Ordinary Miracles (28 page)

At some stage Bruce must have gone to a supermarket and decided to buy some non-digestible items in bulk. He wanted to get them over in one fell swoop, or ‘swell foop’ as Katie would say. There are at least four large multi-packs of toilet paper in the bathroom, and a number of packets of detergent on the washing machine. He bought some fabric conditioner too – and several bottles of stain remover. He also appears to have grown very keen on something that makes the toilet water Mediterranean blue when you flush it.

The house seems to have turned into a kind of base camp. A
place Bruce returned to for shelter, but not much else. There’s a functional, bachelor feel about the place. The vases are empty and washed, waiting for flowers. The distressed pine dining-table is covered with books and files. It seems to me my presence in this house must have made some difference through the years if I can actually sense my own absence. I often thought that the house itself set the tone and I was just responding to its commands.

‘Thou shalt have freesias on the hall-table,’ it said – and so I bought them.

‘Thou shalt keep up the standards of suburban living and wash the net curtains at least once a month,’ it advised. And so I did.

Everyone else was doing it, weren’t they? All my neighbours adhered to the standards they’d subscribed to when t
hey saw the show-house on this award-winning estate and
decided to live here.

Actually, I didn’t want to live here. I wanted us to buy
a cottage in County Wicklow with enough land so I could
breed Connemara ponies. I’d had a pony for a while, as a girl. I got my first sense of freedom galloping through
the fields near my parents’ home. The fields that are now
covered with semi-detached houses, not unlike my own. My
mother used to worry about me falling off my pony – which I occasionally did. I didn’t worry about it though. Worrying
about falling off was something adults did, and I was much
happier without it. I liked that little girl. She never understood
the strange exigencies adults place on their lives.

Bruce has no time for all this inner-child stuff that’s become
so fashionable. He says people just use it as an excuse not to
grow up. He said if he gave into his inner child he’d spend
all day reading the
Beano
and setting off bangers under
neighbours’ cars, and where would that get us?

Susan says the inner child is very important. She says we have all the ages we’ve been within us, and each of them has
a message for us. She has numerous books and tapes on the subject. She says we are all a community of selves. If this is
true, if we are all a community of selves, I think I may need a
UN peace-keeping force to deal with my particular enclave.
Never in my life have I felt so many conflicting feelings. For
example one part of me wants to stay with Bruce, another
part doesn’t. One part of me wants to believe in love again,
another tells me to man the barricades.

If it weren’t for the internal ombudswoman, who’s somehow sprung up to deal with all these dissenting voices, I’m
not sure how I would manage. I think I’ve modelled her
on Mrs Swan, the marriage counsellor. She listens to all
complaints against the current administration in a calm m
anner which implies that, at some point, the appropriate
course of action will become clear.

I hope to God she’s right.

Susan gave me a book called
Women Who Run With the
Wolves
the other day. I haven’t read it yet, but I think it’s
about getting in touch with your ‘wild side’. By way of
thanks, and to remind us both that a sense of humour may
be one of the most important senses we have, I bought her
Women Who Run With the Poodles.
I haven’t read it either
but I liked the cartoon cover of a woman being dragged
dramatically along by her pampered pets, who were all on
leashes. All this earnestness, however worthy, does seem to
need some antidote. I wish Rosie could write a book. I’m
sure she’d get the balance just right.

The first letter I opened on my return here was from the
Reader’s Digest.
They informed me that I had been singled
out from thousands of people as the possible winner of an enormous prize. When I first got one of those letters
I whooped and danced with excitement. This time I just shoved it behind a bunch of others on the mantelpiece.
Ebullient letters from the
Reader’s Digest
have frequently
featured in my marriage.

I was enormously pleased to see Dad’s chair again. As I sat on it and surveyed the reclaimed territory of my sitting-room,
I noticed the crack in the wall. It’s grown a good deal larger
since I’ve been away, in fact it’s almost up to the ceiling.
There’s a purposeful look about it now that I don’t like. It’s
definitely up to something.

I never thought the drawers in my sitting-room cabinet
would contain much the same items as my parents’ did – b
ut they do. The items are so small it doesn’t seem worth fretting about whether or not to keep them – but en masse
they take up quite a lot of space. Chalk, for example, seems
t
o be much in evidence. As are stray pipe cleaners, golf tees,
ancient horse chestnuts, broken birthday candles, marbles
and knitting needles.

But every so often, amongst the dust and the buttons one
comes across something one thought one had lost. Which is
why, I suppose, I have always regarded these drawers with a certain reverence. And now, true to form, among the flotsam
and jetsam I have found Annie’s photograph.

