No Dress Rehearsal

MARIAN KEYES

N
O
D
RESS
R
EHEARSAL

Marian Keyes
is one of Ireland's most successful authors with impressive international success. Her books include
This Charming Man: A Novel
(William Morrow, 2008);
Anybody Out There
? (2007);
Angels
(2002);
Sushi for Beginners
(2000) and many more. Marian was born in Limerick and lives in Dublin.

N
O
D
RESS
R
EHEARSAL

First published by GemmaMedia in 2009.

GemmaMedia
230 Commercial Street
Boston MA 02109 USA
617 938 9833
www.gemmamedia.com

Copyright © 2000, 2009 Marian Keyes

This edition of
No Dress Rehearsal
is published by arrangement with New Island Books Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Artmark

12   11   10   09   08                    1   2   3   4   5

ISBN: 978-1-934848-09-8

Library of Congress Preassigned Control Number (PCN) applied for

Patricia Scanlan
Series Editor

Lizzie has just died. She simply hasn't realised it yet.

You'd be amazed at how often this kind of thing happens. Usually to people who were never very popular in the first place. When everyone starts completely ignoring them, they just accept it. Like they'd always thought it might happen, anyway. Sooner or later.

This wasn't the case with Lizzie, though. She was a popular girl. She just happened to have a lot on her mind on the afternoon in question.

Anyway, what happened was Lizzie was cycling home from work. Weaving her way through the cars. Most of the time, going faster than them. On the Ranelagh road she got caught by traffic lights. “Come on,” she muttered. “Change!”

As soon as the lights changed to green she took off like a hare out of a trap. She cycled out into the clear road, heading for home. Next thing, her bike slid on a patch of oil. In slow motion she saw herself flying straight into the path of an oncoming Volvo. She watched the wheels speed towards her. Far, far too close to her head.
This isn't happening
, she thought.

A film-reel of pictures raced behind her eyes. All of them about her. Aged four, falling out of a tree. The dog she'd had when she was seven. The coolest pair of cowboy boots she'd got when
she was twelve. Her first romantic kiss. Her last day at school. Meeting Neil for the first time. Moving in with him. Going to work this morning. Leaving work this evening …

And then everything stopped. No more pictures. For a few shocked seconds she lay on the greasy road. Her cheek was pressed against the tarmac. So close that she could see hundreds of pieces of tar-coated gravel. They'd been smoothed by a million car tyres. So many little stones, she thought. Then, I wonder if I'm badly injured?

Slowly, carefully, she told her leg to move. It did so without sending hot agony shooting through her. This could only be good. She tried her other leg. No pain there, either.

Testing each limb, she gingerly climbed to her feet. All the while, she expected some body-part to object.
But to her relief it looked like she had no bones broken. In fact, as she checked herself, it seemed that she wasn't even cut. How lucky was that!

It was then she saw that the driver of the car had got out. He came towards her. His face was twisted into a mask of horror.

“It's okay,” she said, shakily. “I seem to be in one piece. Luckily!”

To make him feel better she faked a laugh. But he paid her no attention. From the shapes he was making with his mouth, he seemed to be trying to talk. But he wasn't having much luck.

“I swear to God,” she said, “I really am fine! Don't ask me how, but I am.”

Still he didn't speak. Suddenly she went weak. She was hit by a longing to be at home.

She left the driver to his silent mouthing and got on her bike. By some
miracle it was undented. And away she cycled. Leaving her still and bloody body lying beneath the car wheels.

As she wobbled off, she almost bumped into someone. A tall, pale figure in a long, black, hooded cape. He nodded at her in a friendly way. But she hardly noticed.

She still didn't know what had happened. Nor did she notice the crowd of curious and worried people gathering around her body. She didn't hear the ambulance siren in the distance. She didn't see the huge queue of cars along the Ranelagh road. All delayed on their way home because her body was blocking the road.

But if she
had
, she would have burned with shame. Because she was wearing her worst knickers. They were arm-pit high and the colour of porridge. How could she not have
realised that they'd get an audience? It was as good as
guaranteed
.

Most days Lizzie arrived home breathless and sweating, with her thigh muscles on fire. The cycling was yet another of her many efforts to get fit and skinny. Especially skinny. But today the journey felt oddly effortless. She seemed to sail along, as if the entire route was downhill.

At the very moment that one of the ambulance men officially declared her dead, Lizzie arrived home. She shared a flat in Rathmines with her boyfriend, Neil. They'd lived there for a year-and-a-half. It was a bit of a kip. Which hadn't mattered so much in the first flush of love. But it had started to get on her nerves a bit lately.

