‘Morning, gorgeous!’ Owen O’Neill pushes open the full-length glass door to my tiny office with his outstretched chin, carrying two coffees, one in each hand.
‘Morning.’ I jump up to help him. All my thoughts of Colin and last night immediately disappear, as if by magic.
Poof. Gone.
He’s nowhere near as classically good-looking as Colin, but he is just incredibly attractive to me. Everything about him interests me. I take the cup he offers me and I return to behind my messy desk.
This morning he is wearing wrecked-looking, ripped blue denim jeans and white Adidas runners, a black round-neck T-shirt under a black leather biker jacket. Upon his head lies a grey beanie hat. He isn’t shaven. I’ve yet to see him clean-shaven. The thick dark stubble catches my eye as he pulls off the beanie hat and runs his hands over his dark, closely shaven head. The deepest darkest brown eyes I have ever seen pour into mine. He doesn’t have perfect teeth like Colin’s, but they add character to his face, I think. His incisors are pointy and very slightly longer than his front two teeth. Even our teeth are similar and, get this, he is exactly the same height as me when I’m in my high heels.
‘What’s the craic? You OK?’ He flops himself into the seat opposite me and lifts the lid off his black coffee. Steam rises to escape. The silver zips from his leather jacket sleeves rattle and then relax.
‘Ahh, yeah, I’m OK, I suppose.’ I sigh deeply.
‘Sounds like a dark, cold December Monday morning response to “you OK”, all right. Nice shirt, by the way. So I didn’t hear from you at all over the weekend, are you coming to Amsterdam or not? Did Daddy Pig give you permission?’ He is tongue in cheek. Colin and Owen have met each other a few times over the last while at various events in the centre, mainly when Colin has come in to pick me up. Colin isn’t one for the arts, or artists, but they always got on fine. The reason he calls him Daddy Pig is that Colin was still wearing his Happy Birthday, Daddy Pig badge from Mark’s Peppa Pig birthday card to him on his jumper. Owen, having never heard of Peppa Pig, thought this was some sort of critical analysis of Colin’s inner angst with parenting.
‘What, this old thaaang?’ I respond in a Southern accent and pull at my brand new Zara shirt. ‘Why thank you, kind sir.’ I pretend to fan myself with the palm of my hand.
He laughs and slaps his bare knee through the rips. I see speckles of dark hair.
Then I say, ‘Sorry I didn’t text you back with my answer. Still wasn’t sure I could go but Daddy Pig did give permission and I am indeed travelling this Friday to the land of tulips, sweet Amsterdam. Yippie. Yappie. And Yahooey.’ I remove my plastic lid now and blow into the white hot foamy liquid. He got me a latté. Extra hot, just the way I like it.
‘Permission?’ He tilts his head slightly and squints his brown eyes at me before saying, ‘But deadly!’ He seems genuinely delighted and I get a small shiver up my spine.
‘Hope our rooms aren’t adjoining, mind you? Bit of “tomfoolery in the middle of the night” buddy-style.’ He puts down his coffee and runs his hands up and down his knees like Vic Mortimer in Shooting Stars. He’s messing.
‘Stop that!’ I giggle though.
Not laugh, giggle. I’m ridiculous.
He’s so different to Colin in every way. He’s so easy going. Comme ci comme ça. I guess it’s that he’s arty and I am arty. I wasn’t always arty though and this, I believe, could be the real root of the problem. My inner artiness has come out. It had always been there, but hidden. Dormant. In school, I always only really liked English, drama and art. I had devoured Romeo and Juliet and Othello for my Inter and Leaving Certificate exams, whereas all my friends found them torturous, double Dutch. Colin thinks it’s all bullshit, I know he does. I’m not overly arty or snobby about art, I just love drama and music and painting and work that isn’t confined solely to an office desk, I suppose. Expression.
For a moment I think back to this morning.
Waking up was just horrendous. Colin’s alarm went off before six and he jumped up immediately. I was already awake and I think he was too. It was pitch dark and bitterly cold.
‘Will you be home early tomorrow?’ I asked in a croaked whisper, pulling the blankets back over me from where he had disturbed them.
‘Probably,’ Colin muttered, his knees bent as he pulled on his socks.
