Christy’s eyes were full of empathy. ‘Tabitha, I think…’
‘Please, I don’t want to,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see him again.’
Christy, bless him, tried again, more desperately this time, for Red’s sake, I knew. But also for mine. He was such a good soul. ‘Tabitha, you don’t look well,’ he said. ‘Who’s here? Is your Mam here? Who’s looking after ye?’
‘Everything’s fine Christy. Everything’s fine.’ And I closed the door on him and after a few weeks, the phone stopped ringing and there were no more knocks on the door. And I got what I wanted, to be alone.
*
When Rosie was six, I left Michael and we moved into Nora’s house, my old home, and Michael arrived home to find me pushing boxes into a car.
It was then or never. Any later and Rosie would have been too aware, the repercussions of divorce too hard for her to deal with. It was a miserable marriage, the loneliness of two people sharing a home and a daughter but nothing much to say to each other.
‘Michael, I’m not happy,’ I said. ‘Let me go.’
‘It’s not a question of happiness,’ he said, shaking his head at me, as though I hadn’t grasped something fundamental, as though I was slightly stupid and he had to explain what life is all about. ‘It’s a question of just staying married. That’s all people have to do. We don’t have an awful marriage. We have a daughter. How bad is it, really?’
‘I want to be loved. Taken care of…’ My words sounded immature and stupid.
‘Taken care of? Whatever do you mean? I thought you feminists didn’t want that kind of nonsense. I thought you could stand on your own two feet.’
‘I do and I can. That’s not what I want…’Oh God, what did I want? I was beginning to lose confidence in everything. I didn’t know what was the right thing to do? I had been so sure and now… now, it felt like I was the last person to make the right decisions as to my and my daughter’s future happiness.
‘So you don’t want to be taken care of?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m confused. I have no idea what you want or what you are even asking for. And you don’t even know.’
‘I just want you to bring me a cup of tea,’ I said, lamely. ‘I want you to know how I like it, how much milk I like in it and which is my favourite mug.’ I felt tears welling up at the corners of my eyes.
‘What?’ He almost laughed. ‘You’re joking? But how would I know those things?’ he went on, angry at me for crying, and my confusion and what he saw was weakness, ‘You don’t even know how I like mine.’
‘I do!’
‘How then?’
‘Full-fat milk, in second, colour of dark toffee, served in your Royal Tara bone china mug.’
‘Yes, well… but tea is just tea… it doesn’t actually matter how you like it. You can’t expect me to go to Mammy and tell her that you have ended our marriage because I didn’t know how you liked your tea?’
‘It’s a metaphor! A symbol,’ I said. ‘A boiled-down microcosm of our marriage.’
He shook his head and spoke quietly, ‘Mammy was right when she said I shouldn’t marry you.’
And so, I picked up my case and I went and he didn’t stop me. But Celia did. She knocked on the door.
‘Tabitha,’ she said icily.
‘Hello, Celia.’
‘I was wondering…’ Her tone was icy, imperious, ‘…when you were going to return my granddaughter to her father?’
‘I’m not.’
‘But you can’t do that,’ she said, looking at me as though I was faintly disgusting. ‘The child belongs with her father. All children need fathers, did you not know that? Well, it depends on the father but in this case, I think we can all agree that Michael is a good father, the best kind of father to a little girl like Rosie. You didn’t have one so you don’t understand how elemental they are. Do you want Rosie to grow up without a proper family, the two parents… a normal, loving home?’
‘But we’re not happy…’
‘Correction,’ she said. ‘You’re not happy. Michael informs me that he is happy. He was perfectly happy with you and your life together. You’ve just got to get yourself happy and stop asking for too much. Life isn’t about trying to be happy. It’s about sacrifice, tenacity, keeping going. There will be moments of happiness and pleasure, yes. But that is it not daily life. And nor should it be. When will you see sense?’ She looked around, worried in case any neighbours were nearby, listening. ‘And we can’t have this discussion on the doorstep,’ she said, shoulder barging past me.
‘Celia,’ I said, ‘we can’t have this discussion at all. It’s between me and Michael.’
‘Yes,’ she tried a softer approach, ‘but he’s incapable, you know that. But, Tabitha, he’s not a bad man. Not a serial killer or murderer. He told me about the tea.’
‘It’s not about the tea…’
‘And I understand,’ she said, ‘I really do. It’s the little things. The thoughtful things. Michael Sr wasn’t good in terms of affection, remembering my birthday that kind of thing. Michael is just like his father. But I realised that there was a bigger picture. And you should too.’
‘Is everything all right, Tabitha?’ Nora was hovering in the background.
‘Yes, thanks, Mum.’
‘Hello, Nora,’ said Celia, trying to smile, ‘how lovely to see you again. And you are looking… splendid. That cardigan. It has a hand-knitted quality that is very charming. I think I saw something very similar in Brown Thomas last week. Yves St Laurent perhaps?’
‘Nearly,’ said Nora. ‘St Vincent De Paul.’
‘It’s all right, Mum,’ I said. ‘I just want to talk to Celia for a moment.’ I gave Nora a reassuring smile. I could handle this.
‘Tabitha,’ Celia began again, ‘he needs you. He can’t become a politician, like his father, if he is divorced. No one would trust him. They’d all wonder why his wife left him and no one would believe it was because of the silly matter of a cup of tea…’
‘It’s not about the tea!’ Why didn’t these people just get it? It wasn’t the tea, it was something deeper, something that said about how I wanted to be loved, deeply and properly for who I was. Not be in some working partnership. I wanted more.
‘They’d imagine terrible things about him. That maybe he had, oh I don’t know, predilections, peccadilloes, partialities. Perhaps, they might think he was homosexual…’
‘I don’t care what people think.’
‘No, dear, you obviously don’t. But I do. And Michael does. And that little girl who is going to grow up without a father, she does too. Think of Rosie, her needs. Her rights. And, Tabitha, marriage is not meant to be fun. You’re not supposed to actually enjoy it. Hard slog is what it is. But worth it in the end. When you are standing by the graveside, dressed in black, and you look back on a long marriage, you will think it worth it.’
‘I can’t wait that long,’ I said, wanting to laugh at the weird turn the conversation was taking. ‘Celia, he calls me Mammy.’
‘Tabitha, that’s nothing. Michael Senior used to call me Mrs Fogarty. What is in a name?’
‘But we just aren’t compatible…’
‘Now, you’re just being silly. Think of it as a business, and Michael is your colleague. You don’t expect compatibility and passion and superb tea-making skills from someone you work with, hmmm? That’s just na?ve.’ She smiled at me, sensing victory. ‘I was married to Michael Senior for thirty-five years. And all that mattered was the team. I mean, there were a few incidents I had to turn a blind eye to. There was one woman who wouldn’t stop phoning the house. And then there was that columnist that developed quite the crush… but I ploughed on. Eyes on the prize.’