I looked at Helen almost in shock.
She might be one of the most irritating idiotic people I’ve ever met, but when it comes to the psychology of men, I had to hand it to her, she was a master.
But I took the crystal anyway.
Because you never know.
I had to get away from my family for a little while. I couldn’t think straight. I had to calm myself before I could talk to James.
I’d call Laura, I decided. She’d tell me what to do.
“Laura,” I said in a trembly voice when she answered.
“Oh, Claire,” she burst out. “I was just about to call you. Guess what!”
That’s my line, I was thinking.
“What?” I asked.
“That little bastard Adrian has just dumped me.”
Adrian, being, of course, her nineteen-year-old art student.
“What?” I said again.
“Yes,” she said tearfully. “Can you believe it?”
“But I thought you didn’t care about him,” I said in surprise.
“So did I,” she sobbed. “And wait until you hear! Guess why he dumped me.”
“Why,” I asked, wondering what was the reason. Had she finally run out of socks?
“Because he’s met someone else,” declared Laura. “And guess what age she is.”
“Thirteen,” I hazarded.
“No!” she shouted. “Thirty-bloody-seven!”
“Good God!” I said.
I was shocked.
“Yes,” she said, barely able to speak because she was crying so much.
“He says that I’m immature.”
“The little pup.”
“That he needs someone more centered.”
“How dare he!”
“And I was just doing him a favor by going out with him. And he’s just left me here,” she sobbed. “Without a sock to my name.”
“Jesus, that’s grim,” I said, shaking my head in a resigned way.
“Look,” she said in a tragic way, “I have to go. I’ll be late for work. I’ll talk to you later.”
And she hung up.
How about that? She probably thought I was calling to spill the beans about my night of passion with Adam. Little did she know of the great drama that had occurred in the meantime.
I sat looking at the phone for a few seconds.
Who would I call?
No one, I decided.
I’d try to deal with this on my own.
If I couldn’t deal with my own life, I couldn’t in all fairness expect anyone else to be able to.
I took a shower, washed my hair and went back into my room, where some pointless argument seemed to be in process among Anna, Helen (of course) and Mum. All three of them were shouting at the same time. Kate was lying in her bassinet being completely ignored.
“I did not make a face at you,” Anna denied as emphatically as she could, which wasn’t very much.
“You bloody well did,” Helen said.
“It wasn’t a face,” Mum said, trying to pour oil on water that was very troubled indeed. “It was more of a look.”
The babel of voices stopped abruptly as soon as I came into the room and all three of them turned their faces expectantly toward me. It seemed that they had decided to abandon their internecine differences and unite with me against the common enemy, James. They ran around, got me clothes and dressed me up.
“You have to look beautiful,” said Anna.
“Yes,” agreed Helen. “But you have to look as if you didn’t try at all.
Like you just flung on any old thing.”
“But he’s only calling me at ten o’clock,” I reminded them. “He didn’t say anything about coming over.”
“Yes,” said Mum. “But he didn’t come all the way to Dublin just to call you. He could have done that from London.”
Good point.
“Okay girls,” I said to Anna and Helen. “In that case make me beautiful.”
“We said we’d loan you clothes and do your makeup,” said Helen. “We never said that we could do miracles.” But she was smiling as she said it.
We finally agreed that I would wear the leggings and blue silk shirt that I had worn the day Adam came to tea.
Adam, I thought longingly for a moment.
But then I pushed him firmly to the back of my mind.
Not now, I thought grimly.
“You look nice and skinny,” said Helen, standing back and looking at me. “Now for your makeup.”
Honestly, she was organizing the whole thing like a military campaign.
Anna’s eyes lit up at the mention of doing my makeup. She approached with a plastic bag that seemed to be full of crayons and pencils.
“Get away,” Helen told her irritably, elbowing her aside. “I’m doing her makeup. You probably want to do face-painting and paint stars and suns and all that new age crap on her.”
Anna did look a little bit sheepish.
“No,” Helen explained, a bit more kindly. “She has to look as if she’s not wearing any makeup at all. Just naturally beautiful.”
“Yes,” I said, all excited. “Make me look like that.”
Why was Helen being so nice to me, I wondered?
Did she suspect that I was in competition with her for Adam? If I was back with James it would mean that she could have a clear shot at Adam.
Or maybe I was just being totally cynical.
I mean, she was my sister, after all.
And anyway, she probably didn’t suspect a thing.
I must say, I did look beautiful by the time Helen was finished with me: Fresh-faced, clear-skinned, bright-eyed, casually dressed.
“Smile,” she ordered me.
I did.
They all nodded approvingly.
“Good,” said Mum. “Do that a lot.”
“What time is it now?” I asked.
“Nearly half past nine,” said Mum.
“Half an hour to go,” I said, feeling nauseous.
I sat on the bed.
