This Is How It Ends (9 page)

It’s as if she’s reverting. She’s turning back into the girl she was thirty years ago, the girl who didn’t care what anyone else thought of her, the girl who just wanted to read her book and be left alone. The “everybody-else-can-fuck-off-club,” that’s what Della used to call it. Membership of one.

Addie has her own exclusive club these days too. Herself and Lola are the only members. Sure who else would join? Her friends are all married, most of them have kids. She doesn’t see them as much as she used to, and even when she does, it feels like there’s a noisy road between them. They’re shouting, but they still can’t hear each other properly.

These days, Addie is closer to Della than she is to anyone. It’s as if everyone else has fallen away and all that’s left is family.

She misses her mother like never before.

DELLA WAS ON
her feet again, clearing away the mugs.

“Will you stay for dinner?” she was asking. “Shepherd’s pie. Glass of wine. Good comfort food. Come on, stay and save us from each other.”

They were in the middle of the meal when Addie’s phone rang. She’d just eaten her first helping of shepherd’s pie and was about to offer her plate up for seconds. The kids hadn’t touched theirs, of course. They were all moaning that there was onion in it and Simon was roaring at them and Della was saying you can starve for all I care. With all the ruckus, Addie only just about heard the phone ringing. She delved into the pocket of her cardigan, checked the screen, and saw the American dialing code. Ran out of the room to answer it.

“Hi,” she said. Her heart was beating so hard, she was afraid he would hear it.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m not sure what the local customs are around here, but is it considered appropriate for a guy to ask a girl out to dinner?”

A
S SOON AS DELLA
closed the front door she felt a wave of self-pity break over her. She had to stand there for a minute in the hall to steady herself. She knew it was shitty of her. She was pleased for Addie, of course she was pleased. She’d even managed to act pleased. She’d sent her off with strict instructions to get home and put some makeup on. She’d stood there in the doorway smiling as her sister tore off down the path with the dog tearing after her. She’d waved as Addie drove away, she’d shouted after her, have a great time!

But as soon as she’d closed the door behind her, she had felt utterly abandoned.

Now she leaned back against the closed door and looked around her. Simon’s coat had fallen off the hall stand and was lying in a pool on the tiles beside her. There were muddy wellies strewn around the floor, among them a pair of damp-looking knickers and tights still intertwined. From the living room she could hear the telly. She could picture Simon tucked up in the corner of the couch, the bottle of beer and the remote control sitting on the armrest.

Upstairs, another TV was on, something unsuitable probably. It was bound to be unsuitable, for Lisa at the very least. Della had been forced to ban
The Simpsons
recently after Lisa asked, what are edible underpants? It was a token ban, they were all still watching it anyway. Poor Lisa, she was named after the bloody program, so what do you expect?

Della bent down to pick up Simon’s coat, feeling weary and worn-out. My life is like something out of a country-and-western song, she thought.

She made her way down to the kitchen, shoving the pile of wellies aside with her foot as she passed. Crept by the open door of the living room and down the three steps into the kitchen. She made a beeline for her reading chair, the white wicker chair she’d bought when she first moved out of home. The paint on it was all chipped now, the wickerwork loosening up. It was sagging, like herself. She pulled her book out from behind the cushion and sank down into the chair, drawing her feet up under her. She started reading where she’d left off that morning, wondering already how long she’d get before someone came looking for her.

WHEN DELLA WAS
a child she could spend an entire day stretched out on her bed, reading. She would read for hours on end, until she had lost all feeling in her body, until her tummy was rumbling with hunger. She would break for dinner and then she would go straight back up to her bedroom and read until it was dark.

It’s like a dream to her now, the memory of all that time she had on her hands and no one to disturb her.

Sometimes now she tries to sneak away. She slides up to her bedroom in the middle of the afternoon without telling any of them where she’s going. She lies down guiltily on top of the covers, grabs the book from her bedside table and opens it greedily, devouring it like pornography. She reads with both ears open, listening out for loud bumps or wails, for fights and people falling out of trees. She seldom gets through a single chapter.

Mum.

A voice moving up the stairs.

Mum!
Where are you?

That’s the word she hears all day. Mum, they shout, and somehow they manage to squeeze five syllables into it. Mum, do you know where my runners are? Mum, can we watch TV? Mum, Stella never asked if she could play with my Nintendo. A plaintive Mum, an outraged
Mum
.

Mum,
Mum
,
Mum
!

Do you remember when you were a kid and you used to practice writing your name down on a piece of paper over and over again? And after a while the letters would start to make no sense, they would begin to seem like a random construction of marks on paper, a thing with no meaning. You would start to wonder was that your name at all, you would begin to feel like you were falling through the air and there was no one to catch you.

