Happy Ever After (30 page)

‘Would you ladies mind excusing my wife for a while? I need to talk to her. Juliet, I’ll be inside.’ Ken turned on his heel and marched back into the villa.

‘I’m so sorry about this.’ Juliet was crimson with humiliation. ‘I can’t believe he’s flown over here. He’s so disrespectful of me; he just keeps right on ignoring my wishes. He’s getting worse as he gets older. This is intolerable.’ She was shaking, dazed with disbelief.

‘We’d better go,’ Karen murmured.

‘Will you be all right? Can you deal with him?’ Connie asked sympathetically, noting Juliet’s distress. ‘Would you like us to wait in the car up the road, in case you need us? Just so you have an option? You can’t drive after the wine we’ve drunk.’

‘Would you?’ Juliet said eagerly. ‘That’s extremely kind. I don’t think I could bear to stay in the same house as him tonight. Would it be very pushy of me to ask could I sleep on your sofa? Or you could drop me at the Don Carlos and I could get a room. I’m disgusted that he’d fly over here and treat me like a naughty schoolgirl. I’m sixty-four years of age, the mother of his children. I deserve respect.’ Her face crumpled.

‘You will not get a room in a hotel, Juliet. Of course you can sleep at our place. Open the gates for us, and we’ll drive out, and we’ll be waiting for you across the road. Don’t let him see you crying if you can manage it,’ Karen urged, handing the other woman a tissue.

‘He’s afraid, Juliet. Afraid and seriously rattled. That’s what’s wrong with him, and he’s covering it up with bluster. He needs you much more than you need him, don’t forget that,’ Connie pointed out astutely. ‘Think of wobbly bits and microscopes when he’s ranting and raving,’ she advised.

Juliet gave a watery smile and straightened up. ‘Right. Thanks very much, girls. I’m glad you’re here. God must have been looking after me the day I got on the plane to Spain.’

‘You go, girl, make mincemeat of him.’ Karen patted her arm. ‘Remember we’re outside waiting for you.’

They collected their bits and pieces and walked over to Karen’s rented Focus. ‘We’ll be waiting, take no crap.’ Connie gave Juliet a hug.

‘Tell him to bugger off home, we’ve been invited to a party at the nudist beach.’ Karen winked as she got into the car, and Juliet laughed.

Taking a deep breath, by now thoroughly sober, she squared her shoulders and walked back towards the villa, trying hard to compose herself. She was stunned at her husband’s arrival. She hadn’t even been gone more than a few days. Did he think he
owned
her, she wondered agitatedly as she poured some water into a glass from a carafe. She looked at the half-full wine glasses and the detritus of their meal as she took a sip of water to take the dryness out of her mouth. In the blink of an eye, her relaxed, fun-filled break had turned into a disaster, thanks to Ken. Juliet felt a deep, burning anger. This was a turning point for her, she knew. If she let her husband get away with his obnoxious behaviour, she was finished. Her brief rebellion would be crushed as thoroughly as her spirit.

Ken was pacing the kitchen when she walked in. ‘I want to talk—’

‘Excuse me, I want to let my friends out,’ she snapped icily, pressing the buzzer on the intercom to open the gates. She turned and stared at him. ‘How dare you embarrass me in front of them? How dare you march in here and order me about? How dare you follow me over from Ireland when I specifically told you I wanted time to think about—’

‘
Enough!
’ roared Ken. ‘It’s how dare
you
treat
me
like this. Do you realize that I’ve had to cancel two clinics and get Lorcan Carleton to look after my post-op patients for two days so that I could stand in queues and sit on a plane for an hour on the tarmac to get here to find out what the
hell
is wrong with you?’ His pale-blue eyes were glittering, his face ruddy with barely suppressed rage. He stood towering over her, his hands clenched by his sides, fury and exasperation emanating from every pore.

‘Might I remind you who pays for you to sit entertaining your girlfriends beside your swimming pool, drinking wine? Might I remind you who pays for your air fares, your expensive clothes and shoes, your hair-dos, your car, your big house, your housekeeper here and in Dublin? And all I want in return is some respect, and consideration. And that means a wife who will look after my needs—’

‘I want a divorce,’ Juliet said coldly. ‘I don’t care what you want or do not want, Ken.
I
want a divorce.
I’m
the one who’s had enough.’

