Love & The Goddess (2 page)

He didn’t take it. “Kate, please sit. We need to talk.” His tone was curt.

“Talk away.” I forced another smile. I was determined to remain upbeat in the hope of diffusing his strange mood. I placed the wine on the counter and reached for the shopping,
hauling out a bag of risotto rice, shiitake mushrooms, and a bag of prawns. “I’ll have your favourite dish rustled up in jig time.” Droplets of melted ice fell from the bag of
prawns on to the granite work top. I could feel Trevor wince and imagined him doing mental arithmetic on the bacterial count. Sure enough, he grabbed a bottle of anti-bacterial spray and placed it
in front of me with a thud.

“You talk too much and never listen,” he said.

“Me, listen?” I threw down the bag of prawns, reached for a dish cloth and furiously squirted the spray around. “I’m trying to multi-task here.”

His voice was low as he spoke: “I want a divorce.”

I felt as though I’d just been slapped across the face. Did I hear right? “What do you mean?” I knew I was standing there like an imbecile with my mouth open, but I
couldn’t do anything about it.

“You heard me. Come on. It’s no surprise. We’ve been strangers these past couple of years.”

My head was reeling. I put my two hands up to my temples. “I thought we were going through a rough patch. I thought we’d be all right in the end.”

“The rough patch has lasted too long. You’ve never been the same since he died.”

His words twisted a knife in my heart. I drew a sharp breath. “Of course I’ve not been the same. How could I be? I can’t just pretend it never happened. It’s not my fault
I couldn’t just box it up and package it neatly the way you do with everything. Hardly a reason for divorce, is it?”

“Plenty of other reasons.” He spat the words at me. “You always wanting me to go to therapy despite the fact I think it’s a load of rubbish. I’ve a bell in my ear
listening to you quoting that so-called ‘therapist’ of yours, yet he hasn’t managed to get you off sleepers, has he?”

“That’s rich coming from you, since you’re the one who prescribed them in the first place, along with those awful anti-depressants – which I’ve only just managed to
ditch, by the way.”

“Yes, against my wishes. At least Prozac kept your mood even!”

“Turned me into a spaced-out Stepford wife, you mean. Do you realise how absurd your supposed logic is regarding pills?” I shook my head, confused by what he was saying. His
increased eagerness to point out my every fault had certainly not helped my mood of late. But divorce? I couldn’t fathom it. I blurted, surprising myself, “Is there someone
else?”

“Yes.” He lowered his head.

His confession hit me like a tsunami. “Who?”

“Martha.”

“No. No!” I was conscious of myself shouting, and could hear the incredulity in my own voice as realisation hit. “Not… Martha?” I searched his face in the hope
this was some sick joke but his expression remained stoic. Surely this could not have happened with
her
of all people, his dowdy secretary. My mind flew. I’d noticed she’d
smartened herself up, had a new haircut… But,
Martha?
“How could you do this to me? I love you more than my own life!”

“Kate, I didn’t plan this. I’m sorry.”

“Does it mean anything that we are a family? What about Julie? Does she matter to you at all?” I gestured weakly to the family photograph on an overhead shelf. Julie’s trusting
smile now seemed out of place as she sat between us. Taller than me, with a full-toothed smile and effortlessly erect posture, she was strikingly like her father. I stared at him. “Does ...
Does everyone in the village … Do all your cronies at the golf club know about this?”

“Nobody knows. This has not been going on behind your back. It happened unexpectedly. I’m sorry, Kate.”

His compassionate tone was more than I could bear. “Did you wait until I was old to dispose of me like I was a second-hand car to be thrown on the scrap heap?” Seized by a fiery
gripe in my lower belly, I wrapped my arms around my abdomen in an effort to hold back the mounting pain. “You always loved getting new things and throwing away the old, didn’t you? My
child-bearing years are over so I’d fail the good old NCT test. Is that it?”

“Your age has nothing to do with it.” He shook his head, his voice becoming practical, factual. “I constantly compliment you on your style and how well you look. You look
better now than you did at twenty – you even laugh at yourself in that picture of the hippie dress with your hair all curly. You’ve come a long way since then.”

“Well, despite me molding myself to suit you, it didn’t work did it? I suppose I should have seen the signs when Martha lost weight and started dressing like me – or rather,
the way you like me to dress.” I placed my hands on my hips. “You’re a veritable Professor Higgins in your ability to groom women. They should offer you a job on
Extreme
Make-Overs
! You’d save them a fortune in plastic surgery.”

Trevor gave me the kind of bored look I’d become accustomed to whenever he wished to dismiss me. The look that made me feel annihilated, like I no longer existed. “I’m not
staying here tonight, Kate, when you’re becoming hysterical.” He strode towards the door but caught his foot on the bag of shopping, the contents spilling out on the floor. Muttering
under his breath, he kicked a honeydew melon into the hallway where it hit the skirting board with a thud.

I followed him as he climbed the white painted staircase and marched down the corridor to our bedroom. There I stood, watching him from the doorway as he crossed the room to slide open the
wardrobe doors. The room was perfect; all cream and gold, spotless mirrors, not a crease on the duvet cover. Why had I bothered? I had to get up half an hour earlier than I needed to, to get the
house exactly as he liked it before I left for work each morning. Why had I bothered?

He hauled down a canvas overnight bag, reaching for a nearby alarm clock to throw in. It was only then I realised the bag was already packed – blue-striped pyjamas and socks sitting on the
top. Registering how prepared he was, I wanted all hell to break loose. “Hysterical, am I? Your favourite word for describing women. Martha’s welcome to you. She’ll have her work
cut out with you once she finds what a bloody perfectionist you are to live with.”

He shot me his trademark smirk. “Don’t pretend you haven’t enjoyed the benefits of my high standards, Kate. Other women would kill for seven-star holidays in Dubai and
Vegas.”

