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Authors: Martin Roper

Gone (7 page)

BOOK: Gone
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*   *   *

We are having dinner. She is eating salad noisily. It was when I had begun to drink and had noticed it. Not so much that I noticed it but that she had stopped drinking. It was her way of telling me, of drawing attention to it. She had begun to know me, knew the way my temper flared with the breeze of her perceptiveness and so she said no, she would have no wine. For a while I cut back but then I weakened to opening a bottle at the end of the meal, then would rouse myself just before we started the salad. Finally I was reduced to glassfuls while we finished eating. During that dinner it's obvious the marriage is slipping. It's like the L on her typewriter that can't bring itself to strike paper hard enough to make an impression. The harder the key is struck the fainter its outline. I wash back the anger; it swims in my ears. I stare out the window at the tarmac drive that runs up to the edge of the window. It's always a shock to see the neighbour cut through the garden, her frail feet passing by at eye level. I breathe deeply and imagine her eating becoming sweet music. She must have always eaten that way. I get up abruptly from the table and leave the room to steady myself. She shouts after me. Do I want tea. Her voice eddies on the waves of anger I leave behind. The air is a favourite cup, broken. I come in after an hour's walk and there is a mug of tea on the table with a saucer over it to keep it warm.

*   *   *

The smell of our sweat lost its passion. She no longer liked my smell about her nostrils. It all slipped between our hands. It was a long time happening (weeks, months, years?) but now it seems as fast as losing sight of a fish flipping in a river.

August: Summer trying to break out of a wet July. We are tiling in the bathroom upstairs. The telephone rings, we look at each other, at our hands covered in tiling cement. It's Friday evening. Invariably the paper rings on Friday evening. Looking for her to go to Leopardstown to cover a race meeting. She must have been first on the list; the freelancer who drops her life in the sink to ask rich men stupid questions.

—Leave it.

She is wiping her hands clean.

—It might be the office.

—The office is why I don't want you to pick it up.

The answering machine clicks on downstairs. Isobela's voice. I make a U on the back of the tile and wipe it clean. The Italian voice is a fired gun to my ears. Ursula looks at me for an instant and I see suspicion coming into her eyes. She goes into the study next door, picks up the extension, and says hello and calmly, so calmly it startles me, Isobela says hello and asks if she may speak to her friend, Stephen. Stee-pen. I sit in the bath, staring at the half-finished wall listening to their voices echo up the stairs from the machine. Ursula puts the phone down and comes back in. I talk out of nervousness.

—Put the lid on the cement or it'll harden.

*   *   *

I pick up the phone and my hello is the voice of the accused.

—Hi, Lover.

Isobela's voice is a warm crumpled bed sheet. Life is falling away. I tell her I am busy doing the bathroom and make a joke about her voice echoing around the house as we speak. Guilt stiffens me. She talks about going back to Italy soon—I interrupt and tell her I'm going to New York. Her voice is assured and friendly. She brings the conversation to a silky end. Women are better liars. I put the phone down and wipe a smudge of cement off it. The courts are full now with Friday evening tennis players, ready to bash the week out of their minds. Lover.

Ursula is washing herself at the bathroom sink, naked except for white knickers and flat black shoes. Her overalls lie on the window sill. The knicker elastic is cutting into her flesh; the hairs on her legs standing with the cold.

—They can see you from here.

—Who?

—The tennis players.

—Big thrill.

She dresses and does herself up. She closes the hall door quietly when she leaves. The clutch grinds as she reverses out the drive. I stand in the hallway surrounded by the tremendous silence of her leaving. A moment later the doorbell rings. A couple of children stand in the porch, red faced and breathless:

—Can we have our ball back, mister?

They step inside to wait. I go out into the back and search for it. Willy and Vomit are fighting on the grass.

—Where is it? Where's the ball, girls?

The voice that comes out of my mouth is calm. I get the DART into town and go into Scanlon's. Three morose pints. Two men arguing at the bar.
It is. I'm telling you it is. You know what your problem is. I'll tell you what your problem is. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about—that's your problem.
I walk home in the rain, enjoying that pathetic fallacy of it all without an umbrella. The phone is ringing when I get to the front door. She's probably gone to her mother's to bitch and that cunt has filled her with superwoman confidence about her life. I pick up the phone and say hello as dourly as possible. It's Gerry, telling me it's now or never. Shit or get off the pot he says. I hate that phrase. Ursula doesn't come home that night and she doesn't phone. I wake up, feed her cats (already the dividing up—it floods in unbidden) and stare out at the rain dripping off the gutter. Fuck it. Fuck her. Fuck whatever anyone thinks. I walk into town and buy the ticket to New York. I walk back as if in a parade, wanting to be on view to the world with my new resolve. That night I root the television out of its box and plug it in. I sit watching it but I'm only waiting for her to phone. Every hour that passes and she doesn't phone is an hour more to tell myself I'm right in going. I hate that I need her to push me into a decision but sitting there I know this is the way I am. I leave the television on so the locals think someone is in and go to the pub for a bottle of whiskey. No messages on the machine when I get back. I pour a drink and the phone rings. Isobela saying she's going tomorrow, looking for a lift to the airport. I tell her my wife has left me and there's no car. Poor baby, she says, from two women to no women. I tell her I'll get a bus out with her. Bus, she says, with disgust. Taxi. I get taxi. Get taxi then, I say. We both laugh and say goodbye. Come visit she says. No, I say. Okay Irish, she says. Be happy. I tell her I'll write to her from New York.

