The Gift (6 page)

Ruth took a deep breath, her shoulders relaxing as she exhaled. “Your dinner’s ready.” She began to move toward the kitchen again. “It’ll just take a minute to heat up. And I bought that apple pie you like.”

“I’ve eaten,” he said, folding the letter he’d just finished and ripping it into pieces that fluttered to the floor. It was either the sound of yet more paper hitting the floor or his words that stopped her, but either way she froze.

“I’ll pick the bloody things up,” he said with irritation.

She slowly turned around and asked in a quiet voice, “Where did you eat?”

“Shanahan’s. Rib-eye steak. I’m stuffed.” He absentmindedly rubbed his stomach.

“With who?”

“Work people.”

“Who?”

“What’s this, the Spanish Inquisition?”

“No, just a wife asking a husband who he had dinner with.”

“A few guys from the office. You don’t know them.”

“I wish you would have told me.”

“It wasn’t a social thing. Nobody else’s wives were there.”

“I didn’t mean—I’d like to have known so I wouldn’t have bothered cooking for you.”

“Christ, Ruth, I’m sorry you cooked and bought a bloody pie,” he exploded.

“Sssh,” she said, closing her eyes and hoping his raised voice wouldn’t wake the baby.

“No! I won’t sssh!” he boomed. “Okay?” He made his way into the parlor, leaving his shoes in the middle of the hallway and his papers and envelopes strewn across the hall table.

Ruth took another deep breath, turned away from his mess, and made her way to the opposite side of the house.

W
HEN
L
OU REJOINED HIS WIFE
a little while later, she was sitting at the kitchen table eating lasagna and a
salad, the pie next in line, watching women in spandex jump around on the large plasma TV in the adjoining family room.

“I thought you’d eaten with the kids,” he remarked after watching her for a while.

“I did,” she said, through a full mouth.

“So why are you eating again?” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost eleven. A bit late to eat, don’t you think?”

“You eat at this hour.” She frowned.

“Yes, but I’m not the one who complains that I’m fat and then eats two dinners and a pie.” He laughed.

She swallowed the food, feeling like a rock was going down her throat. He hadn’t noticed his words, hadn’t intended to hurt her. He never intended to hurt her; he just did. After a long silence, during which Ruth lost her energy for anger and built up the appetite to eat again, Lou poured himself a glass of wine and joined her at the kitchen table. On the other side of the kitchen window the blackness clung to the cold pane, eager to get inside. Beyond it were the millions of lights of the city across the bay, like Christmas lights dangling from the blackness.

“It’s been a weird day today,” Lou finally said.

“How?”

“I don’t know.” He sighed. “It just felt funny. I felt funny.”

“I feel like that most days,” Ruth said.

“I must be coming down with something. I just feel…out of sorts.”

She felt his forehead. “You’re not hot.”

“I’m not?” He looked at her in surprise and then felt his forehead. “It’s this guy at work.” He shook his head. “So odd.”

Ruth frowned and studied him, not used to seeing him so inarticulate.

“It started out well.” He swirled his wine around his glass. “I met a man called Gabe outside the office. A homeless guy—well, I don’t know if he’s homeless. He says he has a place to stay, but he was begging on the streets anyway.”

At that the baby monitor began crackling as Bud started to cry softly. Just a gentle sleepy moaning at first. Knife and fork down, and with the unfinished plate pushed away, Ruth prayed for him to stop.

“Anyway,” Lou continued, not even noticing, “I bought him a coffee and we got to talking.”

“That was nice of you,” Ruth said. Her maternal instincts were kicking in, and the only voice she could hear now was that of her child, his sleepy moans turning into full-blown cries.

“He reminded me of me,” Lou said. “He was exactly like me, and we had the funniest conversation about shoes.” He laughed, thinking back over it. “He could remember every single pair of shoes that walked into the building, so I hired him. Well,
I
didn’t, I called Harry—”

“Lou, honey,” she cut in, “do you not hear that?”

He looked at her blankly, irritated at first that she’d
interrupted his story, and then cocked his head to listen. Finally the cries penetrated his thoughts.

“Fine, go on,” he sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. “But as long as you remember that I was telling you about my day, because you’re always telling me that I don’t,” he mumbled.

