Francesca's Party (17 page)

‘I don’t believe it,’ she muttered. ‘Oh shit!’ Miss Carter would have a canary. Francesca sat looking out the window. Her panic receded. She had enough crap in her life. She didn’t need this. She was forty years old, a mother. What was she doing waiting to be chastised by Prudy Carter? She slipped her coat on and picked up her bag. She placed the tape in an envelope and wrote on the outside:
I suggest you update your equipment. I resign
.

She closed the office door behind her and let herself out as quietly as she could and felt the salt sea breeze on her face. Her first foray into the workforce had been a disaster. She wasn’t going to repeat that experience in a hurry. Just as well she hadn’t said anything to Mark. If he knew of her failure, her humiliation would be truly complete.

Joan Carter dropped Francesca’s resignation note in the bin and smiled triumphantly to herself. She hadn’t lasted long. Just as well. Francesca was a very glamorous woman. Joan had envied her from the bottom of her heart. How she longed to be tall and striking and confident and sophisticated, then perhaps dear Edward would take some notice of her. But she was small and plump and plain and it was
only
in times of crisis, such as now, that her beloved realized just how much he depended on her. She would make him a nice strong cup of coffee just the way he liked it and break the news of Francesca’s departure. And, until the next interloper arrived, dear Edward would be all hers. Today was a happy day indeed.

June

‘I SAW MARK
and his new lady friend at the theatre last night,’ Eva Collins prattled artlessly as the book-club group took a break from their discussion of Sheila O’Flanagan’s delightfully bitchy novel,
Far From Over
.

‘For goodness’ sake, Eva!’ Janet Dalton snapped, seeing the expression on Francesca’s face.

‘Oh, oh … sorry!’ Eva realized that she had made a
faux pas
.

‘It’s OK, Eva. Don’t apologize,’ Francesca said coolly. ‘You don’t have to tiptoe around the subject. It’s six months now, I
am
adjusting.’

‘Of course you are, dear.’ Eva flashed a triumphant look at Janet. ‘You’re doing very well indeed. You look much better than you did. That ghastly pallor is gone. What you need now is a nice holiday in the sun to bring a bit of colour to your cheeks. And who knows, you might even have a little holiday
romance
for yourself to perk your spirits up and give you back your confidence. Mark and his lady friend had wonderful tans. They must have been away.’

‘Eva, would you pass me the sugar, please,’ Janet growled and Francesca gave her a grateful smile. Janet was a dear and if Eva didn’t shut up soon, Janet was going to let her have it. She could see Janet’s annoyance on her behalf and it warmed her. Eva Collins was a gossipy old bitch and a plonkie as well, Francesca thought resentfully as she tried to keep her composure. She felt like crying. Hatred against her husband surged and swamped her like a tidal wave.

It was almost a physical blow to hear that Mark had been seen out and about with that woman. She felt wounded. And to think they had been on holiday together. Having fun. Making love. Did Mark ever think about her at all? Did he feel nothing for the pain he had caused her? Was she of so little consequence to him?

Her heart contracted with hurt and despair. She was lying when she said that she was adjusting. It was getting harder and harder, she thought in bewilderment. After her disastrous experience at Allen & Co. she’d become more reclusive than ever. Her self-confidence was nil. Every time she thought of the cowardly way she’d run from that office, she cringed. It was so unlike her. She’d changed so much since Mark had left her. She couldn’t hack her marriage break-up even after six months.

Millie was always giving her pep talks, telling her to get out and about, but Francesca just didn’t have the heart for it. She preferred to stay at home reading
or
watching TV rather than going out to meet people.

She’d kept on the book-club morning because she enjoyed it, but she’d given up her art class, mainly because Viv was in it and she was always pumping her for news and bringing up the subject of the separation. She hadn’t been to the gym in months and she felt flabby and unfit. So much for losing weight, she thought wryly. She’d put it on.

In her fantasies of course she became slender and toned and looked a million dollars and swanned around on rich men’s arms much to Mark’s chagrin. If it weren’t for her fantasies she would have gone round the twist altogether.

