‘Amy?’ He sounds worried. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Grand. Except. Can you come round to my – our, ah, the house later? Just for a quick chat. I’m about to get on a plane. I’ll be home in about two hours.’
When I let myself in, Hugh is already there. Sofie and Kiara are flitting around. They look apprehensive – I suppose any unexpected meetings between Hugh and me are cause for anxiety. Broken marriages are truly horrible things.
Hugh stands up when he sees me.
‘We’ll just, ah …’ Sofie and Kiara disappear.
‘Would you like something?’ Hugh asks me. ‘To drink? Eat?’
His solicitude serves as a forceful reminder of this night two years ago: he’d just collected my cheese from the sorting office and fed me some when I got in.
‘Nothing, thanks,’ I mutter. ‘Let’s go to the living room.’ We have to leave the kitchen, I can’t take these memories.
Once we’re seated, I start: ‘Hugh, I want to say sorry.’
‘For …?’
‘The summer before last, when I was, ah, flirting with Josh, and you knew. I’m sorry for hurting you, for worrying you. I did feel guilty at the time, but it’s worse now.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘It’s not. I did something terrible, you can’t just … let it go.’
‘I understand your reasons,’ he says. ‘The grind, the stress, the constant worry about money. Josh was an escape. Some people drink too much, or take up running, something to give endorphins.’
‘No.’ I don’t deserve absolution. ‘My life was lovely. But I wanted more. Something to look forward to. I don’t understand why.’
‘But –’
‘When you left, it was because you wanted two lives – to be a family man and a single man. I didn’t like your reasons but I get them now, better than I get my own.’
‘Look.’ He sounds weary. Maybe he’s just sad. ‘What’s done is done.’
‘I wish it wasn’t. Everything’s a big mess, and a lot of the time I just don’t understand how it all got so … bad.’
‘Amy, if you could go back to when you first met Josh, would you do things differently? Knowing how everything has played out?’
‘Yes.’ I’m certain about this. ‘You and I, we’ve lost something very …’ my throat hurts ‘… very beautiful. But it’s too late.’
He nods. ‘Listen, I’ve found a flat.’
This qualifies as good news, but it’s another turn of the blade that’s unpeeling our life together into two separate strands.
‘It’s in Tallaght.’
Tallaght is way out on the western edge of Dublin. Poor Hugh, all on his own out there, so far away from his family. But we’re not his family any more – well, I’m not.
‘Is it … nice?’ I ask.
‘It’s fine. Small, but fine.’
‘I feel sad for you.’
‘Don’t. I deserve it.’
‘Stop. Let’s not talk that way any longer. Hugh?’ I ask. ‘Will we still buy each other birthday presents?’
‘Aaaah?’ He’s nonplussed by the change of subject. ‘How d’you mean?’
‘What happens when my cheese club runs out in July? Will there be no more cheese every month?’
He laughs. ‘A world without cheese, what a thought!’ He places his hand over his heart. ‘Baby, I promise you that, for as long as I’m alive, you’ll get your delivery of cheese every month.’
Then it happens – my chest fills with warm feeling. It’s love. Love for Hugh. It must be the final stage of the grieving process.
Obviously this isn’t the end end – two steps forward and one step back. There isn’t a full stop here so that everything stays on an even keel from here on in. I’ll probably regress to bitterness and sorrow and fury from time to time. But I’ve known the peace of acceptance, so there’s proof that it’s possible.
118
Thursday, 1 June
‘People joke about it.’ I step into my kitchen on a Thursday evening to find Hugh standing there. ‘But, I swear to God, the parents of children doing exams have a tougher time of it than the pupils.’ I dump a load of shopping bags on the table. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ I ask. ‘Physics?’
‘Physics.’ He looks very, very tired.
Because the Leaving Cert is kicking off in less than a week, a fierce heatwave is building. It happens every year at exam time.
‘What have you here?’ Hugh helps me unpack.
