Chapter 35
35
THE RECKONING: PART ONE
My to-do list is now as follows. In no particular order:
1) Speak to Ruairi about a Donegal trip with Mum.
2) Book a Donegal trip with Mum.
3) Clear up the scattered and shattered baubles from the landing. Use what is salvageable to decorate the Christmas tree.
4) Research a trip to Amsterdam and whether or not pot brownies interfere with HRT.
5) Arrange doctors’ appointments for both Niamh and me, preferably on the same day, to get hooked up with some of the good stuff.
6) Warn Adam that Niamh is raging that Instagram knew her daughter had a boyfriend before she did.
7) Get worming tablets for Daniel. I do not want to have to deal with bum crawlers on top of everything else.
8) Take Daniel for his Christmas haircut, with added photoshoot with Santa Paws – because it’s cute, okay? I don’t have to explain myself to anyone!
9) Put the Christmas duvet covers on the boys’ beds in preparation for the return of the prodigal twins.
10) Order the god damn turkey or it will be potato waffles and turkey dinosaurs for Christmas dinner. And not for the first time.
11) Work on these column pitches for Grace at Northern People . If I can offer her a selection to show my diversity, I might be in with a better chance.
12) Get in touch with Laura and try to sort this mess out once and for all, even if it means amicably deciding to cut all ties.
It doesn’t look like much when you say it out loud, I think. Except it really does look like there’s quite a lot to do and only me to do it. And some of it is just an absolute land mine of emotional trauma.
Some things on the list are easier to deal with than others. I pop Ruairi a WhatsApp voice note because he never answers his calls, and it’s just easier than trying to type out a lengthy message. I also know he hates WhatsApp voice notes and if it’s not a little sister’s job to annoy her brother’s very existence then whose is it?
I get up before eight so that I’m poised and ready to participate in the GP appointment Hunger Games as soon as the surgery opens. My finger hovers over the dial button as I watch the clock face change from minute to minute in the countdown to eight thirty, the theme from Countdown playing in my head as it does. Once it reaches the magic hour, all I have to do is hit the call button approximately ninety-four times before I get through, only to be told all the appointments are booked up and I need to call back tomorrow. It’s now almost nine thirty and as Ruairi has yet to listen to my message or reply, not a single thing can be ticked off my list, which I now need to put on hold while I get on with some work. God knows I do not want to add ‘search for a new job’ to the bottom of my list.
By lunch time, I’m getting a bit antsy that Ruairi still hasn’t listened to my voice message so I type a shorter version of it and hit send. In the war of attrition between siblings, I should’ve known he would win. He usually does.
No messages have landed in my phone from Laura, which is entirely understandable and expected, but yet it has me on edge. I want to get in touch with her, but I don’t know the best way to do it. It seems so impersonal to deal with something so big via text – and the written word is so open to misinterpretation that I’d risk making things even worse than they already are.
I’d perhaps contact Conal if I wasn’t worried that by now, I look like a complete psycho who loses dogs, runs out of houses and makes his sister cry. Plus, I don’t have his number – which is probably a good thing.
I use the nervous energy that is coursing through my body to clear up the baubles from the landing floor and I brave the pain which still exists in my rear to carry the tree down the stairs. This earns me a tilt of the head from Daniel who is clearly unimpressed that I’ve not taken him out for a walk or set off on a quest to reunite him with Lazlo. Guilt nips at me, but it’s icy outside and I simply can’t risk slipping and doing further damage to my already battered bum. Every gluteal muscle I own cringes at the very thought of another impact with the ground as if begging me to be gentle.
‘I’m sorry, Daniel,’ I tell the floppy-eared mournful beast on the rug and promise him a breast of chicken with rice later as an apology.
By teatime – when Daniel eats the meal I’ve lovingly prepared for him in approximately two and a half seconds – I feel a little more in control of the day. I’ve done a sneaky little bit of internet research into Amsterdam and found a gorgeous houseboat on the canal which is rented out as an Airbnb, which doesn’t seem to cost the world but is a little different from the norm.
Ruairi has finally replied and told me of course he’d be up for a weekend away with Mum, but he’s up to his eyes in his very important job so if I could just make the arrangements and send him the deets and the bill that would super. I don’t have the energy to be annoyed at his presumption that I have the time to make the arrangements single-handedly. This is Ruairi. This is what he has always been like. There’s little point in me trying to change him now. And besides, Ruairi would book something outrageously expensive, or in the middle of nowhere, or which has a strict no-dogs-allowed policy. Wherever we book, there must be room for Daniel. He is, after all, the closest thing I have to a partner at the moment.