That’s what Della feels like when they call her Mum. It makes no sense to her.

The last straw was when Simon called her Mum. Mum, he said, do you know where the tennis rackets are?

Simon, she said, I am not your mother. Call me that one more time, and I’ll never sleep with you again.

She doesn’t take any prisoners, Della.

WHEN THEIR MOTHER
died, Della took her place. She became the mother in the house. The way a new president is sworn in as soon as the old one dies.

She’s so like her mum, people still say it. The same lovely face, the same wild air about her. She’s a reader, just like her mum was.

Addie has no memory of the night their mother died, she has no recollection of that time at all. Della remembers but she wishes she didn’t. She remembers them coming back to the house after the hospital. She remembers the loneliness of it being just the three of them. She remembers taking some soup out of the fridge and heating it up. She remembers how they all sat around the table with the bowls steaming in front of them. Addie was the only one who managed to eat anything. After all, she was still only a child. After supper, they all changed into their pajamas and Hugh and Addie tossed their dirty clothes into the washing basket in the bathroom, just like they always did. The next day, Della took the washing out and stuffed it into the machine. And that was how it started. She was ten years old.

A lady was hired, there was always a lady. But Della was in charge. She made the school lunches for the two of them. She wrote the sick notes. She made sure there were wrapped presents for Addie to take to birthday parties. She always remembered to include a card. Part of her is still waiting for somebody to thank her.

Overnight, a family of four became a family of three. A couple with two little girls became a couple with one little girl. Della moved up a rung, taking her place alongside Hugh as the other adult in the house. And Addie became the treasured only child.

Now Della is a mother again. Sometimes she feels like she’s a mother to them all. She’s the wild one with the settled life. Her house is home to all of them, even if they don’t all live here. And the truth is, much as she might grumble about it, that’s the way she likes it.

When Addie lost the baby, Della was heartbroken for her and for the little niece or nephew she’d already started to love. Already, she’d begun to imagine their circle widening, another family apart from her own. Another home with Addie at the center of it. Addie as a mother herself, it would change things between them, no question. It would change the whole structure of the family.

In a dark dirty corner of her heart, Della is glad that change never came about.

T
HIRTY-EIGHT YEARS
old and Addie had never been asked out to dinner before.

She tried to explain this to Bruno but he couldn’t get his head round it.

“What it means for you is all good,” she said. She wasn’t looking at him. She was pretending to read the menu.

“What does it mean for me?” He was intrigued.

She still didn’t look up. “Oh, there are certain sexual favors I always promised myself I’d award to the first guy to ask me out on a proper date.” She couldn’t believe she was hearing herself say this.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” He put down his menu and reached for his jacket, raising himself slightly off his chair.

“Without the dinner?” She laughed. “You must be joking.”

They’d wandered into about six restaurants looking for a table. Nine o’clock on a Saturday night and everywhere was heaving, they were putting people on waiting lists. In the end they just went to Danny’s place. Addie rang ahead and somehow Danny figured out it was a date and by the time they got there he had the little table at the back all set for two, a lonely rose sticking out of a milk jug.

Bruno insisted on pulling Addie’s chair out for her. As she sat down she could see Danny hovering there behind him clutching their coats. The look on his face, she could see him getting all excited for her. She glared at him, but he just smiled back sweetly and wiggled his head like a pantomime genie.

“I’m so hungry I could eat a horse,” said Bruno.

“Farmer’s arse through a hedge.” Addie opened up her menu and pretended to study it. She’d already decided not to mention the shepherd’s pie.

“I THOUGHT THERE
was supposed to be a recession,” said Bruno.

He was looking around at all the packed tables.

“Penny hasn’t dropped yet,” said Addie.

“Penny dropped for me a while ago.”

“Is that why you came? Because you lost your job?”

“That,” he said, “and the election. I was getting upset about the election, I needed some perspective. So I told myself, book a round-trip, Bruno. Book a round-trip, come back when it’s over. If Obama wins, I can make a triumphant return. If McCain wins…” He leaned in over the table for extra emphasis. “If he wins, I’m tearing up my return ticket. If he wins, I’ll
eat
my ticket.”

She laughed, that bubbly laugh that burst out of her with no warning. But silently she was thinking, that’s less than a month away.

The food arrived, big blackened fillets of beef and a small bowl heaped high with skinny chips.

“The plan was to spend a month driving across the country. That’s still the plan, I suppose. I just haven’t got going yet.”