‘
What!
Are you on some sort of drugs? What the blazes has got into you? Are you crazy?’ Ken couldn’t believe his ears. He had removed his jacket before she came in, and she could see two big perspiration patches staining the material under the arms of his shirt. She wouldn’t be washing that shirt, she thought in a surreal moment as she listened to him seethe.

‘You’re giving up everything you’ve got, at close enough to seventy years of age, because you’re in some sort of strop with me. Are you insane, Juliet?’ he demanded.

‘I’ve never been more sane in my life. And I’m in my early sixties, not my seventies, you fool. And it wouldn’t matter
what
age I was. I’ve had enough of your arrogance, your bad manners, your temper tantrums, your bullying. You know, Ken, when I married you, I married my father. He was
exactly
the same as you. It’s taken me a long time to see that. Too long. And what you did to me, you did to Aimee, too. She was always telling me to stand up for myself, but I was always making allowances for you, because of the work you do – complicated heart surgery, saving people’s lives. The pressure had to get out somewhere. So I gave you a safe place to let off steam. What a foolish woman I was to let you get away with such appalling behaviour. I enabled . . . isn’t that what they call it? . . . Enabling . . . ? Well, I enabled you to be a . . . a . . . boor! But thank God I’ve found some small sliver of backbone, even if it’s this late in life. It’s a dreadful thing to be spineless, Ken. Even worse than being married to a Neanderthal.’ She could see her husband staring at her in bewildered perplexity. Even she was impressed with what had come pouring out of her.

‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you behaving like this? You’re not yourself.’ Ken couldn’t hide his disbelief.

‘For the first time in a long, long time, I’m very much myself, Ken. That’s the tragedy of it, that it’s taken me so long to come to my senses. That it’s taken so long for me to have some self-respect. I want a divorce,’ Juliet reiterated. ‘I’ll be on to a solicitor first thing in the morning,’ she added, in a precise, clipped tone which momentarily left him speechless, and she turned and walked away from him.

‘And where,’ he asked nastily, ‘will you be getting the money to pay for this divorce?’

‘You’ll be paying for it through the nose,’ she retorted over her shoulder, and marched out of the kitchen, feeling in control of her destiny for the first time in years. She hurried up to her bedroom, slipped a dress over her swimsuit, grabbed some fresh underwear and a nightie, got her toothbrush from the ensuite and packed everything into her tote bag, along with her hair brush and makeup.

She heard Ken thunder up the stairs a minute later, and then he barged into the room. ‘Now listen here, Juliet,’ he began, and saw the bag on the bed. ‘Where do you think you’re—’

‘I’m going to a party on the nudist beach, if you must know,’ she interrupted curtly. ‘I’m having fun in my life, Ken. FUN! FUN! FUN!’ She stepped into a pair of espadrilles, sprayed some perfume on to her wrists and took the bag off the bed. ‘Excuse me,’ she said as he stood blocking the doorway.

‘You are not going anywhere until we’ve discussed—’

‘Excuse me
now
!’ She gave him a withering look.

Ken stared at her dumbfounded, astonished at the authority in her voice. He stepped aside.

‘Thank you,’ she said coolly. ‘My solicitor will be in touch.’

She walked down the tiled stairs, half expecting him to come after her, but he didn’t. She heaved a sigh of relief. Her knees were trembling, and she felt sick, but she held her head high as she walked down the drive to the open gates. She knew he’d be looking out from their bedroom balcony, but she resolutely kept her eyes fixed ahead. She saw Karen’s car parked across the street, up a little to the right, and increased her speed. Connie got out and opened the back door. ‘You OK?’ she asked anxiously.

Juliet nodded, unable to speak.

‘Get in,’ Connie said kindly, sliding in alongside her. Karen started the engine.

‘I told him I wanted a divorce.’ Juliet gripped Connie’s hand tightly.

‘Good woman yourself. Well done. Sometimes it’s the only route to go,’ Connie comforted.

‘How did he take it?’ Karen asked.

‘Badly.’ Juliet gave a shaky grin. ‘I know he doesn’t think I’ll go through with it but, if I don’t, I might as well give up now and go back to the villa.’

‘What do you
want
to do?’ Connie squeezed her hand.

‘As I told my soon-to-be-ex-husband, to go to the nudist beach and have Fun! Fun! Fun!’

Karen laughed. ‘Juliet, if that’s what your little heart desires, we’re with you all the way. So will we go back to my place?’ She caught the other woman’s eye in her rear-view mirror.

