He sits tight and tense, clenched in on himself. For a long, long time he’s silent, and it’s hard to not jump in with suggestions and reassurances.
Eventually he speaks. ‘Sorry. Just having a … I’ll be okay.’
The disappointment is devastating. ‘You’re going?’ My throat feels swollen.
‘Yeah. But I’m scared stiff. Will I get mugged? Will I be lonely? Will people think I’m pathetic? A middle-aged man trying to relive his youth?’
This is the part where I reassure him it’ll all be fine. ‘Before you’ve eaten your first banana pancake on the Khoa San Road,’ I say, ‘your passport will be stolen, your bank account will be cleared out by a prostitute who’s spun you a hard-luck story and you’ll find that you’re an accidental drug mule. You’ve seen the films.’
He laughs, a little nervously. ‘And you’ll have to come and bail me out of jail.’
I shrug. ‘What if I’ve met someone else and just decide you can stay there?’
Another nervous laugh. ‘Amy, I promise I will come back.’
Who knew? Maybe he was just leaving me via the scenic route.
‘Tuesday’s the thirteenth of September, so you’ll be back on the thirteenth of March next year.’ Oh, God, it’s so far away.
‘Or thereabouts.’
‘Thereabouts? No, Hugh. Don’t fucking “thereabouts” me. Be back on the thirteenth of March.’
‘Okay.’
‘Hugh, listen to me,’ I say urgently. ‘Even if you do come back, you’ll be different. And I might be different too. “Us” will be gone.’
‘Things might be even better,’ he says.
In theory. Always assuming I can get past the jealousy. That I can live with the unknown parts of Hugh, the girls he fucked, the laughs he had, those six months that he spent living life to the full without me.
‘Don’t go,’ I say. ‘Please, Hugh, we won’t survive it. And don’t say that must mean we’re not strong enough right now. This is real life and this is me you’re talking to. Couldn’t you just wait it out?’
‘I’ve tried waiting it out.’
‘Wait a bit longer.’
He shakes his head. ‘I can’t go on like this.’
I curse the tears that fill my eyes.
‘I can’t go on like this,’ he repeats. ‘I’m so sorry, Amy.’
‘Facebook,’ I say. ‘Are you going to be posting pictures of you wherever you are? With … whoever you’re with?’ I have a vision of him around a beach campfire, looking tanned and young and carefree, surrounded by bikini’d babes wearing bandannas on their heads. ‘Because you can’t. Think of the girls – you can’t have them seeing … whatever … you know …’
‘I’ll stay off it.’
‘Fucking make sure you do.’
‘Amy, I’m sorry. For all of this.’
‘Oh, Hugh, just fuck off!’
If only there was someone to talk to. There’s always Mum’s peculiar offer, to hang out and drink wine, but my world has been upended enough and I can’t be dealing with a mother who’s behaving wildly out of character.
As if the universe has heard my need for a confidante, my phone rings. But clearly the universe is a little deaf because the person calling is Maura. Again. There are already three missed calls from her. Once the number goes above four, she visits in person, and that would be all kinds of bad. She might give Hugh a severe dressing-down and maybe he deserves it but it wouldn’t be helpful.
I sigh and answer, ‘Maura?’
‘Are you okay? Any news on when he’s going?’
‘No.’ I can’t tell her yet. I’m not able for the drama.
‘You need to know that you’re being quite Scapegoaty at the moment.’
Maura’s done a course that explained the roles assumed in families with absent parents. Apparently there are five: Hero, Scapegoat, Enabler, Lost Child and Mascot. As Maura was so obviously the Hero, she was delighted with this assessment. Declyn, the youngest and cutest O’Connell, was our Mascot. She’s had trouble matching Joe, Derry and me to the three remaining roles but basically she thinks we’re all Scapegoats. Even Declyn was a Scapegoat for a while, when he came out.
‘If Hugh doesn’t go,’ she says, ‘I’ll withdraw my allegation. At the moment, we’ll call you Scapegoat-in-waiting.’
I might as well just make my peace with being Scapegoat-in-chief. ‘Bye, Maura.’
‘We’ll talk soon.’
Sadly, we undoubtedly will.
I return to my iPad and the Sunday papers. The Times has a big, positive profile on my client Bryan Sawyer, the British triathlete who’d been caught on camera earlier this year stealing teaspoons from Marcus Waring’s restaurant. Bryan had laughed off the teaspoon theft, claiming he’d done it as a dare. Then his ex-wife sold a story saying Bryan had form as a klepto, and had taken countless gingham napkins from Jamie Oliver’s restaurant. (She was photographed, looking sorrowful, at a twelve-seater dining table, with a Jamie napkin beside every place-mat.)
A hotelier came forward: apparently Bryan had stolen two bath towels from him; then another hotelier accused Bryan of thieving seven wooden clothes hangers. A media storm ensued, Bryan’s sponsors dropped him, and he’d been in an awful state when he came to see me five months ago.
Mercifully I’d liked him – he’s a damaged, vulnerable man who had a tough childhood – because, hard-up though Hatch may be, we don’t rehabilitate people who don’t deserve it. I’d painstakingly reconstructed his public life – charity work, a delicately curated social-media presence and a public admission of his klepto-quirk – and it’s unseemly to brag, but I’m killing it: two of his sponsors have re-signed him and today’s glowing article is an indication that my work is nearly complete. Several other papers are running mostly positive pieces in their later editions – some backlash will follow, it always does, but nothing that should impact.
On any other day, my mood would be triumphant and there are probably a few congratulatory messages on my phone, dotted among the pebbledashery of rubbernecking, but it’s too risky to look.
It’s not just professional pride I’m feeling about Bryan Sawyer, there’s also meaningful financial consolation: I’ll get a percentage of his sponsorship fees and, frankly, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Even without Hugh taking six months off work, money is tight. My income is unpredictable and there’s rarely very much left over after I’ve paid my share of the necessaries.
Of course I’ll have access to our fast-reducing ‘nest egg’ while Hugh is gone … Such rage bursts in my chest. It was lovely having that money. Knowing that so many of the household problems would be dealt with was an indescribable pleasure, and now Hugh – fucking Hugh – is blowing it on a mid-life crisis.
But is this unreasonable of me? It was his parent the money had come from. And Hugh had prioritized funds to put my niece through college because her biological parents have perpetual cash-flow problems and we’ve long given up asking for any. Also, his income is significantly higher than mine so he’s always contributed more than I have to our joint account and never once has he groused.
The rights and wrongs of this are terribly confusing.
I skim the rest of the papers, always scouting for business. Any celebrity who’s come a cropper and needs to be rehabilitated in the eyes of public opinion might be a potential client.
But my head is melted so I fling down my iPad, lie back on the pillows and probe my tender feelings. It’s all too reminiscent of when Richie walked out. Back then, after some recovery time, my promise to myself was that I’d never again be that woman, yet here I am being that woman. Is this what life is all about? To bring us face to face with our worst fears until they no longer scare us?
Could we possibly even be complicit, subconsciously, in their manifestation? Is that what I’ve done? Because floating in my head is a vague something, maybe a myth or a legend about people meeting their fate on the very road they took to avoid it. Clearly I’d thought that by choosing Hugh I’d escaped my fate of abandonment but – even though it’s taken a long time to happen – I’d chosen the exact person to replicate those circumstances.