‘Multi-vitamins for all-round good health, B6 and B12 for her nerves, kava-kava to keep her calm, ginkgo biloba to keep her alert. Rescue Remedy, but that might be for me. And those bottles of wine, they’re for me – and I suppose for you. Here.’ I open the bottle of multi-vitamins and give him one. ‘Take that. We’ve got to last the pace too.’ Sofie’s exams run until 20 June.
‘It’s going to be an intense couple of weeks.’
‘The health-food shop’s shelves were almost empty,’ I say. ‘It was like they’d had a riot. Every parent in the country must be at this lark.’
I decide to open a bottle of wine and let Hugh unpack the rest.
‘What?’ He’s looking at bags of spinach and boxes of eggs. ‘Are they for her?’
‘Rich in B vitamins,’ I say, feeling like Smug Mummy. Two mouthfuls of wine and I’m already giddy.
‘Percy Pigs!’ he says.
‘Hands off! They’re hers, for when she’s doing the actual exams.’
‘I thought sugar was the instrument of the devil.’
‘But it gives short bursts of mental energy.’ Then I add doubtfully, ‘Apparently. God, it’s so hard to know what the right thing is.’ I give him a glass of wine. ‘There are times when I want to volunteer to sit the exams myself. But what do I know of physics and chemistry? You could do it.’
‘I’d hardly pass for Sofie.’
‘No.’ He’s too big, too hairy. ‘You need a haircut.’ Then I blurt, ‘Sorry. God, sorry. Time-slip! They’re not happening so often now, though.’
‘No, they’re not.’
‘And eventually they’ll stop entirely.’
‘I’m looking forward to it.’ He smiles. And, after a moment, I smile too.
‘Okay!’ Sofie bounds into the kitchen. ‘Let’s get to it. Is that wine? Dad, no! I need your head in the game.’
They sit at the kitchen table and embark on some horrendous-looking equation. In a burst of sympathy, I quietly place the bag of Percy Pigs beside him.
The night is so hot that Kiara and I sit outside in our postage stamp of a back garden. I drink a bit too much wine, lie on the grass and enjoy the sensation of stopping for rest in the midst of exhaustion. Enduring Sofie’s gruelling schedule is so taxing that my body actually aches. My lower back is enjoying the sensation of being pressed flat to the ground. When Kiara shoves me and says, ‘Mum, you’re snoring,’ I realize I’ve fallen asleep.
In the kitchen Sofie and Hugh are still grappling with the physics conundrum.
‘Night,’ I say, ‘I’m going to bed.’
‘Me too.’ Kiara yawns.
Sofie and Hugh raise their heads, their eyes red-rimmed.
‘Dad,’ Sofie says. ‘Maybe we should stop now, get some sleep, and do another couple of hours in the morning.’
‘Okay.’ Hugh stands and stretches, his T-shirt lifting to expose his belly. For a moment I want to lay my hand on it. Our eyes meet and my face goes hot.
‘Don’t go home,’ Kiara says.
‘Yeah,’ Sofie agrees. ‘Stay on the couch, and we’ll both get up at six. Mum, have we a spare duvet?’
‘He can have Neeve’s.’ Kiara takes the stairs two at a time, reappearing with sheets, pillows and a duvet. She and Sofie do up a bed for him in the living room and make a big fuss of him as they tuck him in.
‘Sleep tight, Dad,’ Kiara says, and gives him a kiss.
‘Yes, sleep tight.’ Sofie also kisses him. ‘Mum, kiss Dad goodnight.’
‘Kiss him? You never know where that mouth’s been.’ I’d meant it as a joke but I sound bitter.
‘Mum!’ Kiara is shocked.
‘Well, sorry.’
I look at Hugh. ‘Sorry. Okay?’
‘Okay.’ He’s got his mild voice on but I’m guessing that’s not how he’s feeling.
As soon as Sofie and Kiara have disappeared to bed, I look down at him lying on the couch and say coldly, ‘I can be sore for as long as I like. There’s no time limit on it.’ I’m furious, as furious as I was the night I got back from Serbia.