Wishful Thinking (a journey that will change lives forever) (7 page)

They had been shopping for bridal dresses that day, and the boutique had allowed Clodagh to take the dresses home for a time to try them out with shoes and accessories.  Dara had to take them back into town tomorrow, and when Clodagh left she couldn’t resist trying on one of the wedding dresses.  The dress was low-cut and slinky and Dara, unlike her friend, had the boobs to fill it. 

But she definitely wouldn’t go for a veil, she decided absently, no a veil wasn’t really her thing.  Now she couldn’t
wait
to get out there and start picking out her own dress – her own style!  Clodagh would be thrilled to hear it. 

“Dara, I need you to listen to me, to pay attention to what I’m saying,” Noah said, and he tugged at her hand a little.

“Sorry, darling, I am listening,” she said breathlessly. “Go ahead …”

Should they have a double wedding? No, no, that wouldn’t be fair.  Every girl’s Big Day was
her
Big Day, and
she
should be the centre of attention.  Anyway, Clodagh had most of the arrangements already made, whereas Dara had so much to do!  Now, she’d see what Noah had to say, but to her mind, they should probably leave it for another year or so, just until she was fully settled in her new job.  After all, she had barely started her solicitor’s apprenticeship and –

“Dara, honey, you have to stop this,” Noah said gently.

“Stop?” she repeated, confused. “Stop what?”  Did he mean stop being his girlfriend and become his fiancée? Well, she would – if he’d just get on with it and ask the all-important question!

“All this trying-on of wedding dresses,” Noah went on. “All this talk of engagement rings, and bridal fairs.  Not to mention all this pointing out ‘romantic’ wedding chapels every bloody time we go for a drive!” He seemed to be trying to hold back his irritation. “Dara, I know you’re having a great time helping Clodagh with her wedding preparations, but just try and keep in mind that these are not
your
preparations.”

Dara felt her throat close over. 

“Honey, unlike Clodagh and Simon, I’m not ready to get married.  I love you very much and we’ve always had great fun together, but lately you’ve turned into somebody else – somebody I don’t particularly like spending time with.  You’re fixated on weddings, weddings and more weddings.  It’s all you can talk about, and from what I can make out, all you can think about.  It’s not the kind of thing that keeps a guy interested,” he added quietly, his voice full of meaning.

“What are you … what are you saying?” Dara struggled to get the words out. “Are you saying you don’t want to marry me?”

“I’m just saying I don’t want to be
forced
into marrying you.  I won’t be forced into anything. Dara, over the last few months, you’ve changed from my fun-loving, happy-go-lucky girlfriend into some deranged, desperate Bridezilla.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t know what I want anymore.”

All of sudden, Dara realised how idiotic and pathetic she must look sitting there in one of Clodagh’s wedding dresses.  Worse, she realised how it must look to Noah. But didn’t the sight of her in the dress move him at all?  Did it not make him a little emotional seeing her all dressed in white like that?  She was so sure that seeing her in the dress would finally convince him to make his move.

“But don’t you want to marry me?” she asked again, knowing deep down that she shouldn’t be saying it, she shouldn’t be pushing it.  But she’d been so wrapped up in the idea, so sure that they would end up walking down the aisle that she hadn’t been able to think straight.  They’d been together forever – they were the perfect couple.  There was fun, romance, passion – everything you could want in a relationship, and Dara knew that Noah was the one for her – her Mr Right – so what was the problem? 

Until then, Dara had never entertained the possibility that Noah might not feel the same way.  Until then, she’d believed their relationship was indestructible. 

She was about to find out just how wrong she’d been.

“Dara, I think you and I should take a break,” he said quietly, and she felt her heart sink to her stomach.

She tried to speak, but again the words wouldn’t come. 

“I don’t know,” Noah went on.  “Maybe I’m overreacting, but all this talk of weddings has made me reassess things.  Dara, settling down and having a wife and kids is so far away for me at the moment …” His voice trailed off.  “You know I want to travel, see a
bit more of the world.  I want to experience it all, different cultures, different ways of life.  Up until a few months ago, I thought you felt the same.”

“But that was before I …” Dara managed.  That was before I fell in love with the fairytale, she finished silently.  Before I began to envy Clodagh and Simon and their plans of a life together forever.  Somehow, silly things like travel and adventure seemed immature and frivolous – like something a pair of students would do – not two adults who had decent jobs, and should really be saving their hard-earned money for a deposit on a house. 

Her head was dizzy, her mind still in shock at his words. ‘Take a break?’ How could it have gone from planning weddings to taking a break so quickly?  What had happened? 

But no, no, no, he was just overreacting – so he wasn’t quite ready for marriage – then that was fine, she’d just have to wait until he was.  Get the travelling out of his system, and then when he’d seen ‘the world’ he’d be more than happy to settle down for good.  All of a sudden, Dara realised the error of her ways.

“Look, I think a break might do us good,” Noah was saying.  “You know I’m not happy in that stupid job, and I was thinking of taking off somewhere for a while – to Asia or Australia – I’ve always wanted to see that side of the world.”