‘Yes, please,’ Juliet said firmly. ‘Who says you need a man to live happy ever after? It’s my time now, and better late than never.’

Ken walked slowly into the bedroom and loosened his tie. Juliet had not looked back as she walked out through the gates of the villa. He’d watched her, her shoulders straight and her head held high, stride purposefully away from him, and willed her to turn around, willed her to show some hesitation or uncertainty. She hadn’t. Not an ounce. Juliet seemed uncharacteristically sure of herself. He felt a shiver of apprehension. She wasn’t serious about wanting a divorce surely? Ken shook his head, and sat down on the bed, tie dangling from his hand.

She’d said dreadful things to him. Called him a boor. Accused him of being arrogant, a bully. He looked around their tastefully furnished bedroom, all cool creams and pale blues. He’d provided all of this for her. Where was her gratitude? Her acknowledgement of his hard work? She knew better than anyone how stressful it was. Ken sighed and rubbed his hand across his stubbly jaw. Stress didn’t begin to describe it, these last few years. He was getting older; it was harder keeping up with new procedures, new technology. When he started off it was eyes and hands only. Now there were computers, lasers, keyhole this, pinhole that. The young bucks coming along in his wake were full of confidence, drive and ambition, just like he’d been thirty years ago.

Once, he’d been a god on the wards, sweeping in to visit patients with a respectful entourage scurrying behind him. When the nuns ran the hospitals, the consultant had been elevated to lofty heights never again attained since the arrival of managers, and health ministers who had no respect, and the damn HSE, which was trying to turn them into lackeys.

When the nuns ran hospitals there was no MRSA, there were no dirty wards or crowded, filthy A&Es, or cardiac patients being given cholesterol-laden, fat-dripping fry-ups for tea. He was a dinosaur now, living in the past, wishing for the past to return. He had had his day. Did Juliet not realize how difficult it was to keep up his air of invincibility? Patients needed the reassurance that they were in a safe pair of hands. His air of command and confidence reassured them. He needed it himself to keep going. It wasn’t about being a boor, he thought indignantly, it was about self-protection.

He shouldn’t have launched off at her in front of those two women, he reflected guiltily. He’d embarrassed her. He should have held his fire, but patience had never been a strong point with him. She knew that.

He got up and went downstairs, and poked in the fridge looking for a cool drink. He opened a can of tonic water and drank it thirstily. His wife had looked at him with scorn and derision in her eyes. That was hard to endure. Ken mooched out on to the terrace and sat at the table where they had been eating, the remnants of their meal still there.

Where was Juliet getting all this psychobabble?
Enabling
 . . . where had she heard that? He grimaced. Too much bloody
Dr Phil
. That’s what was wrong with her and half the women in the country. They had too much time to sit and watch silly so-called self-help rubbish. He stretched out and raised his face to the sky. Dusk had tamed the blistering sun, and the shadows were lengthening over the lawn as the cicadas chirruped and the sea sang its lullaby to the shore. It was peaceful, and he was tired – tired and worried. He’d never seen Juliet like this. She seemed adamant about wanting a divorce. She was mad. It couldn’t be a worse time to divorce, with a recession threatening and all.

Would she want the house sold? They could lose up to three hundred thousand, or more, if they put it on the market now. They wouldn’t be able to give away the villa. All he’d seen on his journey from the airport were ‘
Se Vende
’ signs. She’d want half his pensions, his investments. A colleague of his had recently been divorced and was now living, alone, in a two-bedroom apartment in Glasnevin, when he’d once lived in a detached five-bedroomed house in Howth. The ex-wife was living in an apartment in Clontarf and playing golf every day, with not a worry in the world.

Was that where he’d end up – alone in some glasshouse apartment, having to suffer the indignity of communal living and management-committee meetings? Ken shuddered. It couldn’t come to that. Someone would have to talk sense to her.

Ken sat for a long time in the cool of the Mediterranean evening, pondering his life, weary to his bones. There was one thing he was certain of: if Juliet left him, he didn’t know what he’d do. For the first time in all their married life, he was beginning to realize just what a sterling wife she’d been. He might have been the provider, but she’d been his bedrock. He’d ring Aimee in the morning. Juliet had a high regard for their daughter. Perhaps she’d listen to her. It was
imperative
that Aimee talk sense to her mother, he decided, as he made his lonely way to bed, full of self-pity, wondering could anyone be quite as miserable as he was this moonlit, star-filled night.