Marian Keyes - Watermelon (9 page)

After a while even Dad stopped pretending to use the machines. He muttered something vague about having read an article in Cosmopolitan about too much exercise's being as bad for you as none at all. I had read the article in question myself. It was actually about compulsive exercisers, truly sick people, but as far as Dad was concerned he now had a cast-iron excuse. He was perfectly justified in abandoning the bike and the rowing machine.

So the two machines were sadly discarded and left to gather dust, along with the pink leg warmers and pink-and-blue twisted sweatbands that we'd bought to look good on them.

In fact, Margaret and I had even bought Dad a pair of pink leg warmers and a sweatband. He wore them once to entertain us. I think there's still a photograph of it around somewhere.

In any event, I was very surprised when I almost tripped over the bike and the rowing machine in Rachel's room.

I hadn't seen them in years. I had thought that they would have long ago been exiled to the Siberia that is the garage along with the SpaceHopper, the pogo sticks, the roller skates, the skateboards, the game of Kerplunk!, the Trivial Pursuit, the swing ball, the squash rackets, the chopper bikes, the Teach Yourself Spanish tapes, the fiberglass canoe and the thousands of other toys and diversions that enjoyed a period of brief but fierce pop- ularity--not to mention causing countless fights--in our family before they fell from favor and their appeal faded and they were cast into the outer darkness, to live with the lawn mower and the screwdrivers.

I was very glad to see them.

If a bit taken aback.

They were like old friends I hadn't seen in years and whom I had bumped into somewhere totally unexpectedly.

I can see now with the benefit of hindsight that what I really needed was a punching bag. So that I could have

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worked off some of the terrible anger I felt toward James and Denise.

But in the absence of a punching bag, and the fact that the current legis- lation forbade me from using Helen's head, the discovery of the bike and the rowing machine was a Godsend. I somehow realized that a little bit of physical exercise might be the one thing that would stop me from going around the bend and exploding with jealousy and resentment.

Either that or vast quantities of alcohol.

So I put down my bottle and my glass on Rachel's dressing table and climbed up on the bike, tucking the nightgown under me. Yes, I was still wearing one of Mum's nightgowns. Not the same nightgown that I started wearing the night I arrived back. Things hadn't gotten that bad. I hadn't sunk that low. But a nightgown that was definitely from the same stable.

Feeling a bit foolish (but not that foolish; after all, I had a half bottle of vodka under my belt), I started to cycle. And while the rest of the house slept I cycled and sweated. And then for a while I rowed and sweated. And then I got back on the bike again and cycled and sweated a bit more.

While James slumbered peacefully somewhere in London, his arm thrown protectively over Denis, I cycled like a madman, in a bedroom that still had posters of Don Johnson on the wall, hot, angry tears pouring down my puce face.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself at the poignant juxtaposition.

Every time I pictured the two of them in bed together I cycled even faster, as though if I cycled hard enough I'd get away from the pain.

When I thought of her touching his beautiful naked body I would get another spurt of furious sickening energy and I pushed my body even harder.

I was afraid that I would kill someone if I stopped cycling.

I hadn't exercised in months, had done nothing strenuous in ages (apart from give birth to a child) but I didn't get tired or even get out of breath.

The harder I pushed myself the easier it got.

I felt as if my thigh muscles were made of steel (and they definitely weren't, let me assure you). The pedals whizzed around in a blur. I felt as if my legs were lubricated, they

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worked so easily. It was as if someone had oiled my joints. I cycled faster and faster until eventually the tight hard knot in my chest started to unravel. A feeling of calm settled on me.

I was able to breathe almost normally.

When I eventually clambered down from the bike, the handlebars slip- pery from my sweat, my nightgown sticking to me, I felt nearly elated.

I went back into my room and lay down.

Kate eyed my scarlet face and my soaking nightgown but didn't seem particularly interested. I put my burning face on the cool pillow and knew that now I would be able to sleep.

