The Bright Side (16 page)

“I am bothered,” I said slowly. “I’m very fucking bothered. And you know what else? I’m tired. It’s been a long day. I’m going to get my case from the car and hit the sack.
”

Melissa turned away
.

“Listen, Jackie …” Colm began
.

“No, it’s all right. Don’t worry about it. I’m knackered, honestly.
”

“Let me get your stuff for –
”

“Thanks, but I’d rather get it myself. I could do with the oxygen.
”

I got up and walked away, horribly conscious of the sound of my footsteps on the wooden floor. It seemed to take me about half an hour to get out of the house. I didn’t take a single breath along the way. Outside, it was surprisingly warm for the time of day –
alarmingly
warm, if Al Gore was anything to go by. A couple of teenage girls were sitting on the wall next door to Melissa’s. As I passed, I heard one of them saying that she couldn’t wait for the party the following night. It was going to be both “wicked” and “banging”. Her friend responded with at least as much enthusiasm. Their hoots and giggles followed me across the street, mocking me and my age and my clothes and my hairstyle. When I reached the car, I walked straight past it. I had no plan to go anywhere in particular – I was just glad to be putting one foot in front of the other. A couple of minutes later, I found myself outside a shop on the main road. The decision to go inside and buy cigarettes didn’t seem to come from my own brain. It was if it had been taken elsewhere and then relayed to me; not so much a personal choice as an instruction from on high. I was at the counter before I gave it a thought. The thought was
Phew
–
thank
God
you
brought
your
purse
on
this
random,
not-going-
anywhere-in-particular
walk
.

“Ten Silk Cut blue, please,” I said to the girl
.

There
was
a
magazine
rack
to
my
left.
My
eye
was
caught by
a
publication
called
Your
Story
.
Although
it
featured
a
number
of
intriguing
headlines:
“
Haunted
By
My
Own
Dog
!”; “
Boozy
Surgeon
Ruined
My
Nose!”
The
one
that
really
sucked me
in
was
this:
“
My
Cheating
Husband
Will
Never
Stray
Again!”
I
grabbed
the
mag
and
offered
it
for
scanning.

“Six-forty altogether,” the assistant said
.

Peering into my purse, I realised that I had no notes. When I fished around for change, I came up with six euros and forty cents exactly. I took it as a sign from God that he wanted me to inhale poisons and read crap. He had his reasons, no doubt
.

Back at the house, I stuck my head into the living room and apologised for taking so long. Melissa nodded and then went back to her book
.

Colm
said,
“That’s
okay.
Did
you
go
for
a
stroll?” “Yeah,”
I
said.
“Just
a
wee
one.
Clear
the
head.
You
know.
”

“Fair enough.
”

“I’m off to bed then.” “Right so. Goodnight.” “Night.
”

Melissa closed her book with some force and looked at me properly. “Sleep well,” she said thinly
.

“I’ll try,” I told her. “See you in the morning.
”

Upstairs,
I
flaked
out
on
the
bed
and
opened
Your
Story
.
The
cheating
husband
piece
was
by
“Brenda”,
a
woman from
Manchester
who’d
found
a
pair
of
furry
handcuffs
in
the
glove
box
of
her
old
man’s
car.
She
knew
he
wasn’t
using
them
on
her,
so
she
confronted
him.
He
confessed
to an
affair,
at
which
point
she
decided
“to
teach
him
a
lesson
he
would
never
forget!”
(Almost
every
sentence
ended
with
an
exclamation
mark.)
Brenda’s
solution
to
her
problem
was
to
e-mail
everyone
on
her
husband’s
rugby
team
to
let
them
know
that
furry
handcuffs
were
nothing
compared
to
some
of
the
gizmos
and
get-ups
he’d
employed
in
the
marital
bedroom.
“Your
pal’s
favourite
game
of
all,”
she
revealed
in
her
final
paragraph,
“is
to
play
naughty
schoolgirl
and
strict
headmaster
–
with
him
as
the
schoolgirl!”
The
plan,
if
you
could
call
it
that,
worked
like
a
charm.
The
husband
became
a
laughing
stock
among
his
friends
(who
forwarded
the
mail
to
everyone
they
knew)
and
wound
up
“so depressed
he
can
barely
leave
the
house,
let
alone
find
a
new mistress!”
Brenda
seemed
to
think
this
was
a
great
victory,
but
I
wasn’t
so
sure.
She
hadn’t
done
anything
to
ease
her
own
pain,
had
she?
All
she’d
done
was
hurt
her
husband,
which
was
both
easy
and,
in
the
grand
scheme
of
things,
pointless
.

I tossed the magazine to the other side of the room and rolled over onto my back. What was Gerry up to now, I wondered? On those rare occasions when I went out alone for the evening, I usually came back to find him sprawled across the sofa in front of an action movie, covered in a thin layer of Pringle crumbs. Tonight would be very different. He wouldn’t be seizing the opportunity to revert to teenagerhood; he was more likely to be curled up in a little ball, cursing himself and wishing he was dead. At least, I presumed he was. There was always the possibility that he was next door, tearing Lisa’s clothes off with his teeth. But I found that unlikely
.

The simple truth was this: I believed him. I believed him when he said it was a one-off, and I believed him when he said it would never happen again. It was entirely possible for a spouse to have sex with someone else as a sort of mistake, and then never do it again
.

I knew that for a fact, because I had done it myself
.

CHAPTER
8

When
2002
gave
way
to
2003,
I
dared
to
hope
that
the calendar
change
might
do
wonders
for
my
state
of mind.
Although
my
parents’
accident
was
still
horribly recent,
at
least
now
it
was
something
that
had
happened
“last year”.
But
there
was
no
improvement.
I
was
still
a
zombie, slouching
silently
from
room
to
room,
crying
more
often
than not.
I
hadn’t
slept
for
more
than
a
couple
of
hours
at
a
stretch since
the
accident
and
was
stupefied
by
even
the
simplest
of everyday
tasks.
There
had
been
several
occasions
when
I had
been
reduced
to
a
quivering
heap
on
the
kitchen
floor
by the
sight
of
a
pile
of ironing.
Even
my
beloved
cooking
had lost
all
appeal;
for
the
first
time
in
their
lives,
the
kids
came home
not
to
long-since
perfected
favourites
or
to
bold
new experiments
but
to
boil-in-the-bag
curries,
oven-ready
chips,
frozen
pizzas.
Gerry
was
worried,
and
repeatedly
told
me
so.
He
thought
I
should
“talk
to
someone”,
meaning
a counsellor
or
a
psychologist.
Every
time
he
brought
it
up,
I just
shook
my
head
and
shuffled
out
of
his
sight.
Talking couldn’t
possibly
help.
Nothing
could.
My
sole
consolation was
that
this,
surely,
was
my
allocation
of
misery
for
the
next couple
of
decades.
There
would
be
no
more
bad
news
for
a long
time.
There
couldn’t
possibly
be;
it
would
be
unfair
.