I’ve even channelled my anxiety-induced hyperactivity into completing the first of the ‘Ten Ways to…’ columns. And coming up with an idea for another. ‘Ten Ways to F*ck Up Your Life in Your Forties’. I accept that while I seem to have direct experience of this with the implosion of my newly resurrected friendship, it might be a hard sell to the magazine. Still, it should be cathartic to write.
But perhaps most importantly, by teatime I’ve decided to put on my very brave big girl pants and go and visit Laura. Just the thought of it makes me want to boke my insides out, but I can’t live with the weight of my hurt, and the guilt I feel at hurting Laura just after her mother died. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I do always make it about me, but surely sometimes it is? Surely it was when Simon left?
I’ve realised the best way to tackle all this horrible tension is to face it head on, in person. Even if it’s hard. Even if we both cry. Even if we both come to accept that the Laura and Becki who wanted to be friends forever all those years ago are not going to get their wish.
I feel so sick worrying about it that I can’t eat my dinner, which Daniel is delighted about. He’s not a dog that would ever turn his nose up at a second chicken breast, which is a good thing as it acts as a distraction to get me out of the house without him spotting me heading for the door. I’m not sure I could handle the look of ‘but you said it was too cold to go out’ judgement on his face. I am already riddled with guilt and fear. So much so that my hands are shaking as I get into my car, and it’s not just from the cold.
I’m nervous. I’m more nervous than I’ve been in a long, long time and given that the menopause has reduced me to a ball of anxiety where I can risk a panic attack just leaving the bins out, that really is saying something.
When I get to Laura’s I sit outside for ten minutes, willing myself to just get out of the bloody car and walk up to her door. You’re not walking into Mordor , I tell myself. You’re visiting a friend. Or someone who was a friend. There is no need for you to feel as if you’re about to walk the Green Mile. The hardest part of this will be getting out of the car given your bruises . You’re a big girl and you need to act like one.
As I walk up the drive, reach for the doorbell and press it, I’m rehearsing over and over what I will say, trying to pre-empt what her reaction might be. If she’s angry, I’ll let her rant. If she’s sad, I’ll let her cry. If she looks like she could cut a bitch, I’ll turn and run/hobble down the icy path as quick as I can.
But it’s not Laura who answers the door. It’s Aidan. Aidan who looks tired and middle-aged and has a bit of a paunch which certainly wasn’t there ten years ago. Not that I can judge anyone on excess padding gained in the last decade.
Although I saw him at Kitty’s funeral, it still feels odd to see him now. My brain still expects him to be how he was ten years ago. Just as it expects this house – Laura’s house – to look just as it did. This place was once so familiar to me but now I’d be hard pushed to recognise it. There’s a new front door for a start. One of those fancy black composite jobs which cost a fortune. It’s decorated with a holly-laden Christmas wreath, faux frost glistening on the forest-green leaves.
The laminate flooring Laura once had in her hall has been replaced with high polished tiles. The walls are no longer sage green, but now a subtle greige, with accents of gold in the artwork on the walls. It looks well, but then again, Laura always has had good taste.
‘Becca,’ Aidan says from behind his fine rimmed glasses. Those too are a new addition. None of us can hold back the ageing process.
‘Aidan,’ I say feeling exceptionally awkward. ‘I’ve come to see Laura. Is she in?’ I peek over his shoulder as if expecting her to materialise behind him. There’s a pause and I realise she may not actually be in. I may have come all this way for nothing.
‘Actually, she’s at her mum’s house,’ Aidan says, his tone unreadable. ‘She went back to work today so clearing the house is going to be an evenings-only job. I offered to go with her, but she wanted to go alone. Today has been a tough one, you know.’
The way he says it is so pointed I can tell he’s pissed off at me for upsetting his wife. Of course that’s completely understandable, and I’m certainly not going to try and talk him round – not here, and not now. Laura’s not in. It’s freezing cold and starting to rain the kind of icy cold rain that jabs at your skin like needles. Right now, I just want to go back to my car.
‘It meant a lot to her,’ he says. ‘That you girls came to the funeral. That you’ve been there for her. It’s been a tough time, but finding you girls again added a spring to her step that I haven’t seen in… well…’
He doesn’t finish the sentence and I fight the urge to reply with a snarky ‘ten years’? I know that demon on my shoulder is clawing to be set free and, similarly, I know I have to keep her under control. Nothing good ever happens when she gets out to play.