‘Colin …’ I put my hand on his bare back. He jerked away, grabbed his clothes off the wicker chair and left the room.
I had waited until I heard his car reverse out of the driveway before I padded down barefoot and turned the heating on. I grabbed a cup of tea and brought it back up to the warmness of my bed. When I’d finished I got up and put the kids’ uniforms on the radiators to heat before waking them early and making them grilled rashers on toast.
I know Jade senses the tension, no matter how hard I try to carve that smile into my face. I am a mess. I am a woman who’s in danger of losing her husband, but more importantly, of breaking up a family. I can’t seem to control it. It’s spiralling. Colin works hard for us, I know he does. I feel a lunge in my heart. Is he really to blame or is it all me? I can’t expect him to change. He shouldn’t have to; he is still the man I married.
Owen puts his poly-coated paper cup down on my desk.
‘Hang on, I need to open the skylight window in the studio to dry the kids’ paintings fully before they all arrive off the bus.’ Owen drags me back but as he takes his leave, I’m back inside my head to scrutinise my husband.
Like I said, Colin doesn’t really get ‘The Arts’. He thinks this job is all a bit of a laugh really. Nonsensical. A thing to keep me amused. He likes Owen but deep down thinks he’s slightly odd. He said so himself.
‘All those arty people are a bit odd, are they not?’ Colin asked me the first time I took him to see an installation piece in the centre’s gallery. You see, I changed and Colin didn’t. I evolved a new interest, he didn’t. No one’s fault.
‘I mean, I’d love to stand in a white room and splash blobs of paint on the walls all day and get paid for it, but I can’t. I have to go out to work for a living,’ Colin informed me on another occasion.
‘That is work. That is the artist’s work,’ I told him.
‘Well, I’m in the wrong business, so.’ He’d more scoffed than laughed.
He just didn’t get it. That’s not me being a snob; I understand he doesn’t get it.
I don’t get lots of things too. I don’t get his fascination with Manchester United now that he is a grown man. Or how he can spend hours watching football results pop up on Sky Sports. Transfixed by them. Nor do I get why the female presenters on Sky Sports are made to dress like they are going to a summer wedding not to work. Nor do I get how he can scream insults and threats at players that couldn’t care less about him. I don’t get that he can’t see it’s all a money-making racket, a multi-million-pound business and these supporters are the mugs paying those grotesque, excessive, vulgar wages. I don’t get how he can waste so much of our money on it.
Just like he doesn’t get blobs of paint on canvas are a work of art.
Just like he doesn’t get how Lenny Abrahamson’s film Room is a masterpiece. Owen and I have spent hours and hours going over every detail of that film. Talking over one another with excitement and admiration.
Colin thought it was shite.
Listen, I don’t want to end my marriage over differences of sporting or creative opinions. I don’t think I want to end my marriage full stop. I know I don’t want to ruin my kids’ lives. I realise it doesn’t seem like that, but I can’t help how I am feeling, can I? It’s not a conscious thing. The chemistry is gone. It’s dead in the water. How do I get it back? How do I get us back? My mind takes me back further as I await my artist to return.
Hand on heart, we really were love’s young dream. After sixth year, we literally collapsed into one another like Noah and Allie in The Notebook. We were so instantly and intensely involved with each other and therefore neither of us got amazing results in our Leaving Cert exams. Not surprisingly, I could not get my head into studying when it was crammed full with this incredible new boyfriend. But we decided to go to a vocational college together and we both enrolled in a marketing diploma course in Rathmines Town Hall and we both got in. I never really knew what I wanted to do except marry Colin and have his babies. We were completely smitten with one another. After a year in college I dropped out when I got offered a job in Buy For Less, a free ads magazine, taking the calls from people and wording the ads for the items they wanted to sell; it was fine but it was just a job. Colin finished out the two-year diploma and went to work for Hallmark, the big greeting card company, out on the road.
Back then I didn’t have work ambition. I just had no clue what really interested me apart from Colin Devlin. I knew I adored going to the movies, reading books and seeing plays whenever I could, but they were just my hobbies, right? They had nothing to do with any job I may ever get. No one paid you for that stuff. I had no head for figures, or anything scientific. To be honest my careers guidance teacher had no clue what area to point me in. On one occasion she basically told me to find myself a rich farmer!