I woke up very early the next morning. I even beat Kate to it. In fact, in a neat reversal of roles I woke her up with the sound of me crying.

"Now you see what it's like," I thought as I sobbed. "Is it any way to start the day?"

The specters of jealousy and anger returned.

They had stood over me as I slept, looking down at me. "Should we wake her now?" one consulted the other.

"All right," said Jealousy. "Would you like to do it?"

"Oh no, why don't you?" said Anger politely.

"It would be my pleasure," said Jealousy graciously. Then grabbed me roughly by the shoulder and shook me awake.

And I woke to the horrible picture in my head of James in bed with Denise.

The bitter rage was back, coursing through me like poison.

So after I fed Kate, I finished the rest of the vodka and then went back into Rachel's room and got back up on the exercise bike.

If there was any justice in the world I should have been as stiff as a poker after my exertions the previous night. But the one thing that I had learned over the past month was that there wasn't any.

Justice, that is.

So I wasn't as stiff as a poker.

I spent the next week or so eaten up by anger and jealousy. I hated James and Denise. I terrorized my family without even realizing that I was doing it. And when things got too much for me I climbed aboard the bike and tried to cycle away some of my terrible rage. I also drank far too much.

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I owed Anna a fortune.

Helen was charging me extortionate amounts for going to the liquor store for me.

And the forces of supply and demand dictated that I had no choice but to pay her.

I was a buyer in a seller's market.

I couldn't face leaving the house yet, therefore I paid her.

Or rather, because I had no hard cash myself, Anna did.

I had every intention of paying Anna back, but in my own time. I wasn't particularly worried about the impact I was having on Anna's cash flow.

But I should have been.

I mean, she was only on welfare.

And she had a mid-weight to heavy drug habit to support.

But I only cared about myself.

I was kind of half drunk most of the time. I thought that I'd numb the pain and anger by getting drunk. But it didn't really help. I just felt sort of lost and confused. And then when I sobered up, in the few minutes it would take for me to drink my next drink and for the effects to hit me, I would feel horribly depressed. Really, really bad.

It was only when I accidentally overheard a conversation among Mum, Helen and Anna that I realized how awful I was being.

I was just about to go into the kitchen when I caught the sleeve of my sweater (well, Dad's sweater) on a knob on the cabinet in the hall. While I extricated myself I heard Helen talking in the kitchen.

"She's such a bitch," Helen was complaining. "And we're afraid to watch anything on TV that has people kissing in it or anything, in case she goes ballistic."

Who were they talking about? I wondered. I was perfectly prepared to join in the character assassination, no matter who the unfortunate person was. That's how mean and bitter I was.

"Yes," Anna said, joining in. "I mean, yesterday when we were watching TV she threw the vase that I made for you for Christmas at the door, just because Sheila told Scott that she loved him."

"Did she?" asked Mum, sounding outraged.

I realized, with a shock, that they were talking about me.

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Well, it must have been me. I was the one who had thrown that horrible vase at the door.

I stood quietly at the door and continued to eavesdrop like the horrible person that I had become.

"I really can't believe it," Mum went on, sounding shaken to the core. "And what had Scott to say about that?"

"Oh, Mum, can't you forget about Down Drongo Way for five minutes?" said Helen, sounding like she was going to cry with frustration. "This is serious. Claire is behaving like a monster."

"Well, maybe I am, but I learned everything I know from you, my dear," I thought acidly.

"It's like she's possessed!" continued Helen.

"Do you think she might be?" asked Anna with great excitement, obvi- ously ready to whip out her Filofax and give them the name of a good ex- orcist. ("I hear he's great. All my friends use him.")

"Look, girls," said Mum gently, "she's been through an awful lot."

"Yes, I bloody well have," I silently agreed, standing frozen at the door.

"So have a bit of sympathy. Try and have a little bit of patience. You can't imagine how awful she must feel."

"No, you most certainly can't," I mutely concurred.

A silence followed.

"Good," I thought, "that's shamed them."

