I shake my head. “No can do.”
“Why not? He seemed to be pretty interested when he was chasing your bus down the road and when he saw you at the ballet. What’s changed now?”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know.”
“How? And don’t tell me it’s because of some mumbo jumbo thing you saw in your tea leaves.”
“I drink coffee now.”
“You hate coffee.”
“He obviously doesn’t.”
She does her best not to be negative but looks away.
“He’s too busy looking for the woman whose life he saved; he’s no longer interested in me. He had my contact details, Kate, and he never called. Not once. In fact, he went so far as to throw them in the trash, and don’t ask me how I know that.”
“Knowing you, you were probably lying in the bottom of it.”
I keep tight-lipped.
Kate sighs. “How long are you going to keep this up?”
I shrug. “Not much longer.”
“What about work? What about Conor?”
“Conor and I are done. There’s nothing more to say. Four years of separation, and then we’ll be divorced. Why does everyone want me to fall apart, Kate? Can’t everyone just accept that I’m happy with what’s happened? Or that I’m stronger than some people?”
“Nobody wants to see you fall apart, Joyce. I’m glad you’re happy about the separation, really I am. But you never talk about…you know.”
“Losing my baby,” I say firmly.
“I don’t want you to feel that you have to talk about it.”
“Yes, you do. Everybody does. But I’m not going to be the person that breaks down every time it’s mentioned. I’m dealing with it in my own way.”
“Okay.”
“I’m moving on, Kate. And as for work, I’ve already told them I’m going back next week; my diary is already full with appointments. And as for the house—shit!” I pull up my sleeve to look at my watch. “I have to get back. I’m showing the house in an hour.”
A quick kiss, and I run for the nearest bus home.
“Okay, this is it.” Justin stares out the car window and up to the second floor of the building that houses the blood donor clinic.
“You’re donating blood?” Thomas asks.
“No way. I’m just paying somebody a visit. I shouldn’t be too long. If you see any police cars coming, start the engine.” He smiles, but it is unconvincing.
He nervously asks for Sarah at reception and is told to wait in the waiting room. Around him men and women on their lunch breaks sit in their suits and read newspapers, waiting to be called for their blood donations.
He inches closer to the woman beside him, who’s flicking through a magazine. He leans over her shoulder, and as he whispers, she jumps.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Everyone in the room lowers their papers and magazines to stare at him. He coughs and looks away, pretending somebody else said it. On all the walls around them are posters encouraging people to donate, as well as ones of young children, survivors of leukemia and other illnesses. He has already waited half an hour and checks his watch every minute now, conscious he has a plane to catch. When the last person leaves him alone in the room, Sarah appears at the door.
“Justin.” She isn’t icy, she isn’t tough or angry. Just quiet. Hurt. That’s worse. He’d rather she was angry.
“Sarah.” He stands and greets her in an awkward half embrace and with a kiss on one cheek, which turns into two. A questionable third is aborted and almost becomes a kiss on the lips. She pulls away, ending the farcical greeting.
“I can’t stay long, I have to get to the airport for a flight, but I wanted to come by and see you face-to-face. Can we talk for a few minutes?”
“Yes, sure.” She walks into the reception room and sits down, arms still folded.
“Oh.” He looks around. “Don’t you have an office or something?”
“This is nice and quiet.”
“Where is your office?”
Her eyes narrow with suspicion, and he gives up that particular line of questioning and quickly takes a seat beside her.
“I’m here, really, to apologize for my behavior the last time we met. Well, every time we met and every moment after that. I really am sorry.”
She nods, waiting for more.
Damn it, that’s all I had! Think, think. You’re sorry and…
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I got very distracted that day with those crazy Vikings. In fact, you could say I’ve been distracted by crazy Vikings almost every day for the last month or two, and uh…” Think! “Could I go to the men’s room? If you wouldn’t mind, I mean.”
She looks a little taken aback but directs him to it. “Sure, it’s straight down the hall at the end.”
Standing outside, where a newly hammered For Sale sign is attached to the front wall, Linda and her husband, Joe, are pressing their faces up against the window and gawking into the living room. A protective feeling comes over me. Then as soon as it comes, it vanishes. Home is not a place—not this place, anyway.
“Joyce? Is that you?” Linda slowly lowers her sunglasses.
I give them a big wobbly smile while reaching into my pocket for the bunch of keys, which is already minus my car keys and the furry ladybird key chain that used to be on Mum’s set. Even the keys have lost their heart, their playfulness; all they have now is their function.
“Your hair—you look so different.”
“Hi, Linda. Hi, Joe.” I hold out my hand to greet them. But Linda has other plans and reaches out to offer me a huge, tight hug.
“Oh, I’m so sorry for you,” she mutters as she squeezes me. “Poor you.”
A nice gesture, if perhaps I’d known her a bit better and longer than merely having shown her three houses over a month ago.
