Chapter 58
Chapter Fifty-Eight
I ’d booked the earliest possible flight from Wanaka to Kuala Lumpur, with only an hour’s stop before my flight to Dublin. I knew it would be tight but I needed to get home. I’d not been able to stop thinking about what Niall had said – what had happened in the shop when we were younger that he couldn’t just tell me over the phone?
I only watched two films on the flight to Kuala Lumpur ( The Holiday, again, because I just loved it, and The Hobbit because I wanted to bookmark more film locations to visit when I returned to New Zealand).
I’d like to say that on my flight home I drank copious cups of tea at the airport because it didn’t matter how many times I needed the loo and that when I used the toilet, I sauntered in without a thought or worry about what my clothes brushed against, or that I didn’t give the toilet seat a second glance – but that would have been a big fat lie. I still did all those things – I still avoided drinking more than one cup of tea, I still put it off right up until the last moment so that I could hold my wee in for as long as possible without using the toilet. I still used my elbow to open the door, still sanitised my hands before and after using the toilet, still hovered, still washed the taps and scanned any seats before I sat down.
But I didn’t use a loo roll to open the cubicle door when I’d finished, I used my hand. A win for me.
Una had arranged to pick me up from Dublin airport when I landed, Mairéad had texted to ask if I wanted a session on the weekend, and I had heard nothing from Niall since his weird part-confession about something that had happened in the shop.
By the time I boarded my flight home, I was exhausted (which was what I had hoped would happen) and I slept for at least four hours, partially broken by the man in front of me who kept moving his seat backwards and forwards and hitting my knee.
I’d found out I could text on aeroplane mode (for a small fee to connect to the plane’s Wi-Fi), which I wished I’d known on the way to New Zealand because it would have made things a lot easier.
The rest of the flight was taken up with messages from Una.
I found a text message from her.
From who?
From Carmel.
Oh God … what did it say?
It said ‘you make me tingle’.
That’s gross. Are you OK?
Not really… And there’s more.
??
I opened the message and there was a whole thread.
What did it say?
Mostly dirty talk, like what they were going to do next time they saw each other, what he likes, what she likes. He never talked to me like that even when I tried to have dirty talk with him.
I didn’t need to know about Una’s dirty talk with Shaun did everything but I didn’t have the heart to ask her to stop.
Apparently he likes it when she sticks her finger up his arse – can you believe that? Up his arse! He never asked me to do that.
Would you have wanted him to?
No.
And she likes it when he pinches her nipples.
Ow.
Oh, and she dresses up for him, she has a maid’s outfit, how original.
Una, I know it must be hard, but maybe it’s best you don’t read anymore.
I read it all. It’s been going on the whole time from what I can work out. I hate him.
Good.
What am I going to do, Pearl?
You’re going to take small steps, big strides.