‘Who was she?’
‘Someone from work.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Karen.’
‘Karen what?’
‘Parsons.’
Driven by a self-destructive prurience, I wanted to know everything about her. What did she look like? Was she younger than me? Where had they done it? How many times? What kind of underwear had she? ‘Was it serious?’
‘No, not a bit. It lasted no length.’ His every word hit me like a dart.
‘Did you sleep with her?’ I desperately wanted him to say no, that it had only been hand-holding and flirting. But, after a tense pause where I held my breath, he said, ‘Yes, twice. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I so wish I hadn’t but I was off the wall.’
‘Why’s that, then?’ I asked stiffly, jealous bile sickening my stomach.
‘I was very depressed. They were my babies, too. But no one was interested in what I felt. I know it was harder for you, but it was killing me too. Then you and me stopped talking and the loneliness was unbearable, and then,’ his voice dropped so low I could hardly hear him, ‘when I couldn’t get it up with you, I felt such a failure.’
‘You’d no bother with her, I suppose. Your fancy woman. And look at what you’ve turned me into,’ I cried. ‘Someone who says things like “fancy woman”.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
‘When did it start?’
‘Not until you’d gone. Left for LA.’
I had a good snort at that. ‘Something was going on long before then.’
‘No, we were just… friends. I swear to God.’
‘“Just friends.” I can imagine. Flirting and sharing fucking truffles. You don’t have to sleep with someone to be unfaithful, you know! You can be unfaithful with your emotions.’
He bowed his head.
‘Was it the first time you did this to me?’
‘Of course!’ He sounded shocked.
‘Your only fancy woman?’
‘My only fancy woman.’
‘But one too many.’
‘I know, I know. I wish I hadn’t. I’d give my left arm to go back in time and change things,’ he muttered feverishly.
‘You blamed me, didn’t you? For the miscarriages?’
‘How? It was hardly your fault.’
‘It was. Maybe I’d… damaged myself… when I’d had the abortion. That day in Doctor Collins’s office, I knew you blamed me. But that was OK, because I blamed me too.’
‘I didn’t blame you. You were the one who was angry with me.’
‘I was not.’
‘You felt I’d forced you into trying for a baby. And if we’d never tried, we’d never have had all that misery with the miscarriages.’
I clamped my lips together, unwilling to admit anything, but the feelings were too big.
‘OΚ, I was angry.’ Still was. Furious, actually, I’d just discovered. Our life together had been fine until he’d opened that can of worms. ‘But I wasn’t the one who had an affair, I said, consumed with bitterness.
‘No, you just came to Los Angeles because of Shay Delaney.’
‘What –? I did fucking not,’ I stuttered indignantly.
‘Yes, you did. You could have gone to London to Claire or New York to Rachel or you could have stayed in Dublin, but you came here.’
‘Because of Emily.’
‘Not because of Emily. Or not just because of Emily. There was that thing in the paper about Dark Star Productions and the work they were doing in Hollywood. You could have guessed he’d be here. I’ve been honest with you, why won’t you be honest with me?’
We marched on in angry silence. The bloody audacity of him trying to shift the blame for his affair on to me. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, a thought began to swim upwards, reaching to break the surface. Before it did, I turned on Garv. ‘Why do you still hate Shay Delaney so much?’
He stopped, sat on a rock, put his head in his cupped hands, breathed deeply a couple of times, then looked up. ‘Surely it’s obvious?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Right, this is why. You are the most precious person in the world to me and Shay Delaney treated you like muck. When you told me about the abortion and all, I wanted to kill him. Then we got married, and it was fine when we were in Chicago, but then we moved home… every time Delaney’s name got mentioned you went white.’
Really? I hadn’t realized his effect on me was that evident.
‘Yes, really’ Garv confirmed my unspoken query. ‘And any time we drove past his mother’s house, you turned and looked.’
