Watermelon

  And one of the policemen took great umbrage at this and told me that, if I didn’t behave, he would arrest me.

  “Arrest me then.” I smiled up at him saucily and extended both my wrists for him to put the bracelets on. I obviously hadn’t come to terms with the fact that these were real policemen and not just cartoons.

  So no one was more surprised than I was when the policeman did just that.

  Of course, I realized that he was only doing his duty.

  I bore him no grudges. I wasn’t bitter.

  The bastard.

  I must admit that I was very, very taken aback.

  I tried to tell him that I was just a suburban, middle-class young woman.

  That I had even managed to get a man to marry me and that he was an accountant. I told him all this to let him know that I was on the same side as him. Righting wrongs and fighting injustice and all that.

  And that by arresting me he was throwing everyone’s stereotype of a drunk and disorderly person into disarray.

  So off I went in the squad car, peering tearfully out the window at Laura and Judy.

  “Call James,” I mouthed at them as I was driven off.

  I knew that he would know what to do.

  And he did.

  He bailed me out and got me a lawyer.

  And I don’t think I have ever, ever in my whole life been so frightened.

  I was convinced that I would have a confession beaten out of me and I’d be jailed for several lifetimes and I’d never see James or my friends or family again. I’d never see blue sky again, except from the exercise yard, I thought, feeling intensely sorry for myself. I’d never wear nice clothes again. I’d have to wear those horrible prison sack dresses.

  And I’d have to become a lesbian. I’d have to become the girlfriend of Missus Big so that she’d protect me from all the other girls and their Coke bottles.

  And I already had a degree and it was no big deal.

  And I’d have to start smoking again.

  I was distraught.

  So when James came to the police station and bailed me out—or “sprung”

  me, as I preferred to call it—I couldn’t believe that there were no television cameras and delirious crowds with banners outside.

  Just another squad car which screeched to a halt, scraping the curb. About five drunks tumbling out.

  James took me home.

  He got the name of a lawyer from a friend and called him.

  He woke me in the morning, when I couldn’t open my eyes because of the terrible sense of foreboding. He wiped off my lipstick and told me it might be better for my case if I didn’t look like a good-time girl.

  He made me wear a long skirt and a high-necked blouse for the same reason.

  He sat in the courtroom holding my hand as I waited for my turn to come.

  He hummed little songs to me as I sat there white-faced and nauseous with the shock and the hangover.

  I found the songs that he was humming very comforting.

  Until I caught a few words of one.

  Something about breaking rocks and being on a chain gang.

  I turned and glared at him tearfully, ready to tell him to fuck off and go home if he found my predicament that amusing.

  But I caught his eye.

  And I just couldn’t help it.

  I started to laugh.

  He was right.

  The whole situation was so ridiculous that there was no point in not laughing at it.

  The pair of us sniggered like schoolchildren.

  The judge gave us a filthy look.

  “That’s another ten years onto your sentence,” snorted James, and the pair of us collapsed again.

  I got off with a fifty-pound fine, which James laughingly paid. “You can pay it yourself the next time.” He grinned at me.

  I couldn’t believe his attitude. If someone woke me at two in the morning to tell me that James had been arrested I would have been horrified. I certainly wouldn’t have found the situation funny the way he had.

  I would have seriously asked myself to think about what kind of man I had married.

  I wouldn’t have been indulgent and so completely supportive and forgiving the way James was.

  In fact, he wasn’t even forgiving, because he never for a second acted as if I had done something wrong.

  So now the next time I got arrested I wouldn’t have anyone to hold my hand in the courtroom and make me laugh. Sometimes he was just so sweet. When I used to wake in the middle of the night to worry, he was wonderful.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” he used to ask.

  “Nothing,” I’d say, unable to put words on that horrible, nameless, free-floating anxiety.

  “Can’t you sleep?”

  “No.”

  “Should I bore you to sleep?”

  “Yes, please.”

  And I would eventually fall into a peaceful sleep, lulled by the sound of James’s soothing voice explaining tax breaks for charities or the new economic regulations set by the European Union.

  I turned off the shower and dried myself.

  I’d better call him, I told myself.

  I went back into my room and started to get dressed.

  “Call him,” I ordered myself sternly.

  “After I’ve fed Kate,” I replied in a vague and wishy-washy fashion.

  “Call him!” I told myself again.

  “Do you want the child to starve?” I asked, trying to sound outraged.

  “I’ll call him when I’ve fed her.”

  “No you won’t. Call him now!”

  I was up to my old tricks again.

  Procrastinating, avoiding responsibility, running away from unpleasant situations.

  But I was so afraid.

  I knew that I had to talk to James about money and the apartment and all that. I wasn’t denying that for a minute. But I felt that the moment I actually spoke to him about these things they would become real.

  And if they were real it meant that my marriage was over.

  “Oh God,” I sighed.

  I looked at Kate, lying in her bassinet, soft and plump and fragrant in her little pink pajamas.