“A month?” She opened her eyes wide in an exaggerated expression of surprise. “Sure you can drive across the country in a day. Less than a day. It only takes about four hours to get to the other side.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“I’m finding it a bit hard to get my head around that. It’s hard to imagine anywhere so small when you come from somewhere so big.”

“You’d have to do a loop,” said Addie. She was trying to work it out in her head, squeezing one eye shut as she drew a line in her mind right round the island. “You’d have to go right round the edge, slowly, for it to take a month. I wonder, even then, would it take you a month?”

“Maybe we should try it.”

She said nothing, concentrating on cutting into her steak.

“This trip has been in my head for such a long time,” he said. “I made a solemn promise to my father that I would come. That was thirty years ago. I can’t believe I’m only keeping my promise now.”

“What took you so long?”

He had to stop and think.

“You know, I’ve been asking myself that very question. Ever since I got here, I’ve been asking myself, where did all that time go? It’s been thirty years since my father died, thirty years next summer. And all that time I’ve been wanting to make this trip, I’ve had this need to make the trip. It’s been there all along, like a little voice in my head.” He cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered into it. He was making fun of himself a little. “Go to Ireland, Bruno. Go to Ireland…”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I didn’t. Not until now.”

He looked puzzled. He was frowning, as if he was searching his memory for something.

“In the beginning I think it was too soon. To come here, to my father’s country. I wasn’t ready for that, I was too young. And by the time I was ready to come, I was too busy. I was working a lot and I was traveling a lot and the last thing I wanted to do when I wasn’t working was more traveling. I vacationed in Mexico. I like Mexico. Mexico is close, it’s easy.”

“Mexico,” said Addie. He had her thinking now of all the places she’d never been.

“Yeah, Mexico. Also, there was my mother to think about. She was sick for a long time, she was in a retirement home. I was afraid to make the trip. In case something would happen to her while I was gone.”

“That’s a reason not to make the trip. A good reason.”

“Yeah, well. There were always reasons not to. Plus there was this weird thing, after September eleven, you felt like you had to stay close, it would have felt…”

He paused to find the right word. She had noticed this about him, how carefully he chose his words. You had the feeling he was searching his soul for every single one.

“…it would have felt disloyal to leave.”

“So what changed?”

He looked startled by the question.

“What changed?”

He leaned in over the table.

“Everything changed.” He raised his hand in the air and snapped his fingers. “Just like that, everything changed.”

He was looking straight into Addie’s eyes as he spoke. He was boring a hole in her.

“All those reasons not to, I went through them one by one. I was lying awake in my bed, it was just after I lost my job and I couldn’t sleep, and I lay there trying to think of all the reasons why I couldn’t leave. And none of them were there anymore. And I thought, now, Bruno, there’s nothing stopping you. The moment of truth.”

“That must have felt good.”

He paused, thought about it for a moment before he answered.

“No,” he said. “It felt fucking terrifying!”

And he burst out laughing, his laughter so unexpected and so infectious that Addie laughed along with him. Her laugh was like an outboard engine. It started deep down in her throat, coming out of her mouth as a noisy splutter.

“Reinventing yourself.” He was shaking his head, as if he was seeing something he didn’t quite believe. “It’s scary at my age.”

“At least you weren’t too afraid to do it,” said Addie.

And she was thinking, I would never have the courage to do that, to start over. Correcting herself in her mind as she went. I don’t have the courage, she thought. I haven’t had the courage. But at the same time, somewhere inside her, a tiny spark had been lit, a tiny spark that said maybe.

It was as if he could read her mind.

“What would you be, if you could reinvent yourself?”

She didn’t hesitate, not for one second.

“I’d be a swimming pool designer.”

“A swimming pool designer…” He turned it over in his mind, smiling to himself as he examined it. It was as if she’d just handed him a peculiar object.

“Why a swimming pool designer?”

“That’s what I always wanted to be, when I was a kid. I used to tell everybody I was going to be a famous swimming pool designer. I would design these amazing swimming pools and then I would travel the world testing them out.”

She was uncomfortable under his scrutiny. She felt suddenly shy. She reached for her wineglass.

“So why didn’t you?”

He was looking at her expectantly, waiting for an answer. She choked on her wine. A sip of it went down the wrong way and her eyes started watering and she could feel her face going purple. She pounded herself on the chest with the flat of her hand and reached for her glass of water.

She took a big gulp, her eyes started to clear, and she began to breathe easy again. He was watching her, still waiting for an answer.

“I can’t believe you just asked me that.”

“Asked you what?”

“I can’t believe you asked me why I never became a swimming pool designer. It’s just funny, that’s all.”

“Why is it funny?”

“Because it’s ridiculous. You can’t be a swimming pool designer.”

