I’m not quite as snappily dressed as I usually am for work, I admit to myself, as I close my office door. This morning we slept in. I completely forgot to set the bedroom alarm clock. Of course I did. Totally my fault. We were all late and I look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards. You know those rushed mornings: your make-up doesn’t blend, the nib breaks off your eyeliner and you cannot find a sharpener, you can’t find the right coloured bra or matching socks, the jeans that you are wearing are too tight underneath, the slide in your hair keeping your fringe out of your eyes has snapped, and no matter how many times you empty your overflowing bag there just isn’t another loose one in there.
Colin had been furious. He had indeed slept in the bed beside me but I hadn’t heard him getting in. He had pulled the duvet down and screamed me awake.
‘It’s after eight, Ali, did you not set the fucking alarm clock? I have a display presentation at nine in Dundalk! Fucking hell! Nice one, thanks!’
He had dressed by the bed in yesterday’s clothes, which were hung neatly over the wicker chair, and run down the stairs, taking them two by two, grabbed his keys off the glass hall table and straight out the door.
I was also running late for work and had an important meeting and people waiting on me. Even though sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, nephews, nieces, friends and neighbours had agreed to drop the older club members to the St Andrews Resource Centre for ten o’clock this morning and were returning to collect them at twelve o’clock. Even though necessary medicines had been administered before they left to coincide with the meeting. But my time isn’t as important.
So it was down to me to get the kids up, breakfasted and dressed, drive them to school, do the whole sign-in-late shit, which drives me potty as it just makes already flustered parents even later! Only then was I allowed to get myself to my work.
I was so late. When eventually I reached work I ran up to my office and gathered all the stuff from my desk that I needed, mainly the release forms to be signed so that we could legally display the work. God bless Corina, I’d texted her at a red light on the way to the school to see if she might be free this morning to help me out of a massive hole. As usual she had my back. She had got there at ten o’clock for me and she was holding the fort. It was a quarter past ten by the time I looked up at my ticking office clock and dashed back down the stairs.
Anyway, I am relieved Owen is in Belfast. He usually sees me looking pretty together. My work clothes are normally skinny jeans and a nice shirt teamed with my black suede ankle boots. I sweep my blonde fringe to the left-hand side, it needs a cut. I usually cut it every four weeks but I’ve decided to grow my hair longer. Colin loves short hair on me, which I suppose is why I’ve always had it short.
I wave at Jenny on reception as I leave through the front door of the centre and put my free hand out to hail a cab. The Steffi Street gang are just arriving as I look down the road; Mick the handyman is taking them today, showing them maintenance management. As I stand in the bitter cold, hand turning blue as it waves about for a cab, their noisy bus coughs to a halt and I watch them all emerge. Some without coats, some with hoodies pulled up over their heads. Owen is so incredible with them; he really should be an art teacher in a school. I see Zoe, the little girl Owen is always on about. The one who lives with her granny in the flats in Old Bond Street. Both her parents are heroin addicts, doing time. James Rafter irritating her by standing on her lace that has come undone.
Or maybe that’s the look. Open laces. I think of my beautiful Jade. She just seems so angry towards me right now. She has so much to be grateful for but I think all she really craves is for Colin and me to be happy. She’s eleven, she gets it, she feels the rows and the anxiety and I hate myself deeply for making her live through this. I know she doesn’t have it as hard as these kids, nowhere near it, and I know I can’t pop her inside the perfect bubble ending of It’s A Wonderful Life, but still. Speaking of which, I reluctantly remove my phone and dial Colin’s number, holding the phone under my ear with my chin and shoulder. The bitterly cold, hard breeze blowing my fringe into my eyes.
‘Yeah?’ I can hear an animated breakfast talk show on the radio in his car.
‘Good morning to you too.’ I am trying.
‘Traffic was an absolute bitch, I couldn’t even get onto the M50 for half an hour, I’m only pulling in here now,’ he pants. ‘Thank God for Maia, she was early so I prepped her over the blower and she’s in there already.’ I hear his engine die. Talk show terminated.
I wave frantically at a taxi with its light on. He doesn’t stop.
I gesture wildly to him to turn off his fecking light!
‘Can you meet for lunch today? We need to talk. Will you be back in Dublin in time?’ I start walking in the piercing cold, heading in the direction of the centre, still eyeing up the traffic for a free taxi.
‘Maybe, not in that City Arts Centre though. That food yer one, Patricia, cooks is rancid.’ I hear him opening the car door.
‘OK, how about the Pepper Palace at half past two, after the lunch rush and that will give you time to get back from Dundalk?’ I suggest hopefully.
