Woman to Woman (13 page)

hills, she was going to find out about single motherhood the hard way.

Warm breath fanned her cheek. Aisling stretched her limbs under the duvet. She knew she had to get up. But… Just another few minutes on the warm, soft sheets, just a bit longer … Hold on a moment. Her brain switched on weakly. It’s Saturday. Why was Michael trying to wake her early on a Saturday morning, she wondered sleepily? And why did she have this leaden feeling in her head?

A waft of hot, fishy breath made her open gluey eyelids to gaze up at Flossie who was standing on Michael’s pillow. Push off, Aisling groaned, wishing Flossie would go away and let her have just a few more hours in bed. Why hadn’t Michael let the cat out? Couldn’t he do anything around the house?

She moved into a more comfortable position and pretended to be asleep, hoping the cat would be fooled and leave. Flossie didn’t budge and started up her secret weapon, a peculiar bad-tempered miaow which was simply impossible to ignore.

“All right, all right! I swear I’m getting you a cat-flap today!”

Aisling struggled up on the pillow. It felt as if an army band was rehearsing some horrible marching song, using her skull for drums. She squinted at the clock-radio 8.17 a.m. and Saturday. Where the hell was Michael? He couldn’t have gone to the office already, could he?

Then her brain made the unwelcome connection.

Michael hadn’t let the cat out because Michael wasn’t there. He had left her. Their marriage was over and she had a hangover roughly the size of France. She’d only just woken up and immediately she wanted to go right back to sleep, maybe for a hundred years.

Rolling over onto her stomach and abruptly dislodging Flossie, Aisling

laid her head heavily on the pillow and felt miserable. Sober and sick, she began to remember the day before with horrible clarity.

Underwear, expensive underwear. Oh God, she remembered.

She could dimly remember shopping with Fiona, her mind befuddled with Valium. And of course that slice of banoffi in the coffee shop which must have been at least 400 calories. Forget the bloody banoffi.

She could even recall arriving at Michael’s office, even though the picture in her head was Technicolor high drama, very Gone with the Wind and utterly removed from reality.

But after that… It was all hazy, like she had been utterly drunk and had blacked out.

Only she hadn’t got drunk until much later. She hadn’t got drunk until she arrived home and proceeded to drink everything in the house with an anguished Jo begging her to stop.

“You don’t know what he’s done she remembered saying as she sat at the kitchen table with the brandy bottle in one hand and a tissue in the other.

Of course Jo knew damn well what had happened. Aisling had explained everything in lurid detail, over and over again as she sank deeper into depression. And deeper into the brandy bottle. They’d discussed the whole sordid thing endlessly, from the Then stray, so what?” theory put forward by Jo when she still thought it would all blow over, to the “OK, he’s a bastard all men are bastards’ conclusion.

She remembered Jo telling her about the baby, and about Richard’s reaction.

“I couldn’t believe it, Ash,” Jo had said, staring into the depths of the mug of tea she was cradling in her hands.

“I just never thought he’d react like that.”

The funny thing is,” Jo continued, “I wasn’t really sure what I wanted myself at first. I kept wondering was I ready for motherhood and stuff like that. And then I did the test and I just knew, I knew I wanted the baby so badly.”

She paused and looked at Aisling, dark eyes brimming with unshed

“You know what I mean, you felt that way about the twins, I remember.

When you got pregnant, I really envied you. You were so happy, so content. Look at me,” she gave a sad little laugh, “I’m a bloody wreck.”

Swept up in her own misery and with three large brandies inside her to numb the pain, Aisling hadn’t really registered the awful state Jo was in.

“He’ll change his mind,” she’d declared confidently. What a stupid thing to say. Poor Jo, alone except for a drunken friend wallowing in self-pity. She must have been so drunk. She couldn’t even remember Jo leaving and she had no idea how she got into bed. Did she get into bed herself or did Jo help her?

How horrible. And what sort of a mother did that make her?

Too damn drunk to notice if the poor twins had been sick or needed her in the middle of the night. Who knew what terrible thing could have happened and she wouldn’t have been able to pull herself out of the bed to help them. She was just a useless, fat cow. No wonder Michael hadn’t wanted her.

