How to Fall in Love (6 page)

I was taken aback; I hadn’t expected to see a head of thick blond hair under the woollen hat.

‘What?’ he asked, and I realised I was staring at his beauty.

Sitting down on the couch opposite him, I took off my coat and gloves and hoped the fire would thaw me out quickly. ‘Can I read it?’

‘No.’ He moved it closer to his chest and folded it.

‘Why don’t you rip it up?’

‘Because.’ He placed it in his pocket. ‘It’s a memento. Of my trip to Dublin.’

‘You’re not very funny.’

‘Another thing to add to my list of things I’m not good at.’

I looked around at the set-up and tried to figure him out. ‘Were you expecting someone here tonight?’

‘Of course. I always arrange champagne and roses for pretty ladies who talk me off bridges.’

It was wrong and I knew it was wrong, but I celebrated inside that he’d called me pretty. ‘No, it must have been last night,’ I said, watching him. Despite the jokes and self-assurance, he was fidgeting. I reckoned those jokes were the only thing stopping him collapsing in a heap right there and then.

He got up and made his way over to the TV unit, opening the cupboard below to reveal a mini-bar.

‘I don’t think alcohol is such a good idea.’

‘I might be getting a soft drink.’ He gave me a wounded look and I felt guilty. He retrieved a Jack Daniel’s then threw me a cheeky look as he brought it back to the couch.

I didn’t comment but noticed that as he poured it into the glass his hands were trembling. I sat and watched him for a while and then, unable to take it any longer, I got one for myself, only I mixed mine with a soft drink. I’d made a pact with a man who tried to kill himself, then followed him to his hotel room, so why not get drunk with him too? If there was such a thing as a rulebook on moral integrity and responsible citizenship I’d pretty much stamped all over it, so why not finish the job and throw it out the window? Besides, I was freezing to my bones and needed something to help thaw me out. I took a sip; it burned my throat all the way to my stomach and it felt good.

‘My girlfriend,’ he said out of nowhere, interrupting my thoughts.

‘What about her?’

‘That’s who I was expecting. I came to Dublin to surprise her. She’d said that I hadn’t been very attentive lately. Not present in her company, or whatever.’ He rubbed his face roughly. ‘She said we were in trouble. “In danger”
,
that was the expression she used.’

‘So you came to Dublin to rescue your relationship,’ I said, happy to finally be learning about him. ‘What happened?’

‘She was with another fella,’ he said, jaw tightening again. ‘In Milano’s. She said she was going there with the girls. We live in an apartment there on the quays, only I’ve been in Tipperary a while
… Anyway, she wasn’t with the girls,’ he said bitterly, staring at the contents of his glass.

‘How do you know they weren’t just friends?’

‘Ah they were friends, all right. I introduced them. My best friend Sean. They were holding hands across the table. They didn’t even see me walk in the restaurant. She wasn’t expecting me to arrive, I was supposed to be in Tipperary still. I confronted them. They didn’t deny it.’ He shrugged.

‘What did you do?’

‘What could I do? I left the place looking like a complete eejit.’

‘You didn’t want to hit Sean?’

‘Nah.’ He sat back, defeated. ‘I knew what I had to do.’

‘Attempt suicide?’

‘Will you stop using that word?’

I was silent.

‘Anyway what good would hitting him have done? Made a scene? Made me look an even bigger gobshite?’

‘It would have alleviated the tension.’

‘So violence is good now?’ He shook his head. ‘If I had hit him, you would have asked why didn’t I take a walk to cool down.’

‘Boxing your so-called friend, who clearly deserved it, is better than suicide. It wins hands down every time.’

‘Will you stop saying that word,’ he said quietly. ‘Jesus.’

‘That’s what you tried to do, Adam.’

‘And I’ll do it again if you don’t keep your side of the deal,’ he shouted.

His anger took me by surprise. He got up and made his way to the glass door leading out on to a balcony overlooking O’Connell Street and the rooftops of the Northside.

I was sure there was a lot more to Adam’s story than wanting to end his life because his girlfriend was cheating on him. That was probably the trigger to an already troubled mind, but it didn’t seem the right time to probe. He was tensing up again and we were both tired, we needed sleep.

Evidently he agreed. Keeping his back to me, he said, ‘You can sleep in the bedroom, I’ll take the couch.’ When I didn’t answer, he turned to face me. ‘I assume you want to stay.’