‘Grand. I’ve a call from Maia coming in here, I need to take it, Ali. See ya later.’ He rings off. Hallelujah. A cab pulls in and I wave at a latecomer from the Steffi Street gang, who is meandering down the road as I hop in and give my destination. Sitting back, I try to compose myself. This cab doesn’t smell too great, stale cigarette smoke and coffee. Perhaps a vomit or two not properly taken care of. Springs in the back seat stick up into my bottom. I shut my eyes. Deep breathing.
After I’d finished messaging Owen last night, lying there in the dark listening to my children brush their teeth, I was overcome with emotion. What was I doing? Even though nothing has happened or, I hope, ever will happen, this is all wrong. It was one thing to fantasise about him but now I’m telling this man I don’t want him to leave, to take a fantastic job in France, flirting with him over Facebook, am I completely off my head? I had listened to Colin putting the kids to bed with a lump in my throat. He is a caring, loving father; he adores his children and they adore him. He works really hard to give us a comfortable life. I listened harder to Mark’s very loud whispers.
‘But, Daddy, please … I want Mummy to put me to bed, she does nosies,’ he’d pleaded with his father.
‘Mummy had a very long day, dude. She’s very tired; she can do nosies in the morning, little man,’ Colin had told him.
My eyes popped open. I hadn’t drawn the bedroom curtains because the sky was as black as coal now and it would be the same in the morning.
The stars in the dark sky made a pattern of a giant climbing a large hill. I have to try and fix this mess, I promised myself, as my eyes fell heavy, that I would talk to Colin today. I don’t know what I’m going to say over lunch later. It’s nothing to do with Owen really; I just can’t go on like this any more.
‘Sort it!’ I say to myself inside the cab. ‘You are a mother first, remember that. Your own mother did that for you, she put everything else on hold to raise you.’
And she did. Daddy dearest, Paddy O’Dwyer, left Bernie O’Dwyer and me when I was eight years old. He moved to Blackpool to live with his childhood sweetheart, who he had reconnected with through the Thin Lizzy fan club. Over to Dublin, came the pair of them once, by the B&I boat, when I was ten years old, and took me to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at the Olympia Theatre. I was seated behind a huge white pillar, it was uncomfortable and I wasn’t very communicative. Daddy dearest bought me one of those glow sticks and I sat, my hand gripping it so tightly, the mark stayed for days. She was nice enough, Marie, or Mar’eeeee. A slim woman with short curly mauve hair. She’d had a large packet of strawberry bon bons in a small square brown paper bag that she offered me at various times during the show. I declined. Even though I desperately wanted one, I was too shy to dip my hand in. Whenever I hear ‘Bless Your Beautiful Hide’ to this day I can see Marie, or Mar’eeee, chewing away like a sucky calf.
That was the last time I saw them. As far as I know they still live in Blackpool and run a B&B near the North Pier. Mum wouldn’t accept the pitiful offered maintenance from Daddy dearest and never met anyone else either. She wasn’t a qualified accountant but she was brilliant with figures and she did people’s books from our small three-bed semi-detached house in Rathfarnham. Mum never moaned, never told me her life was shit. In fact, I don’t think it really was shit. Hard, for sure, but not shit. I think Bernie O’Dwyer quite enjoyed being a single and independent mother. She was always a mother first. That was her one true gift. She was an exceptional mother. She used to read poetry to me all the time but especially at night when we’d be cuddled up in her big bed. She loved romantic poems. She always read that famous one by Forest Witcraft, but she expecially loved ones by unknown authors. We must have read them all a thousand times.
When she came across a new one she’d enthuse, ‘Oh, fabulous … author unknown, how truly poetic and moving that a nameless, faceless person left behind such magnificent art.’
Why can’t I be like her? Or is this a part of me wanting to be too much like him? Would a shrink tell me I’m following a pattern? Just as well I don’t buy into all that BS. My father isn’t in my life and nor will he ever be. Am I damaged by this? No. I’m really not. If I want to go and see him and sit on his knee with yellow ribbons in my hair sucking on a fizzy cola lolly, I know where he is. I am happy to talk out my marital issues with Colin to a professional but I’m not interested in delving back to find the cause in our respective childhoods. I know why: Colin’s being a dickhead. Full stop.
‘Eight fifty, love, when yer ready there.’ The taxi man wraps his arm around the passenger seat as he turns his head. Flat cap and yellow fingers. I hand him a tenner and thank him. The cold fresh air is suddenly welcoming after the stench in the cab. I rush into the resource centre and down to the back into Room 2. The music hits me before I open the door.
‘Ohhh, the hokey-cokey-cokey!’ I literally do a double take. Corina Martin is in the middle of the floor doing the hokey-cokey as the old folks all make a wide circle around her and put their left legs in and take their left legs out. An iPhone plays the music propped up on a desk against a large jigsaw box.
