“Well,” I agreed dryly. I was not making this easy for him.
I was feeling a horrible mixture of feelings. A combination of shame, mortification, embarrassment at my childish behavior, defensiveness at being told off, resentment at being treated like a child and a realization that it was time that I stopped behaving like a selfish bitch. I was also worried that he’d spot the two empty vodka bottles under the bed.
“You’re being selfish and irresponsible,” said Dad.
“I know,” I mumbled.
I felt sick with guilt.
And what kind of mother was I being to Kate?
“And what kind of mother are you being to Kate?” he asked.
“A terrible one,” I mumbled.
The poor child, I thought, it’s bad enough that her father has abandoned her.
“The poor child,” said Dad. “It’s bad enough that her father has abandoned her. Drink never drowns anyone’s sorrows,” he went on. “It only teaches them how to swim.”
You might think that this was a very profound and true thing that he’d just said.
So had I.
The first eight hundred times I heard it. But now I recognize it for what it really is. It’s the first line, the opening paragraph, in Dad’s “The Evils of Drink” lecture. I heard it so many times in my teenage years that I could practically recite it myself.
And, God knows, I don’t want to end up like Auntie Julia, I thought.
“And, God knows, you don’t want to end up like Aunt Julia,” said Dad wearily.
Poor Dad. Auntie Julia was his youngest sister and he’d had to bear the brunt of most of her alcohol-related crises.
When she would lose her job because she was drunk at work, the first thing she did was to call Dad.
When she got knocked down by a bicycle because she was wandering the road drunk late at night who did the police call?
That’s right.
Dad.
It’s money down the drain, I thought.
“And it’s money down the drain,” he said heavily.
Money I don’t have.
“Money you don’t have,” he continued.
And it’ll destroy my health.
“And it’ll destroy your health,” he advised.
It’ll ruin my looks.
“It solves nothing,” he concluded.
Wrong! He forgot to tell me that it’ll ruin my looks. I’d better remind him.
“And it’ll ruin my looks,” I reminded him gently.
“Oh, yes,” he said hurriedly. “And it’ll ruin your looks.”
“Dad, I’m sorry for everything,” I told him. “I know I’ve been really mean to everyone and a worry to you all, but I’ll stop. I promise.”
“Good girl.” He gave me a little smile.
I felt as if I was about three and a half all over again.
“I know it can’t be easy for you,” he said.
“It’s still no excuse to behave like a bitch,” I admitted.
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
The only sounds were of Kate snoring happily—maybe she was as glad as everyone else that I’d had my comeuppance—and me sniffing back tears. “And you’ll let the girls watch their shows on the TV?” Dad inquired.
“Of course,” I sniveled.
“And you’ll stop shouting at us all?” he asked.
“I will,” I said, hanging my head.
“And you won’t throw any more things?”
“I won’t throw any more things.”
“You’re a good girl, you know.” He half smiled at me. “No matter what your mother and your sisters say.”
eight
After Dad had given me my pep talk the previous evening he kissed me—awkwardly, mind you—but it was still a kiss, and without being able to look me in the eyes he told me he loved me.
Then he gently shook Kate’s soft pink little foot and left the room.
And I lay on my bed for a long time thinking about what he had said.
And what I had overheard Mum and my sisters saying earlier.
And some kind of change came over me.
Some kind of peace entered my soul.
Life goes on.
Even my life.
I had spent the last month releasing myself on my own recognizance from life. The excessive sleeping, the drinking, the exercising, the not washing myself. They were all things I had used to keep life at bay.
But life was an irrepressible kind of a chap, and no matter how much I tried to pretend that he wasn’t there he kept poking his head through any gaps in my defenses and trying to get me to play with him.
“Oh, there you are,” he would say exuberantly, as bouncy as a rubber ball, as I lay on my bed alone.
“Oh, fuck off and leave me alone,” I would reply. But after Dad’s talk I decided that I had to start living again.
And I had to stop thinking just of myself. I had to do it. And I would be able to do it.
I still loved James very much. I still wanted him back. I was still heartbroken. I still missed him like a limb. I would probably still cry myself to sleep every night for the next century.
But I was no longer utterly crippled by my loss.
I had been cracked across the ankles by the cricket bat of James’s infidelity and betrayal. It had sent me crashing to the ground, leaving me lying there gasping with pain, unable to stand up.
But, contrary to first impressions, nothing was broken. Now I was clambering painfully to my feet and seeing if I could still walk.
And though I was limping badly, I discovered to my joy that I could.
I’m not saying that I didn’t feel jealous. Or angry.
Because I did.
But it wasn’t so bad. The feeling wasn’t as big. Wasn’t as powerful. Wasn’t as horrible.
Put it this way. I still wouldn’t have turned down the chance to punch Denise in the stomach or to blacken James’s eye but I no longer entertained fantasies of sneaking into their secret love nest and pouring a huge vat of boiling oil over their sleeping bodies.
Believe me, this was progress.
