Chapter 14
FUDGE
Becca
Sixteen-year-old me is doing cartwheels of joy.
She is whooping and doing that funny dance Carlton in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air used to do when he was excited.
She is calling her friends because, of course, mobile phones were not in general usage back in the good old mid-nineties.
At least not in Derry anyway, and definitely not among teenagers.
She is screaming down the phone to Niamh and Laura that Conal has asked her to ‘go steady’, but only more serious because he is actually floating the idea of them living together.
And while at sixteen, I did not want to actually live with a boy – sharing a home with my awful big brother Ruairi was more than enough, thank you very much – I did very much wish and hope that one day I would in fact live with a boy.
A boy – or more accurately a man – who loved me and who wanted my face to be the first thing he saw every morning and the last thing he saw every night before he went to sleep.
Yes, at sixteen I had not really pictured that being Conal O’Hagan, even if I did have a secret crush on him, but here I am… thirty years later, and it is happening. I am being asked to live with the man I am absolutely very much in love with.
This is the man I have been driving myself stupid about, worrying that he was going to dump me only to find out the very opposite.
He wants to keep me, and he wants to move things to the next level.
Compared to the fears I have carried around like a leaden weight in the pit of my stomach all day, this should feel freeing and joyous.
This is what I wanted after all. What I still want.
So why then, I can’t help but wonder, am I feeling a sickening sensation in the pit of my stomach, and why is a familiar light-headedness threatening to take me off my feet?
Am I actually likely to swoon right now?
Here in the park, in the middle of the grass with two dogs running in circles near me stopping periodically to pee?
Why is the wee voice in the back of my head whispering – no, screaming – ‘NOTHANKYOUVERYMUCH’ at me?
I need time to think. Conal is staring at me, his eyes wide, his expression filled with love and hope, and I will myself to do what Snow Patrol urge us to do and just say yes. I can worry about the logistics later. I can worry about the panic – because that is what this is – later.
I need to workshop these feelings, preferably with Niamh and Laura.
Although, admittedly Laura might be a bad idea.
Laura isn’t exactly neutral in this scenario.
Fuck! And meanwhile Conal is still looking at me expectantly and I wonder if he can see the storm of conflicting emotions, feelings and thoughts all fighting for attention inside my brain.
I know I need to say something. Anything. I need to speak instead of just standing here, looking at him with, I realise, my mouth hanging open like an absolute bloody eejit.
‘Life is just so busy now, between your work, and my work, and our kids, and Clara, and the dogs, and your mum and…’
I nod. I nod and keep nodding as he talks but I’m no longer hearing what it is he is saying because I am just thinking that living together means things. Big things.
Commitment. My house, or his house? I love my house.
I fought hard to keep it and maintain it after Simon left, buying him out and cutting back on everything so I could afford to pay for it singlehandedly.
It is my safe place. But more than that, it is my secure place.
I own it. Whatever happens I have a roof over my head and a front door to close at the end of the day.
Conal is renting at the moment so him moving into my house would make sense – and I certainly don’t want to move.
At least I don’t think I want to move. My house is my boys’ home.
It always has been. I… I… I don’t know what to think because look at him!
Look at my Conal, looking at me, that expectant and hopeful expression starting to slip and the brightness starting to dull in his eyes, and I feel like such an incredible bitch.
It doesn’t make sense. It really doesn’t because I do categorically and emphatically love this man.
But maybe I love my independence too. Not more. But as well.
‘I… I think that sounds like something definitely worth thinking about,’ I say weakly, and his hopeful expression is now gone.
It is replaced by the look of a wounded man and immediately I want to back-pedal, except I know I only want to back-pedal to stop him feeling like shit and without thinking about how back-peddling will make me feel.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and I mean it from the very bottom of my soul. ‘I wish I could just scream yes and we could kiss and then go home and celebrate with champagne, or even a cup of tea and a bit of feeling each other up on the sofa.’
Normally the mention of feeling each other up on the sofa makes him smile.
It’s a phrase we have used many times as code for doing more than just feeling each other up, and it doesn’t even have to be on the sofa.
But it isn’t making him smile today. He’s not even trying to fake it, and a part of me admires that.