‘Come, come! Join us, Ali!’ Corina beckons me into the circle as she puts her right leg in and takes her right leg out. Her knee-length red skirt is flowing and flapping to the beat. I join in. I laugh hard. Corina is dressed in a bright red wrap-around top too, her knee-length skirt is red wool and her knee-high black boots expose a flash of green tights as she hokey-cokeys her legs around. Santa’s little helper.
When we are finished Corina runs out to make tea for us all and I ask everyone to relax and take out their pictures. They all place them on the long trestle table at the back of Room 2 and then sit down. Those in wheelchairs or on frames stayed seated and placed them on their knees. I walk around and look. Everyone has tried. Everyone has drawn something. I am proud and I am mesmerised. I am fascinated. I am humbled. Nanny Farrell has drawn herself as a young girl; partially blind now, she managed to sketch from her mind’s eye a small girl sitting by the canal and a huge yellow sun beaming down on her. Mary Clancy, seventy-nine, drew in pencil. Mary drew seven stick children and a small box. I question her.
‘The box, Mary?’ I run my fingers over the sketching.
‘Ahh, that’s me eighth born, Kathleen, she was took from me when she was three-year-old … TB.’ Mary smiles at me a watery smile, her tear ducts now stretched with age and sadness of the memory of a lost child and I reach down and hold her cold hand, bulging blue veins and wedding rings that haven’t been removed in years.
‘Tell me about Kathleen.’ I keep hold of her hand and kneel down beside her.
‘Ah she was a beaut, the apple of me eye, so she was, hair as white as snow. She was never well from the day she was born … her chest. She slept in me arms for them three years. I miss her today the same as I did the day the good Lord took her from my arms as we both slept …’ Huge fat tears drip softly and slowly down Mary’s face. She doesn’t wipe them, it’s as though they are a part of her face.
‘I never forget it, Ali. ’Twas the start of spring and the seagulls were bleating outside. The room was warm and bright. She was nestled into me. I didn’t want to move as I was happy she was gettin’ sleep, her breathin’ had been so bad the night before … up all night me and her were. Walked the floor with her I did till the sun came up. I lay there for over an hour but little did I know she left me durin’ the night. It was only when I tried to move to go down and put 50p into the gas meter for the breakfast … only when I seen her little face …’ Her chin wobbles and her nose starts to run.
‘C’mon now, Mary,’ says Eileen Kilkenny, an eighty-one-year-old leaning on a silver frame, placing one slow orthopaedic navy lace-up shoe in front of the other toward Mary.
‘Won’t she be waiting for ya with her little arms raised when you leave this world?’ Eileen reaches Mary and puts her hand on her shoulder. Then she leans on the frame, panting.
‘She will, Eileen, an’ yer right a’course.’ Mary’s face lights up. The tears rest in the deep crevices on her face. She doesn’t feel them. Mary unclasps her old-fashioned bag and removes her rosary beads, she knits them around her old fingers and becomes lost in prayer.
I stand up. There is nothing to say.
Brian Drennan, eighty-one years old, has drawn a river and what appear to be a lot of machines or cranes high in the skyline.
‘The docks.’ He blows his red thread-veined nose loudly into his clean white linen handkerchief. ‘Fifty year I spent on dem docks, man and boy.’ He examines the contents before he folds it away up into his sleeve.
‘It’s great, Brian, thanks,’ I say. ‘Have you been down there at all recently?’
‘Sure I can’t get around anywhere with the hip. Only me daughter runs me here. I’d be looking at dem four walls, day in day out.’
I will take him down the docks in the New Year. Nothing surer than that.
Kitty Tead, eighty-four, has drawn a large cross and coloured it in perfectly, all in black.
‘A cross, Kitty?’ I ask.
‘It’s for my Lord, I give thanks every day for what he did for us. I hope you go to Mass and bring yer chil’er’dren?’ She wags a bony finger at me.
‘I try … and that is wonderful, Kitty,’ I add. Her faith is inspiring. No fear of death. Awaiting reunion with past loved ones. Amazing.
Corina bursts back in.
‘Tea is up, my party of spring chickens!’ She is holding a round silver tray with a huge old-fashioned silver teapot on it. The old-school one, you know, the one with the really long narrow spout. Like a baby elephant’s trunk. Behind her a young, petite Asian girl, Shirushi, is carrying cups, with matching milk jug and sugar bowl designed with brown-and-orange stripes along with a box of Jaffa Cakes on a large wooden tray. We break for tea and Corina hands me a cup. I walk around and look at the drawings as I sip my hot drink.
How can Colin say this isn’t important work? These are our people, our elderly, that can be so quickly forgotten, but they have so much to say and to offer and to teach us. I want them to be heard and seen. Generations should be fussed over not forgotten. One day we will all, if we are very, very lucky, be them. There are various pictures I can’t wait to show Owen. He will be fascinated! By the time twelve o’clock comes and family members and friends arrive to take them all home, we have had another round of the hokey-cokey, Kitty Tead sang ‘Paddlin’ Madeline’ and everyone had a chance to see each other’s pictures.