  And I knew that I had to call James. I could be a yaller-bellied, lily-livered, cringing coward on my own account all I liked, but I owed it to this beautiful child of mine to sort out her future. “Right,” I said resignedly, looking at her. “You’ve twisted my arm. I’ll call him.”

  I went into Mum’s room to use the phone there.

  I started to dial the number of James’s office in London and I began to feel dizzy.

  Excited and frightened at the same time.

  In a few moments I’d hear his voice.

  And I couldn’t wait.

  I was warm and shaky with anticipation.

  I’d be speaking to him, to my James, my best friend. Except, of course, he wasn’t anymore, was he? But sometimes I forgot. Just for a second.

  It was becoming very hard for me to breathe. My breath didn’t seem to be able to go down all the way.

  The phone connected and started to ring.

  A thrill ran through me and I thought I might throw up. The receptionist answered.

  “Um, can I speak to Mr. James Webster, please,” I asked, my voice wobbling. My lips felt as if I’d been given an injection to numb them.

  There were a couple of clicks on the line.

  I’d be speaking to him in a moment.

  I held my breath.

  It wasn’t as if the breathing that I had been doing had been particularly successful anyway.

  Another click.

  And the receptionist was back.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Webster is away this week. Can anyone else help?”

  The disappointment was so painful that I could hardly stammer out,

  “No, that’s all right, thank you.”

  And I hung up the phone.
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  I stayed sitting on Mum’s bed.

  I didn’t really know what to do now.

  It had been such an ordeal to ring him. It was such a hard thing to do.

  And then, in spite of myself, I had been excited about talking to him. And he wasn’t even there. I had gallons of adrenaline coursing through my body, making prickles of sweat break out on my forehead, making my hands wet and shaky, making me light-headed, and I just didn’t know what to do with it.

  And then the thought just struck me, where was James?

  Please don’t tell me that he’s gone on vacation.

  On vacation?

  How could he go on vacation when his marriage was breaking up? Had broken up, in fact.

  Maybe he’s on a business trip, I thought desperately.

  I half thought of calling the receptionist back and asking her where James was.

  But I stopped myself. I wasn’t going to throw away the tiny bit of pride I had left. Maybe he’s sick, I thought. Maybe he has the flu.

  I probably would have welcomed the news that he had terminal cancer.

  Anything, but don’t let him have gone on vacation.

  The thought of him having a life without me, the thought of him actually enjoying that life, was deeply unpleasant.

  He mustn’t have a care in the world, I thought, my imagination running wild. Probably off with his fancy woman in some exotic resort. Drinking Piña Coladas from Denise’s shoe. His life resonating to the sound of champagne corks popping and fireworks exploding and surrounded by music and happy people, wearing party hats and decorated with streamers, dancing past him, whooping and doing the conga.

  While I was freezing in this March weather, I became fully convinced that James was living it up in some very expensive Caribbean resort, where he had fourteen houseboys and a private swimming pool and the air was scented with frangipani blossoms.

  I had no idea what frangipani blossoms were like. I simply knew that they regularly appeared in this type of scenario.

  “Oh dear,” I thought, swallowing. I certainly hadn’t expected to feel like this.

  Now what do I do?

  Mum marched into the room with a huge bundle of freshly ironed clothes in her arms.

  She stopped in surprise when she saw me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded, looking at my white, miserable face. “I called James,” I told her, and burst into tears.

  “Oh Lord,” she said, putting the pile of clothes down on a chair and coming over to sit beside me.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I sobbed. “He wasn’t there. I bet he’s gone on a vacation with that fat bitch. And I bet they flew first-class. And I bet they have a Jacuzzi in their bathroom.”

  Mum put her arms around me.

  And eventually I stopped crying.

  “Do you want a hand putting the ironing away?” I asked Mum in a snivelly and tearful voice.

  That made her look really worried. “Are you okay?” she said anxiously.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” she said, still not convinced.

  “Yes,” I insisted, a bit annoyed.

  I was fine.

  I had better get used to feeling this upset, I decided.

  Because it was going to happen a lot. At least until I came to terms with the fact that it really was over with James.

  All right, so I really did feel awful now.

  Hurt and shocked.

  But in a while those feelings wouldn’t hurt so much. The pain would go away.

  So I wasn’t going to take to the bed for a week.

  I was going to square my shoulders and get on with things.

  And I’d call him on Monday.

  That’d be a really good time to talk to him. He was bound to be feeling really miserable then anyway, what with being back at work and having the postvacation blues and jet lag. I was trying to cheer myself up by pretending that I would be glad to see him being miserable.

  And if I didn’t think too hard about it, it would work for a little while.

  “Right then, Mum,” I said determinedly. “Let’s put these clothes away.”

  I went purposefully over to the pile of freshly ironed clothes on the chair.

  Mum looked a little bit blown away as I started to quickly sort them out. I picked up an armful and said to Mum, “I’ll put these in Anna’s drawer.”

  “But…” started Mum.

  “No buts,” I told her soothingly.

  “No, Claire…” she said anxiously.

