The Woman Who Stole My Life

by Marian Keyes

  He paused, deep in thought. He looked vulnerable, guilty and very upset. ‘So, Stella, what’s the Wisdom of the Day?’

  I was stymied. This wasn’t really my area of expertise. ‘… Er … trust your intuition.’

  ‘Trust my intuition?’ he said, scornfully. ‘That’s a bit fortune cookie. You’re usually better than that.’

  Ah, feck off.

  However, the following day, when Mannix arrived on the ward, he said, ‘This is going to sound … weird.’

  Really?

  ‘Roland? I mentioned his problems with money? And me thinking he should go to rehab?’

  Right …

  ‘He was wondering if he could ask your advice on it?’

  ‘Why …?’

  ‘He liked you.’ Mannix amended this to, ‘He really liked you. He was blown away by your attitude. He says he’ll trust whatever you have to say.’

  I was extremely startled at my new incarnation as the wise, paralysed woman of Ferrytown. What is it about differently abled people, that we attribute noble characteristics to them? It’s the way everyone thinks blind people are really nice. But they’re not, not always. They’re just like the rest of us. There was one time I tried to help a blind man through the crowds of Grafton Street and he hit me with his stick – a sharp crack on my shin, really painful. He pretended it was an accident but it wasn’t.

  Also, it was impossible for me to be neutral on the question of debt. The thought of anyone owing tens of thousands of euro filled me with terror, even if the person wasn’t me.

  Zoe once said that the only way she’d truly be happy was if everyone in the world was coupled-up in a happy relationship. I, on the other hand, felt that a huge weight would lift off me if every debt in the world was cancelled. I had a terrible fear of owing money and I projected it onto the whole of mankind.

  ‘But I don’t know the first thing about Roland,’ I said.

  ‘You do! He said you clicked.’

  And actually, I had to agree with that.

  ‘Just let him talk to you,’ Mannix said. ‘I know this is inappropriate. Unprofessional, even. But –’

  He didn’t have to say it – he knew it, I knew it: lying in this hospital bed, I was bored beyond endurance and I was grateful for any piece of drama.

  ‘Okay.’ I blinked out the letters. ‘He can come in.’

  ‘This afternoon?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Later that day, Mannix led Roland to my bedside. Mannix loitered in the background while Roland looked sheepish and anxious. ‘Stella, you are kindness itself to give me your time and wisdom.’

  … Er, not at all …

  He sat down and got the notebook and pen out.

  ‘My story in a nutshell, Stella – I owe money and instead of paying it back, I … ah … borrow more and go on sprees where I do things like buy four Alexander McQueen jackets in one go. And then I hate myself. And – of course – owe even more money.’

  Jesus. My heart rate was increasing just hearing about this.

  ‘I want to stop. But I can’t … Mannix wants me to go to rehab to sort myself out. What do you think I should do?’

  ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK?’

  ‘I think I should go. But I’m afraid.’

  ‘IT’S NORMAL TO BE AFRAID OF REHAB.’

  He considered that. ‘Are you afraid? Being in hospital, like this?’

  ‘YES.’

  ‘Okay.’ He had a think. ‘If you can live like this, day after day, surely I can do six weeks in rehab?’

  ‘IT MIGHT HELP YOU.’

  ‘Might it?’ That seemed like a novel idea to him.

  ‘IT MIGHT NOT BE A PUNISHMENT.’

  ‘Riiiight.’ A cloud seemed to lift from him. ‘I’d been sort of thinking that they’d whack me with birch branches while reading out my credit card statements over a tannoy. You know – “Eighty quid on a Paul Smith tie.” Whack! “Nine hundred quid on a Loewe messenger bag.” Whack! “Two thousand quid on a fancy bicycle” – which I never used. Whack!’

  I was starting to feel sick. Did he really spend all that money on those things?

  ‘YOU WONT BE WHACKED,’ I said. Of that I was certain. Almost.

  ‘Of course I won’t. What have I been thinking? You know something?’ he said. ‘You are profoundly inspirational. You have such courage.’

  … But I hadn’t done anything.

  ‘You’re a lovely woman. Thank you.’