When we got married and I fell pregnant with Jade on our wedding night, I was over the moon. Ecstatic. I had come off the pill a few weeks before and I had been taking folic acid. I was educated. I was prepared. I was ready to procreate. We had just moved into our new house in Ranelagh. I gave up my job in Buy For Less at seven months and concentrated on getting the nursery right. Being a wife and mummy-to-be was total contentment for me. I was perfectly serene playing house. Colin had made no apologies that he wanted me to be a stay-at-home mum and I had wholeheartedly agreed.
When Jade was born, the love I felt was so overwhelming it was magical.
Nothing I’d read or seen or done had prepared me for motherhood, I just found my own way with my perfect baby girl. Life ticked along just fine, just as it was supposed to, but it all happened in the blink of an eye. That moment, when I walked away, hysterically sobbing, from Jade’s first day in St Theresa’s junior school, but she never looked back – that’s when I questioned my future life’s fulfilment. Other mothers were waving, blowing kisses and rushing off to work.
Women in power suits. Women in gym gear. Women going off to have a full day ahead of them. Women who had other interests.
I didn’t even have a hobby! I’d only had one focus after Jade was born: having another one. We had been trying for another baby for years. Years. Tortuous months of unwelcomed stained pants, and unwanted cramping. I went for every test possible. Colin didn’t go for one. He refused point-blank on the very good grounds that we had Jade so there was nothing wrong with his sperm. It was my fault. My body just wasn’t doing what it had done so easily the first time round conceiving Jade. And he point-blank refused to talk about IVF. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with it, he refused to even consider it.
‘It either happens or it doesn’t,’ he would say.
Or: ‘If it’s meant to be it will be.’
‘But it’s not happening and why are we ignoring the fact when we have loads of options?’ I’d try and explain them.
‘Test-tube babies! No way!’ He’d ignorantly argued against all my suggestions.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, it would still be our baby, just with medical assistance,’ I’d pleaded. He wouldn’t budge.
I did it all. Everything the fertility books had told me to do. I cut out alcohol, caffeine, sugar, dairy. I’d taken to meditation and visualisation and acupuncture. I was taking traditional Chinese medicine Every time we had sex I would lay, my legs in the air for up to an hour before clutching my knees to my chest still deteremind not to roll over should anything escape. My Google history was like a fertility encyclopaedia. I’d tried it all. Nothing worked. I was dumbstruck that we were having so much sex, at the right times, yet zero was happening. I was single-handedly keeping ovulation sticks in business. I could have built a raft out of all my used ones, and sailed out and collected Tom Hanks and Wilson. How could it be that over three hundred million sperm were floating around inside me? Sure, less than one hundred thousand of Colin’s soldiers were passing into my cervix every month – and, yes, only about two hundred of them would successfully reach my egg – but why wasn’t I becoming pregnant?
Anyway, that September morning when Jade started school, I dabbed my sodden tissue at my wet eyes on the slow walk home to my then coral blue-painted empty nest. As I watched the world start its day I decided to look up courses for mature students. A eureka moment, if you will. I was lonely, I admitted to myself for the first time. Defiantly I lifted my chin up high and sniffed up my snot. I was on a mission. As soon as I shut the front door behind me I went straight to the family computer in the kitchen, I didn’t even take my coat off or address the household mess. Searching, I came across a course in Griffith College that looked really interesting: Arts and Communications. On a whim I clicked the button and sent off for the application form. I can’t quite explain the relief that flooded through me. Colin was supportive, once he understood it didn’t interfere with Jade’s school drop-off and pick-up or his job. It didn’t; it was at night. The administrator called me for interview and a practical examination and when I got the letter to say I had secured a place I was thrilled. A new challenge.
Just before the first evening, as I was packing my college bag, I discovered I was pregnant. I’d had the Clearblue test hiding in the zipper part of my handbag for five days. You see, I wasn’t sure I wanted a baby any more. I’d wanted another baby for far too long. It was more than a want: it was a yearning. The yearning had exhausted me. The relentless yearning had become a scary thing. The relentless want and yearning and longing had left me feeling useless and empty. Now I was moving on.