Staring at the sulky lump which Flossie had curled herself into on the end of the bed, Aisling remembered the confrontation with the man she loved and she wanted to curl up catlike herself and die.

What had she done? Why had she given him the chance to leave? She should have said nothing and maybe everything would have been all right. As each moment passed, another agonising moment of the night before came back to her, little spiteful daggers shooting into her heart.

She remembered confronting Michael in front of everyone, screaming like a fishwife in her eye-catching red dress, baring her soul and her dirty laundry in public. And she remembered hearing his cold response.

He didn’t love her, he couldn’t bear to be in the same house as her, for God’s sake. She had been discarded like an old pair of shoes, used and dumped when they started letting rain in and were no longer fashionable. His horrible cutting words came flooding back into her mind and she finally stopped fighting the misery. Hot, hopeless tears soaked into the pillow as her predicament became clear: she was alone,

alone for always. The thought made her cry harder, so she didn’t hear Paul run into the bedroom, shouting: “Mum, Mum. Look what Phillip did! Mum? Mum?”

Despite her misery, Aisling’s mummy autopilot cranked into action and she buried her swollen eyes in the pillow so that he wouldn’t see how wretched she looked.

“I’m sick, darling. I think I’ve got that awful cold Aunt Fiona had and my eyes hurt. But you can help, Paul. Would you let Flossie out and … get me some milk?”

It was a calculated move. Phillip would have demanded to know why. Why was she sick, why wasn’t Daddy there, why did he have to get the milk, why couldn’t he have the money for rollerblades? Luckily, Paul was less cerebral. Not as clever at school as his twin, he was much easier to handle and could be told what to do, as long as Phillip wasn’t with

Getting milk was a mission from Mum and he was a special agent, ready to spring into action. Full of delighted self importance and with his brother’s misdemeanour forgotten, Paul was already swinging down the banisters, eager to prove himself manly enough to look after his mother.

God, the lies adultery generated, Aisling thought morosely.

Well, I can’t tell two ten-year-olds that their father has run off with another woman and that their mother is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Hah! There was a film about that:

Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown.

She’d seen it in the video shop although she’d never got it out. Perhaps now was the time to watch it. Maybe it had hints on how to get a life. Like ‘lose two stone, get a great job, get yourself a toy boy and murder your cheating husband’. Easier said than done, of course.

Grimacing at the dull ache in her head, Aisling hauled herself out of bed and stood in front of the mirror, not exactly delighted with what she saw. Her eyelids were swollen and pink like pigs’ trotters, her face was an unbecoming shade of beige with grey highlights and her hair was greasy after a night of sweating out more gin and brandy than was

good for your liver. Even the cute Honey Bunny picture on her nightie was faded and misshapen after years in the sixty-degree hot wash.

Just like me, she mouthed silently. Wonderful. How come Danielle Steel’s heroines never looked like they’d spent the night under a bush in the park when their lovers walked out on them, she thought miserably, picking up her brush.

They always looked even more fragile and doll-like than ever, with every bit of Estee Lauder still in its rightful place and not a hair escaping from the artful chignon they’d been taught to do in their Swiss finishing school.

They didn’t let themselves go, reach for the gin and scrub their skin raw from using kitchen roll to wipe away the tears.

Deep in dreamland, she nearly jumped out of her skin when the phone rang, its blistering peal assaulting her already painful head. She let out a deep breath, wondering whether she’d be able to face answering it. What would she say if it was her mother ringing up for a chat?

Hi, Mum. Yes, I’m fine. I’ve had a pretty normal week, y’know. The twins love summer camp, I’ve finished redecorating the downstairs toilet and Michael has left me, that’s all really. How about you?

The phone continued to ring. Go on, do it, she muttered.

You can’t hide for ever. Her hands were shaking as she picked up the receiver and she didn’t know whether she was shaking with delayed shock or hangover.

“I was nearly going to hang up,” exclaimed Jo, sounding worried.

“How do you feel?”

“Delirious. Except for the fact that my head is about to explode with a hangover and my life is in pieces.”