  The following morning, when Mannix arrived, he greeted me with, ‘Guess what? Roland’s gone to rehab.’

  … Well, great!

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was no reason to thank me: Roland had talked himself into it. His mind had already been made up; he simply wasn’t fully ready to acknowledge it.

  ‘My sisters are furious with me,’ Mannix said. ‘So are my parents. I’m the most hated person in my family.’ He gave a lopsided smile. ‘But, hey, it’s nice to be the best at something …’

  12.44

  I emerge, heavy-hearted, from Dr Quinn’s clinic into the street. A newsagent’s, full to the brim with chocolate, beckons me and it takes every ounce of my self-restraint to stop myself from going in and buying five Twirls.

  I decide to have one final go at bringing Ryan to his senses. He answers his mobile by saying, ‘I’m not backing down.’

  ‘Where are you?’ I ask.

  ‘In the office.’

  This is a rarity. He’s always out at meetings or having to go to sites to shout at useless plumbers.

  In the distance I see a bus shimmering into view. ‘Don’t move,’ I say. ‘I’m on my way.’

  I hop on the 46A – I have the correct change in my purse, which I take as a good omen – and prepare for a journey of several days, as this has always been my experience of the 46A route in the past. But something strange happens – perhaps we pass through a hole in space and time – because in thirty-nine minutes I’m in the city centre outside Ryan Sweeney Bathrooms.

  It has its HQ on the first floor of a Georgian house in South William Street and when I arrive five staff are working with great concentration at screens, their faces aglow with computer light. In the centre of the room Ryan is sitting on a swivel chair, swinging from left to right and right to left, and smiling into space in such an inane fashion that I’m really alarmed. I nod hellos to the diligent workers and pick my way between towers of sample tiles and brochures.

  Ryan has seen me. ‘Stella!’ He smiles like he’s stoned and he keeps on swivelling.

  ‘Stop that!’ I say, and mercifully he does.

  I gesture around at all of Ryan’s drawing boards and computers and technical wizardry.

  ‘So,’ I say, ‘where does all of this fit into your karma … thing?’ Don’t call it Project Karma, I beseech myself. Don’t legitimize it by naming it.

  ‘I’m giving the business away.’

  Now I’m really shocked. Shocked and afraid. ‘But … but this is your livelihood …’ I stammer. ‘What about your children? Ryan, you have responsibilities.’

  ‘My kids are adults –’

  ‘Jeffrey isn’t.’

  ‘He is. It’s not my fault he doesn’t act it. My daughter is getting married. I brought them up, paid for their education, gave them everything they needed and everything they wanted. I’m still there for them and there’s money set aside for Jeffrey’s last year of school, but financially my job is done.’

  ‘Well, what about your staff? They’ll be out of a job.’

  ‘They won’t. I’m giving the business as a going concern. Clarissa will own it.’

  I whip my head around to glare at Clarissa. She’s been Ryan’s second-in-command for a long time and I’ve never taken to her; she isn’t what you might call friendly. She’s tall and slender and always wears black leggings and workman’s boots and frayed jumpers and chunky silver jewellery – most of it in her eyebrows –and she does that thing of having her sleeves too long, in a little-girl-lost way, which makes
me itch to smack her.

  She makes steady eye contact and gives a small, enigmatic – triumphant? – smile. Big smacky-rage rises up in me and I’m the first to look away. I always am. I’m one of life’s weaklings. I turn my back on her and I face Ryan. ‘Can we speak privately?’

  We step into the corridor. ‘Ryan, it’s obvious you’re having a mid-life crisis.’ I speak gently. ‘And you will really regret this. Can’t you just train for a triathlon like every other man of your age? We’ll help. Jeffrey could go swimming with you.’

  ‘Jeffrey hates me.’

  ‘He does,’ I agree. ‘He does. But he hates me too. You mustn’t take it personally. So if he does the swimming, I’ll go running with you.’ With my current belly crisis I’ll have to do some sort of exercise, and a commitment to Ryan would be a good thing. ‘And we’ll find someone to do the cycling. Maybe Enda.’

