Wednesday was another dry, bright-blue day, very unusual weather for Ireland. Cold, though, bitterly cold. But I couldn’t feel it even though I’d worn my not-warm, show-off coat that I only ever wore from car to restaurant, just long enough for everyone to say, ‘God, your coat is gorgeous!’
Once again I was almost thirty minutes late, and yet there he was, sitting on the bench, staring out to sea, waiting for me.
‘I have your sandwich,’ he said.
I accepted it without enthusiasm. There was no point; I couldn’t eat it. I’d barely been able to swallow a mouthful since Monday.
‘Can I ask you things?’ I said. ‘Like, where do you live now?’
‘Stepaside. A rented flat. Georgie has the house. Until we sort out all the … you know, legal stuff.’
‘Where’s the house?’
‘Leeson Street.’
Almost in the city centre. Not in a rural retreat near the Druid’s Glen, like I’d imagined. All that detail I’d put into the life I’d invented for him …
‘No one else talked to me in hospital,’ I realized. ‘You were the only one who treated me like an actual person.’ Then I remembered something. ‘Apart from Roland. How is he?’
‘Doing really well. Working. Paying off his debts. Not buying twelve pairs of shoes in one go. He often mentions you.’
Lovely Roland. ‘Tell him I said hello.’
But as I remembered how frightened I’d been through those long weeks and months I’d been in hospital, I began to feel irrationally angry with Mannix. ‘I was like a prisoner, wasn’t I?’
He looked surprised and I replied for him. ‘I was!’
‘But …’
‘And you were like my jailer, the good-cop one who shoves pieces of bread under the door.’ My anger grew. ‘I was vulnerable. And you took advantage of that. I want to go now.’
I was on my feet and he stood up too, anxiety all over his face.
‘Tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘No. Definitely not. Maybe. I don’t know.’ I hurried away and immediately became entangled with a number of gangly, untucked schoolboys who were clearly on the mitch.
On Thursday morning, I said to Karen, ‘I won’t be going out today at all.’
‘Good,’ she said, with satisfaction.
‘You can take the day off, I’ll cover everything.’
‘I’m not taking the day off, you eejit. Paul Rolles is booked in for a back, sack and crack wax at one o’clock.’
Brightly, I said, ‘I’ll do that.’
‘He’s my client,’ Karen said. ‘He’s decent, tips big and he trusts me.’
‘Let me do him today. You can have the tip anyway.’
‘Okay.’
At one o’clock I welcomed Paul in and got his clothes off and got him up on the bed and started whipping strips off his back, and as I thought of Mannix sitting on the pier, waiting with my sandwich, I felt very pleased with myself and my iron willpower.
I was chatting away with Paul, a cat lover, and I was doing the automatic-pilot thing that counts as beautician talk: ‘Go on.’ ‘Did she?’ ‘Climbed the curtains all by herself?’ ‘God, that’s gas.’ ‘She sounds like a right mad yoke!’
But my head was elsewhere. This Paul was a big bloke and even though I was going at warp speed, waxing him was taking a long time. As I painted on molten wax and pressed down the fabric strips, then whipped them off, I was like a wire that was stretching tighter and tighter. ‘Stick your bum up, good man. I’ll just get in between your –’ Paint, press, whip. Paint, press, whip. PaintPressWhip. PaintPressWhip.
It was about ten to two when, coming at Paul’s testicles from the rear, the wire inside me snapped. ‘I’m really sorry, Paul, but I’m going to ask my sister to step in to finish you off.’
‘What –’ Paul sat up on his elbows, his bare bum in the air, looking very vulnerable.
‘Karen?’
She was on her stool, at the desk.
‘Karen.’ My voice was high and wobbly, ‘Would you mind stepping in and tidying up Paul? All done except the … you know, last bit. I’ve suddenly remembered that I need to pop out.’
Her eyes blazed with rage but she couldn’t berate me in front of a customer.
‘Of course,’ she said, through lips that didn’t move.
I was already pulling on my coat. I hurried down the stairs, trying to put on lipgloss as I ran.