“Everywhere we went was fake and sterile and shallow. I hated Dubai and the pretentious plastic people. And the only good thing about Vegas was the Indian reservation.”

“Is that what you really thought? Well I hope you enjoy staying in a flea-infested hut on your next holiday to Bongo-Bongo land.”

I recoiled, shuddering. “Martha really is welcome to you. She doesn’t know how misogynistic you are. All she sees is the charming, caring doctor. Once she sees the extent of your God
complex, she’ll find out how big your ego is. And boy will she have to pander to it.”

A moment later, he was down the stairs, and as the front door slammed behind him I collapsed on the bedroom floor sobbing, remaining there for what seemed an eternity, rocking to and fro like a
baby as I cried my eyes out. Why me? I kept asking. And how had I not noticed anything? Trevor used to refer to Martha as “a frumpy country girl” so I’d presumed he was
indifferent to her, found her boring even. Yet Martha, for all her fake smiles, had a disturbing way of narrowing her eyes when speaking to me. I had always felt she was too possessive of Trevor.
Why hadn’t I said anything? When she’d given herself a makeover, I’d wondered if it could be for the benefit of a man. Yet I’d dismissed any suspicions about her, reminding
myself that she was a great organiser and an invaluable asset in Trevor’s practice, convincing myself that any thoughts that she could have designs on him stemmed from my own insecurities. Or
so I’d thought. Now it seemed that Trevor and Martha were not the only liars and cheats. I had placated myself with my own silly placebo of delusion.

Hauling myself off the floor, I wandered from room to room, mulling over the arguments we had had, the sulky repressed silences that could have resulted in either of us killing each other had we
been so inclined. But no. We were too civilized for that. Instead we had stuffed down our growing resentment of each other, in the hope everything might work itself out. “Damn you,
Trevor!” The walls and high ceilings echoed back my cry. I stared at those same walls in the vain hope they might offer me some consolation. After all, they had witnessed laughter more often
than tears and shouting. In the first year of our marriage we had made love in so many different places, even on the stairs. It was funny to think of Trevor having been so enthusiastic as to
tolerate the wooden edges digging into his back. Framed photographs down the stairs reminded me of family occasions like Julie’s Holy Communion. I remembered the time, as a three-year-old,
she had chanted out a verse from Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes and we had fallen about the place whooping with glee, while the scent of muffins baking in the Aga filled the house. But what
now? How was I going to tell Julie that there would be no more celebrations, that life could never again be the same?

I crawled into the living room shivering, despite it being a warm night. Wrapping a rug around my body, I curled up and sobbed until my nose became so stuffed I could no longer breathe. While I
was daubing them with a sodden tissue, my swollen eyes caught sight of the hunting scene on the opposite wall. Scarlet-coated men sat on horses while a dog delivered a bleeding pheasant in its
mouth. Trevor had bragged that it was an investment piece but I’d detested it from the minute it arrived into the house. There was my dishonesty again. I’d told him it was great, in an
effort to please him.

Jumping up from the sofa, I strode across the hall to open the closet door and pushed a line of coats aside. I rummaged around until my fingers came upon a large flat package. Hauling it out, I
tore aside brown paper, revealing a silver-framed picture. I hurried back into the living room and lifted down the wretched hunting scene. In its place I hung “The Triple Goddess”, my
cherished limited-edition print by Susan Seddon Boulet which I’d purchased from a Dublin art dealer.

I would never forget the look of utter disgust on Trevor’s face when I’d excitedly showed him this print, holding it up in the hallway. He’d been about to leave the house for a
game of golf. He’d scoffed, “God, Kate, it’s about time you grew up. It’s like some fantasy poster Julie had in her bedroom around the time she collected ‘my little
ponies’.”

I’d been shocked. “It’s by a very celebrated Brazilian Shamanic artist. I’d thought about hanging it here in the hall. Do you really hate it that much?” I had hoped
he would see how much it meant to me.

He stood sneering in the open front door. “Hippie stuff, no more than the silly dream catcher and carved wooden thing you bought at that Indian reservation outside Vegas. Return it to the
gallery and get a piece of sculpture instead.” The door slammed shut after him as tears pricked my eyes. I’d felt angry and hurt but I’d decided not to force my idea of art on
Trevor, convincing myself that he was right – that the print would not be in keeping with the décor of our home. So instead I chose to hoard it with all my other secret treasures in
the back of the closet.

Now, in defiance, my picture was hanging in pride of place. In shades of yellow, orange and green, the three faces of the Goddesses called to me – Virgin, Mother and Crone. I stood back
and soaked it in. An eagle emerged from the central Goddess’s head, along with a variety of symbols from lizards to a full moon and a lioness guarding a human baby in a lotus flower. A secret
passageway and butterflies blended subtly into the fabric of the Goddess’s clothing.

Everything in the painting symbolised transformation.

As I stood there entranced, I could almost imagine a mist enveloping me. Swept up in the picture’s dream-like imagery, something stirred from deep within. Throwing my shoulders back, I
straightened my spine as a tingling started in my toes and travelled all the way up my legs. This picture had been my secret guilty pleasure and now it was my first act of rebellion. It was the
proverbial two fingers up to Trevor’s stifling notion of convention. The feeling of a woman being one with nature was not something he would ever understand, never mind tolerate. In my
defiance, I felt a spark of hope; a glimmer of the will to survive along with an urge to live life on my own terms from now on. Pleasing others had gotten me nowhere.

B
efore I could do anything, Julie had to be told. It was terrible timing. She was a second-year law student in Dublin, and about to head off
to Boston for a three-month placement with a law firm. Our only opportunity to tell her that her family had fallen apart would be during the fleeting visit she planned to pay us on her way to
Shannon airport.