She left her bicycle in the hall, and shoved her key in the lock. She took a couple of steps back, like she always did. Then she did a little run at her front door, heaving her shoulder against it. There was something wrong
with the door. It kept sticking. And she kept meaning to do something about it. Like ring the landlord.

She could hear the telly. Neil was home. She looked into the front room where he was flung on the couch.

“That bloody door,” she complained. She made her voice sound light and good-humoured because she was nervous. They'd had a row that morning – yet another one. In fact things had been going badly between them for quite a while.

What it came down to was this. They'd been going out with each other for two years. And living together for eighteen months. Lizzie wanted to settle down and Neil wasn't so keen. To put it mildly. (That was why she had other things on her mind when she was knocked down.)

She was thirty-two, and fed-up
being a party girl. She wanted stability. To own their own place. To think about having children.

“That bloody door,” she said again. But Neil didn't speak. He continued to stew on the couch like someone in a coma.

Lizzie swallowed and made herself ask, “So how was your day?” She said it gaily, happily. Trying to pretend to him that she didn't really mind if he didn't make a commitment to her.

Of course she minded. She minded very much.

Lizzie wasn't the kind of woman who normally took nonsense from men. Shape up or ship out was her usual approach to romance. But the problem was that she loved Neil.

The smile died on her face as, still, he didn't answer. In fact he didn't even look up at her.

She hung around in the doorway, feeling frightened and foolish. She licked her dry lips and tried to think of another light-hearted remark. Nothing doing. All she could manage was to mutter, “I fell off my bike.”

Still he ignored her. Not a word of sympathy.

So that's how bad things had become, she realised. Living under the same roof and not even speaking to each other. It hit her hard. All at once she found it difficult to breathe. She swung away from the living room and went to the kitchen. She rested her elbows on the worktop and gasped into her hands, fighting for breath.
Hot sweet tea
was the only thought she could latch on to. Hot sweet tea was good for shock.

She didn't know how good it was for the end of two-year relationships,
however. Somehow she reckoned she'd need more than a cup of tea. More like a bottle of wine a night every night for six months.

As she searched around in the kitchen for something that resembled sugar – she
must
go to Dunne's, she
must
get her life in order – the phone rang.

She cocked her ear at the front room. Then she heard Neil say, “What? I don't believe you. Oh, Jesus!” A few seconds later came the sound of the front door slamming shut (after first sticking slightly).

She ran out into the hall. What was going on? Where was he gone? She stared at the door, and thought about running after him. Then suddenly she felt too hopeless. What would be the point?

When she couldn't lay her hands on
any sugar, she gave up the idea of the hot sweet tea. She just sat on the sofa, feeling very odd. She felt cold and dopey. Her ears buzzed and she couldn't seem to think properly. Maybe she was in shock after the accident, she decided.

Desperate for comfort, she wanted to talk to someone. So she rang her best friend, Sinead.

Sinead always made her feel better, even if she couldn't provide words of wisdom (and usually she couldn't). But at the very least Sinead had the decency to be almost more fed-up with her life than Lizzie. Like Lizzie, Sinead hated her job. But Sinead's job was far more stressful than Lizzie's. Like Lizzie, Sinead had man-trouble. But Sinead's trouble was that she had no man at all.

But something was wrong with her friend's phone. Lizzie could hear
Sinead perfectly but Sinead couldn't hear her, “Hello,” she kept saying, “Who is it? Is somebody there?”

“Ah, shag it,” Lizzie sighed. It wasn't her day. She hung up and rang again, but still Sinead couldn't hear her.

“IT'S ME,” Lizzie yelled. “I fell off my BIKE and I'm MISERABLE and Neil has gone OUT without telling me where he's going – ”

“Look, here,” Sinead's voice threatened, “are you the fella who wants to talk about my underwear? Because if you are, I've got something to say to you.”

With that, a piercing whistle screeched down the line. If Lizzie had still had an eardrum it would probably have started to bleed. Rubbing her ringing ear, she hung up. She wouldn't be calling Sinead again this evening.

Poor Sinead, she thought. Obscene
phone calls were yet another cross that she had to bear.

So now who could she talk to? She could ring her mother, she supposed. Except she couldn't, because she'd only start giving out to her. Telling her it was her own fault she was down in the dumps. That she should never have moved in with Neil in the first place. “Why would he marry you when he's already getting what he wants from you?” she'd say.