It was almost two o’clock and he was still there.
‘So?’ he said.
‘So I’m here.’ I sighed and buried my face in my hands. ‘I wasn’t going to come. I can’t do my job. I’m going to vomit. This is horrible.’
He nodded.
‘It’s not horrible for you!’ I said.
‘How do you think I’ve felt sitting here, thinking you weren’t going to come?’
‘Don’t make me feel guilty.’
‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’ He touched my hair and said, ‘It’s so pretty.’
‘Really? I just washed it this morning and put the GHD through it.’
‘GHD?’
‘I’m a beautician,’ I said, defiantly. ‘Welcome to my world.’
On Friday morning, Karen said, ‘Will you be meeting him today?’
‘Nothing happens,’ I said defensively. ‘We just sit and talk.’
‘How long can that go on for?’
‘For ever.’
But it couldn’t. When I arrived at our bench, Mannix said, ‘Can you believe the weather?’
‘We’re talking about the weather?’ I was almost contemptuous. But I looked up at the sky – it was still freakishly bright-blue and cloud-free, like God was conspiring to bring Mannix and me together.
‘One day soon it’ll rain,’ Mannix said.
‘And …?’
The meaningful look in his eye made me scoot along the bench, away from him.
He too scooted along the bench and he grabbed my wrist. ‘We’ll have to meet in another place.’
‘And …?’
‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘And … think about it.’
I looked at my lap, then gave him a sideways glance. He meant the bed of rose petals and everything that went with it.
Then my attention snapped to something else entirely – I’d just seen someone I knew. It was so unlikely that I had to be imagining it. But I looked again and it was definitely him: Jeffrey.
Horrified, my gaze locked with his.
I stammered, ‘You … you should be at school.’
Jeffrey looked from Mannix Taylor to me and yelled, ‘And you should be a proper mom. I’m telling on you!’
‘I haven’t done anything!’
Jeffrey ran off and, wild-eyed, I said to Mannix, ‘I have to go.’
I chased after Jeffrey and he must have heard me because he stopped and whirled around.
‘They saw you,’ he shouted. ‘The guys in my class.’
What guys? Then I remembered the gang of schoolboys I’d bumped into the other day, and I could have wept. They’d been in Jeffrey’s class? How about that for awful luck? With a sinking heart, I realized that my bad deeds would always be found out.
Shame washed over me. Shame and sorrow for Jeffrey. ‘Sweetheart, I’m sorry, please –’
‘Get away from me. You whore!’
All hell broke loose. A deputation showed up at the house to shout at me – Ryan, Mum, Dad, Karen and – of course – Jeffrey. Even Betsy turned on me. The gist of their complaint was that Ryan had stood by me during a lengthy illness and I had repaid his loyalty by starting a thing with my neurologist.
It was no good trying to remind anyone – including Ryan – that Ryan no longer loved me. He was the one who had done the ‘Standing By’. A very visible thing, ‘Standing By’. They’d all seen him – juggling everything, working himself into the ground, grey in the face from exhaustion and worry. And don’t forget he’d bought tampons for Betsy. Imagine! A man! Buying tampons! For his daughter!
‘You lied t
o me.’ Ryan had high patches of colour on his cheeks. ‘You tried to make out that we just don’t love each other.’
‘We don’t.’
‘But, all along, you had someone else.’
‘I didn’t. I haven’t.’
‘Jeffrey told us what he saw.’
I checked that the kids weren’t in earshot and I muttered, ‘Nothing has happened.’
‘Yet!’ Karen exclaimed. ‘Nothing has happened yet!’
I was distracted by thumping noises coming from upstairs. Jeffrey and Betsy were up there – what the hell were they doing?
‘We couldn’t cope with this Taylor chap in our lives,’ Mum said.
‘You don’t have to!’
‘We like to laugh at people,’ Dad said. ‘We’re well able to mock Ryan here – no offence, son, but we make fun of you all the time. And Karen’s Enda, even though he’s a copper, he’s comical, in his way. But this Taylor chap is a different prospect. He has … gravitas.’
