Marian Keyes - Watermelon (24 page)

The next day I wasn't much better.

Jesus! Did you ever meet anyone as self-pitying as me? It was ridiculous and it had to stop.

So I dragged myself out of the bed and tended to Kate. Then I tended to myself. Oh, don't worry, we're not going to have a repeat performance of the getting-drunk-and-not-washing-myself senario.

Oh no, things weren't that bad.

I got through the day.

To be fair, I didn't achieve anything really impressive.

I didn't find a cure for cancer.

I didn't invent run-proof stockings.

And I'm ashamed to tell you that I didn't even call James.

I know, I know! I'm sorry. I know that I should have. I knew that I was avoiding my responsibilities.

But I felt so empty and lonely.

Sad and alone and all the other emotions coming under the genus "Loss," subspecies "rejection."

Anyway I did get up on Thursday.

Not only that, but I called James.

And I wasn't even nervous.

I had Adam to thank for that, because I approached calling James with the attitude of "Huh! Don't think that you're anything special. Because you're not. You're not the only man who can make me feel sad and lonely and rejected. Oh

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no! There's millions of others who can do exactly what you did. So there!"

Perhaps not an ideal attitude from a self-esteem point of view, but whatever...at least when I dialed the number in London, my hands didn't shake and my voice didn't quaver.

How interesting, I thought.

James no longer had the power to reduce me to a quaking wreck. Well, at least dialing his office number no longer had the power to reduce me to a quaking wreck.

Let's not get carried away here.

In a confident and steady voice I asked the receptionist in his office in London if I could speak to him. I felt as if London was a million miles away. As remote as another planet. You'd never have thought that I saw it every evening on the news. The receptionist sounded very far away, very foreign.

Mirroring the way I felt. My life with James had become very far away, very foreign. Or maybe it was because the receptionist was Greek.

Either way, I was perfectly calm as I waited to speak to him.

I mean, what was the big deal?

What did I have to lose?

Nothing.

As someone once said--a miserable, sardonic, misanthropic someone--freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Up until I heard that I'd thought freedom was being able to go swimming when you had your period.

How misinformed I was.

Of course, you believe anything when you're about twelve.

Did you know that you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up? Honestly, it's true.

And did you know that you can have a baby if you suck the man's thing? But the twelve-year-old me knew that would never happen to me because I'd never do anything as disgusting as suck the man's thing. And I didn't believe for one moment that anyone, anywhere, would do something so revolting and alien.

I could weep for the innocent child, the idealistic twelve-year-old, that I once was.

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Oh, sorry, sorry, you want to know what happened with James.

Oh, didn't I say?

He wasn't in.

At a meeting, or something.

And, no, I didn't leave my name.

And, yes, you're right if you suspect that I was a bit relieved at not having to talk to him.

But I was in an unimpeachable position.

I'd called him, hadn't I?

I defy anyone to say that I hadn't.

Was it my fault that he was unavailable?

No, indeed it was not.

But it meant that I could stop feeling guilty for a couple of hours.

So spirits were high around Thursday lunchtime.

Happily, I picked Kate out of her bassinet and twirled her around. What a beautiful picture we must make, I thought. The beautiful child being lovingly held by her devoted mother. Kate just looked frightened and started to cry, but never mind.

I meant well. My heart was in the right place, even if Kate's center of gravity wasn't.

"Come on, darling," I said. "Let's put on our best outfits and go into town and see the people."

And so Kate and I went into town. I couldn't, in all conscience, buy any more clothes for me, but I could buy clothes for Kate.

Every day I was finding out more good things about Kate. She continued to enhance every aspect of my life.

I bought her the tiniest, most beautiful denim dress. Even the smallest one was too big for her, but she'd grow into it. It was gorgeous.

And I got her the sweetest little jumper, light blue, patterned with dark blue polka dots and--get this--a matching little jacket with zip front and a hood.

So that she'd fit in if she ever met any cool street kids.

And the socks!

I could go on for hours about the socks I got her. So tiny

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and fluffy and snuggly and warm and soft, to cover her tiny, tiny, tiny little pink feet. Sometimes I got such a rush of love for her that I wanted to squeeze her so hard I actually feared for her safety.

Then we wandered around a bookshop for a while. My adrenaline started pumping any time I was within about a hundred yards of a bookshop. I loved books nearly as much as I loved clothes. And that's saying something.

The feel of them and the smell of them. A bookshop was like an Aladdin's cave for me. Entire worlds and lives can be found just behind that glossy cover. All you had to do was look.

So the entire world and life that I chose to enter belonged to someone called Samantha, who apparently "had it all." A palazzo in Florence, a penthouse in New York, a mews house next door to Buckingham Palace, more priceless jewels than you could shake a stick at, a publishing house or two, a Lear jet, a hot boyfriend, some count or duke or something, and the absolutely essential dark secret and hidden tragic past.

My money was riding on her having been a lesbian prostitute before her luck changed.

I could have bought an "improving book," I suppose.

Something by one of that Bront� crew. Or maybe even a bit of Joseph Conrad. He was always good for a laugh.

But I wanted something that wasn't very taxing. So, just to be on the safe side, I bought complete trash.

After I came out of the bookshop, clutching my child and my gold-em- bossed best-seller, I just happened to be passing the caf� that I had gone to with Adam the previous Saturday and I just happened to have an hour or two to kill so I just happened to sit there and--guess what?--Adam just happened to walk in only an hour and a half after I arrived.

What a coincidence!

Well, I suppose I had better come clean.

I had kind of, I suppose, nursed a little hope that maybe, just maybe, if I were to go into town that maybe, just maybe, I might run into Adam.

So I suppose that, when he finally walked in, I couldn't call it either a spiritual or a metaphysical event.

I could even be said to have engineered our meeting.