She lowers her voice to a whisper. “Did they do that at the hospital?” She eyes my hair.
“Uh, no, they did that at the hair salon,” I chirp, my usual Lady of Trauma coming back to save the day. I turn the key in the door and allow them to enter first.
“Oh,” she breathes excitedly, and her husband smiles and takes her hand. I have a flashback of Conor and me coming to view the house ten years ago; it had just been deserted by an old lady who had lived alone for the previous twenty years. I follow my younger self into the house, and suddenly she is real and I am the ghost, remembering what we saw and replaying the moment again.
The home had reeked inside, with its old carpets, creaking floors, rotting windows, and out-of-fashion wallpaper. It was disgusting and a money pit, and we loved it as soon as we stood where Linda and her husband stand right now.
We had everything in front of us back then, when Conor was the Conor I loved and I was the old me; a perfect match. Then Conor became who he is now, and I became the Joyce he no longer loved. As the house became more beautiful, our relationship became uglier. We could have lain on a cat-hair-infested rug on our first night and still been happy, but every minute detail of what was wrong in our marriage going forward we attempted to fix by getting a new couch, repairing doors, replacing drafty windows. If only we’d put that much time and concentration into ourselves; self-improvement rather than home improvement. Neither of us thought to fix the draft in our marriage. It whistled through the growing cracks until we both woke up one morning with cold feet.
“I’ll show you around downstairs, but, um—” I look up at the nursery door, no longer vibrating as it had when I first returned home from the hospital. It is just a door now, quiet and still. Doing what a door does. Nothing. “I’ll let you wander around upstairs by yourselves.”
“Are the owners still living here?” Linda asks.
I look around. “No. No, they’re long gone.”
As Justin makes his way down the hall to the toilet, he examines each of the names on the doors, looking for
Sarah’s office. He has no idea where to start, but maybe if he can find the folder that deals with blood recently taken from Trinity College…
He finally sees her name on one door and raps on it gently. When he hears no response, he enters and closes it quietly behind him. He looks around quickly, sees piles of folders on the shelves. He runs immediately to the filing cabinets and starts rifling through them. Moments later the doorknob turns. He drops a file back into the cabinet, spins toward the door, and freezes. Sarah stands there looking at him, shocked.
“Justin?”
“Sarah?”
“What are you doing in my office?”
You’re an educated man, think of something smart.
“I took a wrong turn.”
She folds her arms. “Why don’t you tell me the truth now?”
“I was on my way back and saw your name on the door and thought I’d come in and have a look around, see what your office is like. I have this thing, you see, where I believe that an office really represents what a person is like, and if we’re to have a future tog—”
“We’re not going to have a future.”
“Oh. I see. But if we were to—”
“No.”
His eyes scan her desk and fall upon a photograph of Sarah with her arms around a young blond girl and a man. They pose happily together on a beach.
Sarah follows his gaze.
“That’s my daughter, Molly.” She tightens her lips then, angry at herself for saying anything.
“You have a daughter?” He reaches for the frame and pauses before touching it, looking to her for permission first.
She nods, lips loosening, and he takes the photo in his hands.
“She’s beautiful.”
“She is.”
“How old is she?”
“Six.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“You don’t know a lot of things about me. You never stuck around long enough on our dates to talk about anything that wasn’t about you.”
Justin cringes. “Sarah, I’m so sorry.”
“So you said, so sincerely, right before you came into my office and started rooting around.”
“I wasn’t rooting—”
Her look is enough to stop him from telling another lie. She takes the photo frame gently from his hands. Nothing about her is rough or aggressive. She is clearly filled with disappointment; this is not the first time an idiot like Justin has let her down.
“The man in the photo?”
She looks sad as she studies it before placing it back on the table.
“I would have been happy to tell you about him before,” she says softly. “In fact, I remember trying to on at least two occasions.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, feeling so small he almost can’t see over her desk. “I’m listening now.”
“And I’m sure I remember you telling me you had a flight to catch,” she says.
“Right.” He nods and makes his way to the door. “I am so truly and very, very sorry. I am hugely embarrassed and disappointed in myself.” And he realizes he actually means this from the bottom of his heart. “I am going through some strange things at the moment.”
“Find me someone who isn’t. We all have crap to deal with, Justin. Just please do not drag me into yours.”
“Okay.” He nods again and offers another apologetic, embarrassed smile before exiting her office, rushing down the stairs and jumping into the car, feeling two feet tall.
Chapter 35
WHAT’S THAT?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just give it a wipe.”
“No, you.”
“Have you seen something like that before?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe? You either have or you haven’t.”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“I’m not, I’m just trying to figure it out. Do you think it will come off?”
“I’ve no idea. Let’s ask Joyce.”