‘You don’t mind?’

He thought about it. ‘I think it might be a good idea.’ Then he turned back to look out over the city.

There was so much I could say to him to sum up the day, give him positive words of encouragement. I’d read enough self-help books: pick-me-up phrases were a dime a dozen. But none of them seemed appropriate now. If I was going to help him out of this, I would have to figure out not just what to say but when to say it.

‘Goodnight,’ I said. I left the bedroom door ajar, not liking that he was in the room with access to the balcony. I watched him through the gap as he took off his jumper, revealing a tight T-shirt beneath. I couldn’t help but look a little longer than necessary, trying to convince myself that I was doing it for his safety in case he suffocated himself with his own jumper. He sat down on the couch and put his feet up. He was too tall for the couch; he had to rest his feet on the arm of the couch, which made me feel guilty about taking the bed. I was about to say so when he spoke.

‘Enjoying the show?’ he asked, his eyes closed and his arms folded beneath his head.

Cheeks blazing, I rolled my eyes and moved away from the door. I sat on the four-poster bed, the glasses clinking beside me, the melted ice in the bucket tipping over and spilling on the bed. I placed it on the desk and I was reaching for a chocolate-coated strawberry when I noticed the notecard beside the display. It read,
For my beautiful Fiancée, Love Adam
. So he had come to Dublin to propose. Certain that I was only scratching the surface, I resolved to get my hands on that suicide note.

I had thought that the night I watched Simon Conway shoot himself, the night I left my husband, and every night since then had been the longest.

I was wrong.

6

How to Quiet Your Mind and Get Some Sleep

I couldn’t sleep. That wasn’t unusual, I’d practically been an insomniac for the last four months, ever since it had occurred to me that I wanted my marriage to end. It wasn’t a helpful thought. I had been searching for ways to find happiness, fulfilment, feelings of positivity, ways in which to rescue my marriage – not ways
out
.
But as soon as I had the thought,
escape
, it wouldn’t go away, especially at night when I didn’t have anybody else’s problems to distract me from my own. Usually I ended up following my nightstand read,
42 Tips on How to Beat Insomnia
, and as a result
I’d tried soaking in warm baths, cleaning out my fridge, painting my nails, doing yoga – sometimes doing two of the three simultaneously – at all hours of the morning, in hope of finding respite. Other times I’d settle for simply reading the book until my eyes got too sore and had to close. I never seemed to drift away as the book declared I’d be able to do; there was no such thing as the lightless and feathery feeling of
drifting
. I was either awake frustrated and exhausted, or I was asleep frustrated and exhausted, and I’d yet to experience that pleasant glide from one world to the next.

Though I had realised I wanted my marriage to end I never thought about actually ending it. For a long time I spent my nights worrying how I was going to live with my unhappiness, until eventually it occurred to me that I didn’t have to; the advice I gave to friends could actually apply to me. After that, I spent countless nights fantasising about a life with somebody else, somebody I truly loved, someone who truly loved me; we’d be one of those couples who seemed to have electricity sparking between them with every look and touch. Then I fantasised about me and just about every man I was attracted to, which became most men that were in any way kind to me. Including Leo Arnold – a client whose appointments I particularly enjoyed. Leo had become the subject of many of my fantasies, which caused me to become rosy-cheeked every time he stepped into my office.

Beneath it all, I recognise now, there was an underlying panic; panic that it was all too much for me to deal with, but now that I’d acknowledged it there was no making it go away. Each little problem between us was magnified till it became one more sign that we were doomed. Like when he finished before me in bed, again; when he slept with his socks on because his feet were always cold; and when he left his toenail clippings in a small bowl in the bathroom and never remembered to empty it in the bin. The way we barely kissed any more; those once-full kisses had been reduced to familiar pecks on the cheek. How bored I’d become with his stories, fed up with listening to him retell the same old rugby tales. If I were to judge my life in colours, which I’d learned to do from a book, our relationship had gone from a vibrant hue – at least, that’s how it was for a while, when we were dating – to a dull, monotonous grey. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that the flame would forever burn brightly in a marriage, but I did think there should be at least a flicker remaining after less than a year of married life. Looking back, I think I fell in love with being in love. And now my love affair with the dream was over.