But the test was positive.
The pregnancy meant much more to Colin in those early days and he suggested I defer the course until the baby was old enough; I’d have enough on my plate. Slowly I unpacked my college bag, dropped out of my place and got ready for our new baby. Once Mark was born I fell, instantly, head over heels in love and I completely forgot about any idea of an outside education and possible career.
Mark was an extremely difficult baby. He had colic, milk allergies; he bawled all day every day and all night every night, not a wink of sleep for the first six months. As Colin was up early and out on the road he needed his sleep so I was the one doing the night shifts and the day shifts. I was literally sick with exhaustion. A zombie. Just to see some different faces really, I joined a mother-and-babies Claphandies group once Mark had become a thriving one-year-old. It was there I saw the flyer for a part-time position at the City Arts Centre. The flyer was burnt orange and was sort of hiding behind another flyer for a breastfeeding club. I’d stood on my tippy-toes, prised the gold flat thumbtack out with my thumbnail and folded the flyer carefully into my bag.
Something about the words Arts Centre had given me a tingle of excitement.
So I told Colin about it, it was only part-time then, three mornings a week as part of a back-to-work scheme and he told me to go for it if that’s what I wanted. I don’t think he actually thought I was serious. So I went for it and the rest is history. Now, I eat, sleep and breathe my job. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a completely present mum. I do. I worship my children, they are the greatest gifts ever bestowed on me but after staying at home with Jade until she started school and after being at home with Mark for a year I knew I wanted to work outside the home. I knew I didn’t want to walk home to an empty nest the day Mark started school the way I had done after Jade’s first day. Seeing that flyer was meant to be. Colin’s business was growing every day, he was busier than he had ever been and I wanted some of that working life satisfaction for myself.
Anyhow, that was four years ago. When Colette offered me the job, I found a wonderful, retired woman on our road, Laura Delaney, who was a terrific child minder. I moved quickly from scheme trainee to the full-time paid coordinator all in one year. I adored the place. I adored the people, all the actors, musicians and artists, the creatives. Oh, how I adored the artist who had just returned to my office.
‘There are too many steps in this world.’ He flops in front of me again and picks up his coffee. ‘Just an observation I have wanted to share with you for some time, Alison dearest. Discuss?’
He crosses his legs and stretches them out.
‘Well, I dunno, I mean … they all lead somewhere right?’ I cross my skinny-jeaned legs and swirl my paper cup anticlockwise to gather the foam.
‘Do they, though? When we can see where they lead, are they really going anywhere at all?’ He laughs.
I laugh.
We both laugh.
I love how abstract conversations with him are. We always have the ‘Is drinking coffee really as arbitrary as eating caramels?’ conversations. I love them. If I started a conversation with Colin about where steps lead to, he wouldn’t know where to start.
‘Good morning, you two.’ Colette enters my office, a huge black ring binder tucked under her arm.
‘Michael is still in Merrion Square at the Arts Council meeting, so we will just get started. Ali, can you come on this trip or not?’ Colette, my boss, is gay; she is smart, kind, tough, an incredible mother to her two adopted sons from Cambodia and dedicated to helping children from the inner city become educated in the arts. Also a qualified social worker, she turned her hand to this job five years ago.
‘I’m on board, captain.’ I make the sign of a sailor and Owen laughs. He uncrosses his legs now and sits up straight.
‘Super, that’s great, I really want your opinions on various shows, so I’m booking the flights now. I have a printout of times here. Owen, I need to talk to you before we book your flight about something I’m looking into, can you pop up to me this afternoon?’
‘Sure, no probs,’ he says.
Colette opens her black ring binder with a click and removes a couple of stapled pages from a clear plastic pocket. She moves her clear-polished nail and dances it down the page.
‘A-ha, OK, so, Ali, you will leave Friday morning on the Aer Lingus to Amsterdam at six thirty; Michael and I will follow on the two o’clock after the opening of the new gallery exhibition. Owen, like I said, I need to see about your flight out, but we will all return Sunday night together on the eight thirty into Dublin.’ She licks her thumb as she flicks forward a few pages.
