Chapter 13
MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR
Laura
Aidan has been playing golf all day. Laura’s not sure he actually likes the game but he thinks it’s one of those things it’s good to be seen to do. It impresses the right people, apparently, and increasingly Aidan has become all about impressing the right people.
On her kinder days she thinks it must be his age, or that he is feeling pretty stagnant in work.
There’s only really so far you can climb up a conveyancing ladder until you reach the top and find it crowded with the ghosts of conveyancers past. It’s a bit like Everest – the summit signposted by the fallen bodies of those who have gone before.
Those who burned out, or worked tirelessly till retirement only to wonder where all those years have gone and if it was really worth it.
Unlike climbing Everest, they rarely do feel it was.
She wishes deep down that he saw home, and her, as somewhere he should want to be seen.
Or that he didn’t care about being seen, and only cared about being present with her.
That he was the kind of husband who suggested drives in the car and walks along the beach on blustery October Saturdays.
Or lazy lie-ins and bountiful brunches. That he would sit on the sofa, her feet resting on his lap while he asks her about her course and she tells him how it excites her.
She’d tell him about Abby and how she seems to be a remarkable young woman – then she’d tell herself she’s an old fart for using the expression ‘remarkable young woman’.
They’d laugh about it before getting into the nitty gritty of her telling him all about the classes she is going to take this semester.
How she can’t wait to start and it’s been a long time since she felt this fire in her soul.
There is a version of Aidan somewhere – one she remembers – who would’ve played today out exactly like this, but she hasn’t seen him in a very long time.
So instead, she’d spent the day pottering around the house.
Robyn had gone to her friend’s, allegedly to study.
Laura’s not stupid; she knows the only thing her daughter will have been studying is the Snapchat stories of the boys they have crushes on.
That’s okay. That’s what it means to be a teenager.
Does Laura wish Robyn had chosen to spend the day with her instead?
No. Not really. They are close. They enjoy each other’s company, but there isn’t some sort of a Gilmore Girls’ Lorelai and Rory dynamic between them where they feel the need to live in each other’s pockets.
Still, as the sky grows dark and Aidan is still at the golf course – or more likely by now propping up the bar – she feels lonely.
She could text the girls. Becca sent her a beautiful message earlier telling her how proud she was to see her chase her dreams and go back to college.
Of course, she had replied at the time with a quick but heartfelt thank you, but she hadn’t let herself get into it any further.
Still acutely aware that Becca and Conal are having some sort of issue, she didn’t want to risk getting drawn further into that drama.
That is a risk too far for her right now.
They are both grown-ups. Surely they will sort out whatever it is, but if they don’t then she hopes they leave her out of the ensuing mess.
So, no, she thinks as she plumps the sofa cushions for the bajillionth time, trying to get comfortable enough to read more of the Feminist Theory text she had bought yesterday in the university book shop, she isn’t going to text Becca.
Or Niamh for that matter – who she knows has plans to spend the evening with baby Clara.
Looking to the spot on the opposite sofa where her mother would normally have sat, she tries to manifest another ghostly conversation.
Real or not, it would be welcome right now.
But there is no gentle dimming of lights or blurring of lines between this world and the next.
No echo of the voice she would give anything to hear just one more time.
By the time Aidan finally gets home, she has been able to push all thoughts and worries about her friendships and her place in the world a little to the side.
He looks at her, his eyes a little glazed, his smile a little wonky.
For a second she feels the familiar warmth towards him that tells her they still have a connection.
He flops down on the sofa beside her, lifting her textbook and flicking through it, reading some of the chapter headings out loud.
‘You really know how to enjoy a Saturday night,’ he says with a drunken smile.
‘I have been enjoying myself,’ she says, unable to hide the defensive tone in her voice.
He looks at her for a moment, his eyes so wide from drink that he sort of looks like he’s wearing a pair of googly eyes.
There’s a boyish quality to him. ‘I know,’ he says.
‘I mean, I don’t know. I don’t see the appeal of going back to school myself, but it matters to you.
And all this women stuff…’ He waves his hands drunkenly as if everything women-related is in the room with them right now.
‘I know that matters to you too. Sure, why don’t you tell me a bit about it?
What does “feminist theory” involve when it’s at home? ’
A flicker of hope, of feeling seen, dances across her heart and she instinctively sits up taller, ignoring the slight slurring of his words.
This is her chance to try to get the message across to him. She feels as if parts of her brain that have lain dormant for the better part of the last thirty years are being sparked back to life. She feels challenged to think differently, to see the world in a whole new light.
‘Well, it’s not all bra-burning and throwing yourself under horses. So many people completely misunderstand what feminism is, and how many different strands there are of it. It’s not one big homogenous movement. There are factions with widely different perspectives.’
‘So it’s like Game of Thrones,’ Aidan says, continuing to flick through the book.
‘Well… I wouldn’t say that.’
‘But it is – and they are all vying for the Iron Throne. But I suppose there isn’t actually a throne…
so maybe it should be Game of Wombs. Although an iron womb…
’ He pulls a face as if he might be sick, which with the amount of alcohol he has very clearly consumed isn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
‘Game of Bras!’ Aidan announces triumphantly.
‘Since you like to burn ’em and all.’ He laughs and Laura wonders if she should be laughing with him, even though she’s not finding this particularly funny.
She’d hoped to have a serious discussion with him – share her passion a bit – and here he is making jokes.
‘It’s not a joke,’ she says, trying to keep the terseness from her voice.
‘Feminism is more important now than ever. You should know that. You should be invested in that as a father of a daughter if nothing else. Women’s rights are regressing.
Roe v Wade has been overturned. Women’s rights have been almost totally stripped away in Afghanistan.
Violence against women and girls is on the rise globally.
The world is morphing into a scary place.
Men are still out-earning women and bodily autonomy is still far from guaranteed. It’s under attack almost everywhere.’
He looks at her and blinks slowly. He’s trying. She sees that. The cogs and connections of his internal operating system are trying to compute what she has said and formulate an appropriate response that doesn’t make her want to kill him.
‘Yeah,’ he says, the slur more pronounced. ‘It’s why you need Game of Bras!’ He sniggers and she feels her body tense. There is no point continuing this conversation. It would be like discussing astrophysics with a potato.
Apparently sensing her discomfort, Aidan stops laughing and sits up straight.
‘Sorry, Laura. I’ll be serious. I’m not making fun of you.
I’m just saying…’ He trails off before he actually says what he’s just saying, and instead of jumping in to fill the gaps like she normally would, Laura just looks at him, disappointment wrapping its way around her chest so that she struggles to take a full, deep breath.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asks, wearily.
‘Just a couple of bags of Scampi Fries at the bar.’ She should’ve known – should’ve recognised the fishy odour. It’s normally enough to make her nauseous. Aidan emits a perfectly timed burp, and Laura wishes to travel back in time just a few seconds to before the smell was quite so noticeable.
‘I could eat, though,’ Aidan says. ‘You wouldn’t be a pet and stick some chips in the air fryer? And maybe some of those goujons too.’
Resisting the urge to brain him with her Feminist Theory book, Laura nods and gets up, leaving him to slump back into the cushions.
She’ll put the food in the air fryer even though she knows that he will most likely be asleep by the time it is ready.
Setting the timer, she takes her book up to her room, changes into her pyjamas and climbs under the duvet to read some more.