Two more days pass and no sign from her. If she expects me to phone her she can go to hell. She did the walking out. Come Saturday whether she's there or not I'm going. The cats can starve. I sleep little on the Friday night, cursing her. I was sure she'd be home by the weekend. The cats wake me meowing at the bedroom door. I feed them, take my suitcases down to the hall and walk around the house one last time. The note is on the kitchen table.
It's going to take some time. I need a break. I'd take the cats but you know they hate being moved. I'll be in touch.
It's a strange feeling, realising she had been in the house while I was sleeping, in and out like a thief. Need some time. I'll give you time baby. I call Medbh, and Brefini answers. I ask them to pass on a message to her. After I put the phone down I realise how forced my voice was, controlled and clipped. That it has come to this, a terse message through friends.

New York

New York, New York. Life exploding. Hot dog stands, pretzels, bagels, rocketing subways, yellow cabs, jazz twentyfourseven on the radio, Liza Minnelli advertised the length of a bus, summer thunderstorms, the ricochet of strange languages on street corners. In New York my eyes opened and I realised how insane our life had become. I felt safe there and hated the house in Dublin and hated what had happened to our life. I hated it ending, the years of compromising to make it work coming to nothing.

My first job is painting a gallery in Commerce Street in the Village. I work long hours, not just to make a good impression but to avoid going out. New York intimidates me. There are too many choices. In a foreign city everyone seems to have a purpose. And of course I work to avoid calling her. I dwell on things that I had pushed aside in more generous moments: her visible envy when I was promoted to line leader and then manager. She is incapable of enjoying success, either mine or her own. The Ambitious enjoy nothing, always one step behind the next goal. She is a somewhat successful writer now and her competitiveness baffles and disgusts me. Time magnifies faults.

*   *   *

I worry about the cats even though I know she would have been over to them in a shot. I telephone her. She thanks me for looking after the cats and for phoning Medbh. She's glad I'm doing something to change and I bite my tongue, wanting to tell her what to do with her patronising insights. A frightening distance between us, lengthened by civility. There would be more passion if we were enemies. She tells me to hang in there and enjoy New York. Everything is fine in Soapy Avenue. Wimbledon is on and the children are playing tennis rather than football. She isn't in the house often, she is too busy with work. She tells me a letter is in the post—one to forget. Here beats the harsh heart of truth. It is possible to lie to Ursula, and later to lie to Holfy, even possible to lie to myself that the relationship is over, but untruthful words on the page mock everything that goes before and everything that follows. The lie destroys a story as surely as it destroys trust between people. It demotes everything to fiction.

The letter to forget:

Happy Birthday. I loved the doll, loved it. You don't miss me. You're not with me. Not because you are there but because you are not with me in your head. It's not my imagination. I'm losing you. Shit. I never thought I'd be coming out with this kind of nonsense. You are not thanking about us. I can feel you not thinking about us. What's happening? Tell me. Just tell me.

My mother is still with Mulvany. I'll have to stop calling him that or I'll actually refer to him that way in his presence. I was dropping some cakes in the other day and I let myself into the house. Nine o'clock in the morning and the television was blaring. He was lying on the floor with the dog, licking his balls. He was licking the dog's balls. Can you imagine what goes on in a mind that would do such a thing? What can I say to her? I love her. She'll only—I know what you'll say and you're right, but it's so complicated. She sucks solace from him. He makes her feel young and pretty. You bastard. I couldn't say it to your face—I knew you were so thrilled to get out of here. But to go now? You know I didn't want you to go. And you know I would never tell you not to go. Can't you make a visit back before Christmas? Is this really going to make such a difference in money? Not really.
Certainly not for us
.

I'm inundated with work. Fiona wants me to do something about babies. A sweet milkybreathed piece. Maybe even a series of three. You know what'd be good, Urs, she says to me. I always know she's taking advantage of me when she calls me that. Can you believe the woman? After four years freelancing for her she's going to give me my first series on nappy changing. Feminism, roll over and die. I shouldn't complain. She does seem genuinely interested in me, at least as long as I'm standing in front of her. Fuck it—At least she's cutting me slack on deadlines.

I miss you.

Is Manhattan cold? Tell me where you eat. Let me live it with you a little. Kiss. Need a real one though.

Urs-ula

Dearest Ursula,

New York?

It's snowing.

S.

My anger at that time, anger fueled by her instinct for knowing. Phoning her to reassure her. Angry that she sensed what I was going to do before I even did it. Women know these things, Isobela had said. Women know these things. I hate that women-power shit. But then another letter, softer, on yellow lined paper:

She was arrested. She was running down St. Kevin's Avenue, naked except for her white tights, screaming. Where's my pussy? Where's my pussy? The dog was missing too. And the German silverware Gran gave her as a wedding present. No sign of her beau. She had drunk three bottles of Bailey's. No wonder she's putting on weight. There's no point in telling Daddy. He'll only gloat.

I can't believe you still have all that snow. Even though it sounds awful, it must be fun. Anything would be a change from this rain. Cecil and his team haven't showed up since last Tuesday. Everything they say about builders is not true. They're much worse.

I'm doing an article on fidelity (read infidelity). About our parents' generation. The men were so nice. They talked to me as if I was an understanding daughter. They disgusted me with their stories of love. This face of mine: Empathy personified you called it once. It's a good article. Punchy and moving. The kind Fiona likes. Trevor liked it, she told me. Who's Trevor, says I. Trevor owns the paper, says she, searching my face for journalistic prowess. I only know him as Mr. Plausible. It's in Sunday's. Veronica has an article below mine—The Irish Illiteratti. 1500 words on the new wave of publishing in this country. Between herself and myself we make for a thrilling page. You want to see her since they offered her a contract—flouncing into the office with the hair bobbing off her shoulders. If only she kept her crotch as clean as her golden locks.

BOOK: Gone
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