“What is that supposed to mean?” She raised her voice. “Your son is crying. Do I have to sit here all night while he wails for help until you’ve finished your story about a homeless man who likes shoes, or would you ever go and check on him of your own accord?”

“I’ll do it,” he said angrily, though not making a move from his chair.

“Fine, I’ll do it.” She stood up from the table. “I want you to do it without being reminded. You don’t do it for brownie points, Lou, you’re supposed to
want
to do it.”

“You don’t seem too eager to do it yourself now,” he grumbled.

Halfway from the table to the kitchen door, she stopped. “You know you haven’t ever taken Ross for one single day by yourself?”

“Whoa. You must be serious if you’re actually using his real name. Where is all this coming from?”

It all came out at once now that she was frustrated. “You haven’t changed his diaper; you haven’t fed him.”

“I’ve fed him,” he protested.

The wails got louder.

“You haven’t prepared one bottle, made him one meal, dressed him, played with him. You haven’t spent any time
with him alone, without me running in every five minutes to take him from you while you send an e-mail or answer a phone call. The child has been living in the world for over a year now, Lou. It’s been over a
year
.”

“Hold on.” He ran his hand through his hair and held it there, clenching a handful of hair with a tight fist, a sign of his anger. “How have we gotten from talking about my day, which you always want to know so much about, to this attack?”

“You were so busy talking about
you
that you didn’t hear your own child,” she said tiredly, knowing this conversation was going the same place as every other argument they’d had recently. Nowhere.

Lou looked around the room and held out his hands dramatically, emphasizing the walls around them. “Do you think I sit at my desk all day twiddling my thumbs? No, I work my hardest trying to juggle everything so that you and the kids can have all this. So excuse me if I don’t fill his mouth every morning with mashed banana.”

“You don’t juggle anything, Lou. You choose one thing over another. There’s a difference.”

“I can’t be in two places at once, Ruth! If you need help around here, I’ve already told you: just say the word, and we can have a nanny here any day you want.”

He knew he’d just walked himself into a bigger argument, and as Bud’s wails grew louder on the baby monitor, he prepared for the inevitable onslaught. He almost added, “And I promise not to sleep with this one.”

But that argument never came. Instead, Ruth’s shoulders shrank as she gave up the fight and instead went to tend to her son.

Lou reached for the remote control and held it toward the TV like a gun. He pressed the trigger angrily and powered it off. The sweating spandexed women disappeared into a small circle of light in the center of the screen before diminishing completely.

He reached for the plate of apple pie on the table and began picking at it, wondering how this had all started, practically from the second he had walked in the door. It would end as it did so many other nights: he would go to bed and she would be asleep, or at least pretend to be. A few hours later he would wake up, work out, get showered, and go to work.

He sighed, and then on hearing the baby monitor crackle, he realized it had grown silent. As he headed toward it to turn it off, he heard a faint noise that made him reach for the volume dial. His heart sank as the sounds of Ruth’s quiet sobs filled the kitchen.

S
O YOU LET HIM GET
away?” A young voice broke into Raphie’s thoughts.

“What’s that?” Raphie snapped out of his trance and turned his attention back to the young teen who was sitting across the table from him.

“I said, you let him get away.”

“Who?”

“The rich guy, Lou, in the flashy Porsche. He was speeding, and you let him get away.”

“No, I didn’t let him get away.”

“Yeah, you did. You didn’t give him any points or a ticket or anything. You just let him off. That’s the problem with you lot, you’re always on the rich people’s side. If that was me, I’d be locked up for life. I only threw a bloody turkey, and I’m stuck here all day. And it’s Christmas Day and everything.”

“Shut your whining; we’re waiting for your mother, you know that, and I wouldn’t blame her if she does decide to leave you here all day.”

The Turkey Boy sat back in his chair, sulking.

“So you’re new to the area. You and your mother moved here recently?” Raphie asked.

The boy nodded.

“Where from?”

“The Republic of Your Ass.”

“Very clever,” Raphie said sarcastically.

They sat in silence. “So why did you leave the Porsche guy so quickly?” the boy finally asked, curiosity getting the better of him. “Did you chicken out or something?”

“Don’t be daft, son; I gave him a warning,” Raphie said, straightening up defensively in his chair, hoping his heart wouldn’t give him another scare again. At least not now, not until after he’d finished the story.