"She broke your Aynsley ashtray last night," mumbled Helen.

"She did what?" said Mum sharply.

"Yes, she did," confirmed Anna.

"Right," said Mum decisively. "She's gone far enough."

"Ha!" said Helen triumphantly, obviously speaking to Anna. "I told you that Mum didn't care about that crappy old vase that you made for her."

"Time I left," I thought.

I quietly went back upstairs, feeling shaken. A strange feeling had come over me. I later looked it up in my emotional reference book and identified it. There could be no doubt about it.

It was definitely Shame.

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Later that evening I had a visit from my dad. I'd been expecting it.

This is what used to happen whenever I misbehaved when I was younger. Mum would discover the indiscretion or misdeed or wrongdoing or whatever. She would then send in the heavy guns by telling Dad.

He knocked quietly and then stuck his head around my bedroom door, looking distinctly sheepish.

It had been a long time since he'd had to do this. No doubt Mum was behind him, in the hall with an electric cattle prod, hissing, "Get in there and tell her. Put the fear of God in her. She won't listen to me. She's afraid of you."

"Hello, Claire, can I come in?" he asked.

"Sit down, Dad," I said, indicating the bed.

"Hello, my favorite grandchild," he said to Kate.

I didn't catch her reply.

"Well!" he said, trying to be jovial.

"Well," I agreed dryly. I was not making this easy for him.

I was feeling a horrible mixture of feelings. A combination of shame, mortification, embarrassment at my childish behavior, defensiveness at being told off, resentment at being treated like a child and a realization that it was time that I stopped behaving like a selfish bitch. I was also worried that he'd spot the two empty vodka bottles under the bed.

"You're being selfish and irresponsible," said Dad.

"I know," I mumbled.

I felt sick with guilt.

And what kind of mother was I being to Kate?

"And what kind of mother are you being to Kate?" he asked.

"A terrible one," I mumbled.

The poor child, I thought, it's bad enough that her father has abandoned her.

"The poor child," said Dad. "It's bad enough that her father has aban- doned her. Drink never drowns anyone's sorrows," he went on. "It only teaches them how to swim."

You might think that this was a very profound and true thing that he'd just said.

So had I.

The first eight hundred times I heard it.

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But now I recognize it for what it really is. It's the first line, the opening paragraph, in Dad's "The Evils of Drink" lecture. I heard it so many times in my teenage years that I could practically recite it myself.

And, God knows, I don't want to end up like Auntie Julia, I thought.

"And, God knows, you don't want to end up like Aunt Julia," said Dad wearily.

Poor Dad. Auntie Julia was his youngest sister and he'd had to bear the brunt of most of her alcohol-related crises.

When she would lose her job because she was drunk at work, the first thing she did was to call Dad.

When she got knocked down by a bicycle because she was wandering the road drunk late at night who did the police call?

That's right.

Dad.

It's money down the drain, I thought.

"And it's money down the drain," he said heavily.

Money I don't have.

"Money you don't have," he continued.

And it'll destroy my health.

"And it'll destroy your health," he advised.

It'll ruin my looks.

"It solves nothing," he concluded.

Wrong! He forgot to tell me that it'll ruin my looks. I'd better remind him.

"And it'll ruin my looks," I reminded him gently.

"Oh, yes," he said hurriedly. "And it'll ruin your looks."

"Dad, I'm sorry for everything," I told him. "I know I've been really mean to everyone and a worry to you all, but I'll stop. I promise."

"Good girl." He gave me a little smile.

I felt as if I was about three and a half all over again.

"I know it can't be easy for you," he said.

"It's still no excuse to behave like a bitch," I admitted.

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

The only sounds were of Kate snoring happily--maybe she was as glad as everyone else that I'd had my comeuppance--and me sniffing back tears.

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"And you'll let the girls watch their shows on the TV?" Dad inquired.

"Of course," I sniveled.

"And you'll stop shouting at us all?" he asked.

"I will," I said, hanging my head.

"And you won't throw any more things?"