One day she would get it together, she kept promising herself. But not today. It was too much of an effort. It was far easier to wallow in self-pity and hug her suppurating wound to herself. No-one had ever suffered like she had, Francesca assured herself.
Her
pain and her grief were deeper than anyone else’s.
Her
betrayal was the betrayal of all betrayals. The sharp, intense dart of anger and jealousy reminded her of just how betrayed she felt and how much of a shit Mark was. Would her emotions always be this intense? she wondered wearily.

‘I’ll tell you, Francesca, you’re lucky that your boys are grown up.’ Eva intruded on her thoughts as she nibbled at a cracker. Eva eyed Francesca slyly. She was watching her figure. She didn’t want to end up looking stodgy and fat like the younger woman, although it gave her great satisfaction to notice the pounds creeping up on the woman she had always envied.

‘Why is that, Eva?’ Francesca responded politely, waiting for the next clanger with some anticipation.

‘Well, at least they can deal with the break-up in some sort of mature way. Colin Doyle walked out on his wife for a twenty-year-old air hostess and he has two young daughters that he never sees. Do you know how he communicates with them?’

There was silence around the table as the six other women waited for Eva’s next titbit.

‘He e-mails them. Can you believe it? E-mail. Rita is going up the walls over it because they’re becoming quite a handful. It’s all emotional, of course. Feelings of abandonment and rejection, a child therapist told her. And
imagine
, that bastard wouldn’t even go with her to discuss it. How selfish can you get?’ she added self-righteously. ‘I just don’t understand it.’

‘Eva, men come from a different planet,’ interjected Frances Kelly caustically. ‘They are a different species entirely. The trouble with men is that they’re not women.’

Everyone laughed, even Francesca.

‘Wait until I tell you about my fella,’ Margo Williams declared … Francesca sighed as the conversation eddied and flowed around her. Mark e-mailed Jonathan regularly, she knew that. They were civil to each other but Owen would have nothing to do with his father and that grieved her, although she was deeply touched by his loyalty. A father and son shouldn’t be estranged. She was worried about Owen. He was doing his finals and he was as moody as hell. Apart from the stress of the exams, Francesca knew that he was worried about
her.
He still wanted to go to the States for the summer but he felt guilty about leaving her, no matter how much she assured him that she would be fine.

She knew in her heart and soul that it wasn’t right for her to be depending on him. He had his own life to lead. But she’d be terribly lonely without him. He was good at cheering her up. He teased her and made her forget her troubles for a while and he often bought her little treats out of the blue like a book by a favourite author or a CD he knew that she’d like. He’d drag her out for a walk with Trixie and tease her about how unfit she was. But as the exams had drawn closer, he’d had to buckle down and study, and as the pressure’d mounted he’d become tetchy and stressed. Francesca knew that he had to have his own space and she’d tried not to be needy.

Being alone was a nightmare though. Nothing had prepared her for it. She’d read articles about women whose husbands had left them and how they’d made new lives for themselves and discovered resources within that they didn’t realize they had. They made her feel bloody inadequate, she thought resentfully. She didn’t have any resources worth mentioning. She seemed to be living in a fog. Getting through one day after another, each one more or less the same as the last, with no objectives or goals to strive for. Nothing to give her life focus. She was simply existing. Mark had set up a separate bank account for her and closed their joint account. He paid a standing order into it once a month. He was still keeping her, supporting her financially, and part of her hated it.
She
felt like a beggar with her hand out. But why should she feel like that? she argued with herself fiercely. She’d supported him emotionally, nurtured him, kept house for him, reared his children and looked after his father for the duration of their marriage. She had made her contribution to their life together, to their future, and he had gone and snatched that future from under her. She’d had no time to prepare for her swift and drastic change of circumstances. He could damn well support her, she raged.

She hadn’t seen Mark for three months. In the new year, he’d come back a couple of times to collect further belongings and clear out his small study of personal papers. Each time he’d called she’d left him to it and taken Trixie for a walk on Howth Pier, telling him to put on the alarm when he was leaving. Otherwise all their business was conducted in terse, unfriendly phone calls.

