Maybe I could text Steevie. We’ve been friends since secondary school, but since Lee left her, she won’t let a good word be spoken about any man and she’d probably heap spite and rage on Hugh.
Spite and rage that would be coming from a good place – she’d think she was hugely supportive. But she’d simply be channelling my stuff through the prism of her own experience.
If not Steevie, maybe I could try Jana. She’s the sweetest person alive but she’s also, unaccountably, friends with Genevieve Payne, and even if I beg her not to tell Genevieve, indiscretion is her middle name. I need Hugh to be halfway across the world before Genevieve gets wind of the news.
With each of my friends there’s something preventing a full and free vent, and it’s a shock that I don’t have an actual bestie whom I trust with every last part of me. I’m a pathetic saddo … unless it’s normal to have a selection of friends who all mean different things. Perhaps that’s the grown-up way. A ‘portfolio’ of friends?
Christ alive, that’s awful, and I’m never, ever going to think it again. Even if I suspect it may be true.
The reality is that, until now, Hugh has been my best friend.
I’ve almost no secrets from him and he’s always got my back, no matter what goes wrong for me – and, like for everyone, plenty does: regular bust-ups with Neeve, stressful stuff at work, and the downright weird and random (for example, a cold-sore in my eye).
Okay, I’m ringing Derry! No, not Derry. Posh Petra, then. No, no point. I go through the same list again, and the thing is, what would I even say? This limbo is so novel, there’s no language for it. It’s not the sort of thing you get in suburban Dublin.
But maybe I’m just the first of many. Maybe soon there will be an epidemic. I’d be an actual trend-setter and people will be saying, ‘Hey, aren’t you great, with your funny clothes and your modern marriage?’
God, the very thought. If Hugh goes, the next six months will be a nightmare. Could I disappear, then reappear when – if? – he comes back?
No. That’s impossible. I’ll have to spin the news the way I would a tricky work situation and make it sound mutual, positive, even desirable. I construct an imaginary press release.
Amy and Hugh are psyched to share a thrilling new phase of their marriage: a six-month sabbatical where they explore separate timelines in order to reconnect in an even more loving and loyal partnership. Yeah, and all you suckers, with your linear, monogamous marriages should feel embarrassed. No need to pity Amy. Instead you should envy her.
Would it fool anyone? Who knows? But it might salvage some of my pride. Meanwhile, I’ll need a couple of people I can be truly honest with – although they’ll be sworn to secrecy because the shame of the real story going viral would turn me into a local landmark. Everywhere I went, people would give me sidelong sympathetic looks and say, ‘She gave her husband six months off to go and ride rings around himself. What kind of a cretin is she?’
But am I a cretin? (And I probably shouldn’t say that word.)
The thing is that, in the normal run of things, Cheating Man = Complete Bastard. We’re all agreed on that, right? Like my first husband. Richie Aldin = Complete Bastard, no doubt about it: the square-shaped Complete Bastard in the square-shaped hole. Or like Steevie’s Lee. He’d fallen for his assistant at work, and we all knew where we stood: Lee = Complete Bastard; Steevie = ‘Cry Me A River’. After many months Lee tried to reclaim his old friends but even though some of the menfolk might have met him under cover of darkness, everyone knew: Lee = Complete Bastard. He was shunned.
As more time elapsed, Steevie’s equation evolved from ‘Cry Me A River’ to ‘I Will Survive’ to ‘I’m Gonna Dance On Your Grave One Day, Play Maracas and Sing Olé’, but Lee’s remained Complete Bastard.
Hugh isn’t a Complete Bastard. He loves me, causing me pain is killing him, but having compassion for the person who is hurting me is too weird for words.
A fair dent has been put in the bottle of wine and there’s a Ganni box-bag in my basket when the front door opens. I jump up and go to the hall. It’s Hugh, in a Joy Division T-shirt that was once black but has been washed so often it’s faded to a soft charcoal. It suits him. I’ve been seeing him through different eyes these last few days and his sexiness is almost shocking – it’s easy to understand why Genevieve Payne keeps putting the moves on him.
‘Hey.’ He pauses, looking awkward.
‘Where’ve you been? Why didn’t you text me? You haven’t actually left yet so lean the fuck in.’
His hands are laden with carrier bags and there’s something big and bulky half hidden behind him.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask. ‘Were you shopping?’
‘Yeah, um …’
I twist around him to get a look at whatever he’s trying to smuggle in. When I see what it is, it’s like being punched in the stomach. It’s a massive rucksack.
This is real. This is actually happening. I’d been a total gobshite to have told myself it might not.
‘Big rucksack.’ My tongue isn’t working properly.
‘I didn’t want you to see this.’
‘What’s in the bags? Can I look?’ Why do this to myself? Wouldn’t it be better to know nothing?
‘Amy, no, don’t –’
‘Really, it’s grand. I’d like to see.’ I want to show that I’m a good sport, that I’m cool with all of this.
‘Okay.’
We go into the living room where, reluctantly, Hugh reveals several colourful T-shirts – way too cheery-looking. They’d never have got the green-light from me. It’s weird and awful to be excluded from his life like this.
Now he’s produced a white linen shirt, the sort you’d wear for an expensive dinner in a hot country. This is close to unbearable but I keep going. ‘And this?’ I’ve found a small blue terry-cloth thing.
‘One of those towels that dry really quickly.’ He unfurls it to reveal a full-sized bath towel. ‘You use it, then it’s bone-dry in twenty minutes and rolls up tiny again. Takes up nearly no space in the rucksack.’
‘That’s … handy.’
‘Come on, Amy, let’s stop this.’
‘Are you really going?’
‘I’m sorry, babe.’ He looks sad and shamefaced.
‘When are you going to tell the girls?’
‘Tomorrow. We’re meeting here at ten.’
‘Even Sofie?’
‘Yeah.’
My heart thumps hard. Here we are with rucksacks and arrangements. ‘This is really difficult.’ My voice sounds strangled.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I know that no person owns another, but I’ve got into the habit of thinking of you as mine. And now I have to … share you.’
He nods awkwardly.
‘Even your penis, I’ve thought of it as mine.’
Again he nods.
‘I feel you’ve no right to leave me, that you’ve no right to have sex with anyone other than me, you know?’
‘I know.’
‘You’ve always been nice to me, really nice, like you’d do anything I asked.’
‘I love you.’
‘I’ve grown to depend on you and now I hate myself a bit for it. But what was I meant to do, Hugh?’ My voice is wobbling. ‘We have to trust people. We can’t go through life entirely self-contained.’ There’s something I have to ask. ‘Is this my fault? Have I done … something?’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s nothing to do with anyone else. It’s all to do with me.’
This is a salve, kind of, and tears of relief flood my eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, with fierce sincerity. ‘I hate myself for hurting you.’
For a moment my tears threaten to spill over, then I place my fingertips on his chest and push him on to the couch. I clamber on to his lap, straddling him, and cup his face in my hands, my fingertips rasping against his beard, and kiss him passionately. I push up his T-shirt and run the palms of my hands over his chest. These last five days he even smells different – sexy, alien, like I don’t know him.
‘The girls?’ he protests weakly.
‘Out.’ Well, Kiara is babysitting Finn, Pip and Kit. God knows where Neeve is, and Sofie could arrive at any time, but it doesn’t matter. I unbutton his jeans and slide myself down to lick the twitching tip of his erection. Slowly I guide it out, then begin to pull off his jeans.
‘You’re sure it’s safe?’ he asks urgently.