‘That was a lovely morn’nin’,’ Kitty Tead tells me as I help her to her son’s car. He’s double-parked, hazards flashing and stressed-looking, speaking loudly on his phone. A builder, I see by his clothes and hard hat. He’s in a hurry to get back to work. He shouldn’t have had to leave. There should be transport provided for these people.
‘Will we be gettin’ ’nother project to do, love?’ Nanny Farrell pokes her wooden cane into my shin.
‘You bet, this is only the start of it. If we can get the funding for the bus on a weekly basis, you can all come over to the City Arts Centre and we can do loads of stuff there. Have a whole plan of activities for next year,’ I shout into her good ear, as Nanny is also almost stone deaf.
‘No need to shout, I’m not deaf, ya know.’ She bangs the cane on the ground as it supports her move to the car.
When they are all gone, I walk Corina down to her car.
‘I’ll drop you back,’ she offers and I accept. It’s bitterly cold again and sleet has started to fall.
‘What have you on now?’ I ask as I pull my seat belt across in her little car, blowing onto my cupped hands.
‘Oh wait for this: Masked, the dating service, are launching their new app. I have been working on the event last few weeks and the owners are rather weird. A married couple with a lot of quirky outlooks on life. They want everyone to come today in masks and I’m, like, eh, no press are interested in masked faces: those pictures will not land anywhere. They are literally making my job impossible.’ She turns on her engine, checks her mirrors and indicates to pull out.
I laugh and I turn to her. ‘So … ’ows Trevor, chuck? Eh? Eh?’ I put on my best Coronation Street accent.
She stares straight ahead, the windscreen wipers speeding up as she pulls out.
‘Not interested.’ She tries to pretend her visibility is bad and shifts forward in her seat closer to the windscreen.
‘What?’ I ask her.
‘Nope, I dunno, Ali, I really don’t. Like I told you, I held off sleeping with him, played the good girl card. We got on like a house on fire … had amazing sex and then nada! There’s obviously something very wrong with me.’ She shifts up into third gear.
‘There isn’t … What did he say?’ Idiot, I think.
She indicates again and turns down the quays.
‘Are you ready for this? So we had sex, really great sex, he stayed the night. I got up early, did the whole Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids routine on him, re-did my mascara, brushed my teeth, rolled on deodorant, Jo Maloned myself, fixed my hair and snuck back into the bed. I gently woke him. We chatted and kissed, but I dunno, I immediately felt he wanted to get out of my bed. Which he quickly did. When I offered to make him a fry-up he said he had to get to work. There were no more questions about me, or what I liked and all that previous stuff. He was monosyllabic. I told him I really liked him and that I’d had a great time. He didn’t say anything back to me except, “Where’s my watch, d’ya know?” In a strange sort of defensive tone. Anyway, then he hurriedly left and just said, “See ya,” but me being me – oh, wait for this, Ali, Corina Martin strikes again! I texted him a few times during the day and when he never replied to any of them, I left it until after I left your house to call him but he didn’t answer. Then in the taxi I swapped to private number – don’t judge me, I was drunkish and feeling very suspicious. Just as I thought, he answered and when he heard my voice, he was like, “Yeah, what d’ya want?” I was tipsy and said a few naughty things to him, and then he said, “Look I have a girlfriend, it’s serious, so ya know … that’s that, love. Don’t call me again or I’ll block your number.” And he hung up on me.’
‘Oh, Corina!’ I exclaim. She is driving faster and I have to hold onto the tiny handle above the passenger’s window. We drive in silence.
‘Shouldn’t have rang him after him not texting me back all day. Will I ever learn?’ she says eventually as she pulls up fast outside the arts centre and pushes on her hazards.
I shake my head.
‘No, probably not, love … but you know what: better to know he was a waste of space, yeah?’ I click my belt.
‘I guess … I just feel … I dunno … used … again! He made such an effort to get know me, like, seriously spent ages asking about my family, my job, he wanted to know it all … my favourite film, favourite food, and for what?’
‘He’s a prick,’ I say.
‘Like, was it his mission just to ride me and then just dump me?’
I shake my head at her.
‘C’est la vie, eh?’ she says. ‘I’m … maybe I’m just not long-term loveable, Ali.’ She winks at me but it’s a slow, drawn-out wink. Her eyes aren’t dancing behind it.
I stare at her gorgeous splattering of freckles.
‘I don’t know that I’ve ever met anyone as loveable as you, Corina. You are an amazing woman and any guy would be so blessed to share his life with you.’ I mean every single word.
‘I better fly, I have a mask to buy. Oh, shit, you aren’t going to do a mime now I said that, are you?’ she slags me.
