Down in my half-sleep, I’ve run full-tilt into a steel door. Struggling for breath, pawing for the light-switch, I sit up, hoping it’s a bad dream but knowing it isn’t.
Now I’m wide awake and the room is bright. I stare at his side of the bed. Empty.
I stare and stare, then lift the duvet and touch the sheet that he had once lain on. Where are you now? Who are you with?
And why haven’t you called me?
He’d said he wouldn’t but I nurse a hope that he won’t stick to it.
Missing him is exhausting, the urge to ring him almost unendurable. Just to hear his unmistakable voice – it would pierce my pain and fill the need in my chest. Hugh has the perfect voice – the right depth, the right volume, properly warm and comforting. Even the words he speaks are the right ones. He chooses them carefully. He won’t say something if he doesn’t mean it. I’m only fully appreciating all of this now.
I reach for my phone, look at his contact details and hover on the edge of pressing Call for second after second after second. He’d pick up because he’d think it was an emergency. Then he’d probably be pissed off with me and maybe I need to keep my powder dry for some real emergency.
But doesn’t he miss me? I’ve missed him for almost every single second since Tuesday.
Sobs force themselves out of me and, barely knowing what I’m at, I punch his stack of pillows and cry-shout, ‘Why haven’t you called me?’ I hit the pillows a second whack. ‘You fucker!’ Another blow lands. ‘You complete bastard!’ And another. ‘You fucking disloyal pr–’
‘Mum?’
Shite! Which one is it?
It’s okay. It’s Neeve who’s standing at my bedroom door, staring in shock. Neeve can handle seeing this. Kiara couldn’t.
‘Are you okay?’ She sounds tentative.
‘Completely fucking fabulous!’ My face is roasting and the salty tears sting my skin. I clout the pillows again. ‘I just can’t believe he hasn’t called me.’
‘Mum, he said he wouldn’t.’
‘But he SHOULD HAVE!’ I screech – into my hands so Kiara won’t hear.
‘That’s just how Hugh is.’
‘So fucking cold!’
‘Not cold. Just … linear. Is that the word? If he says he’ll do something, he sticks to it.’
‘Well, he said he’d love me for ever!’
‘He’s coming back.’
‘It’ll be all fucked up. It’ll never be the same.’
‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
She bolts from the room while sobs are wrenched from me. After a while I’m dimly aware that she’s returned.
‘What are you doing today?’ she asks.
My answer is punctuated by sobbing. ‘The weekly. Fucking. Shop.’
‘No, Mum. Don’t do that to yourself.’
‘I have to. We need STUFF!’
‘Do it online.’
‘But they’re such useless fuckers online,’ I sob. ‘I order Pink Ladies and they bring Gala apples instead, and that’s the least worst thing they do, and I know they’re first-world problems, I know, but please don’t judge me.’
‘I’ll do the shop,’ she offers.
‘You’re a useless fucker too.’ Now I’m cry-laughing.
‘Seriously, Mum, I’ll do it.’
‘Okay.’ I wipe my face on the duvet cover. Like, what’s the worst thing that can happen? Fear seizes my heart and I clutch her arm. ‘Don’t forget the wine.’
‘So what are we doing today?’ Lovatt lifts and lets fall a lock of my hair. ‘Taking it down a couple of shades?’
In the mirror I stare at him. I’m in a peculiar mood: all the crying has emptied me out. Eventually my numb lips form a word. ‘No.’
He sighs heavily. ‘Well, what are we doing with these ends?’
That’s another thing he’s always at – bullying me into getting it cut before I’m ready. I could just leave. I could stand up, take off the gown and leave. There’s the door, right there. I gaze at it, then meet his eye once more. He swallows and says, ‘I’ll just mix up the colour.’
‘I’m going to sack my hairdresser.’ This is how I greet Steevie.
She rolls her eyes. We’ve played this game frequently over the past thirty years. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Amy, this is the worst time to be making important life decisions. It’ll be just as bad with the new one. Sooner or later you’ll run out of hairdressers.’
‘There are billions of hairdressers in the world.’
‘Not good ones, there aren’t. They’re like good men, only a very small supply.’
How have we already fallen into an All Men Are Bastards conversation?
‘You don’t want to end up like me,’ she says, ‘having to cut your own hair.’
‘But you don’t.’ Steevie has a stunning cut, an out-there spiky crop that hugs the shape of her pretty head. She goes to Jim Hatton.
‘It’s a euphemism.’
It’s really quite depressing how quickly she brings everything back to her being abandoned by Lee.
Suitable conversation subjects: velvet boots; verve or swerve?; Syrian refugees; is another fundraising piss-up in order?; Dads with Alzheimer’s – can hitting them with an iPad ever be justified? (Just a small tap, not intended to hurt, simply to reprove.)
‘Have you ordered yet?’ I ask.
‘Course not. Waited for you.’ She passes me a menu.
God, there are so many options. And each dish has so many parts – halibut with samphire and Champagne sauce, autumn vegetable crumble and duchesse potatoes. That sounds, well … revolting.
‘What starter are you having?’ she asks.
Starter? God. I can’t eat one, never mind two complicated courses.
‘No starter for me.’
‘Oh? Okay. No harm, I suppose. I’ll skip it too.’
Wearily I choose the least disgusting-sounding lunch. Then Steevie says, ‘So how’re you doing?’
This is where the discussion of velvet boots should start but I waver, then admit, ‘A bit shit.’
She nods. ‘That’s what happens when your loving husband shows his true colours. When Lee left, I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest and stomped on.’
She’s waiting for my agreement, but that’s not how it is for me. ‘I feel … like I’m living under a dark shadow. As if every light bulb in the world has been changed to those low-energy eco ones that start off dim as fuck, then get brighter. Except, these days, they never get brighter. Everything seems ominous, as if a terrible thing is about to happen. Then I realize it already has.’
‘Oh, it has.’
‘Most of the time I can’t believe he’s gone. I still think that when I go home later he’ll be there.’
Meeting Steevie was meant to be a good thing, cheery – okay, maybe cheery was going too far, but comforting. Instead my spirits are sinking to the centre of the earth, at the same time as panic is rising.
‘He hasn’t called me. He’s heartless.’
‘I always knew that about him.’
‘You did?’
‘Oh, yeah. Heartless. And a cheater.’
‘Hugh?’
‘Amy.’ She looks concerned. ‘Why are you so surprised?’
‘Are you saying that Hugh’s been cheating? Here? In Dublin?’
‘Love of God, no, Amy! Not that I know of anyway. I’m just saying they’re all cheaters. Hugh’s made it trickier for himself than most. He had to manufacture some mad crisis and travel to the other side of the world to do his cheating, so he could feel okay about it. But he’s still a cheater.’
Right. AMAB. All Men Are Bastards. Well, she’s right, of course. Except is Hugh a bastard?
‘So you’re going to Vivi Cooper’s thing tonight?’ Steevie asks.
I start to explain, then abruptly decide against it – my fear is that Steevie will suggest we go out together instead and, for reasons I don’t understand, I want to get away from her. ‘Yep. Vivi’s birthday thing.’
‘You and all the couples.’
Steevie and Vivi aren’t friends, but since Lee left her, Steevie regularly implies she’s omitted from events because she no longer has a husband.
In softer tones, she says, ‘It’s tougher than it looks, Amy. Being the only single person at a table of couples.’
Our food arrives and I’m hoping she’ll abandon the subject, but no.
‘It’s fucking horrible, Amy.’ Her voice cracks. ‘And I’m not sure you’re up to it.’
God. I stare at my plate, at all the mysterious blobs and smears. There’s no way any of that can go into my mouth.