“But that’s illegal; you should have given him a ticket. He could kill someone speeding around like that.”

Raphie’s eyes darkened, and the Turkey Boy knew to stop his goading.

“Are you going to listen to the rest of the story or what?”

“How do you know all this, by the way?”

“I’m the police. It’s my job.”

“But the stuff with his wife and all, how do you know?”

“It’s my job to find the story. To talk to everybody and piece it all together.” And what a task that had been. “Now, are you ready to hear more?”

“Yeah, I am. Go on.” The boy leaned forward on the table and rested his hand under his chin. “I’ve got all day.” He smiled cheekily.

A
T
5:59
A.M
., L
OU AWOKE
. The previous evening had gone exactly as predicted: by the time he had made it to bed, Ruth’s back had been firmly turned, with the blankets tightly tucked around her, leaving her as accessible as a fig in a roll. The message was loud and clear.

Lou couldn’t find it within himself to comfort her, to cross over the line that separated them in bed, in life, to make things okay. They had definitely reached a low point. Even as students, completely broke and staying in subpar accommodations, with temperamental heating and bathrooms they’d had to share with dozens of others, things had never been like this. Now they had a giant bed, so big that even when they both lay on their backs their fingers barely brushed when they stretched out. A monstrosity of space and cold spots in the sheets that couldn’t be warmed.

Lou lay in bed and thought back to the beginning, when he and Ruth had first met at university—two nine
teen-year-olds, celebrating the winter finals. With a few weeks’ break ahead of them and test results far from their minds, they had met at open-mike night in the International Bar on Wicklow Street. After that night, Lou had thought about her every day while back home with his parents for the holidays. With every slice of turkey, every present he unwrapped, every family fight over Monopoly, she was on his mind. Because of her he’d even lost his title as the Count the Stuffing Champion with Marcia and Quentin. Lou stared up at the bedroom ceiling and smiled, remembering how each year he and his siblings—paper crowns on their heads and tongues dangling from their mouths—would get down to counting every crumb of stuffing on their plate, long after his parents had left the table. Every year, Marcia and Quentin would join together to beat him, but his dedication—some would say obsession—could never be matched. But that year he had been beaten by Quentin, because the phone had rung and it had been her, and the call had been it for Lou.

The nineteen-year-old of that Christmas would have longed for this moment right now. He would have grabbed the opportunity with both hands, to be transported to the future just to have Ruth right beside him in bed, in a fine house, with two beautiful children sleeping in the next rooms. He looked over at Ruth now. She had rolled onto her back, her mouth slightly parted, her hair like a haystack on top of her head. He smiled.

She’d done better than him in those winter exams,
which was no hard task, but she did so the following three years, too. Studying had always come so easily to her, while he seemed to have to burn the candle at both ends in order just to scrape by. He didn’t know where she ever found the time to think, let alone study, she was so busy leading the way through their adventurous nights on the town. They’d crashed parties on a weekly basis, stayed out all night, but Ruth still made it to the first lecture, with her assignments completed. She could do it all.

Any time he’d failed an exam and had been forced to repeat it, she’d been there, writing out facts and figures for him to learn. She’d turn study sessions into quiz-show games, introducing prizes and buzzers, quick-fire rounds and punishments. She’d dress up in her finery, acting as quiz-show host, assistant, and model, displaying all the fine things he could win if he answered all the questions correctly. Even food shopping at the market was a game. “For this box of popcorn, answer me this,” she’d say.

“Pass,” he’d say, frustrated, trying to grab the box anyway.

“No passing, Lou, you know this one,” she’d say firmly, blocking the shelves.

He often wouldn’t know the answer at first, but she’d make him know it. Somehow she’d push him until he reached deep into a part of his brain that he didn’t know existed and found the answer that he never realized he knew.

They’d planned to go to Australia together after university. A year’s adventure away from Ireland before life started. They spent a year saving for the flights; Lou working as a bartender in Temple Bar while she tended tables. But then he failed his final exams, while Ruth passed with flying colors. He would have packed it in there and then, but she wouldn’t let him, convincing him he could do it, as she always did.

In the year waiting for him to retake his classes, Ruth completed a business master’s degree. Just for something to do. She never once rubbed it in his face or made him feel like a failure. She was always the friend, the girlfriend, the life and soul of every party, the A student and achiever.

