferdia.
‘Happy birthday, Mum! Blow out the candles.’
As she did, a tear escaped. Trying to be discreet, she wiped it with her knuckle.
Johnny made some gesture to Bridey and she stepped forward. ‘Happy fiftieth birthday, Mum. Here’s my gift.’
‘Thanks, bunny.’ She tried to make a big deal of the unwrapping but more tears were threatening.
‘Perfume!’ Bridey declared, as Jessie opened the box.
Johnny had obviously bought this. Probably on an emergency department-store dash yesterday lunchtime. If he took any interest in her, he’d know that she never wore perfume. It just wasn’t her thing. And she was disproportionately upset that Bridey hadn’t picked out the present herself. Last year, Bridey had bought her a whistle – ‘In case of emergency.’ Thought had gone into that.
She braced herself for the next present, Dilly’s this time. Same wrapping paper as Bridey’s. Her money was on red satin knickers in the wrong size. And a matching bra from TJ, no doubt.
‘Mum, are you crying?’ Dilly asked, appalled.
‘No, bunny. No, I’m just …’
‘Guys!’ Ferdia sounded super-cheery. ‘You know what? Let’s leave Mum to enjoy her birthday rest. We’ll finish this later.’
Confused, everyone except Johnny trooped from the room.
‘Jessie. I’m so –’
‘I know. You’re sorry.’
‘I have a gift for you.’ He proffered a fancily wrapped box.
She knew about the Fendi bag, like of course she did, Mary-Laine’s instructions to Johnny had come directly from Jessie. ‘I don’t want it.’
He swallowed. ‘I don’t blame you for being angry.’
‘I’m not angry. I’m hurt.’ She burst into a storm of noisy tears. ‘No, get away, I don’t want your smelly, selfish hands on me.’ Her face was drenched from crying. ‘It’s not just the weekend. What was going on last month in Mayo? What were you trying t
o tell me?’
‘N-nothing.’
‘Johnny. Look. I can’t stop thinking terrible things. Are you … Is something going on? Have you met someone else?’
‘No. I swear.’
‘So what’s up with you?’
‘I was trying to save money. I was worried, but I picked the wrong thing to worry about.’
‘I work hard, Johnny. Easily as hard as you. But you all think I’m just some bossy gobshite who pays for everything. Nobody cares about me.’
‘It’s not true.’
‘It is. Look at how you all treat me. That insane fucking weekend in that insane fucking place! That’s what you thought I deserved?’
‘I didn’t know it would be as mad as it was –’
‘You bought all those shit presents from the kids? They didn’t bother.’
‘Ferdia and Saoirse bought theirs.’
‘Other mothers get homemade presents. Papier-mâché things that thought and love have gone into. Instead my children’s dad has to buy generic “pissed-off wife” presents on a department-store trolley dash.’
‘Is there any way I can salvage this? I’ll do anything.’
‘You’re asking me to help you fix your fuck-up with me? That says it all. Fuck off, Johnny. Just fuck off. I’m going back to sleep.’
For ages, he hovered.
Curled into a sad, angry ball, she couldn’t see him but his nervy breathing was audible. After a while the sound stopped so she concluded he’d left.
Though she craved oblivion, it was impossible to sleep.
Instead, to self-soothe, she went through the permutations of leaving him.
He could live in his Airbnb flat in the city and she’d stay here in the house with the kids. Although right now she didn’t want them either.
Maybe she could live in the flat. With the dogs. Johnny could stay here with the children. That would fucking show him.
Their finances would have to be disentangled, of course. PiG had only two shareholders – herself and Johnny: pulling those separate strands apart might be messy.
But she didn’t want to fight over money. For all his faults, Johnny had given a lot to the company and he deserved his stake.
She would shame him with her magnanimity. Although continuing to work together in the same space could pose a problem.
What about his brothers and their families? Would they remain close?
She’d like to. With Cara and Nell anyway. And Ed, she liked Ed. Liam, she could take or leave.
Yes, maintaining those relationships would require some manoeuvring, but something would be sorted. Especially because she was going to be irritatingly mature about the whole business.
She noticed that her mood had shifted – planning to leave him was cheering stuff.
What was most heartening was imagining how sorry he’d be that he hadn’t treated her better.
They’d all be sorry.
Downstairs, Johnny lurked in an agony of uncertainty. Going to work would compound Jessie’s conviction that none of them cared. Sitting on the stairs, ear cocked for any movement from above, he rang the florist with whom he’d placed a last-minute order yesterday and begged them to intercept the driver so that the ginormous bouquet could be delivered here instead of the office. Then he rang the expensive restaurant and cancelled the lunch reservation he’d pleaded for yesterday. Objectively speaking, he must have felt this awful at some other point in his life, but he couldn’t remember when.
Spurts of panic kept erupting in his stomach – what if she never forgave him? Worse than the fear, though, was witnessing her pain – pain that he’d caused. Soppiness had never been their thing. Instead they demonstrated their love by making fun of each other. They were both resilient but she had always seemed almost un-hurtable – and that had fooled him into complacency.
The long and short was that this was a big, big birthday. Jessie had survived so much. She supported them all. She deserved a song and dance.
Tightening their belts was a commendable objective but Jessie’s fiftieth birthday was the wrong time to launch it.