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Although, dammit, that's not fair.

God helps those who help themselves.

God can't drive a parked car.

If I had stayed at home in bed with the chocolate and the Marie Claire would I have met him?

The answer has got to be no.

I was sitting there, with half an eye on Samantha's takeover bid and the other eye on the door. Although I was hoping that he'd come in and even half expecting him to appear, I wasn't prepared for how I felt when he ac- tually did arrive.

He was so, he was so...so gorgeous.

So tall and strong-looking. But at the same time so boyishly cute.

"Easy, easy," I told myself. "Take deep breaths."

I resisted the urge to dump Kate on the table and run over and fling myself on him.

I reminded myself that I had used up my neuroses quota on him and that it might be a good idea to behave like a normal well-balanced woman.

Hell, after a bit of practice I might even become one.

So I sat there, poised and perched, trying to exude calmness and well- balancedness and unneuroticness.

Finally he saw me.

I held my breath.

I waited for him to rear and neigh like a startled horse and then make for the door like the hounds of hell were after him. I expected him to run like a hare through the caf�, knocking over tables and chairs, spilling pots of tea and cups of coffee over innocent bystanders, his hair standing on end, his eyes wide and staring, and shout at anyone who'd care to listen, stabbing his finger wildly at me and Kate. "She's crazy, that one, you know. Pure mental. Have nothing to do with her."

But he didn't do anything of the sort.

He smiled at me.

I have to admit that it was a bit of a wary smile.

But it was a smile.

"Claire!" he said, and came over to the table.

"And Kate," he continued.

Correct on both counts.

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Not much got past him.

He kissed Kate.

He didn't kiss me.

But I could live with it.

I was just so glad to see him, gladder still that he wanted to speak to me. I really wasn't that concerned with which one of us he kissed.

"Why don't you sit down and join us?" I said politely.

Poised. Polished. The hostess with the mostest, that was me.

Impeccably mannered. Emotions--if indeed I had any at all, that is--firmly, strictly even, bound and strapped into place.

"All right," he said.

Wary. Cautious. Watching me carefully. Maybe waiting for me to accuse him of having the hots for my mother.

"I'll just go and get a cup of coffee," he said.

"Fine," I said, giving a magnanimous smile, well-balancedness and re- laxedness exuding (I hoped) from my every pore.

Off he went.

And I waited.

And waited.

Oh dear, I thought sadly, he must have made a break for it. He mustn't want anything to do with me at all. I seemed to be developing quite a knack for this.

He was probably wedged in the tiny window in the men's room, strug- gling to get out among the smelly trash and cabbage leaves and empty brandy bottles that are found outside the back exits of restaurants and caf�s.

I put my book in my bag--do you know, I was so glad to see him that I totally forgot to hide the cover of the trashy novel?--and rearranged Kate in the sling.

At least I tried, I thought.

And I was glad.

I hadn't got what I wanted, but at least I'd taken responsibility for my life. I'd tried to fix something, I'd tried to make something happen.

I hadn't behaved like a passive victim, just letting life happen to me.

I had taken control.

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It hadn't worked, but so what.

The important thing was to try.

And the next time I met a nice man I wouldn't go all slushy and school- girlie on him, thinking of him as a boyfriend and suspecting every other woman of coveting him.

I had just organized myself to go when he jauntily came around the corner with a tray with coffee and pastries on it.

The bastard!

I'd just been all grown up and mature and wise for absolutely bloody nothing. I was feeling so good about myself, feeling saddened but enriched by the mistakes I had made. Then he had to come back and destroy it totally on me.

There went my rosy, introspective, pensive glow.

The selfish bastard!

I had a good mind to tell him to get lost and leave me alone. I had just come to terms, not even five minutes before, with losing him, so now what was I expected to do with him?

Enjoy his company?

Are you out of your mind?

"Sorry I was so long," he was saying. "The cashier had a fit and...hey!...where are you going?!"

He looked really surprised.

And then he looked upset.

"Sorry," I mumbled, feeling mortified.

If he ever had reason to think that I was hysterical and neurotic before now, this could only convince him that I was a complete tantrum-throwing little bitch.

"Why are you going?" he asked, sounding both angry and hurt. "I'm sorry I took so long. But I thought you'd wait."

"I thought you'd gone," I muttered.

"But why?" he asked in total exasperation. "Why would I leave?"

"I don't know," I said, feeling queasy with embarrassment.

Oh, you've messed it up really well this time, I told myself.

"Look!" he said, and he banged his tray down on the table and sent coffee spattering everywhere.

I jumped with fright.

"Sit down," he said angrily. He put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back down into my chair in no uncertain terms.

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"Jesus!" I thought in shock. "Take it easy."

"Oh sorry, Kate," he interjected apologetically. Her little face must have registered surprise at this abrupt change in altitude.

"Now!" he said, back in angry mode again. "What the hell is going on?"

"What do you mean?" I asked in a little voice.

He was obviously trying to keep a lot of anger in check and it was frightening.

"Why are you treating me like this?" he demanded angrily, his face very close to mine.

I couldn't believe that this was happening.

Where had nice pleasant understanding Adam gone?

Who was this furious man in his place?

"Like what?" I asked, mesmerized. I was scared of him, but like a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, I couldn't tear myself away from the angry blue of his eyes.

"Like I'm some kind of low-life."

"I'm not," I protested in surprise.

I wasn't, was I?

"Yes, you bloody well are," he barked at me, his fingers digging into my shoulders. "You have, practically from the first time we met.

"I met you, I really liked you, I wanted to see you, what's wrong with that?" he said furiously.

"Nothing," I whispered.

"So why do you behave as if I'm some kind of Casanova bastard type, why did you think I was messing with your little sister, why did you think I'd walk away and leave you sitting here, just tell me, why?"