Immediately my stomach tightens. I thought we would be back by early Sunday afternoon. That’s a whole other day. Now I have to tell Colin it’s three days and two nights. Please don’t let there be a Manchester United game on this Sunday.
‘That all right with you? Jade and Mark sorted and all that?’ Colette looks up and studies me closely now.
‘Yeah, they are, that’s fine with me, Colette.’ I dip my finger into the creamy froth and lick it. It’s tepid now.
Colette continues, sliding the pages back into the clear plastic pocket.
‘We each have our own rooms. The Danker have been really generous with their funding for this trip, they are very well supported. They’ve got us a nice hotel, central location. Programming-wise we all need to split up Friday night and go see separate shows that we can possibly bring over here next spring. I have a list of what could travel cheaply and are suitable for our stage dimensions. Expect an email before the end of the day – choose your shows when you get a second and let me know. Saturday night we all watch the Very Messy Theatre Company’s work and we are invited to dinner with the company after. They are taking us to Ciel Blue, the only two-starred Michelin restaurant in Amsterdam; their beneficiary and board are joining us. I just had a look at it, here.’ She pulls her phone out of her shirt pocket, taps something in and hands it to me.
It looks stunning.
‘I am super excited to eat here! You know what a foodie I am. Read it out for Owen there,’ Colette says, her eyes dancing with the culinary excitement to come.
I adjust my eyes to the small text on Colette’s phone. Holding it at arm’s length to read.
‘Right, OK, the restaurant is located on the twenty-third floor of the delightful Hotel Okura with Chefs Onno Kok … Kok … Kok … KOKmeijer.’ I get the pronunciation after three attempts and go on reading. ‘And Arjan Speelman. They use fresh, locally produced ingredients to create gastronomic masterpieces.’
Owen makes a guttural sound and then he erupts with laughter.
‘What?’ I say but the sound of my voice saying the word cock over and over is spinning around my brain too. Keep it together. I glare at him and bite my lip. I can feel the laughter rolling from my stomach and gathering momentum. I can’t speak. My eyes are running.
‘What is going on with you two?’ Colette is genuinely puzzled as she leans in and takes her phone from me.
‘Are you all right, Owen?’ She doesn’t wait for his answer as he pinches his cheeks and she goes on.
‘Too much caffeine, I’m assuming. The days, as far as I’m concerned, are all yours team, just stay away from the hashish, you pair!’ Colette raises her eyebrows at Owen as she pushes her pencil into her ponytail. He raises his hand by way of apology.
‘What time are the Steffi Street gang arriving?’ she asks him as she gets up with her black folder. Her high street black suit and open-necked pink shirt are professional yet casual.
He’s composed now, thank God.
‘Ten thirty, I’m making sure their paintings are dry enough to take home today – just popped the windows open.’
‘Right, don’t give James Rafter his painting to take home; it’s the one of the crying ballerina, it’s so beautiful and as you know he told me his da’ will rip that faggoty shit up – so I’d like to frame it here and put it on Corridor One upstairs.’
‘Great, I’ll do that this afternoon.’ Owen nods his approval at Colette.
When Colette leaves, Owen closes the glass door. He sits on my desk now.
‘Sorry, I couldn’t cope.’
We both fall around laughing.
‘What are we like? A pair of kids!’ he gasps.
‘Absolute idiots! Morons … I’m mortified by us!’ I clutch my stomach tightly. ‘Colette must think we are mad.’ I let out a slow breath and sit back at my desk. I hit the return button on my laptop and the screen jumps back to life.
‘I’m really looking forward to this weekend away though … I do honestly wonder, will we have adjoining rooms? I could nip in and out when I wanted …’
‘Stop …’ Suddenly I’m not laughing.
‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ He stares into my eyes. ‘I’m messing with ya!’ He moves over and pokes me gently in the ribs.
‘I know you are, but … It’s Colin … We are … we’re really going through a bad patch. We’re killing each other all the time … I think it’s run its course.’ I can’t believe those words have come out of my mouth. Deadly thing to say! Alarm bells ring inside my head.
Bong!
Bong!
Bong!
They echo. I know exactly what I’m doing and I am a witch! I have planted that seed in Owen’s head now. I instantly try to take it back.