That night as I lay awake in the penthouse of the Gresham Hotel, all my worries started to pile up. The worry of having left Barry; the money woes that followed; what people thought of me; the fear of never meeting anyone ever again and being lonely for the rest of my life; Simon Conway … And now Adam, whose surname I didn’t know, who twenty-four hours ago had attempted to take his own life and was lying in the room next to mine on the couch beside a balcony with an impressive drop, beside a full mini-bar, and who was waiting for me to deliver on my promise of fixing his life before his thirty-fifth birthday in two weeks’ time or else he’d attempt to kill himself again.

Feeling nauseous at the prospect, I got out of bed and checked on him again. The TV was muted and the colours flickered and changed and danced through the room. I could see his chest lifting up and down. There were a number of options available to me, according to
42 Tips
, to quiet my mind and get some sleep, but all I could manage while listening out for Adam was to drink camomile tea. I flicked the switch on the kettle for the fourth time.

‘Jesus, do you never sleep?’ he called.

‘Sorry, am I disturbing you?’

‘No, but the steam engine in there with you is.’

I pushed the door open. ‘You want a cuppa? Oh. I see you have enough to drink.’ Three small empty bottles of Jack Daniel’s sat on the coffee table.

‘I wouldn’t say
enough
,’ he said. ‘You can’t watch me twenty-four hours a day. Sooner or later you’re going to have to sleep.’ He finally opened his eyes and looked up at me. He didn’t look remotely tired. Or drunk. Merely beautiful. Perfect.

I didn’t want to tell him the real reason, or reasons, for my insomnia.

‘I’d prefer it if I could sleep in here with you,’ I said.

‘Cosy. But it’s a bit too soon after my break-up, so if you don’t mind, I’ll pass.’

I sat down on the couch anyway.

‘I’m not going to jump off the balcony,’ he said.

‘But you’ve thought about it?’

‘Of course. I’ve thought about the plethora of ways I could kill myself in this room. It’s what I do. I could have set myself on fire.’

‘There’s a fire extinguisher, I’d have put you out.’

‘I could have used my razor in the bathroom.’

‘I hid it.’

‘Drowned in the bath, or taken a bath with the hairdryer.’

‘I’d watch you in the bath, and nobody can find hairdryers in hotels.’

‘I’d have used the kettle.’

‘It can barely heat water, it couldn’t electrocute a mouse. It’s all noise and no action.’

He laughed lightly.

‘And that cutlery can barely cut through an apple, never mind a vein,’ I said.

He looked at the cutlery beside the fruit bowl. ‘Thought I’d keep that one to myself.’

‘You think about killing yourself a lot?’ I tucked my legs up under me and snuggled into the corner of the couch.

He dropped the act. ‘I can’t seem to stop myself. You were right, what you said on the bridge: it’s become like a really sick hobby.’

‘I didn’t quite say that. But you know there’s probably nothing wrong with you thinking about it, as long as you don’t act on it.’

‘Thank you. At least you won’t take my thoughts away from me.’

‘Thinking about it comforts you, it’s your crutch. I’m not going to take your crutch away, but it shouldn’t be your only way of coping. Did you ever talk to anyone about it?’

‘Yeah sure, it’s the number one topic for speed-dating. What do you think?’

‘Have you thought about therapy?’

‘I’ve just had a night and day of it.’

‘I think you could do with more than a night and day.’

‘Therapy’s not for me.’

‘It’s probably the way to go at the moment.’

‘I thought
you
were the way to go.’ He looked at me. ‘Isn’t that what you said? Stick with me and I’ll show you how wonderful life can be?’

Again panic rose that he was placing all this trust in me.

‘And I’ll do that. I just wondered …’ I swallowed. ‘Did your girlfriend know how you were feeling?’

‘Maria? I don’t know. She kept saying I’d changed. I was distracted. Withdrawn. I wasn’t the same. But no, I never told her what I was thinking.’

‘You’ve been depressed.’

‘If that’s what you call it. It doesn’t help when you’re trying your best to be jolly and someone keeps saying you’re not the same, you’re down, you’re not exciting, you’re not spontaneous. Jesus, I mean, what else could I do? I was trying to keep my own bloody head above water.’ He sighed. ‘She thought it was to do with my father. And the job.’