  “Mum,” I insisted, quite touched by her concern but determined to pull myself together and be a dutiful daughter, “I’m fine now.”

  And I left her bedroom, making for Anna’s.

  Mum’s door swung shut behind me. So her voice was muffled when she called out to me. “Claire! For God’s sake. How am I going to explain to your father why his underpants are in Anna’s drawer?”

  I was on my knees in front of Anna’s chest of drawers.

  I paused in what I was going.

  I wasn’t putting Dad’s underpants in Anna’s drawer, was I?

  I was.

  I realized that I had better move them. Because there was no way that Anna would realize that there was anything unusual when she changed her underwear and found herself wearing huge, baggy men’s briefs.

  Assuming that she did in fact change her underwear.

  Or wear underwear at all, now that I came to think of it.

  I was sure I’d heard her going on about clothes—especially under-clothes—being a form of fascism. Vague talk of air needing to circulate and skin needing to breathe and needing to feel liberated and unrestricted just led me to suspect that underwear and the wearing thereof might not feature highly on Anna’s list of priorities.

  With a martyred sigh, I gathered up the bundle of underpants.

  thirteen

  I was meeting Laura for a drink that evening.

  I’d better give you a little bit of background here.

  Laura, Judy and I were in college together. And we have been friends ever since.

  Judy lived in London.

  And Laura lived in Dublin.

  I hadn’t seen Laura since I fled from London, minus a husband and with a baby, but I had spoken on the phone to her a few times. I told her I was far too depressed to see her.

  And because she was a good friend, she didn’t get all huffy with me, but told me not to worry and that I would feel better eventually and that she’d see me then.

  I told her that I would never feel better and that I would never see her again but that it had been lovely knowing her.

  I had a feeling that she had rung Mum a few times over the past month to make discreet inquiries about the state of my heart (still broken at the last checkup), my mental health (still very unstable) and my popularity (at an all-time low).

  But she hadn’t pestered me, and for that I was very grateful.

  But now I was feeling a good deal better so I called her and suggested meeting in town for a drink. Laura sounded delighted at this idea.

  “We’ll get plastered,” she said enthusiastically over the phone. I’m not sure whether this was a suggestion or a prediction. Either way it was a foregone conclusion.

  “I’d say we will all right,” I agreed, if our encounters over the past ten years or so were anything to go by. I was feeling quite alarmed. I’d forgotten what an unbridled hedonist Laura was—she could have shown those Roman emperors a thing or two.

  Mum said she would be only too delighted to look after Kate.

  After dinner (microwaved frozen shepherd’s pie, not too bad actually), I went upstairs to get ready for my first social outing since my husband left me. Quite an occasion. A bit like losing my virginity or making my first Communion or getting married. Something that only happens once.

  I hadn’t a stitch to wear. r />
  I began to feel very sorry and very foolish indeed about the martyrish way I had left all my lovely clothes behind in London. Behaving like a condemned man on his way to the gallows, crying dramatically, saying my life was over and that I wouldn’t be needing clothes where I was going.

  I was left with no option but to misappropriate some of Helen’s things.

  She would be annoyed. But she was annoyed with me anyway for the alleged flirting with her boyfriend, so what did I have to lose?

  I started to riffle frantically through Helen’s hangers. Honestly, she had some really lovely clothes.

  I felt the sap rising, the old juices start to flow.

  I loved clothes.

  I was like a man who was dying of thirst in the desert, who unexpectedly stumbles across a fridge full of ice-cold 7-UP. I had spent far too long in that nightgown.

  I found a little wine-colored dress in her wardrobe. That’ll do nicely, I thought as I clambered feverishly into it. I went back to my room and looked at myself in the mirror, and for the second time in two days I was surprised and delighted with what I saw.

  I looked tallish and slimmish and youngish.

  Not a bit like a single parent.

  Or a deserted wife.

  Whatever they’re supposed to look like. With a pair of woolly tights and my boots I looked pleasingly girlish (ha!) and innocent (double ha!).

  And, if the dress was a little bit too short for me, exposing an alarming amount of my thigh (what with Helen being a good deal smaller than me), then so much the better.

  Then I piled on the makeup. I was quite excited about going out—I’d forgotten what fun it was.

  Gray eyeliner and black mascara made my eyes look really blue. And with my newly washed shiny hair I was very pleased with the overall effect.

  Of course, Mum wasn’t.

  “Are you going to wear a skirt with that top?” she asked.

  “Mum, you know perfectly well that this is a dress, not a top,” I told her calmly.

  Nothing she could say or do would stop me from feeling good about myself.

  “It might well be a dress on Helen,” she acknowledged. “But it’s too short to be anything but a top on you.”

  I ignored her.

  “And did you ask Helen if you could borrow it?” she said, obviously hell-bent on destroying my good mood. “Because I’ll get the flak from Helen. You won’t care. You’ll be in town with your rowdy friends knocking back the Malibu or whatever it is you drink. And I’ll be here, being shouted at by my youngest daughter. And it’s not like any of us are in Helen’s good graces at the moment anyway.”