‘Is that the same as “cojones”?’ Mum asked, in a quiet aside.
‘It’s not.’ Dad sounded exasperated. ‘Cojones is different.’
‘Although he has them too,’ Ryan said. ‘Putting the moves on my sick wife. On my paralysed wife.’
‘He didn’t!’
‘The thing is,’ Mum explained, anxiously. ‘We’d have to invite him into our house. And it’s too small!’
‘For what?’ I asked. ‘What are you planning to do? Hold a dance for him?’
‘Your mother and I have discussed this,’ Dad said. ‘The only way we could avoid inviting him over is to burn the house down.’
‘You live in a terrace,’ Jeffrey said, walking past them, trundling a suitcase. ‘You couldn’t do it to your neighbours. Is the car open, Dad?’
‘Here, take the remote.’ Ryan handed Jeffrey the key fob.
Betsy appeared. She too was rolling a suitcase.
‘What’s going on?’ I cried out.
‘We’re going to live with Dad,’ Betsy said. ‘We’re leaving you.’
And off they went, every single one of them, leaving me all alone.
All alone, and upset and confused and ashamed and defiant.
… All alone with smooth, callous-free feet. And a bald bikini area. And a gleaming golden tan.
I’d done nothing wrong, and yet everyone was judging me – damned if I do; damned if I don’t.
So I might as well ‘do’.
‘Mannix, I want to see you.’
‘… Okay. Where? Do you want to go for a drink?’
‘No.’ I was rooting through my underwear drawer. ‘I’ve had enough of this bullshit.’
‘What bullshit is that?’
‘Come on, Mannix.’
‘Okay. I’ve had enough of this bullshit too.’
I dressed in the underwear I’d bought for my date night with Ryan. No point in being sentimental, they were the only sexy things I had. I covered myself in gleamy body lotion and shoved my feet into a pair of very high shoes, then took a quick glance in the full-length mirror. Right. I’d had two children, I’d been with Ryan for a long time and I’d let things slip. I was thirty-nine and even at my best I’d never have passed for a model.
I was seized with knuckle-gnawing regret that I hadn’t done daily Pilates for the past twenty years. Christ, how hard would it have been? A mere thirty minutes a day would have kept the wolf from the door. And yet I hadn’t bothered, and now I was paying the price.
I forced myself to stop agonizing about my stomach and my age and all the chances I’d wasted to be Elle Macpherson. Mannix had seen me with tubes coming out of most of my orifices so anything I offered him tonight had to be an improvement.
I put on my blue Vivienne Westwood dress that covered my knees and that draped flatteringly across my stomach – I knew Karen thought I was a fool, but that dress had been worth every penny.
The decision between stockings or tights threatened to trigger another head-melt, so I decided to dispense with both. Quickly, like it was no big deal, I slipped off my wedding ring and engagement ring and let them fall into a drawer, then, before I could talk myself out of it, I ran down the stairs and into the cold night.
Mrs Next-Door-Who-Has-Never-Liked-Me was standing in her front garden, in the dark. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. She must have seen the drama earlier, with Betsy and Jeffrey leaving with their suitcases. ‘I should tell you, Stella, that your clothes are completely unsuitable for this weather.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, opening my car door. ‘I don’t plan on wearing them for very long.’
Mannix’s flat was on the second floor in a massive new development. I had to walk down a cruelly bright, undecorated corridor, in my crippling shoes, for what seemed like miles.
Finally I got to 228. I knocked on the bland MDF door and he opened it immediately. He wore a loose shirt and faded jeans and his hair was messy.
‘I feel like a prostitute,’ I said. ‘And not in a good way.’
‘Is there a good way?’ He handed me a glass of wine and shut the door behind me.
I glanced anxiously over my shoulder. ‘Make me feel trapped, why don’t you?’
‘… I …’
‘Karen says there is a good way, about the prostitute thing.’ I couldn’t stop talking. ‘Role play, you know?’