I shut my eyes tight and hover my hand over the door handle.
‘What are we like?’ I say.
‘Like two big bloody eejits.’ She flicks off her hazards, indicates and looks in her mirror. I get out and slam the door, and she pulls away.
I have so much work to do before I go to Amsterdam on Friday. I head into the centre and up to my office. I look at my desk – it resembles my brain: shit everywhere. I focus on tidying up my space first, recycling paper as I go, and then get to work on my city council and Arts Council applications for funding the St Andrew’s Resource Centre transport. I’ll work on the Steffi Street kids’ new learning sign language programme after that’s finished, I think.
Before I know it, it’s coming up to two o’clock. I save my work on the applications and grab my coat from the back of my chair. I look out the window. Dublin is dull and dark. Huge black clouds hang low. I make my way out of the arts centre and turn left down Moss Street towards the Pepper Palace. It’s a lovely cosy cafe run by an Australian couple, Samantha and Daisy. They were recently married and had their wedding reception in the cafe. Owen and I popped down with a card and had a glass of bubbles with them. Pretty cool ladies. The sleet is starting to come down very heavy now as I push open the door and see my husband sitting in the back far left corner beside the painted Santa window and the white, flickering Christmas tree. His head buried in a menu and he’s still wearing his coat.
‘Hiya, so cold, isn’t it?’ I slide into the white plastic seat opposite him and pull myself in. He smiles at me.
‘Yeah, a bit, I suppose. I’ve mainly been in the car, how’s things?’ He puts the menu down.
‘Yeah, grand. Sorry about the alarm, Colin,’ I offer my apology as I unwind my scarf slowly and peel off my coat. I stuff the scarf far down into the sleeve. I’m always losing scarfs. I turn and hang the coat off the back of my chair.
‘Anything good on their specials?’ I pick up the long, slim menu.
He shakes his head.
‘I’m not hungry today at all for some reason. Must be the big meal you served me last night. I’m just going to have a bowl of soup, it’s butternut squash, Daisy just told me.’
I ignore his jibe. The mention of soup springs a vivid picture of Owen into my head.
‘You badly need a haircut, Ali,’ Colin says now as he removes his coat.
‘Do I? Do I really, Colin?’ I say very dramatically, it’s all a bit Hannibal Lecter-sounding, as I lean my chin in my hands elbows on the table.
‘What is up with you lately? Honestly this PMS thing is really out of hand, Ali, you are like a psycho all the time. You jump on every little thing I say.’ He pushes the stainless steel salt and pepper pots away from my elbows towards the window. Maybe he is right, maybe this is all hormonal, because the hair comment has me raging inside and I don’t know why. I need to calm down. Right on cue Daisy approaches.
‘G’day, how are you, Ali? Getting set for Christmas?’ She pulls her small red pencil from behind her ear and takes her dog-eared notepad from the pocket of the white apron tied tightly around her slim waist.
‘Nothing even started yet, I’ve a business trip away this weekend, so I’ll be into all that when I get back,’ I tell her.
She nods. She has recently come back from a trip back home Down Under. Her skin is golden brown, her hair sun-bleached and she looks so relaxed. Oh, Vitamin D. How I need thee. I see myself do Marcel again. Horrific.
‘Just two butternut squash soups, please, with brown bread,’ I tell her.
‘Wholemeal, rye or sour dough?’ she offers, licking the nib of the red pencil and writing down our order. Samantha bakes all the bread in here the night before.
I look at Colin, he shrugs his shoulders.
‘Surprise us!’ I laugh, ‘And two tap waters too, thanks.’
Colin is on his phone now. I study him. His dimple deep and so familiar. I close my eyes and hope when I open them he has disappeared. For the second time in as many minutes I wonder whether it’s all me. Why would I want my husband to disappear? The cafe door opens and two office workers with accreditation badges swinging around their necks come in, shaking out their cold hands and take a free table. I lean in and with my index finger gently push his phone out of his hand down onto the table.
‘We need to talk, Colin,’ I say in a low serious tone.
‘OK, go on.’ He looks at me curiously as he puts the phone down.
‘Things aren’t good, Colin, … between us, I mean. Like, not good at all, are they? I think—’
‘What is wrong with you, Ali?’ he interrupts, leaning in now too in hushed tones.
‘What is going on with you? I can’t figure you out, you are so miserable all the time, you are so snappy.’
All I can hear is his accusation: YOU. YOU. YOU.
‘I’m not, Colin. You … you, you pick on me all the time … I—’
He interrupts again. ‘What are you, twelve? Jade’s more mature.’
‘I mean it. I can’t seem to do anything right in your eyes.’
He genuinely looks shocked.
‘Give me an example?’ He says.
‘Well, take Sunday for example, you had a problem with me drying Jade’s leggings in the dryer …’
He scoffs.