‘Sorry, this isn’t anything for you to worry about. I’m sure we can work it out, maybe I just need a break! He is a great dad …’ I hate myself.
‘It’s genuinely not any of my business, your marriage. However, we are friends … but I’m not going to say anything, Ali … well, because …’ He looks down at the floor and then raises his eyes and looks up at me coyly with those deep brown eyes. I am floating in them.
‘Well, you know why, I guess, by now. And it wouldn’t be fair on you or on Colin for me to add to the issues that you are already having. I’ll see you in the Beans at lunch, yeah?’
He runs his hands over his shaven head speedily. Then he drains his coffee, takes his paper cup, stands on the bin pedal and drops it in. The bin lid clatters. Just like my bin lid at home. I don’t jump from the noise but my heart is pumping. He fancies me too. He basically just said it there. I am euphoric. I am horrified.
My desk phone rings and its Colin’s mobile on the caller ID.
‘I better get this,’ I say.
‘I’m gone, girl, gone,’ he says and takes his leave.
‘Hi.’ I hold the receiver tight to my right ear.
‘We need to talk. I can’t concentrate on anything today … and I have a big day ahead.’ He pauses.
‘I know.’ I lean forward and roll some soft Blu-Tack between my fingers, making a small round ball.
‘Is there anything you need to tell me? Is there something going on with you and that artist bloke?’ he huffs.
Thank God in heaven he didn’t ask me this face to face because I would have gone beetroot red from head to toe. I’m on fire. I don’t answer quickly enough. I squeeze the Blu-Tackball out flat between my index finger and thumb. Splat.
‘Ali?’ he has to prod.
‘No … no, Colin, no … don’t be ridiculous,’ I reaffirm with three no’s.
‘Because he’s a total knob and he wants to ride you.’ I can hear an indicator ticking away. It’s in time to my heartbeat.
‘Is Maia in the car with you there?’ I ask horrified.
‘No, she’s gone into the meeting. I’m parking the car.’
There is silence.
‘I’m telling you he wants to ride you,’ he repeats.
‘That’s not true …’ I swallow hard.
‘It is.’
‘It is not …’
‘I tell you one thing, Ali, if I ever get wind of anything between you two, he’s dead and so are you.’
My heart starts to beat heavy in my chest.
‘Charming,’ is all I can manage.
We both remain silent, only our breaths meeting.
‘Look, I didn’t ring for another fight,’ he says.
‘You could have fooled me,’ I say.
‘I just can’t seem to find the girl I married any more, Ali. Where is she?’
‘Well, I’m still here, Colin. I’m just not a girl any more.’ I twist the cord around my fingers.
A pause.
‘You’ll always be my girl.’ His voice is sad.
A pause.
‘We’ll try and talk later, yeah?’ I say.
‘Yeah. I miss you, Ali.’
He hangs up before I have to answer and I’m glad.
My phone rings immediately and I leap on it. It’s not him ringing back, it’s a call in relation to the exchange programme, so I take a deep breath and I try to busy myself in my work. When I get off the call I have lots to do with my elders in the St Andrew’s Resource Centre and that takes my mind off everything for the rest of the morning.
At lunchtime I’m starving. I didn’t bother with the rashers on toast this morning; I just drowned myself in strong tea. I make my way down to the ground floor, to the Beans slightly before one o’clock. I say hi to Patricia, the lease owner and head chef. Patricia does great food: wholesome soups and salads, yes, but also egg and chips, home-made shepherd’s pie and fried chicken rolls. Comfort food. She has an allotment near the Four Courts. Today her specials are lentil bean soup, tomato soup, tuna burgers with sweet potato chips, and a mixed grill with freshly baked warm white crusty rolls. I get a ten per cent discount. Office workers from all over Dublin 1 will arrive any second now. Sliding my brown tray along the metallic line I order the lentil soup with two small crusty white bread rolls, pour myself a pint of tap water and take my tray to the far end of the cafe. We can use the little kitchen for staff behind the cafe to make lunch but I rarely bother. I have to cook enough when I get home. Owen is outside the Inners, its box office opposite the Beans entrance. He waves. He’s on his phone. Pacing up and down. I sit and immediately add salt and grind plenty of black pepper into my soup and I text Corina.