‘How about we just be ourselves for tonight?’ He took me by the hand and tried to lead me forward. ‘I didn’t have time to get the rose petals. I wasn’t expecting this –’
‘Never mind the rose petals.’ I choked down a massive slug of wine. ‘Where’s the bedroom?’
‘You’re keen.’
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘What I am is scared. I’m scared out of my wits.’ My voice was getting faster. ‘It’s twenty years since I’ve been with someone else. This is a big deal for me. I’m this close to losing my nerve.’
I stood in the hall and glanced into the kitchen, the bathroom and the front room, all furnished in nothing-y neutrals. There was a bare, unfinished look about them, as if he’d never bothered to fully move in.
‘Is this the bedroom?’ Tentatively, I pushed open a door.
Mannix glanced in at the bed, an anonymous affair covered with a white duvet. ‘Yes.’
‘It’s too bright in there. What’s the story with the lights? Is there a dimmer switch?’
‘… No … Look, Stella, please, come in, sit down in the front room. Take a few breaths.’
‘We’ll have to do it in the dark.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not doing it in the dark.’
‘Have you a lamp? Get a lamp. There must be a lamp.’ I’d noticed one in the front room. ‘There’s one. Go on. Get it.’
While he unplugged the table lamp and moved it into the bedroom, I stood in the hall, drinking my wine and tapping my foot. When Mannix switched on the lamp and turned off the overhead bulb, the bedroom hummed with rosy, forgiving light.
‘That’s better.’ I handed him my empty glass. ‘Any more?’
‘… Yes, of course. I’ll just …’ He went into the kitchen and when he came out again, I was in the bedroom, perched anxiously on the bed.
He gave me my glass and asked, ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s go.’ I took a massive mouthful of wine. ‘By the way,’ I said, lying myself on the bed, still wearing my shoes, ‘I’m not a big drinker. Don’t let me get too drunk.’
‘Okay.’ He removed the glass from my hand and set it on the floor. Quickly, I reached down and took another swig, then handed the glass to him and lay down again. ‘The first time is bound to be the worst.’ I looked up at him for reassurance. ‘Right?’
‘It’s not meant to be unpleasant,’ he said.
‘I know, I know. That’s not what I meant. Just, I need you to be the way you were in the hospital.’
‘And you’re the one who’s worried that I’ll only fancy you if you’re mute
and paralysed?’
‘I just mean, I need you to take control.’
After a beat, he asked, softly, ‘You want me to take control?’
I nodded.
Slowly he began to unbutton his shirt. ‘You mean like this?’
Jesus. Mannix Taylor was unbuttoning his shirt in front of me. I was about to have sex with Mannix Taylor.
He shrugged off the shirt in a rustle of cotton and I reached up and touched his skin, stroking my hand from his neck to his collar bone. ‘You have shoulders,’ I said in wonderment. And he had hard pecs and an enviably flat stomach.
I wanted to lighten the mood by saying, ‘Not bad for a forty-something.’ But I couldn’t speak.
‘Now you.’ He was removing my shoes.
‘No,’ I said anxiously. ‘They need to stay on. To create the illusion of elongating my legs.’
‘Shhh.’ He took my right foot in his hands and placed it in his lap and pressed both thumbs into the arch. He held them still for a moment, the pressure a strangely pleasurable sort of pain, then he began to slide his hands along the length of my foot, stretching the tendons beneath the skin. I closed my eyes as thrills moved through me.
‘Remember this?’ I heard him say.
I did remember – the one and only time he’d worked on my feet when he’d been my doctor. Something powerful had happened between us on that day long ago and he’d never done it again.
As he pressed and kneaded, my lips began to tingle and my nipples tightened and hardened.
With his thumbnail, he made little nips of bliss along the top of my big toe. The movements were tiny bites of delight. He placed his middle finger between my big toe and my second toe, wiggling until they began to spread, then he slid his finger into the space and a pulse of desire zipped straight to my lady-centre.
My eyes flew open and he was staring right at me. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘You felt it too? Back then?’
I nodded. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I whispered. I was absolutely on fire and we hadn’t even kissed.