I hear Linda and Joe mumbling together in the hallway. I’ve left them to their own devices and have been standing in the galley kitchen, drinking a black coffee and staring out at my mother’s rosebush at the back of the garden. I see the ghosts of Joyce and Conor sunbathing on the grass during a hot summer with the radio blaring.
“Joyce, could we show you something for a moment?”
“Sure.”
I put the coffee cup down, passing the ghost of Conor making his lasagna specialty in the kitchen, passing the ghost of Joyce sitting in her favorite armchair in her pajamas, and make my way to the hall. Linda and Joe are on their hands and knees, examining the stain by the stairs. My stain.
“I think it might be wine,” Joe says, looking up at me. “Did the owners say anything about the stain?”
“Uh…” My legs wobble slightly, and for a moment I think my knees are going to go. I hold on to the banister and pretend to lean down to look at it more closely. I close my eyes. “It’s been cleaned a few times already, as far as I know. Would you be interested in keeping the carpet?”
Linda makes a face while she thinks, looks up and down the stairs, through the house, examining my choice of decor with a ruffled nose. “No, I suppose not. I think wooden floors would be lovely. Don’t you?” she asks Joe.
“Yeah,” he nods. “A nice pale oak.”
“So, no,” she says. “I don’t think we’d keep this carpet.”
I haven’t intended to keep the owners’ details from them deliberately—there’s no point, as they’ll see them on the contract anyway. I had assumed they knew that the property was mine, but as they poked holes in the decor and in the choice of room layout, I didn’t think it would be necessary to make them uncomfortable by pointing it out now.
“You seem keen.” I smile, watching their faces aglow with warmth and excitement at finally finding the right home for themselves.
“We are.” She grins. “We have been so fussy, as you well know. But now the situation has changed, and we need to get out of that flat and find something bigger as soon as we can, seeing as we’re expanding—or at least I am,” she jokes nervously, and it’s only then that I notice the small bump beneath her shirt, her belly button hard and protruding against the fabric.
“Oh, wow…” Lump to throat, wobble of knees again, please let this moment be over quickly, please make them look away from me. They have tact, and so they do. “That’s fantastic, congratulations,” my voice says cheerily, and even I can hear how hollow it is, so devoid of sincerity, the empty words almost echoing within themselves.
“So that room upstairs would be perfect.” Joe nods to the nursery.
“Oh, of course, that’s just wonderful.” The 1950s surbuban housewife is back as I gosh, gee-whiz, and shucks my way through the rest of the conversation.
“I can’t believe they don’t want any of the furniture,” Linda says, looking around.
“Well, they’re both moving to smaller properties, where their belongings just won’t fit.”
“But they’re not taking anything?”
“No,” I say, looking around. “Nothing but the rosebush in the back garden.”
And a suitcase of memories.
Justin falls into the car with a giant sigh.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing. Could you just drive directly to the airport now, please? I’m a little behind schedule.” Justin places his elbow on the window ledge and covers his face with his hand, hating himself, hating the selfish, miserable man he has become. He and Sarah weren’t right for each other, but what right had he to use her like that, to bring her down into his pit of desperation and selfishness?
“I’ve got something that will cheer you up,” Thomas says, reaching for the glove compartment.
“No, I’m really not in the—” Justin stops, seeing Thomas retrieve a familiar envelope from the compartment. Thomas hands it over to him.
“Where did you get this?”
“My boss called me, told me to give it to you before you got to the airport.”
“Your boss.” Justin narrows his eyes. “What’s his name?”
Thomas is silent for a while. “John,” he finally replies.
“John Smith?” Justin says, his voice thick with sarcasm.
“The very man.”
Knowing he’ll squeeze no information from Thomas, he turns his attention back to the envelope. He circles it slowly in his hand, trying to decide whether to open it or not. He could leave it unopened and end all of this now, get his life back in order, stop using people, taking advantage. Meet a nice woman, treat her well.
“Well? Aren’t you going to open it?” Thomas asks.
Justin continues to circle it in his hand.
“Maybe.”
Dad opens the door to me, earphones in his ears, iPod in his hand. He looks my outfit up and down.
“Ooh, you looking very nice today, Gracie,” he shouts at the top of his voice, and a man walking his dog across the road turns to stare. “Were you out somewhere special?”
I smile. Relief at last. I put my finger on my lips and take the earphones out of his ears.
“I was showing the house to some clients of mine.”
“Did they like it?”
“They’re going to come back in a few days to measure. So that’s a good sign. But being back over there, I realized there are so many things that I have to go through.”
“Haven’t you been through enough? You don’t need to sob for weeks just to make yourself feel okay about all this.”
I smile. “I mean that I have to go through possessions. Things I’ve left behind. I don’t think they want a lot of the furniture. Would it be okay if I stored it in your garage?”
“My woodwork studio?”
“That you haven’t been in for ten years.”
“I’ve been in there,” he says defensively. “All right, then, you can use it. Will I ever be rid of you?” he says with a slight smile.