Want to come over later for a glass of vino, Colin’s on an overnighter? Xx
‘What’s the soup?’ Owen is standing over me now, picking green paint from his long, lean fingers.
‘Lentil,’ I tell him, stuffing my phone back in my bag.
He pulls out a chair opposite me and scrapes it noisily off the ceramic tiles. Sitting opposite me, he makes two fists with his hands, brings them up under his chin and bursts into song, ‘Papa, can you hear me? Papa, can you see me? Papa, can you find me in the niiigghhtttttt?’ He is all closed eyes and deep, intense, booming voice.
‘That’s Yentl, ya loon!’ I roar, laughing at him. As we found out early on in our friendship, we are both huge Barbra Streisand fans. We are always looking for a reason to break into a Barbra tune. When I stop, he is staring into my eyes. We stare at each other. Suddenly my mouth is dry. I lick my lips before reaching in my pocket for my rosy Vaseline and slather it all over my lips. Owen watches me intently.
‘I’m still laughing at your triple cock outburst. I’ve just been busting my ass laughing at various moments throughout the morning.’ He shakes his head. ‘You’re mad.’
‘I’m gonna get you back for that … I’m gonna ask Chef Kok’whatever to come out and meet us after the meal and I’m going to tell him you can do the Riverdance backwards and—’
‘You deserve to be happy, Ali,’ he interrupts me, deadly serious face, ‘that’s all I’m going to say.’
His hands come to rest on top of his head and he leaves them there, linked together.
We continue to look at each other. Really look at each other. I can look into his eyes so easily. We can maintain eye contact for hours. It’s so comfortable.
‘I know I do …’ I can’t find any other words. I don’t know what to say. I know what I should say: ‘I am happy, Owen. It’s a blip … a rough patch. All marriages go through one and we will get through this.’
But I don’t.
He drops his hands now and picks up one of my bread rolls, tears it in half, leans across and dips it into my soup.
‘Mmmm, excellent soup, Patricia.’ He chews quietly. ‘If I ever get my act together and have an exhibition, Patricia is doing the nibbly bits.’
‘Work away, I’m happy to share, I’m not really that hungry.’ I push the bowl into the middle of the table. It’s true: my appetite has dissipated.
‘I can’t see how anyone, any person, can tell another person what’s worthy to them isn’t worthy. I hate that shit … That’s what I wanted to say.’
He picks up my spoon and helps himself to soup. When he replaces the spoon by me, we stare at one another again and already it’s a different staring. It’s a want.
‘I simply can’t comprehend that, Ali.’
My phone beep beeps in my bag and I’m glad of the excuse.
It’s Corina.
Sounds great – 8.30pm and I’ll bring the pulled pork.
I laugh. She means the family-size bags of Walkers Pulled Pork and Ranchero crisps.
‘Here’s the Steffi Street bus, I better get the kids into the drawing room …’ He is looking out the long high widows of the Beans as he scrapes the floor again, pushing back his chair.
‘Yeah, OK …’
‘See ya later.’ He puts his hand across mine. ‘I’m always here if you need an ear, ya know that, without wanting to sound cheesy – and I just heard myself and that really does sound cheesy – but I’m just not sure what to say about Colin, Ali, and I don’t want to say anything I shouldn’t.’
I’ve put him in a terrible position.
‘It’s fine, Owen, it’s going to sort itself – maybe the break away will do me, us, good.’ I laugh, slightly too high-pitched and pick up my soup spoon. He moves away. Suddenly I feel ashamed. I think of my two incredible children and how with one selfish act I can ruin their lives. This isn’t me. I’m not that type of person. I’m a good mother. I’m not a cheater. Definitely, I think, I need some type of counselling. I stare out the long glass window at the roughness of the River Liffey and eat the rest of my well-seasoned lukewarm soup. Dublin is deep into winter as December drops heavier upon us. People hurry past, cupped hands with coat collars pulled up. Flushed faces. Rushing to get indoors quicker. Jade has gymnastics at seven tonight and she needs a new leotard for Friday afternoon’s competition. She is starting to develop, I think as I add even more salt to the remains. Little buds of breasts. I’m not sure how to approach her about this yet; and I know she is aware of it. I think I’ll let it go a while. I can’t push her away any further. The more I try to hold her the more she wrestles away and I don’t know why.