Really? I had no knowledge of that either. Well, now that he mentioned it, maybe I did sometimes. Not every time, just sometimes.
‘I used to go the long way round just so we wouldn’t pass his old house. I felt like we were never going to be free of the fucker. Please try and imagine it the other way round – if every time some old girlfriend of mine was mentioned, one I’d ditched you for, I went funny. You wouldn’t like it, would you?’
‘Stop trying to blame me.’
‘Then there’s a thing in the paper about Dark Star Productions, then four days later you leave me, and the next time I hear from you, you’re on your way to Los Angeles.’
‘I didn’t leave you because of reading anything about Dark Star Productions,’ I said furiously. ‘I left you because you were having a fucking AFFAIR. And you didn’t even try to stop me –’
‘Well, I’m doing it now,’ he said grimly.
‘All you did was say you’d pay the mortgage, then you helped me PACK, for God’s sake.’
‘I did try to stop you. I’d been trying to talk to you for days, but you ignored me or came home too drunk for there to be any point. The day you left I was all out of fight and I’d figured that you were going to leave me anyway.’
‘How d’you reach that conclusion?’
‘I suppose things had been desperate for so long. And you wouldn’t talk to me.’
‘You wouldn’t talk to me! It was your fault.’
‘I was hoping we could try and get beyond all that. Could we not just say that neither of us were perfect…’
‘Speak for yourself. I didn’t do anything wrong.’ I was shaking with anger. ‘So let me sum up what you’ve told me – you had an affair, but it was OK because it was all my fault.’
Then Garv did something he didn’t do often – he lost his temper. He seemed to swell with it. His muscles were taut and his eyes were livid blue as he brought his face close to mine.
‘That’s not what I said.’ He bit the words out. ‘You KNOW what I said. But you don’t want to hear it, do you?’
I looked at my watch and said coldly, ‘I have to go.’
‘Why?’
A pause. ‘I have to meet someone.’
‘Who? Shay Delaney?’
‘Yeah.’
Garv went the colour of chalk and my anger got wiped away, to be replaced with the deadness I remembered from the first weeks of separation.
‘Garv, why did you come here?’
‘To try to persuade you to come home in the hope that we might rebuild us.’ He smiled a little twist of a smile. ‘Looks like I’ve had a wasted journey.’
‘You were unfaithful to me. How could I ever forgive you? Or trust you again?’
‘Oh, God.’ He rubbed his hand over his eyes. I thought for a moment he was going to cry.
‘Tell me one thing,’ I said. ‘Was she beautiful, this Karen?’
‘Maggie, it wasn’t like that, it wasn’t about that…’ He was in agony.
‘Just a simple yes or no,’ I cut in. ‘Was she beautiful?’
‘She was attractive, I suppose,’ he admitted miserably.
‘Oh yeah?’ I grinned and he watched me warily. ‘Well, I bet she wasn’t as attractive as the girl I got off with.’
It took a moment. I could almost see the words being processed, then understanding dawn and when it did, he laughed out loud. ‘Really?
’
Garv was the only person – other than Emily – who knew how the girls in the porn films had affected me.
‘Good for you,’ he said. Then a little more sadly, ‘Good for you.’
In a gesture that belonged to another life, he touched my head and hooked my hair behind my ears, first one, then the other. Then he noticed my red, flaking arm. ‘Christ, your poor arm,’ he said unhappily. Surprisingly, it seemed natural to hug one another and as I turned my face into his shoulder, he smelt of something that I couldn’t identify. A huge sadness was mushrooming inside me, filling me up so I couldn’t breathe.
‘We really messed things up,’ I choked into his T-shirt.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. We were just unlucky.’
47
This time Shay was waiting for me, smiling a slow, lazy smile as he watched me walk across the lobby. When I saw him, a thought flickered just beneath the surface, but I pushed it away and smiled back at him.
‘Let’s have a drink at the bar,’ he said.
