Chapter 40 Ruby
Ruby
My messy situations were now a thing of the past. I didn’t drink again. I was happy and fulfilled in my marriage and determined to put the past behind me. I wrote down the rape story and simplified it. I rehearsed telling it. I almost convinced myself it was true.
I knew that if Milo had died of cancer I would have heard. I never asked Erin, but she would have told me, or Dad would have. I was nervous about what would happen in a few years’ time when he’d be released. But I couldn’t think about that.
Jack was getting more acting work. We agreed that I’d take over the Academy, while he would still be the figurehead.
After the lease ran out, we rented another, more modern building which used to be a dance studio.
It was perfect for our requirements and cheaper than the previous place.
We lowered our prices and gradually started building up the profile again, particularly when some former students started to get work in film and TV in America. We renamed it the Jack Brady Academy.
The Round Table shot for only four months every year.
As Jack’s role was becoming more prominent, he got offered more work on other shows, some of it abroad.
I would take Lucy with me most of the time and we’d visit him in Budapest or London or Prague or wherever the work took him.
He didn’t like to be away from home for too long.
Jack should have been fulfilled too but he wanted us to have a baby of our own.
He had always talked about being a dad. I didn’t want a second child, but I couldn’t say that to him.
I knew that second children could suffer from extreme jealousy and Lucy was perfect.
Any other child I might have would be envious of her.
Also, what if Jack loved his own child more than Lucy?
I distracted Jack by saying now wasn’t the right time.
We needed to give Lucy time to adjust to our new relationship.
Jack didn’t think she needed time – he had been in her life since the day she was born – but he let it go for about six months until he said it was time to try again.
I didn’t object this time, but I was secretly on the pill.
I was extremely careful about hiding it in places he would never look.
I would pretend to be devastated every month when my period arrived and he would comfort me, or if he was away, he’d send me flowers. He worked out when I’d be ovulating and would come home for a night or two from wherever he was, or I’d go and meet him.
Another six months later, he tentatively suggested a fertility specialist. He was away shooting, and it was one of those late-night calls. I agreed – it was better to get ahead of these things, in case there was anything wrong, I said.
As it happened, I had diminished ovarian reserve, meaning I wasn’t producing as many eggs as the average woman. I was relieved by this news, but then the fertility doctor suggested IVF. It was going to be expensive and the doctor could not guarantee success.
By now we had joint accounts, business in the drama school was up and Jack’s earnings were good.
Jack had asked Dad not to give me an allowance any more.
Dad’s wedding present to me had been to buy Uncle Dennis’s share of my house and Mom gave up her share to me also.
So now the house was in Jack’s and my name, and we were mortgage free.
I had never been wildly extravagant and had never worried about money in my life but now we depended on Jack’s acting income plus the drama school to keep us afloat.
We could afford several rounds of IVF but I didn’t want another child.
Jack insisted the time was right. He’d been contracted for a third season of The Round Table and had more film offers he was considering.
The Academy had turned a healthy profit for the first time since the recession.
But no matter what reasons I came up with – it would take a toll on me both emotionally and physically, the invasive nature of the procedure reminded me of the rape – Jack wanted this more than anything.
Somehow, I had to prove to him how ‘scared’ I was of going down this road.
It was a Friday morning in September 2011, and Jack was working on a drama series, but they were shooting in Dublin.
He’d been picked up at 5.30 a.m. by the production car and driven out to Ardmore Studios.
I didn’t know what time he’d be back. The schedule often changed depending on weather, light or unexpected hold-ups.
I went out to get hammered. But this time I had an excuse, and I wanted Jack to find out.
I didn’t call the Academy to say I wouldn’t be in.
I dropped Lucy to school that morning and then I went to the supermarket and bought a bottle of wine the moment it was legal to sell it at 10.
30 a.m. I drank the bottle as soon as I got home and then decided to drive into town around lunchtime.
I left my phone at home. I crashed the car into the pillar at the front gate, so I left it there and walked down to the local pub instead.
After striking up a conversation with a gang of women on a bachelorette party, I bought them two rounds of J?germeister shots.
Then one or two of them got a bit hostile and told me to back off, that I hadn’t been invited to join their party.
I got angry and slapped one of them across the head.
I was then thrown out of the pub by the barman, who was watching.
‘I knew you were trouble the minute you walked in,’ he told me.
I was furious at this injustice. I hailed a cab to take me into the city centre and went to a pub I hadn’t been in since college.
The Stag’s Head catered to a mixed crowd, but I sat on my own at the bar, drinking vodka and Coke, chatting to anyone who sat on the stool beside me.
I must have been pretty dull because they all drifted away after a few minutes.
Eventually, a young guy, rough around the edges, sat next to me.
‘Looking for company?’ he said, and I nodded. ‘Looking for some Class As?’ he added.
It was six years since I’d done any drugs at all but I figured in for a penny, in for a pound.
‘How much?’
‘Hundred and twenty quid for a gram.’
I fumbled in my wallet and took out three crisp fifty-euro notes. He slid a little cellophane pouch on to my lap under the bar.
‘I don’t have any change,’ he said.
I was drunk but I still had some wits about me. ‘Ask the barman,’ I said.
He sauntered away, supposedly in search of the barman, but then disappeared with my thirty-euro change.
Maybe my final wits were deserting me after all.
I remember going down the stairs to the ladies, clutching the walls, but it was impossibly dark in the cubicle.
I knew from AA meetings that bars had started doing this deliberately to stop cocaine use on the premises.
There was no surface on which to chop out a line.
The cistern was high up on the wall. I dabbed my finger into the pouch and rubbed it into my gums. I felt nothing, no buzz at all.
Had I just paid €150 for some ground-up paracetamol or worse?
I stumbled back up to the bar, thirsty for more vodka.
I surveyed the various guys coming and going, and eventually one older man came over and offered me a drink.
I think I told him I was an airline pilot who had arrived in Dublin that morning.
I don’t remember eating anything the whole day.
I do remember it being dark when I fell out of the pub and the guy asked where my hotel was.
I didn’t know what he was talking about.
He led me up a laneway nearby where he slammed me up against the wall and began to tear at my skirt.
I screamed and he ran. I cried then. This whole day had been a horrible mistake.
I managed to get a cab and remember my address.
The taxi driver woke me up when I got home.
I tried to fit my keys in the lock, but Jack swung the door open and I fell into the hall.
Mom came out of the kitchen. Then I blacked out.
Three days later, Jack agreed that we would not have any IVF treatment. He apologized for pressuring me. I apologized for my relapse. He begged me to come back to AA with him, and I agreed. Nasrin, my sponsor, was happy to take me on again.