The Truth Club (54 page)

Greta sweeps off soon after that – she doesn’t leave a room, she
sweeps out of it, and the air behind her shakes for a moment like the wake of a substantial ship. I envy her firm sense of her place
in this world, the way she’s so sure of who she is and what she wants. She doesn’t feel trapped and owned by situations. She moulds and manipulates. If she had been married to Diarmuid, she probably would have ordered him to bring the mice back to the college. She would have
insisted
on romantic meals and meaningful conversations. And, strangely enough, Diarmuid probably would have obeyed her and been relieved to get some direction, some training. Because he didn’t know how to be a husband, any more than I knew how to be a wife.

And now he wants me to have these long conversations about
the house. He wants me to make lists. He wants everything tied up and organised. Most of all, he wants it all to be
fair
.
And he
doesn’t seem to know that I can’t bear it. Our conversations seem s
o empty and practical, almost as if we never knew each other
at all.

This is not the way to write two and a half thousand words
about hotel accessories. Of course I can’t just go off for a week. I
have receptions to attend and columns to write and Aggie to visit.
I also have to meet Diarmuid and visit what was supposed to be our home, so we can discuss the whole furniture thing in more gruesome detail. And, of course, I have to somehow convince April not to come to Marie’s family gathering.

I sigh and head stoically towards my computer. How could I ever have thought I could change? This is how I am, and this is
how things are. I will always have dreams of leaving, but I’ll stuff
them back in their box and try to ignore them. ‘Have to’ is the only way I know how to live.

Chapter
Thirty-Six

Nearly two weeks later
, I am deeply engrossed in the world of
hotel accessories. I have devoted myself to trouser-presses
and chrome cafetières. I know I should be phoning April, since it
is now August and Marie’s party is in September, I know I should
be discussing the house sale with Diarmuid, I know I should make
an appointment with a therapist immediately if not sooner, but these things will all have to wait.

Yesterday I picked up Diarmuid’s music box. I was going to store it away, somewhere where I couldn’t see it, but instead I threw it at the floor and the lid flew open and the music started
and the little dancer fell off and scooted under the sofa. I haven’t
bothered to find her. I will probably Hoover her up next time I actually get around to cleaning my cottage.

Every so often I think of the wedding presents. What am I
going to do with the table-mats and the Waterford crystal and the
recipe books and that plug-in thing that cooks casseroles? I
should clearly have other priorities, but at the moment I have so
many priorities I don’t know how to prioritise them. If I had been
sensible, I would have told Greta I was taking a short holiday because of ‘personal circumstances’, but instead I have allowed myself to wander into the terrible desert of soap dispensers and shower mats. I have become obsessed with them.

It’s beginning to remind me of the weeks before my wedding. I
knew I should be thinking about my doubts about Diarmuid, but
I was more worried about my veil
. I am using hotel
accessories as a displacement activity. There are so many things I
don’t want to think about that hotel accessories are a sort of
incredibly boring refuge. I thought I had completely lost myself to
them – which is why I am extremely surprised to find myself heading towards Dublin airport.

I actually came to this part of Dublin to discuss wall-mounted
coffee units with a man called Gervaise, who had so much to say
on the subject that he didn’t think a phone call would be
sufficient; he wanted me to see the showroom. The bus I caught
had ‘Dublin Airport’ on the front, but I asked the driver to let me
know when we reached Old Wish Road. It’s such a lovely,
poignant, percussive name – and I must have been thinking about
its poetry when we actually passed the place. The driver must have forgotten my request. When I realise we are nearly at the airport, I know I should get off the bus and call a taxi, because I’m already a little late and Gervaise will be fretting. But I find I
want to stay on the bus. I want to go to the airport. I want to have
a creamy cappuccino and ponder the latest developments in the cordless kettle. I decide that I’ll ring Gervaise from the airport, explain that I’ll be a bit late and apologise profusely.

I gaze out the bus window. It’s raining again. I find myself dreaming of California, of the young girl I was there. I want her freedom and innocence; I want to see the round brown hills that she loved, the hummingbirds and the palm trees, the high and huge blue sky. No one asked me if I wanted to leave. We just packed up and left. April went back, and I always said I was going to go back too; but I never did, not even for a holiday. It was one of those things that had to wait – perhaps forever.

I begin to wonder what I should do about April. One option is simply to kidnap her when she arrives for Marie’s party. I could
ask Fiona to drive me to the airport, and then once we’d got April
into Fiona’s car we could drive to Fiona’s huge home, say we were
just going to have a quick cuppa in the dining room that Fiona hardly ever uses, and then lock April in there. I think about this
for a full five minutes, but then I decide that perhaps kidnapping
April isn’t such a good idea. What I really need is to talk to her,
face to face. I’m her big sister; she does sometimes listen to me. But
if she’s actually travelled to Ireland she’ll be harder to dissuade. The best thing would be to talk to her in California. The thought makes me feel so jumpy that I stare out the window again, at the
dreary, rainy day. I wonder if Nathaniel is somewhere sunny. I wonder what he and Fabrice are getting up to.