“Join the club,” Jo said mournfully.

“I’ve been going over everything in my head and wondering what I’ve done wrong.”

She sniffled.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to moan at you. It’s not your fault that my bloody lover has abandoned me and my bump.”

“It’s not your fault either, Jo. I’ve been thinking about you and how useless I was last night. I’m sorry. All I could do was cry about my problems. You must be in bits, you poor thing.”

Back in her familiar role as comforter, Aisling began to feel

marginally better all of a sudden. Someone else’s troubles made her momentarily forget her own and she could wallow in Jo’s misery instead.

After all, she was married to Michael and nobody could take that away from her, whereas Jo was left with nothing but an extra toothbrush in her bathroom and an unborn child whose feckless father had disowned him her What could be worse than having one of the most wonderful times of your life ruined when you were left to go through it all on your own. Then again, what help had being married been to her? Damn all. Married or unmarried, no commitment was worth the paper it was written on unless the other person meant it.

“I was awake half the night thinking just that: that it was all my fault,” Jo was saying.

“My fault for getting pregnant and my fault for blithely assuming that Richard would want to be a father, as opposed to being just a sperm donor, of course.” Her voice was bitter and harsh.

“Not that he minded being a sperm donor from the fun point of view

..”

“None of them do,” interrupted Aisling drily.

“Too bloody true. But at least most men can accept their responsibilities. Richard certainly doesn’t want to. Oh damn.

There’s my doorbell.” Jo sounded flustered.

“Hold on a minute, will you.”

Poor, poor Jo, Aisling reflected, automatically starting to pull up the duvet and plump the pillows with the phone wedged in the crook of her neck.

Remembering her own pregnancy made her smile to herself as she worked: that magic moment when she told Michael they were having a baby that was before she knew she was carrying twins, of course. Buying the cots and the double buggy, reading Penelope Leach as they sat together in front of the fire, stroking her rounded belly proudly and waiting for baby kicks.

Whatever happened, she’d had that togetherness. But Jo didn’t. From

believing that she was one half of an expectant couple, Jo had abruptly become a one-parent family. That’s what I am too, she realised.

A deserted wife with two kids, no career prospects and a washing machine on the verge of packing it in. Another bloody statistic. Add one to the deserted wives’ register, one to the single mothers’ register and one to the woman ising bastard list, she thought bitterly.

Tears stung her eyes. Don’t be such a wimp. You don’t know that for sure. You don’t know what’ll happen, so don’t think about it. He’ll change his mind, you know he will, he has to. He can’t give up on us after all we’ve been through and he won’t give up the twins, will he?

Would another woman give him enough to make him forget everything he’d once treasured? She thought of the woman Fiona had described to her, a glamorous career woman who was doubtless much more interesting to talk to than a harassed housewife. IH Was it her fault for making that seduction too easy? Should she have abandoned the ironing, hoovering and cooking to read the Karma Sutra, picking up hints to spice up their sex life and waxing, painting and oiling herself in an effort to turn into a siren who could keep any man glued to the bedroom?

What was it model Jerry Hall had said about keeping Mick Jagger by her side: be a cook in the kitchen, a maid in the dining room and a whore in the bedroom.

Why wasn’t it enough to be an ordinary wife and mother?

Oh God, it all seemed so hopeless.

She swallowed hard and ran a harsh hand over her eyes, trying to obliterate the tears and the misery which was about to creep up on her again. Reaching into her bedside drawer, her fingers found the small plastic jar of pills Fiona had given her the day before. Years of dosing herself on vitamin pills meant she could just put two of the tiny tablets in her mouth and swallow without water. Screwing up her face at the acrid taste, she covered the mouthpiece with one hand, and yelled.

“Paul, love, are you coming with that milk?”

Her answer was the sound of feet pounding up the stairs as her black-haired firstborn Phillip arrived ten minutes later raced upstairs, across the landing and into her room bearing a plastic tumbler of milk. It was one of the green plastic tumblers the twins drank out of when they were small. Paul had always loved his one and the way it gave everything a special, plastic taste.