Mum, Anna, Helen and Kate were already on it.
“Move over,” I said. I was sitting on Anna’s foot.
“Ouch,” said Helen, as Anna moved and kind of elbowed her in the face.
We were all huddled on the bed, sort of lying on top of each other.
It was like a vigil, they were going to stay there for me until he called. I felt as if we were a raft full of survivors from a shipwreck. All squashed and uncomfortable and crowded, but there was no suggestion that we leave each other.
“Right,” said Mum. “We’ll play a game.”
“All right,” we all said in unison.
Except for Kate, of course.
Mum had great games. Word games that we used to play to pass the time on long car journeys when we were young.
For some reason the game that we were actually playing when he called was one thought up by (who else) Helen. Obviously done with more than a nod to my recent condition. It was one in which you have to think of all the different words to describe being pregnant.
I didn’t think it was really what Mum had had in mind when she’d encouraged us to make up our own versions of the games that she had taught us.
“Up the pole,” shouted Anna.
“On the bubble,” screeched Helen.
“Expecting,” muttered Mum, torn between disapproval and the desire to win.
“Your turn, Claire,” said Anna.
“No,” I said. “Shuusssh, is that the phone?”
The room fell silent.
It was.
“Should I answer it?” asked Mum.
“No. Thanks Mum, but I’ll do it,” I said.
And I left them.
twenty-five
“Hello,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.
“Claire,” said James’s voice.
So, it was him.
&n
bsp; We finally got to speak to each other.
“James,” I replied.
And then I wasn’t quite sure what to say.
I wasn’t too current on the etiquette of addressing runaway husbands.
Especially since I was pretty sure that he wasn’t in the process of trying to wheedle his way back into my affections.
We need a book. A book that tells us how to address returning runaway husbands.
You know, the type of book that tells us the correct knife to use to shell a scallop and the proper way to address, say, a bishop, for example (just for the record, “That’s a lovely ring you’re wearing, Your Grace” is usually regarded as polite enough for a first meeting).
So this book would gently instruct us about the correct number of times the word bastard could be used in any one sentence, and when it is regarded as impolite not to use physical violence, etc.
For example, if your boyfriend/husband/fella has simply disappeared for a couple of days after a particularly important football match and has just returned to the family home looking green, unshaven and disheveled, it would be appropriate to say:
“Where the fuck have you been for the past three days, you drunken, selfish, louser?”
But as the person out there hadn’t written the book yet I had to rely on my own instinct.
“How are you?” he asked.
As if you cared, I thought.
“Very well,” I said politely.
A pause.
“Oh!…And how are you?” I asked hurriedly.
Honestly, where were my manners?
Is it any wonder that he’d left me?
“Well,” he replied thoughtfully. “Yes, quite well.”
Pompous fucker, I thought.
“Claire,” he continued smoothly. “I’m in Dublin.”
“I know,” I said ungraciously. “My mother mentioned that you’d called last night.”
“Yes, I don’t doubt that she did,” he said with faint irony.
You could never say that James was a fool.
A bastard, I grant you. But never a fool.
“Where are you staying?” I asked.
He named some downtown bed and breakfast. On a street that could only be described as On the Front Line. Not James’s usual style at all. He was more likely to be found in a plush corporate type of place. All Bureau de Changes and little shops in the hotel lobby. From James’s address I de-duced that he was not in Dublin on business. Because if he were, he would be on expenses and staying somewhere a damn slight nicer and more expensive. And if he wasn’t in Dublin on business, then just why was he here?
“So what can I do for you?” I asked in a slightly nasty tone. He wasn’t the only one around here who could say things with irony.
My tone of voice was intended to convey that I would not, as the saying goes, piss on him if he was on fire.
“What you can do for me, Claire,” he said, “is see me. Will you do that?”
“Of course,” I said obediently.
How else can I break every bone in your body? I thought.
“You will?” he asked, sounding surprised. As though he had been anticipating some kind of battle.
“But certainly.” I gave a little laugh. “What are you sounding so shocked about?”
Because when I’ve finished breaking every bone in your body, I’m going to cut off your penis and stick it in your mouth and I certainly can’t do that over the phone either, now, can I? I thought.
“Well, um…nothing, nothing. That’s…um…that’s great,” he said.
He still sounded surprised.
He’d obviously expected me to refuse to see him. That would account for the coaxing tone and the surprise at my calm agreement to meet him.
But what would I gain from refusing to see him? I wanted the answers to a couple of questions.
Like, Why did you stop loving me?
And, How much money are you going to give me for Kate?
How else were we going to sort out our respective legal positions and our relationship to Kate if we didn’t meet to talk about it?
Perhaps he expected to find that I’d gone to pieces totally.
But, well…hey!…I wasn’t in pieces now, was I?