Annie used to work for my parents when I was a girl.
She’d cycle down our driveway on the same bike that took
her to local dances. Unless she had a young beau of course,
and then she went on his crossbar. While my parents tried
to get to grips with the endless paperwork spawned by the
garage they were running, Annie and I would dance to the
music from the big radio in the kitchen. The big radio with
the little glass window on the right hand side that lit up when
you switched it on and where, until I was five, I knew the singers lived. Just like I knew all the wonders of the world
were crammed into the back of our black and white TV.

Annie taught me how to jive – twirling me around her
fingers – both of us laughing as I stumbled and then grew
more confident. She taught me how to do the Twist and the Hucklebuck. Over tea and toast she’d tell me the Garda had
caught her without a light on her bike – again – and that I was
wrong about the singer Brendan Bowyer. Brendan Bowyer
was great.

When my parents drove into town on shopping trips I’d
help her do the housework, so that in the afternoon we could make a big plate of pancakes and watch the telly. There was
only one channel, but it was great.
The Donna Reid Show.
The Virginian.
Magic.

And then one day I went into the kitchen and found Annie
talking to my mother. The radio was off and they were both
l
ooking solemn. Annie had met a man at a dance and was
going to marry him and move to England. Annie was leaving.
Annie was moving on.

Something had ended, but I was too young to know what,
and too old at eight to throw my arms around Annie’s cotton skirt and beg her to stay. Instead I went upstairs
to find something precious and chose the dried sea horse
I’d bought in the Isle of Man. That was my wedding present
to Annie.

The day she left I went for a walk by the river. The river
was nice – the place where I built rafts and sailed, feet half
submerged, along in them. And now I’m grown I know a
river is often used as a metaphor for life – always changing
– moving over rocks – into depths and shallows. But that
day the thought that came to me was that it looked just the same as yesterday and as it would tomorrow. That it was a
bit boring really.

And Annie was gone.

And just as I was turning to go home I saw a flash of blue by
the bank – a brilliant blue – like something from a paintbox.
And I thought it might be a bit of blue plastic fertiliser bag
blowing on a twig. But then it flew by me, and I saw it was
a bird. A beautiful bird, like something from a book. And I stayed, and stayed, but it didn’t come by again. And when I
got home I said I’d seen a parrot that must have flown in from Africa, or escaped from a pet shop. That it was beautiful. Blue
and orange. And my mother said it must be the kingfisher.
The kingfisher that lived by the river all the time.

Sometimes I see myself out of the corner of my eye. The
woman I might be. The woman I am becoming. It’s strange being lost. You cling to songs and memories like signposts.
You feel things leaving, and you don’t know what will take
their place.

There’s a picture of a kingfisher in the sitting-room. Just
like there’s a picture of a herd of Connemara ponies in
the kitchen. The Connemara ponies I never got around to
breeding. Being here is bringing all this stuff back. Sometimes
the memories are nice, and sometimes they’re so painful I
have to go out and buy another pint of milk. And there’s
something else too. Lately I’ve had a funny feeling. I have a
funny feeling that I’m being watched. Not all the time. Just
occasionally, when I’m in the sitting-room. I get this eerie
feeling and look up – the way I do when, say, someone is
staring at me across a room. I look back at them. I know.
But when I go and look out of the window, I don’t see anyone
looking in at me. It’s probably just my imagination. But I’m
glad we have a burglar alarm.

I’m using the spare bedroom. I simply couldn’t face my marital bed now that I know what’s gone on in it. In fact I’ve
only been into that room once since I’ve been back, and then just to scour it for any traces of more recent philanderings. I didn’t find any. The peach pillowcase was on the bed though
– the same pillowcase that once harboured the fake diamond
hair grip.

I was unprepared for the wave of fury that surged over me when I saw it. It seemed to me that if Bruce had any
sensitivity at all he would have burned it. We’ve piles of other
pillowcases in the house, and he doesn’t even like peach.

I tore the pillowcase off the bed and used it as a duster for
a while.

‘You little shit,’ I said to it as I stuck it into the more grimy
regions behind the lavatory bowl.

‘You lying fucking bastard.’

Afterwards I put it in the wash-hand basin and poured bleach all over it, watching with grim satisfaction as the
colour seeped away from it and down the drain.

‘That’ll teach you,’ I said. ‘That’ll teach you all right.’

Then, when the bleach had done its job, I lifted it up with a
rubber glove and threw it in the dustbin. I needed the rubber glove to protect my hand, but it felt right in another way too.
I didn’t want to leave fingerprints. I had just performed the
perfect crime. I’d just murdered Bruce. And he didn’t even
know it.