To distract myself from these miserable thoughts, I reach into my
handbag for the half-bar of chocolate that’s been there since three o’clock yesterday. I am amazed to find my
passport. It must have been there for
weeks
.
I took it into town with me ages ago – it was almost out of date, and I planned to
apply for a new one, but I got sidetracked and forgot. I glance at
the expiry date. There are still a few months to go. I can still use it.

I get out of the bus at the airport and head into the building.
People are bustling past me with trolleys and cases and that sense of compact purpose that foreign travel gives some people. I am in
the departures area. Am I really just here for a cappuccino? A faint thrill runs through me. Have I in fact travelled here for another purpose entirely?

What is there to keep me in Dublin?
I think. Aggie has Fabrice; s
he seems to have forgotten all about me and DeeDee. Fiona has
Zak and Milly, and Erika has Lionel, even if she doesn’t want
him. Mum and Dad have each other and tennis and music. April
and I seem to be the only ones who are alone now. Nathaniel has
Ziggy and Fabrice and Sarah and Eloise, and even Diarmuid has
Charlene.

A shudder runs through me; then it stills into a faint tremble, like the flapping of a tiny bird. I can’t allow April to make her
grand declaration at Marie’s gathering. I can’t allow her to break Mum’s heart – it has been broken enough already.

Almost without thinking, I go to the standby counter. ‘I want
to go to San Francisco,’ I tell the woman. ‘As soon as possible. I
don’t have any luggage.’

She tells me a seat may be available on a flight that leaves in
three hours. She will announce my name as soon as she has news.
Yes, the price will be greatly reduced, but I won’t be able to
choose my seat; I’ll just have to take what’s available. I say that’s
fine and ask if I’d be able to hear her announcement in the café.
She says yes. My smile trembles and I head numbly towards
all the people going God knows where.

When I was going to New York, I had luggage; I had knickers
and T-shirts and tights and bras. I was even wondering whether
to buy perfume in duty-free. That’s how I am at airports. I check
in punctually and make sure I know which boarding gate to head
for; I look in my bag over and over again, to make sure I have my
tickets and my passport and the address of the place where I’m
planning to stay. I sit on those strange, endless-looking seats and
make lists to discover if I’ve forgotten something crucial. Only today I don’t feel like that. I’m not just preparing to be some
where foreign; I am in a foreign place already.

I didn’t know one could feel like this,
I think as I sip my
cappuccino in the nondescript, functional café. I didn’t know how
things can just fall away. Nothing lasts. All the things we cling to
– houses, jobs, marriage – are just little specks of shifting sand.
We build our lives around them, and then in moments like this we
see the impermanence. All we truly have is this moment.

Who am
I to be, now that I’m not Diarmuid’s wife? I’m 35, that’s still quite young.
I want to be somewhere new. I want to be somewhere
that won’t keep reminding me of who I planned to be. I want a
place that won’t ask for explanations, a place where I can start a
new story about myself – a story that won’t be continually contradicted.

I think of April. I wonder if she’ll understand all this. Probably.
It’s one of the main reasons people go to California, the land of the reinvented self.

But I’m only going to California for a visit
,
I tell myself. I’ll
probably be back here in a week.
April needs me now; she’s opened up to me in a way she never did
before. I must help her to see sense. And I must make her know I love her.

There seem to be endless announcements about not leaving
luggage unattended. Since I don’t have any luggage, I wish they’d
just shut up. Maybe I should go to one of the shops and buy something – a face-cloth, perhaps, or a toothbrush – but instead I stay in my seat and watch people bustling past me with their preoccupied airport expressions. I should be looking more like them. I delve into my bag and take out my lipstick, the lipstick
April helped me choose in New York.

My mobile is switched off in case Diarmuid calls again to discuss furniture. I don’t know why it upsets me so much; it
almost seems enough reason in itself to leave the country. Is that
why I’m leaving – because I want to avoid conversations about
furniture?

Mum and Dad will understand when I tell them I’ve gone to talk to April
,
I think. When they hear that she wants to spill the
beans at Marie’s party, they’ll probably be very grateful that I’m
trying to make her see sense. I get out my mobile phone and ring
April’s home number. There is no answer. Because of the time
difference, she’s probably asleep. I leave a message to say I may
be arriving in California this very evening and will phone her when I have my flight details.
Flight details…
Am I actually planning to get on a jumbo jet without even my toothbrush?