A bigger part of me, however, is now realising that the fear I was feeling earlier was minuscule in comparison to this horror show.
‘I’m not saying no,’ I say, and he nods.
‘That’s always how I dreamed of this moment. Asking the woman I love if we should live together and for her response to be a resounding “I’m not saying no”.’
‘Conal, I know. I know I’m not handling it well. I just wasn’t expecting this and I need to get my head around it and think of all the practicalities.’
‘And you call yourself a romantic?’ He smiles, but it is a sad little smile and I feel as if I have kicked a puppy. No, it’s not as if I just kicked a puppy. I feel like I kicked a puppy square in the little puppy penis. I might just be a monster.
‘I am a romantic,’ I protest. ‘And I love you. Conal, you know I love you. I’m grateful for you every day and I love our time together.
’ My chest is starting to feel tight and I know what this means.
I might not be at risk of swooning any longer but there is every chance – in fact, pretty much a certainty now – that I am going to cry.
‘You just don’t want to live with me?’
‘I didn’t say that!’ My voice is breaking now and I sound like a fourteen-year-old boy. My nose is starting to run and I will have to sniff soon or blow my nose, and neither of those are dignified.
‘That’s right. You just said you weren’t saying no, but what was it? You thought it was “something worth thinking about”. What man hasn’t dreamed of hearing the woman he loves say that back to him?’
I don’t know what to say. My head is swimming with a hundred different thoughts and questions and words of reassurance, but I can’t bring them together enough to form a coherent sentence. I just worry that whatever I do say – whatever words escape from my lips – I will just make things worse.
So I stand there, tears now sliding down my face, my mouth hanging open again and my hand reaching out to Conal, who gives me that sad smile again.
And I fear for another imaginary puppy’s penis.
Forget Clarence the angel in It’s a Wonderful Life and his assertion that when a bell rings, another worthy angel in training gets his or her wings and graduates to full angel status.
In this case, it is every time I make Conal look at me with eyes so sad I want to vomit, another puppy somewhere gets kicked square in the dick. And it’s my fault.
‘I think maybe I’ll take Lazlo home, and maybe we will both think about this and talk about it again when emotions aren’t running so high. Or maybe we’ll just forget about it for now? It was just an idea,’ he says with a shrug, and he calls Lazlo to him.
I know it is not ‘just an idea’ though. Conal is not a ‘just an idea’ kind of a man.
It’s one of the things I love about him – he walks through this life carefully thinking about his decisions, and about the people in his life.
He’s the kind of man who arrives at your door with a box of Nurofen and a family-sized bag of Maltesers before you’ve even had to tell him that your uterus is currently trying to kill you.
He’s the kind of man who bought my mother flowers on Valentine’s Day because she ‘deserved something beautiful too’ and the kind of man who went to see Taylor Swift with his daughter Aoife and sang along to almost every song even though he doesn’t like Taylor Swift.
He just wanted to make the experience special for Aoife.
So I know he will have been thinking about this, deciding it is something that he really wants, for some time and I have not responded as he would’ve hoped.
And I don’t know why. Or maybe I do. Maybe I’m a selfish witch who is just getting her life back together and starting a club and joining a choir and finally doing her dream job, and maybe she is scared of doing anything that knocks the algorithm off whack.
‘Conal, you don’t have to go. We can go back to mine and…
’ My voice trails off. There is no mention of feeling each other up now.
No joking and easy flirting – just the knowledge that I have fucked this up.
And by fucked, I mean fucked. This is much too big an issue to even try and use the word ‘fudge’ in its place.
‘It’s fine, Becca. Don’t worry. It’s fine.
’ Conal kisses me on the cheek – a perfunctory kiss barely making contact.
‘We’ll just forget today ever happened and maybe just take the chance to breathe.
I’m snowed under with work anyway. And you have the Fab Forties club.
And Clara. Let’s make sure we think about what we really want.
Maybe meet up next weekend.’ It’s not a question, but a statement.
Shit.
‘But the weekend is a whole week away,’ I call to his retreating back. He doesn’t turn to look at me, but he does raise his hand to wave back at me. At this stage I’m just grateful it’s an actual wave and not him raising one finger – even if it feels as if he might as well be.
Sixteen-year-old me would be utterly disgusted with herself.