‘Yeah, because putting a single pair of leggings into a dryer is stupid. Sorry, but it is. It’s costly and so bad for the environment.’ He tilts his head at me. ‘Next?’
‘You tell me how to wash dishes.’
‘’Cause you really don’t know how to wash them and I know when I’m not there you put the dishwasher on for a few dishes and again that’s costly, Ali, and so bad for our environment. Next?’
Daisy is over with the soup and I lean back to let her place them down. She has brought a mixed bowl of breads. We thank her. This conversation is going nowhere fast. I don’t mean it to be tit for tat. I need to make him understand how he is making me feel but more importantly the effect it is having on our children. He dips his spoon in, raises it to his mouth and blows. I watch the liquid quiver.
‘When was the last time you said something nice to me, Colin?’ I don’t touch my cutlery. I sit still. Poker straight.
Poker face.
P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face. Mum-mum-mum-ma.
‘I tell you all the time how much I fancy you, Ali, you know I do. I honestly don’t know what you want from me any more. OK, so I’m passionate about not wasting energy and you don’t get that—’
Now I interrupt.
‘I do get that, Colin. It’s just I’m not obsessed with it and you are, it’s not my number one—’
‘Well, it should be,’ he jumps in. He just won’t let me finish a sentence. ‘You should be, it’s our children who will suffer if we don’t take care of our planet.’
‘That’s all very Maia Crowley,’ I scoff now.
His eyes dart up at me. The dimple pulsates as he pushes his long, floppy, light brown hair back from his baby-blue eyes. We look at each other before he goes back to his soup. I dip my spoon in but just swirl it around. I wish Owen was here to taste it, his lips on my spoon.
‘Look, Ali, things are tough, I get that. We are trying to hold down jobs and bring up two children; it’s never going to be a bed of roses … I really don’t know what you expect? This isn’t one of your Hollywood movies with that freak Tom Hardy, it’s real life.’
When he says ‘we are trying’ this riles me again. I’m the one working my job around the kids, and pick-ups, and dinners and shopping and gymnastics and football and art classes and weekend parties. Colin goes to work, he drops the kids on his way and that’s it.
‘It’s like you think life should be one long romantic movie. It’s not. It’s graft and hard work. That arts centre has you all full of crappy romantic notions.’ He twists an inordinate amount of black pepper onto his soup. Usually meaning he doesn’t like the taste.
‘Are you happy?’ I ask the question before my brain tells my mouth it’s OK to do so.
He puts the pepper down slowly.
‘Define happy, Ali. Am I happy to work to provide for my family? Yes. Is my wife giving me a hard time every second of every day? Yes. Does this make me happy? No. Do I want to lose her? No … No way.’
I’m shocked. It’s the nicest thing he has said to me since I went back to work full-time.
He puts the spoon down now and I watch the orange liquid slide from it and melt into the cracks in the old wooden table.
‘Find your smile. Go off this weekend on your holiday and enjoy yourself,’ he says.
‘It’s work. Not a holiday, Colin,’ I say, even though I know I shouldn’t, he is reaching out but I can’t help myself.
He raises a half-smile. A smirk.
‘Of course it is.’ His eyebrows raise and drop as he lifts a piece of heavy-looking brown bread and dips the bread in the bowl, bending his head over, then eats it. I bite my lower lip. His black suit from yesterday is still sharp with the grey tie; he always dresses for the office like he’s off to a very trendy wedding. He still has stubble this morning, I suppose because we overslept and it suits him. He always was the best-looking boy in the school. Colin Devlin, with that cool khaki bag.
‘Oh, I’m booking my flights today for the Irish games in June, just so you know,’ he chews.
And that’s why his humour is good. Something to look forward to. Football. The lads. I risk this one.
‘Are you taking Mark? He will be thrilled! I’ve a hectic calendar at work in June.’ I tear a piece of rye bread in half and dip it in.
He takes a few seconds to answer.
‘No, I’m not taking my five-year-old son on the Irish Man U lads’ trip to the Euros, are you mad?’
‘I am mad, Colin, mad as fuck!’ I glare at him as I raise my voice on my curse word. He thinks he can just swan off whenever the hell he likes and leave me with everything. Why can’t I swan off whenever I like? Fuck that.
‘Oh, here we go.’ He reaches for the purple paper napkin and wipes his mouth. He pushes back his chair and looks out the window.
‘Here’s Maia, saved by the job … I have to go, we can finish this later. Get some Valium, will ya?’ He grabs his coat and moves away towards the door.