But the bar at the Mondrian was no ordinary hotel bar, devoid of character and atmosphere. It was the Sky Bar, hang-out of celebrities and beautiful people. Open to the warm, night sky and set around a luminous, turquoise swimming pool, a sexy decadent atmosphere was created by the scattering of huge silk cushions and low-slung day beds. The only lighting was from flame torches, which cast a mysterious glow and made everyone dewily beautiful.
FBI types in shades and walkie-talkies manned the reception desk – Fort Knox probably has less security – and only when Shay had produced his room key were the pearly gates opened.
We wandered amongst the silver, six-foot-high pot-plants looking for a seat, but all that was left was an enormous, white, satin mattress. Gingerly we placed ourselves upon it and one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen took our drinks order.
Then Shay and I were alone, sitting on a mattress, looking at each other.
‘I was afraid you were going to cancel me again tonight,’ I blurted, out of need to say something.
‘Look, I told you, last night was work, I couldn’t help it,’ he said, so defensively that for the first time I wondered if he was lying. And he’d tried to get out of meeting me tonight. And when he’d rung last night he’d been hoping to get the answering machine…
‘I make you uncomfortable,’ I said sadly.
‘Not a bit of it.’ Accompanied by a gorgeous smile.
Ah, I do,’ I teased. All that shaking hands with me, then running away.’
He half-laughed, ‘Maybe I feel guilty.’
‘For what?’
‘For, you know, when we were teenagers. But it’s all in the past and you don’t hate me, right?’ ‘I don’t hate you.’ He smiled with relief.
‘But when you went away and never wrote to me,’ I surprised myself by saying, ‘I nearly lost my reason.’
He looked like I’d slapped him. ‘I’m sorry, I thought it would be better that way. Less painful, to just let it all fade away.’
‘Well, it wasn’t, not for me. I spent years waiting for you.’
‘I’m sorry, Maggie. I was only eighteen, young and stupid. I hadn’t a clue. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you…’ He stretched out, lay on his elbow, and placed his hand over mine. We sat in silence.
‘Shay, tell me, are you happily married? Do you love your wife?’
‘Yes and yes.’
‘Are you faithful to her?’
‘Yes.’ Then a beat later, ‘Mostly.’
‘Mostly? What does that mean?’
‘I am in Ireland,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But, like… when I’m working here…’
‘I seeee…’ I said speculatively, letting it hang in the air.
‘Maggie, I want to tell you something.’
There was something about his tone that had me on the alert.
His tawny eyes were on mine. ‘Maggie, I want you to know…’
That he’d always loved me? That every day since he’d said goodbye to me at the ferry port, he’d yearned for me?
‘Maggie, I’ll never leave my wife.’
‘Um…’
‘My own dad left us and I saw what it did to the family.’ ‘Ah…’
‘But you and I… I come to LA a lot – if you’re still here, maybe we could…’
I understood what was happening: I was being offered a part-share in Shay Delaney. A consolation prize: We apologize that your life was damaged by the abrupt withdrawal of Shay Delaney, but please accept this voucher to be redeemed by Shay Delaney at your convenience.
Unexpectedly, I started to laugh. ‘You’re one of the good guys, aren’t you, Shay?’
‘I try. It matters.’
‘Your wife is so lucky, having a husband who’ll always stay with her.’
He nodded.
‘Even though he rides rings around himself on his business trips.’
His face darkened and he half-sat up. ‘Hey, there’s no need to be like that. I’m just trying to…’
‘What? Please everyone?’ That started me laughing again.
‘Trying to be fair.’
‘Fair. Like you’re a prize.’
He stared at me. He looked surprised, and I realized how very glad I was that I wasn’t his wife, waiting at home six thousand miles away, taking care of three children and wondering anxiously what her handsome, charming husband was up to. And I knew something else – I wouldn’t take a snail off his windscreen.
‘You try to be everything to everyone; you can’t say no. Don’t you get tired?’