So was that when he started resenting her? All the way back then? Was it because he never felt good enough, and this was his way of punishing her? Or maybe there was no psychology behind this; maybe he was just too weak and selfish to say no when an attractive woman so much as looked his way. Because when that happened, he forgot all sense of himself. He knew right from wrong, of course he did, but on those occasions he didn’t particularly care. He was invincible, always thinking there would be no consquences and no repercussions.

Ruth had caught him with the nanny six months ago. There had been only a few times, but Lou knew that if there were levels of wrongness for having affairs, which in his opinion there were, sex with the nanny was pretty high. There had been nobody since then, apart from a
fumble with Alison, which had been a mistake. That was one that scored low on the wrongness scale. He’d been drunk, she was attractive, but he regretted it deeply. It didn’t count.

“Lou,” Ruth snapped, breaking into his thoughts and giving him a fright.

He looked over at her. “Morning.” He smiled. “You’ll never guess what I was just thinking ab—”

“Do you not hear that?” she interrupted him.

“Huh?” He turned to his left and noticed the clock had struck six. “Oh, sorry.” He leaned across and switched off the beeping alarm.

He’d clearly done something wrong because her face went a deep red and she fired herself out of bed and charged out of the room. It was only then that he heard Bud’s cries.

“Shit.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

“You said a bad wud,” said a little voice from behind the door.

“Morning, Lucy,” he said.

Her figure appeared then, a pink-pajamaed five-year-old, dragging her blanket along the floor behind her, her chocolate-brown hair tousled from her sleep. Her big brown eyes were the picture of concern. She stood at the end of the bed, and Lou waited for her to say something.

“You’re coming tonight, aren’t you, Daddy?”

“What’s tonight?”

“My school play.”

“Oh yeah, that, sweetie; you don’t really want me to go to that, do you?”

She nodded.

“But why?” He rubbed his eyes again. “You know how busy Daddy is; it’s very hard for me to get there.”

“But I’ve been practicing.”

“Why don’t you show me now, and then I won’t have to see you later.”

“But I’m not wearing my costume.”

“That’s okay. I’ll use my imagination. Mum always says it’s good to do that, doesn’t she?” He kept an eye on the door to make sure Ruth wasn’t listening. “And you can do it for me while I get dressed, okay?”

He threw the covers off and, as Lucy started prancing around, he rushed around the room, throwing on sweats and a T-shirt in which to work out.

“Daddy, you’re not looking!”

“I am, sweetheart. Come downstairs to the gym with me. There are lots of mirrors there for you to practice in front of. That’ll be fun, won’t it?”

A few minutes later he was on the treadmill. He turned on the TV and started watching Sky News, hardly noticing his daughter performing for him.

“Daddy, you’re not looking.”

“I am, sweetie.” He glanced at her once. “What are you playing?”

“A leaf. It’s a windy day and I fall off the tree and I have to go like this.” She twirled around the gym and Lou looked back at the TV.

“What’s a leaf got to do with Jesus?”

She shrugged, and he had to laugh.

“Will you come to see me tonight, pleeeease?”

“Yep,” he said, wiping his face on a towel.

“Promise?”

“Absolutely,” he said dismissively. “Okay, you go back up to your mum now. I’ve to take a shower.”

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER AND ALREADY
in work mode, Lou went into the kitchen to say a quick good-bye to everyone. Bud was in his high chair, rubbing banana into his hair; Lucy was sucking on a spoon and watching cartoons at top volume; and Ruth was in her nightgown making Lucy’s school lunch. She looked exhausted.

“Bye.” He kissed Lucy on the head; she didn’t budge, completely engrossed in her cartoon. He hovered above Bud, trying to find a place on his face that wasn’t covered in food. “Eh, bye.” He pecked him awkwardly on the top of his head. Then he made his way around to Ruth.

“Do you want to meet me there at six or go together from here?”

“Where?”

“The school.”

“Oh. About that.” He lowered his voice.

“You have to go; you promised.” She stopped buttering the bread to look at him in anger.

“Lucy showed me the dance downstairs and we had a
talk, so she’s fine about me not being there.” He picked at a slice of ham on the cutting board. “Do you know why the hell she’s a leaf in a nativity play?”