So bloodied and bowed, but not as bowed, I decided to relaunch myself on the world with the minimum of fanfare.
As I drifted off to sleep I counted my blessings.
Well, that’s not exactly true. I didn’t actually count them. I didn’t say to myself, “Well, that’s five blessings that I have. Now I can go to sleep happy.”
But I did think about the good things in my life: I had a beautiful daughter.
I had a loving family. (Well, I was sure they’d be loving again just as soon as I stopped behaving like an Antichrist.) I was still youngish.
I had somewhere to live.
I had a job to go back to in five months. I had my health (bizarre—I never thought I’d hear myself say that this side of ninety).
And most of all, and I’d no idea where it came from, I had some hope.
I slept like a baby.
Actually, I did nothing of the sort. Did I wake every two hours, demanding to be fed or changed? No I did not. But I slept very peacefully.
And that was plenty for now.
I would love to be able to tell you that the next morning when I woke up the rain had stopped and the clouds had been chased away and the sun had come out on a brand-new blue-skied day.
However, real life isn’t like that.
It was still drizzling.
But what the hell.
I woke at the usual crack-of-dawn time and fed Kate. I gently probed my feelings, the way you probe the gum around a sore tooth with your tongue. And I was delighted to discover that my mood hadn’t changed from the previous evening. I was still feeling alive and hopeful.
It was absolutely thrilling.
I went back to sleep and woke again at about eleven. There was a bit of a fuss going on in the shower room. Apparently, Helen had discovered
a lump in her breast and was screaming bloody murder. Mum came running up the stairs and after a consultation I heard her telling Helen angrily,
“Helen, that’s not a lump on your breast, that is your breast.”
Mum thumped back down the stairs muttering to herself. “Frightening the life out of me…I’ll kill her.”
Helen got dressed and left for college.
And I had a shower.
I even washed my hair.
And then I tidied my room.
I fished the two empty vodka bottles out from under the bed. Next I rounded up all the glasses I had used over the past couple of weeks and assembled them in military formation to be brought downstairs to the dishwasher. I picked up the pieces of the glass I had broken by flinging it at the wall one particularly upset and drunken night and wrapped the shards in an old newspaper.
And most symbolic of all, I threw out every magazine in the room. I felt cleansed and purified.
I no longer wanted to read crappy magazines. I would put myself on a strict diet of Time, the Economist and the Financial Times from now on.
And just once in a while I would glance at the copy of Marie Claire that Dad bought every month, ostensibly for Helen and Anna, but which he really bought for himself. He absolutely loved it. Although he dismissed it as womanly rubbish. Frequently we would stumble upon him surreptitiously reading it. While he neglected his household chores, I might add.
Often he would be found engrossed in some article, maybe about female circumcision or compulsive sexual behavior or the best methods of removing the hair from one’s legs, while the carpets remained unvaccumed.
Finally, after having mulled it over for about a month, I decided that I would get dressed.
And would you believe it, when I tried on the pair of James’s jeans that I had worn over on the plane from London they no longer fit me.
What I mean is they were far too big.
That’s what living on a diet of vodka and orange juice for a month does for you. (But don’t try this at home.)
So I went into Helen’s room to raid her wardrobe. Because, by God, she owed me. She’d bled me dry over the past two weeks or so with her extortionate demands for “expenses” for going to the store for me. And fond as I was of Anna, I didn’t want to wear one of her long shapeless dresses, all bells and mirrors and tassles.
In Helen’s room, on her chair—along with a huge mound of pristine, totally untouched, very expensive textbooks—I found a lovely pair of leggings.
Very flattering. They made my legs look long and slim.
In her wardrobe I found a beautiful blue silk shirt.
And would you believe that was very flattering also. It made my skin look very clear and my eyes look very blue.
I looked at myself in the mirror and got a shock of recognition. “Hey, I know her,” I thought. “It’s me. I’m back.”
For the first time in months my reflection looked normal. I didn’t look like a watermelon with legs because I was no longer either great with child or as fat as a fool. And I didn’t look like some kind of escapee from a mental institution, all uncombed hair and voluminous nightgown and deranged face.
It was just me, the way I remembered myself.
I drenched myself in Helen’s Obsession, even though I hated it, and after satisfying myself that there was nothing else of hers that I could help myself to, I went back to my room.
I even put on some makeup. Just a little bit. I didn’t want Mum calling the police to report a strange woman intruder on the premises.
Then I leaned over Kate’s bassinet and introduced the new me (or rather the old me) to her.
“Hello, darling,” I cooed. “Say hello to Mummy.”
Before I could apologize to her for looking like such a mess for the first month of her life, she started crying.
She obviously had no idea who I was. I didn’t look or smell anything like the person she was used to.
I shushed her and calmed her down. I explained to her that this was actually the real me and the other woman who had been looking after her for the past month was an evil impersonation of her mother.
She seemed to find this a reasonable enough explanation.
And then I went downstairs to see Mum, who was watching television.
