Fionnuala Kearney - You, Me and Other People

‘No. I … Look, there’s not much point in saying it just happened, but it did, really. She came on to me. No, I didn’t stop her. I should have stopped her. I wish I’d stopped her, I wish I’d stopped myself. I wish none of it had happened and I was home here with you.’ I banish any thoughts of this afternoon’s antics from my mind. I am here to talk to Beth. I’m here to try and get her to listen. I’m not even sure what I want to say, but I do know that here and now, in this moment, I’ll tell any lie necessary, because I’m not ready for my marriage to end.

Beth is staring downwards at the oak flooring. ‘Meg’s got her exams soon, don’t forget.’

‘Beth? It’s sex, just sex. You and I, we …’

Beth, her head still pointed downwards, looks as though she’s trying to swallow a golf ball. I shrug, helpless. ‘Sex, that’s all … You stopped wanting me.’ I bite my tongue; the last thing I want to do is make her feel like I’m blaming her.

She looks up. ‘We need to sort out the details. What happens, how we actually separate … I don’t want to lose the house.’

Jesus Christ. I sip my coffee. ‘Is that the only reason I’m here, Beth? My wallet, the house?’

‘You left to shack up with your whore,’ she murmurs.

‘I’m not shacked up with her. I’m living in Ben’s place. And you threw me out.’ I don’t bother defending Emma’s honour.

‘I don’t want to do this.’ She’s standing suddenly, one hand on her hip.

I don’t move. ‘What, you don’t want to do it now? Or never? We have to do this. We can’t pretend nothing happened and just talk money!’

‘Why not?’ She finally looks at me.

Suddenly, I’m weary. ‘Don’t you want to talk? We’re broken, Beth. I know it’s all my fault, but please—’

‘Adam, are you still with that woman?’ Both hands are now on her hips and she seems to be saying that as long as Emma is in the picture, conversation is pointless.

I think of this afternoon, debate lying, and decide against it. ‘It depends on what you mean, but I guess the answer is yes, I’m still seeing Emma.’

Beth’s beautiful head shakes in slow motion.

‘Seeing her … How quaint. Don’t you mean: shagging her and letting her give you the rampant blow jobs that you think you never got at home? Maybe in some of the underwear you bought for her?’

For the second time today, I feel colour course through my neck and land firmly on my cheeks.

‘Transparent, that’s what you are. What could you possibly have to say? To “talk” about?’ She turns back towards the sink, tosses her green tea into it and heads to the fridge. There, she takes out a wine bottle and pours herself a glass. She takes a large gulp from it and speaks with her back still to me. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Back then, way back whenever, that’s when we should have talked. You could have and should have talked to me then.’

‘You’re right,’ I tell her spine. ‘I’m sorry.’

She stares into the kitchen window. With her back still to me, she asks my reflection. ‘When did it start?’

‘Beth—’

‘I need to know, Adam.’ She turns around. ‘How long have you been lying to me?’

I sit very still. That is a very difficult question, and has so many potential answers that I quickly reason she must only mean Emma.

‘Not long.’

‘How long exactly?’

Though I know the answer to be about five months, I hear my considered reply. ‘Three months.’

She focuses on my eyes, blinks twice and then looks away. I know she’s trying hard not to cry. I watch her take a wedge of paper from one of the kitchen drawers. Taking another mouthful of wine, she waves them at me. ‘Bank account stuff,’ she says. ‘I just wanted to get up to speed with who pays what every month before we talked tonight.’

I feel a deep-rooted pulse develop behind my eyes.

‘There’s over five months’ worth here,’ she continues. ‘I’m not even going to ask you when the last time you took me to Langham’s was, or the last time you bought me something in Agent Provocateur. But, here’s the thing: every lie you tell makes me care less and less.’

My heart hurts looking at her. The pulse is now throbbing behind my eyeballs and I wonder briefly if guilt can present as pure pain.

‘Do you know,’ she turns to face me, her eyes pools of tears, ‘there’s hardly a day goes by where I don’t cry. Sometimes, I’m angry, so angry, that I hate you, and other days I’m just sad.’ She seems to linger over the word ‘sad’.

‘What do you want me to do?’ I hear the resignation in my own voice.

‘Stop lying for a start.’

I sigh, a weary, heavy sound.

‘Do I need to get myself checked out?’ Her voice sounds remote, distant.

I shake my head. ‘I’ve always used something.’

‘Maybe I should anyway. I’ve been sort of ignoring it.’ She seems to be talking to no one in particular.

‘You don’t need to worry, Beth.’

‘I need not to worry about money.’ Her wet eyes refuse mine. ‘I need not to have to worry about losing my home because of your dick. I need time to think about my life without you in it and I need you to think about my needs for once.’

I find myself nodding because she’s right. I can’t think right now about me and where I’ll live when Ben gets back and if I can actually afford to run two homes. A brief image of me living in the White House with Emma and Harold clouds my thoughts and I shudder. I imagine my straightjacket would be crispy white.

As I excuse myself to go to the loo, I hear myself reassure Beth that I will continue to take care of things. I sit on the seat in the downstairs cloakroom, wondering what that means. I’m not sure, but Beth needs to hear what I’m telling her right now and it’s what I want her to believe. So I sit for a while, with my head in my hands, ignoring the red flag waving in it telling me that I don’t really believe it – which can only mean that it’s more lies.

‘Adam told me I stopped wanting him. It was there in the middle of some long spiel of his, like a barbed accusation.’

‘And did you? Stop wanting him?’

I’ve been asking myself the same question since. Carefully, I clean underneath my left thumbnail with my right one. ‘It’s just not that simple. We’ve been married a long time. It was one of those phases where I only wanted to sleep. I don’t think I stopped wanting him as much as stopped having sex for a while.’

‘Did you talk about it?’

I shake my head. ‘I know now that I wanted him to. I wanted him to notice and talk to me, ask me how I felt. Rather than the other way around. It’s always me who does the talking. It’s exhausting.’ I look up. ‘It didn’t last long, maybe a couple of months. We had sex again as soon as I gave in and made the first move.’ I sigh. ‘Of course, I’d lost him by then …’

‘Do you remember a few weeks ago we spoke about your fears?’ Caroline blows her coffee as she changes the subject.

I can only nod.

‘You say things are clearer, so tell me what your greatest fear is, right now, in this space in time?’

I close my eyes and immediately wonder if I can live without Adam, if I actually want to, or is forgiving him again and trying to reboot our marriage an option? The clenching behind my ribs assures me that this is indeed a fear rather than a solution.

‘Taking Adam back, nothing really changing, me just carrying on with my head hovered above the sand.’ There, I’ve said it out loud.

‘Anything else?’ she prods.

‘Leading half a life …’

She raises a questioning eyebrow.