He looked genuinely puzzled.

“Why not? I don’t understand. Don’t they need people to design swimming pools? Surely there are people out there who design swimming pools.”

Now she was the one watching him. He was utterly serious, she realized. He was absolutely and completely serious. He was asking her a question and he wanted to know the answer.

“It’s just a childish notion,” she said. “Like my niece, she wants to track lions in Africa. That’s what she wants to do when she grows up. Kids come up with these things, Bruno, they’re not realistic career choices.”

“But why not?” he asked. “I have a friend from college who tracks tigers in Cambodia. She works for the World Wildlife Fund. I’m sure they track lions in Africa. I’m sure there’s somebody who does that for a living. I’m sure there are people who design swimming pools for a living, there have to be. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be you.”

And he raised his glass to her. He was almost smirking.

He’s interesting, she thought, he’s actually interesting. And it was a revelation to her. She hadn’t expected him to be interesting.

She kept her eyes on his, holding on to his gaze longer than was comfortable. Then she raised her own glass to him for a moment before taking a long sip.

“So what are you going to be, in your new life?”

He answered her very slowly and with great dignity.

“What I’d like to be is a writer.”

It had a bad effect on her. She found herself suddenly irritated. A moment ago she had been fascinated by him. Now she was bored. She didn’t want him to be a writer. She was happy with him being a banker. A writer was the last thing she wanted him to be. She forced herself to raise her eyebrows, trying to look interested.

Oblivious to the nasty thoughts she was having, he leaned in to confide in her.

“…all my life I’ve wanted to be a writer. I’ve always believed I would be one. It’s just that I never got around to writing anything.”

She had a sudden urge to be mean to him. She couldn’t stop herself. Even as she was saying it, she was ashamed.

“Doesn’t everyone think that? I mean isn’t that what they say, that everyone thinks they have a book in them?”

“So they say.”

“So,” she said. “What’s yours going to be about?”

“Well,” he said carefully. “I’m working on an idea. It’s just the start of an idea.”

He looked at her for a minute, scrutinizing her face. He might have been weighing up whether to tell her or not.

Don’t, she was tempted to say. Don’t feel you have to.

But it was too late.

“OK, I’ll tell you.”

He folded his napkin on the table in front of him, smoothing his hand across the surface of it to work out the creases.

“It’s about this guy. He’s American obviously, like me, from New Jersey.”

Addie was struggling to control her face.

“When the book starts he’s just arrived in Ireland, the land of his forefathers. He’s on a voyage of self-discovery, he’s looking for his backstory.”

He was still working his hand across the face of the napkin. Every so often he would glance up at her.

“That’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. There comes a point in your life when you have to discover your backstory before you can go forward.”

She had to suppress an urge to roll her eyes.

He closed the napkin over as if it were a book. He patted it shut.

“Anyway. As soon as he arrives in Ireland he meets this beautiful Irish girl. A lovely, lost Irish girl. And he falls madly in love with her.”

In a flash, she was interested again. He kept turning out to be cleverer than she expected.

She smiled. “I think I can see where this is going.”

He put his index finger to his mouth, he indicated to her to shush.

“He meets this woman. And right away he knows, this is the woman of his life.”

She cocked her head, smiling at him knowingly.

“He’s just trying to get her into bed.”

But he held his hand up in the air to quiet her, a priestly gesture, as if he were about to scatter holy water over her.

“You’re cheapening it, you shouldn’t cheapen it. This is a great love affair I’m talking about.”

Addie shook her head, interrupting him.

“There’s no future in it. He’s a foreigner, he’ll go back home and forget all about her.”

“How do you know? How can you be so sure that’s how it ends?”

She was horrified to find that her heart was pounding in her breast. She tried to make her voice sound flippant.

“Why don’t you tell me how it ends, you’re the writer.”

“I can’t,” he said.

He shook his head apologetically.

“I don’t know how it ends, not yet. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. A good writer would never reveal his ending.”

BY THE END OF
the night, the waiters had pushed the tables back against the wall and everyone was up dancing. Harry Belafonte,
oh island in the sun
, and they were all dancing and singing along as they danced, and it was very strange but everybody was having such a good time. It was as if they’d all left their troubles at the door and there was nothing in the world to be worrying about.

If this is what recession is like, Addie was thinking, then bring it on. But she was misreading the signs. This wasn’t recession, this was the bit that comes beforehand. This was suspension of reality. It was denial.

“This isn’t your usual Saturday night in Dublin,” Addie was shouting to Bruno. Her face was all amazement. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It was most unusual.

“You’re getting a very misleading impression of us,” she roared into his ear, not sure if he could hear her or not.