  ‘I’m not going on bike rides with Enda Mulreid,’ Ryan says mutinously. ‘He’s got guard’s thighs. Built for endurance’

  ‘Someone else, then. It doesn’t have to be Enda.’

  But Ryan is deep, deep inside his project, too far away to be reached. ‘Stella –’ he places his hands on my shoulders and looks at me with fervour – ‘I’m doing something important here. This is Spiritual Art. I’m proving that karma exists.’

  For a moment I’m caught up in Ryan’s zeal. Maybe he is doing a good thing. Maybe it’ll be okay. But … ‘What if it all goes wrong, Ryan? What then?’

  He laughs gently. ‘You’ll never stop being that working-class girl who’s terrified of poverty, will you?’

  I splutter, ‘I’m practical. Someone has to be! Would you go to see Dr Quinn? Just to check that you’re not … you know … unwell. Like, in the head.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Miserably, I stare at him. I don’t know what to do. Should I go back into the office and try to reason with Clarissa? But I know her game; she’ll give me a mysterious smile and say in her precise, annoying way that Ryan can do what he likes. And even if Clarissa decides not to take the business, Ryan will simply offer it to someone else and eventually someone will accept it and refuse to give it back.

  Ryan is the one I have to keep working on.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he says. ‘I want to go back in and swivel in my chair.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘It feels … nice. I feel swingy and free.’

  ‘“Swingy and free”?’

  Abruptly he changes the subject matter, the way mad people do. ‘You know something, Stella.’ He gazes into my eyes. ‘You’re looking very well. There’s something new about you.’

  ‘Extreme fear?’

  ‘No, no, no. You’ve always been afraid. Is it …?’ He looks me up and down and eventually points to my legs. ‘It’s those things.’

  Almost shyly, I say, ‘They’re chinos. Lady chinos.’

  ‘They’re great.’ And even though I know he’s not in his right mind, his praise warms me.

  ‘Some people can make their ears move – it’s their party trick. Don’t feel bad if you can’t do it. Just find yourself another party trick.’

  Extract from One Blink at a Time

  ‘“His anus stared at her like a steady, unblinking eye …”’ Dad read.

  Yikes! This book from Georgie Taylor was a bit racy. It was about a bored woman who was married to a respectable company director but lived a secret life as a prostitute.

  ‘“She cupped her hands around his ball sac and –” Ah, here! I’m not reading this.’ Dad closed the book with a snap. ‘I don’t care what prizes it’s after winning. I’m not saying it’s not literature. Some of the world’s greatest books are jammers with dirt-birds. But you’re my daughter, and this isn’t right. What else is there?’

  He consulted the small pile of Georgie Taylor’s books. ‘Jane Eyre?’ He sounded shocked. ‘But that’s only for schoolgirls. The slippery slope. What would it be next? Bridget Jones’s Diary? Dick and Jane Go to the Seaside?’

  Oh dear. Without ever having met her, Dad had developed a little crush on Georgie Taylor. One day he’d actually brought in a bunch of garage flowers and given it to Mannix Taylor to give to her. Now it seemed his faith in her impeccable taste was shaken.

  ‘What else is here?’ Dad picked up another book. ‘Rebecca? So we’ve got Jane Eyre, a book about a mad first wife in the attic. And we’ve Rebecca, about a second wife being haunted by the memory of the first one.’ He stared hard at me. ‘What’s that all about?’

  I didn’t know and it was hard to give it my full attention because I was turning over a thrilling little secret: it was six weeks to the day since Mannix Taylor had told me that movement would start returning to my muscles. I’d been counting down the time, ticking off each twenty-four hours as they passed, and finally day zero had arrived.

  I was wondering which part of my body would be the first to wake up. It might be my hands, it might be my neck muscles, it might – best of all – be my voice box. It was hard to know where life would blossom because I was still as motionless as a sack of sand, but something would definitely happen today. Because Mannix had said it would.

  Mind you, he didn’t seem to remember having said it; he’d certainly made no mention of it on his routine visit this morning. Well, he had a lot on his mind …

  ‘Look, Dolly, I’ll hit the road.’ Dad got up to leave. ‘I can’t read you any of these books, they’re just Gothic chick-lit.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘I’ll get something decent from Joan. Maybe it’s time to read Norman Mailer again.’