I wasn’t better or anything like it, but no matter what way I looked at it I couldn’t deny that I’d greatly improved.
How odd!
When did that happen?
You know that bit at the end of a relationship when all your friends gather around and say lots of annoying things like “Plenty more fish in the sea” and “He would never have made you happy”? Well, when they get to the part about “It’ll mend with time,” try to fight your initial instinct to give them a black eye.
Don’t knock it, because it really does work: I was living proof. The only problem with time mending things is that it takes longer. So, effective and all as it is, it’s precious little use to those of us in a hurry.
I suppose the sex with Adam hadn’t hurt my recovery either. But I had to drag my thoughts back to the present. James was talking again.
“Where should we meet?” he asked.
“Why don’t you come out to the house here?” I suggested.
I didn’t want this to be an away game. I wanted this meeting to be on my turf, if not on my terms.
“You can get a taxi. Or if you prefer you could take a bus and ask the conductor to let you off at the traffic circle at the end of—”
“Claire!” he interrupted, laughing at how silly I was being. “I’ve been out to your house plenty of times. I know how to get there.”
“Of course you do,” I said smoothly.
I knew that.
But I couldn’t resist the chance to treat him like a total stranger. To let him know that he no longer belonged.
“Will we say eleven-thirty?” I said with authority.
“Er, fine,” he said.
“Lovely,” I said acidly. “See you then.”
And I hung up without waiting for his reply.
twenty-six
Now, I would be lying to both myself and you if I didn’t admit that it would have given me a great deal of satisfaction if James had returned to me on his knees, a broken man. I would have been delighted if he had crawled up the driveway on all fours, sobbing and begging for me to take him back. I wanted him to be unshaven, filthy and wearing torn clothes. I wanted his hair to be all long and matted and for him to be looking deranged and obviously demented with grief at the terrible realization that he had lost the only woman he had ever loved. And indeed could ever love.
So vivid was this mental image of mine that when eleven-thirty rolled around and he appeared at the gate, I was hugely disappointed to find that he was in fact walking fully upright. Prehistoric man must have felt the same sense of disbelief when one of his fellows hopped down out of one of the trees and started to parade around on just two legs.
I stood at the window and watched him as he walked up the short drive.
Mind you, I stood well back. I didn’t think that it would enhance my dignity for him to see me with my nose pressed up against the window.
I had been wondering what he would look like. And now I would see.
That gave me a violent twist of pain.
He was no longer mine, so he would look different. My subtle but definite mark on him would be gone. And what did he look like?
Was he different?
Had Denise made him fat?
Was he badly dressed?
Had Denise sent him out in the same little jackets and sweatpants she dressed her three little boys in? All purples and turquoises. Very nasty.
Would he look like a cruel and heartless bastard, coming to take my home and my child away from me?
But he just looked so normal.
Walking along with his hands in his pockets. He could have been anyone going anywhere. Although he looked different from the way that I’
d remembered him.
Thinner, I thought.
And I was sure that something else was different too…what was it?…I wasn’t sure…had he…had he always been that short?
And he wasn’t dressed the way I’d expected him to be.
Every time I’d thought of seeing him, I’d imagined him dressed in the same Grim Reaper suit that he wore that day at the hospital. Today he was wearing jeans, a blue shirt and some kind of jacket.
Very casual. Very laid-back.
Obviously not treating this occasion with the great weight that it deserved.
It felt wrong.
Incongruous.
Like a hangman turning up to do a day’s work wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap on back-to-front, grinning from ear to ear as he told knock-knock jokes.
He rang the bell. I took a deep breath and walked to answer the door.
My heart was thumping.
I swung back the door and there he stood.
The same. He looked so heartbreakingly the same.
His hair was still dark brown, his face was still pale, his eyes were still green, his jaw was still lean. He gave me a funny twisted half smile, and after an awkward pause, he said expressionlessly, “Claire, how are you?”
“Fine.” I smiled slightly—politely—at him. “Why don’t you come in?”
He came into the hall and I almost keeled over as a wave of nausea hit me.
It was one thing to banter calmly with him over the phone. But it was a hell of a lot harder to deal with him in the flesh.
However, unpleasant and all as it was, I had to behave like an adult. The days of running crying to my bedroom were long gone. And he wasn’t looking too happy himself.
I knew he didn’t love me anymore but he was only human. Well, I presumed he was only human. And couldn’t help being affected by this momentous occasion. But I knew James. He’d recover his aplomb in no time at all.
That was what I had to do.
I graciously said to him, “Can I take your jacket?” as though he was just someone who had come to try and sell me a central heating system.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he said reluctantly, and shrugged out of it and warily handed it over to me, taking what seemed like excessive care to make sure that our hands didn’t touch. He looked longingly at the jacket, as though he was never going to see it again and wanted to memorize its every detail. What was he afraid of?