He couldn’t remember them ever before having a bust-up like this. Countless times when they were tired and had too much on, they’d snapped at each other, even had a bit of a rant, but it had been out of short-lived frustration rather than a deep wound.
When the flowers arrived at the house, he was both grateful and terrified to have a pretext to pester her. He climbed the stairs and knocked lightly on the door.
She lay on her back, her eyes open.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How are you now?’
‘Thinking about leaving you.’
He had to press his hand against the wall. ‘Jessie. Please don’t. Let me make this up to you.’
‘How d’you think you’d get on without me? You’d be grand, wouldn’t you?’
‘I wouldn’t.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Jessie, I’d be lost. I’d be heartbroken.’
‘You’d miss me bossing you around, running your life, but that’s all.’
‘Seriously, Jess, that’s the last –’
‘What’s going on, Johnny? You were upset and weird in Mayo. What was up with you?’
‘… Just Dad and that. And I felt sad and old.’
‘Why?’
‘Maybe because I am. Old anyway.’
‘Look, are you having an affair?’
This was the moment, the chance … ‘No.’
‘Affair’ was the wrong word.
‘Then what’s going on? Is it my fault?’
‘Nothing’s going on.’
‘Johnny, if you want us to stay together, you’d better tell me what’s up with you.’
‘Okay.’ A breath. ‘I’m worried about money. We spend so much, and after the Hagen Klein thing – yeah, I know you rescued it, but it could have gone so badly wrong. I think Mason and Rionna are right about the website.’
‘Oh.’ Her voice was, once more, cold.
‘You asked.’
‘If I’m emasculating you, you can work for someone else.’
‘Who’s talking about you emasculating me? Oh, Jess! You promised not to read the comments.’
‘Well, I did! I do! So off you go, get another job, I don’t care.’
‘I don’t want another job. I love you, but I’m very bad at showing it. I promise you I’ll do a lot better. I’ll just stick these flowers in a vase.’
‘I can think of somewhere else you can stick them.’
SIXTY-FOUR
‘Mum?’ Someone was knocking on the bedroom door.
Dozily, Jessie came to. It was gone six o’clock, she must have fallen asleep.
‘Mum?’ It was Ferdia. He stepped around the door. ‘Can I come in?’
‘You’re already in,’ she said. ‘Have you my present?’
He seemed startled but handed over a flat, A4-sized parcel: a framed photo of Ferdia and Johnny, their arms around each other, looking like they were the best of friends. ‘I’m sorry I’ve made it so hard, Mum. With Johnny, I mean. He’s a good guy, he always was. My behaviour has been heinous.’
‘A day late and a dollar short, Ferd. I’m leaving him.’
‘Whatnow? Mum … Are you serious?’
After a long pause she said, ‘Probably not. But thinking about it is making me feel nice.’
‘Do we not grow out of that stuff?’
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
They both laughed.
‘Will you come down for dinner?’ he asked. ‘They’re all morto, the girls. And Johnny, of course,’ he added.
‘Good enough for them.’ But what the hell? She’d got bored holding the grudge.
In the kitchen, at the table, everyone looked sheepish.
‘We’re crap children,’ TJ said.
‘We don’t really get enough pocket money to buy you something good.’ This from Bridey.
‘But we love you, Mum,’ Dilly said. ‘I think you’re aces.’
‘And I actually
bought you something myself.’ Saoirse slid a small parcel across the table. ‘It’s a dream-catcher!’
‘Thank you, Saoirsh. Bunnies, it’s all grand,’ Jessie said. ‘I’m sorry I cried earlier.’
‘Are you going through the change?’ Bridey asked.
‘The what?’ TJ said.
‘It happens to ladies of Mum’s age. They dry up and act weird with their loved ones.’
‘Dry up?’ TJ looked confused.
‘I am not going through the change.’ Well, maybe she was. ‘I was upset because I felt no one loved me.’
‘What dries up?’
‘Their vagina.’
‘Bunnies, not now. If you sing “Happy Birthday” again, I’ll blow out the candles.’
‘That’s bad luck!’ Dilly seemed spooked. ‘Doing it twice.’
‘No, it isn’t!’
‘Isn’t it? Oh, grand, so!’
After dinner and the cake, the kids peeled away until only Johnny and Jessie were left at the table.
‘I really am sorry,’ Johnny repeated. ‘I’ll never let anything like that happen again.’
‘I’m sorry too. I was being a diva. I shouldn’t have wanted to go to the spensie hotel in the first place. Who do I think I am? But look. Can I apologize for something else? At your parents’ anniversary shit-show, I knew we needed some alone time. Then the Hagen Klein thing blew up. I was firefighting and, yeah, eye off the ball. I’m sorry.’
‘I accept your apology.’ His smile was fake-grave.
‘You still want me to change the business to the website.’
‘Well, to think about it …’
‘It would be so much work. And chaos. We’d have to buy storage facilities, take on packers and couriers, new staff … It would cost tons of money. Which we haven’t got.’
‘That’s what banks are for.’
Jessie was afraid of banks. Banks had made her shut down eight of her stores during the crash. Banks wouldn’t loan money without taking a good old rummage in the Caseys’ personal finances. Banks had the power to withdraw their generous overdraft at a moment’s notice. ‘They’d want a guarantee and the only thing we really have is the house. If everything goes tits up, we’d have no business … and no house.’