I look out the window as the green Honda Fit EV 2013 pulls up. Maia rolls down the window, her blinking hazards reflecting in her eyes, and gives me a huge happy smile. Maia is early thirties; she has a dark, wild curly bob haircut, kind of ‘Scary Spice circa huge Spice Girls success’. She is always saving energy. Her car is lease only, she had told me last time at a business dinner for the company in L’Ecrivain restaurant. ‘It ranks as the single most efficient electric car you can drive out of a dealership today. You can’t buy it though, Ali; it’s lease only,’ she enthused into my face.
I wave back like a crazy lady. Smiling, waving, happy, happy, happy. I watch my husband fold himself in beside her and they drive away.
‘Will I bring the bill, Ali?’ Daisy asks as she clears the table, expertly balancing soup bowls and the mostly untouched bread plate along her left arm. Her hands, claw-like, holding up the two glasses.
‘Please, Daisy, thanks,’ I say. I rummage for my purse in my bag and realise I’ve left my phone at the office. I pay and head back to work. I bump straight into Corina at the reception desk.
‘What are you doing here?’ I say and fall into her embrace. ‘And you are unmasked, my friend!’
We laugh and hug.
‘I was calling you.’ She’s changed and now looks like something from the movie White Christmas. White coat, white bobble hat and white leather gloves.
‘Sorry, I left my phone. What on earth are you wearing since I saw you last?’ I stare at her get-up.
‘Like it?’ she twirls. ‘I got Fierce & Furry to sponsor today’s launch for the Masked app at the very last second. They do mainly kinky fur stuff, like furry handcuffs, and furry knickers, big ears, tails … For people who like the furry stuff, y’know.’
I stop her and pull her away from reception where a courier is looking at her strangely.
‘People who like the furry stuff?’ I’m totally confused.
‘Ali, where have you been? It’s all the rage in LA, on dating sites and apps … people want to have sex with people who are dressed up as furry animals. You know, Furry Dating … they are called Furries? Tell me you know what Furries are? Anyway, Colette wanted to meet me about next year’s schedule, see what PR we can drum up, I’m going to be taking over the Facebook and Twitter pages here too.’
I’m still trying to digest the Furry info.
‘I’m lost, Corina. I hope to stay that way, tell me no more about the furry shit … but that’s great news about Colette’s call. We love having you based in here,’ I tell her.
‘You have a few messages,’ Kim the receptionist informs me. It’s a shared job. Jenny B. does the mornings and Kim does the afternoons. I take the yellow Post-It from her.
‘Thanks, Kim,’ I smile at her.
‘Time for a coffee after I see Colette?’ Corina asks.
‘Mmmm … could you get a take-out from the Beans and come up to my office? I’ve a city council and an Arts Council application to finish today, if at all possible,’ I ask her and I pull my purse out of my bag.
‘I don’t want the money! Yeah, no probs, I’ll bring us up two extra hot lattés when I’m done.’ She is already moving away. I shake my head. I’d like a stiff drink but really better not fall down that road. I’m bad enough.
I go through my messages as I walk up the wooden staircase to my office. Nothing important, but one makes me laugh, a Mr A.M. Sterdam called, asking me to call him back. I recognise the number immediately: Owen’s. I crumple the Post-It in the palm of my hand. The guy’s mad.
I get straight back onto my application for the bus and then the Steffi Street sign language programme as I wait for Corina and get quite a lot done before she returns.
‘What took you so long?’ I stretch my arms high above my head and find a huge, deep yawn.
She kicks the door closed behind her, puts the lattés on the desk and sits. She removes her Polar Express outfit and pulls out a giant bag of Maltesers, pulls the bag apart and leaves them on the desk between us. She pops one in her mouth and sucks before she answers me.
‘I need chocolate so badly.’ She eats more. ‘You know how they say people in love glow? Well, people out of love grow!’ she tells me.
She holds a Malteser between index finger and thumb and nibbles the chocolate all around it. It’s like watching a small dog gnash on a bone. She pops the rest in her mouth and looks at me.
‘Ah, you weren’t in love with him … but I get it,’ I say.
‘No, I don’t suppose I was, but I wanted him to want to see me again. Is that too much to ask?’
‘No.’ I smile at her.
‘How did lunch go, then?’ She changes the subject and sucks away on the chocolate as she removes the lid from her latté.
‘Ahhh.’ I lean back in my office chair. ‘Ended in a big fight, yet again.’ I take my coffee up now and feel the warmth from the paper cup heat my cold hands. I twist it around several times in my palms. The City Arts Centre isn’t exactly centrally heated. It ain’t no Google offices, that’s for sure. We each have a small oil radiator in our offices.
I fill her in as she sips her hot drink and eats the entire bag of Maltesers.
‘I want to talk to you about Owen and your trip this weekend,’ she says when she’s finished licking her fingers.
I look at her. Then I tidy the already tidy pen tray.
‘Stay away from him, Ali, he is the disease not the cure.’
‘Ahh, come on, that’s not fair, Corina, you don’t know him.’ I’m upset with her for the first time since we met.