He wasn’t happy. Not one bit.
‘I thought this was what you wanted,’ he sounded confused. ‘You know, all that ringing me, insisting on seeing me. You knew I was married…’
Oh Christ, when he put it like that. He was right: I’d almost stalked him over the past couple of days.
‘Why did you come here?’ he asked. ‘What did you want from me?’
Good question. Very good question. Being around him was like staring at the sun for too long: it temporarily blinded me. I’d gravitated to him, like a moth to a light, but with only the vaguest idea of what I’d hoped to get.
‘I wanted to know why you never wrote to me.’ But I already knew that, it was hardly rocket science: he’d outgrown me and didn’t have the guts to tell me. No biggie, it happens all the time, especially at that age.
‘And that’s all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sure,’ he said, slightly scornfully. ‘You wanted a lot more than that from me.’
I hadn’t. I hadn’t known what I’d wanted, but now I was certain of what I didn’t want. I didn’t want a relationship with him, part-time or otherwise.
‘Honest to God, I just wanted closure.’
‘Well, you’ve got it,’ he snapped.
‘I have, haven’t I?’ I grinned.
‘You’re in great form all of a sudden.’
‘I am.’ I felt light and free. Shay Delaney was just a guy from another life, the repository of hopes that were years past their use-by date.
Suddenly I found myself thinking about those people who break into the pyramids looking for treasure, but when they get there the tomb is empty because someone had got there long before them.
‘Did you ever see Raiders of the Lost Ark?’ I murmured.
He looked at me as if I’d cracked up completely. ‘Of course I did.’
And the thought that had been striving to make itself known broke the surface, ready to be claimed – Garv had been right when he’d said that Shay was one of my reasons for coming to LA. It hadn’t been a conscious decision, it had definitely been decided lower down in the sneakier part of my brain. But my first night in Los Angeles, when Emily had told me that Shay spent a lot of time there, I already half-knew – and even then I’d wondered if that was why I’d been so keen to respond to the invitation to stay with Emily.
You don’t have to sleep with someone, you can he unfaithful with your emot
ions – and I was the one who’d said it.
Poor Garv. And what about the dreams I’d occasionally had about Shay? Garv didn’t know about them – unless he did. He seemed to be several steps ahead of me.
Poor Garv, I thought again. What must it have been like, knowing that his wife still held a pocket of love for someone else? How lonely he must have been through the miscarriages, mutely carrying his grief and partaking in all the fuss around me. How humiliated he must have been when he became impotent. How frustrated when I wouldn’t talk to him – because he was right, I had stopped talking to him.
Then I thought about him and Truffle Woman and a lick of anger touched me; I’d been adamant that I’d never forgive him. But what mattered more – my self-righteousness, or the truth? And I had to admit that I hadn’t been perfect either.
That’s the thing with relationships, I understood. It doesn’t mean we don’t hurt one another; how can we help it sometimes, we’re only human? But if you love someone, you get hurt and you manage to forgive. And be forgiven. Garv had come to forgive me and I’d given him the bum’s rush.
I rolled on to my back and stared up at the purplish night sky. Then I realized what Garv had smelt of when I’d hugged him goodbye earlier. He’d smelt of home.
‘No stars tonight,’ I said.
But the stars are always there, even in the daytime. Sometimes we just can’t see them.
I sprang up. ‘I’ve got to go.’
48
I drove fast, but all the stoplights were against me and it took nearly an hour to get to the Ocean View. I did one of my worst pieces of parking ever on the sidewalk outside and hurried into the tile-floored lobby. And who should I meet? Only Mum, Dad, Helen and Anna. I later discovered they’d been to the cinema.
‘I thought you were out with Shay Delaney,’ Mum said in surprise.
‘I was.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’
‘Looking for Garv.’
‘What for?’ Her face was suddenly mutinous.
I didn’t answer and she said hotly, ‘If he can be unfaithful once, he’ll do it again.’