The last time she’d seen him had been at a mutual friend’s mother’s funeral. They’d sat stiffly side by side in the church and she’d sneaked occasional little looks at him and was furious because he looked so well. His hair was cut short, tighter than he’d worn it when he was with her. It made him look younger, and somehow less of a banker type than before. He looked fit and lean and healthy, and she was extremely conscious of her extra pounds. She’d hoped that he might appear stressed and tired like she was so that she could comfort herself that he wasn’t lying on a bed of roses either. It was absolutely galling to see him looking so well cared for. Francesca couldn’t suppress her bitterness and had
given
short, clipped answers to all his polite queries about her wellbeing. He’d invited her to Roly’s for lunch afterwards but she’d refused. Said she had appointments to keep and felt furious at him that he had the nerve to think that she would sit through a lunch with him making polite chit-chat as though nothing of consequence had happened to them.

She wanted to scream at him that he had ruined her life, and destroyed her trust. She’d wanted to call him every vile and vicious name that she could think of. She’d walked away from him in the graveyard struggling to keep her composure, determined that he would not see the tears in her eyes. She’d gone home, cried her eyes out and then eaten a packet of Jaffa Cakes to comfort herself. She hadn’t tasted even one of them and had been disgusted with herself for her gluttony. It had been one of the worst days and nights she’d endured since their separation. And, incomprehensibly, as she’d lain in their big double bed and remembered how well he’d looked, desire had suffused her and she longed to feel his arms around her and his hard body on top of hers comforting her with the intimacy of loving, companionable sex.

The aching want enraged and terrified her at the same time. Would she ever have sex again? Would she ever feel safe and trusting within the shelter of a man’s arms? Was aloneness her way of life from now on? Mark didn’t have those fears or unfulfilled desires, she thought angrily, picturing him lying in bed with his chic, sexy, career woman who probably knew the
Kama Sutra
off by heart. His needs and desires were
being
taken care of. That was all that mattered to him. He probably never even gave her a thought these days.

He seemed totally unruffled by their separation. He’d gone seamlessly from his marriage to her, to his relationship with that bitch. It infuriated Francesca. How come that he wasn’t
suffering
like she was? She knew that he wasn’t having sleepless nights, his stomach knotted up in fear and tension, floundering about with no prospects of peace of mind ever coming his way again. That was the legacy he had dumped on her. Her despair was all his fault. She’d groaned as she pummelled the pillows into a comfortable shape and tried desperately to sleep. The harder she tried the more it eluded her until in desperation she’d swallowed two sleeping tablets. Anything for oblivion, she thought grimly, ignoring the niggling feeling of guilt that she was taking far too many sleeping tablets lately and that it really wasn’t a solution.

Her bitterness and resentment ate away at her day after day. It was with her from the time that she woke up in the morning to the time she fell into restless, troubled, tablet-induced sleep in the early hours. She felt as though she was wrapped in a strait-jacket of darkness that she could not shift, no matter how hard she tried. She regularly cursed God for inflicting such a cross on her and to her dismay she even found that she could not be with Millie, Aidan and the girls for long without resenting their happy family life.

She hated the person she’d become but she didn’t know what to do to change. Even as she sat with her book-club group, she felt like yelling at them all to
shut
up and stop their silly gossiping because she couldn’t concentrate on her trauma.

Unthinkingly, she ate another biscuit, unaware that Janet was watching her with pity and understanding in her eyes.

MARK YAWNED AS
he sat in the bumper-to-bumper traffic as it crawled past the Merrion Gates. It was hot, he was tired and this gridlock was enough to send anyone’s blood pressure up a couple of points. He’d had a long day. He’d flown back from Brussels that afternoon after a particularly gruelling round of meetings and gone into the bank to find out that his secretary was leaving to move to Cork with her partner. Jenny had been with him for the past ten years and she was the best secretary he’d ever had. She was organized, efficient, great at using her own initiative and he depended on her more than he’d ever depended on any woman in his life, he thought morosely as he waved a driver on the slip road to go ahead. Now he was going to have to get used to someone else and they were going to have to get used to him.