‘It’s not him I’m worried for, it’s you, Ali, and you have a marriage to concentrate on, kids to think about. It’s too important to lose out to lust. Is it worth risking everything you have for a ride?’
‘You have no idea how bad things are between me and Colin, Corina.’
She moves and sits against my desk, holding onto the sharp edge.
‘I do! I really do. I know you are going through a really bad time, but it will be OK, you need to talk—’
‘That’s why I just met him for lunch. I am trying … to talk. It’s impossible.’
‘So tell me what? Do you want to end it then?’
I roll a red Bic pen beneath my hands and feel the hard groves.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ I admit.
‘I told you: you just need to go out and get some really sexy underwear – you need to feel sexy yourself – and then seduce him. Sex makes everything better,’ she says matter-of-factly.
‘I don’t fancy Colin at all any more, Corina. I have tried to tell you this. I can’t stand the thought of having sex with him. I try, but when he touches me I completely freeze, it’s awful.’
I am composed and matter of fact; she, however, is speechless.
‘But Colin’s an absolute ride, Ali, like, a total hottie. How could you not fancy him?’ She tucks a strand of loose red hair behind her ear. I know she hasn’t really understood what I said.
‘I just don’t. I don’t know why but I don’t fancy him at all any more. There is zero chemistry, Corina, it is gone.’
‘Flipping hell,’ is all she has.
‘This is what I have been trying to tell you!’ I say as the sound of my desk phone ringing brings us back to the present and I pick up. It’s Colette asking me for the proposed teacher profile for the sign language funding proposal and can she see it before I submit. I tell her it’s on the way and hang up.
‘I have to get back to work,’ I tell my best mate.
She slides off my desk and crouches down beside me.
‘I didn’t know it was this bad, Ali, I’m sorry. I just thought it would pass, that it was the usual seven, twelve-year-itch stuff. I was looking stuff up and …’ She rises and gets her phone from her bag. She taps it and the light comes alive, she taps some more.
‘Here … I found something on the internet I think may help you. His name is Mort Fertel and he helps people create extraordinary loving relationships. There are seven relationship skills you need to know by all means.’
I clear my throat in a way that says I’m not exactly convinced.
She flops back down onto her chair and says, ‘Two minutes … listen, don’t mock the power of the internet, Mr Mort has the answers to all your problems. He even covers the “What to do if you find yourself attracted to another man or woman” and “Two monthly acts that will restore the passion between you”.’
‘Spare me the American fix-it Mort man, please,’ I sigh.
‘OK, this won’t take long, I promise, I’m going to give you a quick quiz. These are the main warning signs that your marriage will end in divorce, humour me if you will?’ She winks at me and raises her HDs.
‘Whatever,’ I sigh harder.
She sits up straighter.
‘Number one, do you and your partner spend hours together under the same roof, at social engagements or performing routine errands yet rarely engage in meaningful conversations?’
Has the Mort man been spying on No. 13?
‘Yes. All the time. Next?’ I sing the last word.
‘Number two, do you feel your every action is being watched and criticised by your partner? Can you do no right in their eyes?
‘Tick. Next!’
‘Number three, are your arguments becoming routine with all the same issues and no resolutions?’
‘If I had a buzzer, I’d keep my hand on it. Next!’
‘Number four, is there a considerable decline in physical affection—’
‘I’m interested in this one,’ I interrupt her. ‘Is there a solution to any of these, by the way, from Mr Magic Mort?’ I laugh sarcastically.
‘Indeed, he has answers for them all, Ali, that’s what I’m telling you, but, eh, you have to buy the audio book, I’m afraid … hold on …’
Her eyes scroll down. ‘Here, he goes on a bit about this particular one, yeah: “Intimacy is the act that allows us to bond as husband and wife, if your partner is showing no or very little interest in intimacy with you then they are showing little concern for their emotional bond with you as husband or wife.”’
He’s saying I am the one to blame here, I am the one who has lost interest in sex, therefore I am the one showing no concern to Colin’s emotional state as my husband.
‘So if I buy his audio book, he will fix me and Colin. I’ll suddenly be Samantha from Sex and the City every night, will I?’
‘Meh.’ She drops the phone onto the desk. ‘All I’m saying is there is help if you want it. OK, maybe not Mort, but it’s out there.’
‘I’ve done some research of my own on married people, Corina, I’ve googled … Sure, lots of couples go through these phases all the time and come out the other side …’ I pull my chair in and linger my finger over the keys on my laptop, I really do need to get back to Colette soon.
She stands and gathers up the empty latté cups.
‘Just promise me you won’t do anything silly with Owen this weekend. He isn’t the answer. We’ll figure it out when you get back, yeah?’
‘I promise,’ I say, but I’m crossing both my big toes over the next ones and I don’t know why.