“Hi, Mum,” I said as I came into the sitting room.
“Hello, love,” she said, glancing up from the TV. Then she swiveled around, doing a double take that nearly gave her whiplash.
“Claire!” she exclaimed. “You’re up! You’re dressed! You look beautiful.
Isn’t this great!” And she got up from the couch and came over to me and gave me a huge hug. She looked so happy. I hugged her back and the two of us stood there like idiots, grinning, with tears in our eyes.
“I think I’m getting over it,” I said shakily to her. “At least I think I’m starting to get over it. And I’m sorry for being such a bitch. And I’m sorry for worrying you all so much.”
“You know you don’t have to apologize,” she said gently, still holding me by the arms and smiling into my eyes. “We know it’s been awful for you. And we just want you to be happy.”
“Thanks, Mum,” I whispered.
“So what are you going to do today then?” she asked cheerfully.
“Well, I think I’ll watch the end of this with you,” I said, indicating the television. “And then I’m going to cook dinner for all of us this evening.”
“That’s very nice of you, Claire,” said Mum a bit doubtfully. “But we all know how to work the microwave.”
“No, no,” I protested, laughing. “I mean I’m going to actually cook a real dinner for you all. As in, you know, go to the supermarket and buy fresh ingredients and make something from scratch.”
“Oh really,” said my mother, and a faraway look came into her eyes.
“It’s a long time since a real dinner was cooked in that kitchen.”
She said it in the manner that some wise ancient old crone from a legend might say, “Oh, it be many a long and luckless year since a tall strong young man from the McQuilty clan broke bread under the same roof as a young man from the McBrandawn clan that we didn’t hear the clash of steel on steel, and the streets didn’t run with the blood of brave young warriors”—or something similar.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say that a real dinner had never been cooked in that kitchen, at least not while it was the ancestral family home of the Walsh clan and while Mum was at the helm of the nourishment ship, but I stopped myself from saying it just in time.
“It’s no big deal, Mum,” I told her. “I’ll just do some pasta or something.”
“Pasta,” she breathed, still with the faraway look in her eyes, as if recalling another life, another time, another world. “Yes.” She nodded, some kind of recognition appearing in her eyes. “Yes, I remember pasta.” (She was still using the sort of voice where you would expect her to say “aye”
instead of “yes.”)
“Jesus!” I thought in alarm. “Has she been so traumatized in the past by her encounters with cooking that this suggestion has un-hinged her totally?”
“So is it all right if I borrow the car to go down to the shopping center to buy some stuff?” I asked her, feeling a bit nervous about it.
“If you must,” she said faintly, resignedly. “If you must.”
She gave me the car keys and we put Kate on the back seat in her car seat. Mum stood on the step and waved me off as if I was going away forever, instead of just down the road to the supermarket.
But it was a bit of an adventure. I hadn’t left the house in weeks. It was an indication that I was on the mend.
“Have a good time,” she said. “And remember, if you change your mind about making the dinner, don’t worry. No harm done. You won’t be letting any of us down. We can have the usual. No one will mind.”
Why did I get the idea that she didn’t want me to cook anything
? I wondered as I drove away.
I had a really lovely time in the supermarket, strolling the aisles, pushing my cart, with Kate in a sling on my front. Buying the provisions for myself and my child, playing happy families, even if it happened to be happy single parent families.
I bought another twenty tons of Pampers for Kate. Mum and Dad had been so good, buying all the baby provisions while I had been prostrate with either grief or alcohol. But it was time for me to be responsible. I would be the one who took care of Kate from now on.
I flung all kinds of frivolous and exotic food into my trolley. Galia melons? Yes, I’ll have a couple of them. A box of handmade fresh cream chocolates? Why not. A bag of highly over-priced glamorous lettuces? Go right ahead.
I was having a great time.
Hang the expense. Because I was going to pay by credit card.
And where did the credit card bills get sent to?
That’s correct. My apartment in London.
So who was going to have the responsibility of paying it?
Right again.
James. I smiled at other young and not-so-young mothers who were also doing their shopping.
I must have seemed just like one of them. A young woman with a new baby. With absolutely nothing to worry about except perhaps the possibility of not getting a full night’s sleep in the next decade. There was nothing to indicate that my husband had left me.
I no longer carried my humiliation like a weapon.
And I didn’t begrudge anyone else her perfect life. I didn’t hate every other woman in the world whose husband hadn’t left her.
How did I know that the woman I exchanged smirks with over the avo-cados was blissfully happy?
How did I know that the woman I gently jostled as I got my bottle of honey and mustard dressing off the shelf was completely free of all concerns?
Everyone had their own worries.
Nobody was perfectly happy.
I hadn’t been singled out especially by the gods for misery to descend on me.
I was just an ordinary woman with ordinary problems, doing her shopping, among other ordinary women.
I passed the alcohol department and I caught a glimpse of rows and rows of bottles of vodka, glittering and shimmering, silver light glinting off them.