‘I understand,’ I say instead. There’s a pause that is just bordering on uncomfortable. ‘Well, if you could let her know I called by anyway. I’d best get on home before this weather gets any worse. It’s not a night to be driving.’
As I turn to leave, I hear him say my name again, calling me back. I stop and turn to face him once more.
‘It was a horrible situation, you know. When you and Simon split up,’ Aidan says.
‘When he left me, with two boys who were broken-hearted that their daddy walked out?’ that pesky demon snaps, and I hate myself for letting her. But more than that I hate myself for still feeling abandoned, and feeling it so deeply at that. If anyone had asked me before this moment if I was over the break-up I’d have laughed and told them I was so very, very over it that I didn’t even think about it any more. But this last week has brought a lot of long buried feelings to the surface. Seems I wasn’t wrong when I called the time capsule Pandora’s Shoebox. It has spilled out its messy contents in style and forced us to confront more than we wanted to.
‘Yes,’ Aidan replies. ‘When Simon walked out on you and the boys. I’m not going to defend him, Becca. He may well be my best friend but he really fucked up back then. Yes, your marriage was over and I think even you probably agree that him leaving was ultimately for the best. But he was wrong to cheat on you. I told him that at the time. Laura told him that at the time and many times since.’
His words stop me in my tracks. Laura had told him he was wrong. She had stood up for me. I’ve needed to hear that so much over the last ten years and here it is, being said to me right at the time I might have carpet-bombed what little chance there was left for a lasting reconciliation between us.
Aidan is still speaking. ‘We were angry at him – Laura especially,’ he says, ‘but I wasn’t going to abandon my friend. He might have been an arsehole, but he was my friend and even if you don’t think so, the break-up hurt him too. He lost the family he thought he’d have. He lost the chance to live with his boys as they grew up and yes, he might’ve been to blame for that but it still hurt him. I wasn’t going to let him go through that alone. But I’m sorry it hurt you so badly.’ He pauses, shakes his head wearily. ‘We all could’ve handled it so much better.’
The ‘all’ in that sentence lands heavily because I know that it’s true. Others handled it badly, but so did I. I knew my marriage was past the point of rescue when Simon told me he was leaving. If I’m being honest with myself, it was over for a long time before that day. I didn’t want him to stay. I didn’t fall to pieces and beg him not to go. I knew in my heart we had nothing left worth fighting for. I knew deep down that the boys would benefit more from being in a happy single-parent home than with a mum and dad who had stopped loving each other. If we’d stayed together any longer the apathy with which we now viewed each other would’ve turned to resentment and anger.
I knew it was the right thing to do, even if I couldn’t admit it to myself. I buried the inner voice that was, perhaps, relieved he had made the decision for us, and I didn’t have to ask him to leave. Yes, I was bruised and blindsided by his infidelity, but that same inner voice, if I was being really honest with myself, told me she felt relieved to be single again. I did my best to ignore her and push her down because even with all those thoughts in my head, it was still sad. I was still sad.
I still grieved the life I thought Simon and I would have. We had, after all, loved each other once. We’d loved each other enough to get married and start a family. When we stood at the altar and made our wedding vows we had meant them with every part of our bodies. I dreamt of having a marriage just like the one my mum and dad had, where love was a daily declaration. We thought we would have the perfect, life-long bond and it was going to be sweeter because our joint best friends, Laura and Aidan, would be coming along for the ride with us. Our friendship group was as solid as any could be. Until it wasn’t.
So even though breaking up was the right thing to do, and would’ve been the right thing to do whether or not he had been seeing someone else, it still hurt. And my reactions to everything that happened then came from a place of hurt. Including, I realise with a thud, trying to force Laura to choose between her husband and her best friend. I was wrong to assume she wasn’t calling him out on his behaviour. I had no right to enact the Girl Code Manifesto and tell Laura she couldn’t be friends with my ex-husband and still be friends me, not when Aidan was still very much a part of his life. Standing in the rain, icy rivulets now running down my face and neck and under my scarf – making me shiver – I realise it all now.
Just as I realise, with another sickening thud, that it wasn’t so much that I didn’t want Laura to be friends with Simon any more, it was more that I hated that I wasn’t going to be a part of that precious friendship bubble that had meant so much to me any more. I hated that so much.