  I was relieved to see him go. I wanted to concentrate on my body, to beam my attention like a spotlight, systematically moving from muscle to muscle, ready to pounce on any stirring.

  Nostrils, tongue, lips, neck, chest, arms, fingers … Starting from the other end – toes, feet, ankles, calves, knees … eyebrows, ears … No, that was stupid. Even when I’d been in the whole of my health I hadn’t been able to move my ears. Some people could, it was their party trick, but not me. Forehead, jaw, neck, shoulders, elbows … Nothing yet.

  My plan was to have some movement to show to Ryan when he came to visit this evening. He needed a shot of hope.

  But the day passed and nothing had happened by the time he arrived, looking slightly grimy and neglected.

  ‘Well?’ Wearily he sank into a chair and, even more wearily, got the pen and notebook from the sterilizer.

  I’d been about to tell him to get his hair cut, then abruptly I decided against it. ‘ALL FINE,’ I blinked.

  ‘Lucky you,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t mind a few days in bed myself.’

  Aghast, I tried blinking compassionate words at him, but we couldn’t get a rhythm going.

  ‘Stop,’ he said, after we’d got four letters wrong. ‘I’m too tired for this.’

  Okay. It’s okay. I pushed soothing thoughts out through my eyes. Let’s just sit here and be together.

  ‘It’s a bit pointless, when we’ve nothing to say.’ He stood up. He’d only been here for five minutes.

  Stay.

  ‘Somebody will be in to see you tomorrow. I can’t remember who. Somebody.’

  Maybe. Visitors no longer arrived mob-handed. They came one by one, and sometimes they didn’t come at all. It was early December, and the build-up to Christmas was in full swing. The kids’ lives were even busier than usual, Ryan was working like the clappers to complete a project before the end of the year, Karen was frantic in the salon and Mum was working extra shifts at the care home.

  I was being left behind in everyone’s slipstream. The extreme closeness Ryan and I had shared in the early days of my illness was eroding beneath the relentless grind of his life. I’d really want to start getting better soon.

  ‘Anyway, your man Mannix Taylor will visit you.’

  Was Ryan being snide? I didn’t think so; he was making a simple statement of fact – Mannix Taylor would visit me. He was my neurologist and he came every weekday. Because he was p
aid to.

  ‘Bye. See you soon.’ Ryan left and I felt depressed – good, plain, old-fashioned depressed. Nothing to do with being paralysed. Nothing to do with the fear of going to hell. Just depressed.

  Ryan wasn’t able for this and I didn’t blame him. Everything would be okay in the end, I told myself. But it was tough going while it was happening.

  For once, the day had rattled by and, all too soon, night fell. The day was over and none of my muscles had even flickered.

  I tried to be reasonable: it wasn’t fair to have taken Mannix Taylor so literally. It was a very approximate timescale he’d given me. But, as I drifted off to sleep, I felt unsettled and sad.

  At some point I was woken by the nurses turning me. There was the usual to-do with my tubes and sensors, and just before I was set on my right side to face the wall I caught a glimpse of the clock; it was seven minutes to midnight.

  The nurses squeaked away on their rubber-soled shoes and I settled back into stillness. Sleep began to steal over me again, and, at the very moment I tumbled down into the darkness, my left knee twitched.

  The next morning Mannix Taylor arrived almost an hour earlier than usual. And I realized I’d been completely wrong to think he’d forgotten the six-week promise. Hope and hunger were stamped all over his face. He wasn’t even pretending to assume a professional veneer.

  I looked at him and, with my eyes, smugly messaged the word ‘Yes’.

  He almost jumped onto the bed. ‘Where?’

  ‘Kn—’

  ‘Which one?’ He whipped my blanket back.

  ‘L—’

  ‘Do it for me.’ He put his hand on my left knee and I concentrated every ounce of will I had into getting the muscle to twitch. Nothing happened. But I’d felt it last night. I swore I’d felt it.

  … Or had I? Maybe, because I’d wanted it so badly, I’d conned myself into believing it.