Ruth laughed. “Lou, I know you’re playing with me. I told you to put this in your diary last month. And then I reminded you last week, and I called that woman Tracey at the office—”

“Ah, that’s what happened.” He clicked his fingers in a gosh-darn-it kind of way. “Wires crossed. Tracey’s gone. Alison replaced her. So maybe there was a problem when they switched over.” He tried to say it playfully, but Ruth’s face of disappointment, hatred, and disgust, all rolled into one, stopped him.

“I mentioned it twice last week. I mentioned it yesterday morning. I’m like a frigging parrot with you, and you still don’t remember. The school play tonight and then dinner with your mum, dad, Alexandra, and Quentin. And Marcia might be coming, if she can move around her therapy session.”

“No, she really shouldn’t miss that.” Lou rolled his eyes. “Ruthy, please, I would rather stick pins in my eyes than have dinner with them.”

“They’re your family, Lou.”

“All Quentin talks about are boats. Boats, boats, and more bloody boats. It is totally beyond him to think of any other conversation that doesn’t involve the words
boom
and
cleat
.”

“You used to love sailing with Quentin.”

“I used to love sailing. Not necessarily with Quentin,
and that was years ago.” He groaned. “And Marcia…it’s not therapy she needs, it’s a good kick in the ass.”

“Tough,” Ruth said, continuing with her lunch making. “Lucy is expecting you at the play, your parents are excited, and I need you here. I can’t do the dinner and play host all on my own.”

“Mum will help you.”

“Your mother just had a hip replacement.” Ruth was straining to keep her voice down.

“Don’t I know it. I collected her from hospital and got into trouble for it, like I said I would,” he grumbled. “While Quentin was off on his boat.”

“He was racing, Lou!” She dropped the knife and turned to him, then seemed to switch gears. “Please.” She kissed him softly on the lips, and he closed his eyes, lingering in the rare moment.

“But I’ve so much to do at work,” he said quietly amid their kiss. “It’s important to me.”

Ruth pulled away. “Well, I’m glad something is, Lou, because for a moment there I almost thought you weren’t human.” She was silent as she finished buttering the bread fiercely, the knife hitting so roughly that it made holes. She slapped down slices of ham, tossed in a slice of cheese, then pushed down on the bread and sliced it diagonally with a sharp knife. She moved about the kitchen, slamming drawers and violently ripping tinfoil from the teeth of the packaging.

“We’re not in this life just to work, Lou, we’re in it to
live
. We have to start doing things together, and that
means your doing things for me even when you don’t want to, and vice versa. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“What do you mean ‘vice versa’? When do I ever make you do anything you don’t want to?”

“Lou,” she gritted her teeth, “they’re
your
bloody family, not mine.”

“So cancel it! I don’t care.”

“You have family responsibilities.”

“But I have more work responsibilities. Family can’t fire me if I don’t turn up to a bloody dinner, can they?”

“Yes, they can, Lou,” she said quietly.

“Is that a threat?” He lowered his voice. “You can’t throw comments like that at me, Ruth; it’s not fair.”

Ruth just looked at him and said nothing, allowing her stare to speak for her.

“Okay, fine, I’ll do my best to be there,” Lou said, both to please her and to get out of the house, yet not meaning a word of it. On her look, he rephrased it with more meaning. “I’ll be there.”

L
OU ARRIVED AT HIS OFFICE
at eight a.m. A full hour before another soul would arrive, even Alison. It was important for him to be the first in; it made him feel efficient, ahead of the pack. As he stepped out of the empty elevator into the quiet corridor, he could smell the products used by the cleaning staff last night. The scents of carpet shampoo, furniture polish, and air fresheners still lingered, as yet untainted by morning coffee and other
human smells. It was still pitch-black outside at this early winter hour, and the office windows seemed cold and hard. Lou looked forward to leaving the empty corridors and getting to his office for his morning routine.

En route to his office he stopped suddenly in his tracks. Though Alison’s desk was empty, as expected, Lou could see that his office door was ajar and the lights were on. He walked briskly toward it. Seeing Gabe moving around inside his office, he felt his heart begin pounding as the anger surged through him.

“Hey!” he yelled, and fired his fist at the door, punching it open and watching it swing violently. He opened his mouth to yell again, but before he could get his words out, he heard another voice coming from behind the door.

“My goodness, who’s that?” came the startled voice of his boss.