needed something , but there were so few options open to me.
“Go for a walk,” Dad suggested. “Get some fresh air.”
I've never really understood the concept of Going for a Walk.
And not even at my sportiest did I get the appeal of Going for a Walk in suburbia. But I was bad enough off to give it a try.
“Take a coat,” he advised. “It might rain.”
“It's June.”
“It's Ireland.”
44 / MARIAN KEYES
“I haven't got a coat.” Well, I had, but it was in my house, Garv's house, you know the one I mean. I was afraid to go there in case he'd moved the girl in. Perhaps that sounds like a wild overreaction, but my instinct was warning me that anything was possible.
“Take mine.” Dad's anorak was red, nylon, awful, but I longed for affection and I couldn't resist letting him help me into it.
Off I went. Nothing too ambitious. I walked a couple of hundred yards to the park and sat on a wall, watching some teenagers do whatever teenagers do in parks: surreptitious smoking, trading inaccurate information on sex, whatever.
I felt horrible. The sky was mushroom gray and stagnant, even the parts that weren't directly over me. After a while, when I didn't feel any better, I decided I might as well go home again. It was bound to be time for some version of “Girlfrien', you ain't so all that.” No point in missing it.
I was traipsing back down the hill when someone flickered across my vision and vaguely alerted me. I looked properly. It was a man about fifty yards away, lifting things out of a car trunk. Oh my…God. Shay Delaney. Well, for a second I thought it was him, then it was clear that it wasn't. There was just something about the man that reminded me slightly of Shay and even that was enough to make me unsteady.
But as I continued, with a whoosh of dizziness, I saw that it was him. Different, but still the same. The change was that he looked older; this gave me some pleasure until it dawned on me that if he looked older, then so would I.
He was lifting stuff from the trunk of the car and stacking it at the gate of his mother's house. How could I not have instantly known it was him—he was outside his own house. Well, the house he'd lived in until he'd left to go away to college fifteen years ago.
Fifteen years . How? I'm young now and I was grown up then, there isn't room for fifteen years. Dizziness again.
I couldn't meet him. Not now, not with all this shame. A ANGELS / 45
powerful impulse almost had me marching away in the direction I'd just come from and—after a frantic, weighing-the-alternatives session—only the fear that he might notice me running away stopped me.
But of all the times to bump into him, I thought wildly. Of all the times to have to play the game of How Did Your Life Turn Out? Why couldn't I have met him when I'd had a marriage I was proud of, when I'd been happy?
Of course, I didn't have to tell him how wrong everything had gone. But wouldn't he guess, wasn't it obvious…
My hollow legs continued leading me down the hill, straight into his path.
For several years I used to fantasize about meeting him again.
Time after time I comforted myself with meticulous plans. I'd be thin, beautiful, trendily dressed, expertly lit. I'd be poised, confident, on top of my game.
And he'd have lost his appeal. Somehow he'd have shrunk to about five-five, his dark-blond hair would have fallen out, and he'd have put on a ton of weight. But from what I could see, he still had his hair and his height and if he'd bulked out a bit, it had the unfortunate effect of suiting him.
Meanwhile, look at me—the sweatpants, the air of failure, the way my face had gone a bit funny and immobile. It was nearly laughable. The only thing I had going for me were the highlights in my hair—I'd been uncertain when the hairdresser first suggested it, but now it was clear it was a godsend.
Closer I got. Closer. He'd no interest in me, not at all. It seemed as if I could escape with my raw, white
“Go for a walk,” Dad suggested. “Get some fresh air.”
I've never really understood the concept of Going for a Walk.
And not even at my sportiest did I get the appeal of Going for a Walk in suburbia. But I was bad enough off to give it a try.
“Take a coat,” he advised. “It might rain.”
“It's June.”
“It's Ireland.”
44 / MARIAN KEYES
“I haven't got a coat.” Well, I had, but it was in my house, Garv's house, you know the one I mean. I was afraid to go there in case he'd moved the girl in. Perhaps that sounds like a wild overreaction, but my instinct was warning me that anything was possible.
“Take mine.” Dad's anorak was red, nylon, awful, but I longed for affection and I couldn't resist letting him help me into it.
Off I went. Nothing too ambitious. I walked a couple of hundred yards to the park and sat on a wall, watching some teenagers do whatever teenagers do in parks: surreptitious smoking, trading inaccurate information on sex, whatever.
I felt horrible. The sky was mushroom gray and stagnant, even the parts that weren't directly over me. After a while, when I didn't feel any better, I decided I might as well go home again. It was bound to be time for some version of “Girlfrien', you ain't so all that.” No point in missing it.
I was traipsing back down the hill when someone flickered across my vision and vaguely alerted me. I looked properly. It was a man about fifty yards away, lifting things out of a car trunk. Oh my…God. Shay Delaney. Well, for a second I thought it was him, then it was clear that it wasn't. There was just something about the man that reminded me slightly of Shay and even that was enough to make me unsteady.
But as I continued, with a whoosh of dizziness, I saw that it was him. Different, but still the same. The change was that he looked older; this gave me some pleasure until it dawned on me that if he looked older, then so would I.
He was lifting stuff from the trunk of the car and stacking it at the gate of his mother's house. How could I not have instantly known it was him—he was outside his own house. Well, the house he'd lived in until he'd left to go away to college fifteen years ago.
Fifteen years . How? I'm young now and I was grown up then, there isn't room for fifteen years. Dizziness again.
I couldn't meet him. Not now, not with all this shame. A ANGELS / 45
powerful impulse almost had me marching away in the direction I'd just come from and—after a frantic, weighing-the-alternatives session—only the fear that he might notice me running away stopped me.
But of all the times to bump into him, I thought wildly. Of all the times to have to play the game of How Did Your Life Turn Out? Why couldn't I have met him when I'd had a marriage I was proud of, when I'd been happy?
Of course, I didn't have to tell him how wrong everything had gone. But wouldn't he guess, wasn't it obvious…
My hollow legs continued leading me down the hill, straight into his path.
For several years I used to fantasize about meeting him again.
Time after time I comforted myself with meticulous plans. I'd be thin, beautiful, trendily dressed, expertly lit. I'd be poised, confident, on top of my game.
And he'd have lost his appeal. Somehow he'd have shrunk to about five-five, his dark-blond hair would have fallen out, and he'd have put on a ton of weight. But from what I could see, he still had his hair and his height and if he'd bulked out a bit, it had the unfortunate effect of suiting him.
Meanwhile, look at me—the sweatpants, the air of failure, the way my face had gone a bit funny and immobile. It was nearly laughable. The only thing I had going for me were the highlights in my hair—I'd been uncertain when the hairdresser first suggested it, but now it was clear it was a godsend.
Closer I got. Closer. He'd no interest in me, not at all. It seemed as if I could escape with my raw, white
Similar Books