There is a lot to do if I am to get to Dance World this afternoon so I finish my lunch, rummage in my bag for my vitamin C and zinc tablet, knock it back with the end of my tap water and head back upstairs to my office.
Flopping onto my swivel chair, I awake my sleeping laptop. No word from Colin. Flicking through my emails I spot the mail from Colette and the list of what shows she needs us to attend on Friday night. That means during the day I will be in Amsterdam, on my own. Owen, too.
Butterflies escape in my stomach and hit against the sides like a fly in a glass house. This thing I feel for Owen is actually so physical I can’t stop it. It’s making me nervous and therefore nauseous.
I open the attachment and scroll down the list – quite a few smaller shows to choose from – I’m mainly looking for smaller production companies whose values and ethos will be the right fit for the City Arts Centre audience. I’m also consciously looking for anything that Owen will avoid. The thoughts of him sitting close to me in a darkened box in Amsterdam are too much for me to take. Scrolling down, I see one. A small theatre company from Haarlem have a one woman show called Heat – performed in English. It seems unlikely that Owen will choose this one and it’s also a half hour away from where we are staying so I open a separate email and I mail Colette that I’ll scout this show. There is no set, it’s easy to travel – just one cast member, the lighting designer and the stage manager.
I google more about Amsterdam, it tells me it’s often taken over by tourists, there is just so much to do and see and most people tend to take it in as a weekend break. It’s also home to the Teylers Museum, the oldest museum in the Netherlands. Colin hates museums, I adore them. I love their smell. I could spend hours and hours strolling around just staring at the history and lives and experiences hanging on a wall or in a glass box. The last time I asked Colin to come we took the kids to the National History Museum. There just happened to be a glass case that was empty and he went on and on and oohed and ahhed at the brilliance of the non-existent piece. He made it all into one big joke and had them in absolute stitches.
Now, while I’m always on for a good laugh, it was slightly inappropriate. He should be encouraging culture, especially home-grown. Not making a mockery of it. Corina again said I was overreacting.
‘Ah, come on, Ali, some of it is a bit pretentious, you have to agree?’ She had been eating a 99 ice cream with raspberry ripple at the time and I remember watching in awe as she cleverly calculated the ratio of chocolate flake to ice cream and nibbled and licked her way to the end.
I didn’t agree.
I hear a commotion outside and stand up to look out my window. Down below I see Owen with his Steffi Street class. He is marching and they are marching behind him. I stand on my tippy-toes and open my window slowly. This is all a part of ‘Arts in the Community’ that the school and Colette have programmed as part of their fourth-class curriculum.
‘Left right, left right, left right – get in step, James Rafter, that’s it, we are an art army, we are art soldiers!’ He lifts his left hand to his head and flicks out a salute. I grin widely.
‘Canna woman bea soldier, sir?’ asks a little girl in navy jeggings and a navy hoody, tugging Owen’s shirt.
‘A woman can be anything she wants to be, Zoe. Anything.’ He places his hands on her tiny shoulders and squeezes them
‘Now what do we see?’ He extends his hands to their urban surroundings.
‘Nuttin’,’ comes a voice from the back of the line.
‘Nothing, James Rafter? And why have you come out again today with no coat? Are we still this blind to the nature around us? Please …’ He runs his hands over his shaven head. ‘Look harder.’ He leans back against the grey-graffitied lamp post.
They all look around, giggling, messing.
‘I see a bird, sir,’ James Rafter offers now.
‘Exactly!’ Owen bends at the knees and snaps his fingers on both hands. ‘Now what is it doing, James?’
‘Flyin’, sir.’
He joins James and they both look up into the sky.
‘That bird, James, is just like us on this journey through life. We fly together in groups, in gangs, if you want: sometimes one of us is in the front, the leader, but when one tires and falls back, if one is having problems, a new bird takes the lead – they all stick together; they have one another’s backs. Just like you guys.’
The Steffi Street gang all nod in unison, in understanding.
I shut the window gently. I return to my seat and I pinch the bridge of my nose so tightly it hurts.