“I’ll go with you!” Dara cried eagerly.  It would be perfect.  They could go away together, and while they were away she’d convince him that she’d just been going through a phase. She’d lay off on the wedding talk for a while – until their relationship was back on an even keel. Then he might a bit more receptive. She bit her lip. “Now I don’t know if work will give me the time off.  I haven’t been in the job all that long.  And then there’s my exams.” Dara had recently secured a junior solicitor’s position at a legal
practice in the city centre.  “How long do you think we’ll need? Two, three weeks at the most I suppose and –”

“I didn’t mean a holiday, Dara.” By now, Noah was looking at her strangely. “I meant I wanted to go away – really travel.  And,” he added, pointedly, “I was planning on going on my own.”

”On your own?” Dara was horrified. “Why would you want to do that? Won’t it be very boring? Not to mention dangerous.  I mean, there are always stories in the newspapers about backpackers being stabbed, and murdered and – ”

“I didn’t mean that.  I meant without you,” he clarified. “Charlie’s coming with me.”

“What?” Dara’s blood went cold. “You mean you’ve already planned this?”

He nodded shamefacedly. “Look, over the last few weeks, I’ve tried so many times to talk to you about this.  But you were too busy dropping hints and poring over wedding magazines that you barely noticed I was here, let alone what I was saying.”

“Well, for some strange reason, I thought all these years together meant something!” Dara shot back, hating the way he made it all sound so pathetic, made
her
sound so pathetic. “I thought telling someone you loved them, and always wanted to be with them meant something!”

“It did,” Noah said, before adding gently, “at the time.”

She looked at him, stunned.

“But people change.  People start to want different things and move in different directions.  Over the last few months, I’ve come to realise that you and I want totally different things, Dara.  You seem to have your heart set on settling down, whereas I’m the complete opposite.  I can’t see myself doing that for a very long time.”

“Then what the hell were you doing with me all this time?” Dara said hoarsely.  “Why did you tell me I was the one for you? Why did you keep going on about how lucky we were to find one another, how well suited we were, how you couldn’t see yourself with anyone else?”

“I meant every word of that, Dara,” he said.  “We were well suited, we were lucky to be together, and I did feel that you’d be the one I’d end up spending the rest of my life with.”

Dara realised that he was speaking in the past tense. Did all of that mean that his love for her was past tense too?  Stupidly, she asked the question.

“Don’t you love me anymore?”

Noah sat forward and took both of her hands in his.  “I do love you.  But things have gone a bit weird lately, and I really think we need some time apart. For both our sakes.”

“But how much time?  If you go off travelling with Charlie, who knows when you’ll come back? And when you do decide to come back, what makes you think I’ll still be sitting here waiting for you?”  She knew she sounded petulant and childish, but she couldn’t help it. 

“That’ll be up to you,” he said.

But something in the way he said it made Dara decide he didn’t really care one way or the other.  With that, she went on the defensive.

“Well, go then, Noah Morgan!  Go off on your big round-the-world trip!  Go to Asia and India and wherever you like! You can go to bloody hell, as far as I’m concerned!”

It seemed Noah had also reached the end of his tether. “Fine!” he countered. “I will! To be honest, anywhere would be preferable to sitting here listening to you going on and on
about bloody wedding bands, and ‘dinky invitations’!” he mimicked cruelly.  “Jesus, Dara, you should hear yourself sometimes.  These days, you’ve turned into a bloody psycho!”

“A psycho!” she countered.  “A psycho! Well, now that I think of it, perhaps you’re right! Maybe I
am
a psycho, because only a psycho would put up with someone like you, Noah Morgan.  Someone who after three years of a bloody good relationship could just up and leave like that.   Someone who says ‘Oooh, I want to take a break, Dara!  I feel trapped, Dara!’ You never had any problems being trapped when it suited you though, did you?” she accused angrily. “You never had any problems being trapped when you decided to quit yet another job that didn’t suit, and your
psycho
girlfriend had to pay your rent for you, did you?”

With that, Noah picked up his coat and headed for the door. “Talk to me when the rant is over, Dara,” he said caustically and then, giving her a final appraisal in her wedding dress, told her. “Talk to me when the Dara I fell in love with comes back.”

With that, Noah slammed the door behind him. 

For a very long time afterwards, Dara sat on the couch, stunned and defeated, hot salty tears running down her cheeks, and staining the delicate satin of her ‘borrowed’ wedding dress.

“So, what happened then?” Ruth asked, hiccupping slightly when Dara had finished recounting her mortifyingly embarrassing ‘Bridezilla’ story.  Although, she had to admit, the ensuing years (and the few tequilas) had dulled the humiliation somewhat.

“What?”

“Well, surely that wasn’t the end of it,” Ruth went on.  “I mean, if the two of you had such a brilliant relationship, then surely you had it all out properly before Noah went away.”

Dara shook her head.  “Not really.”

Notwithstanding the fact that she’d been ashamed and embarrassed by her behaviour, Dara was also incredibly hurt by Noah’s rejection of her – his rejection of a real future together. “He phoned a few times and left messages with Clodagh, but I didn’t want to talk to him.” She sighed. “I was playing mind games I suppose, stupidly thinking that if he knew how upset and hurt I was, he might not go away.”  When Ruth made a face, she tried to explain. “I know, I know, it sounds pathetic and incredibly childish. But our relationship was a bit like that. More often than not, my little sulks and tantrums worked because Noah normally hated arguing with me.” She smiled, remembering.  “He was always the one to give in and be peacemaker.  Stupidly, I presumed the same thing would happen then.”

“But he didn’t give in,” Ruth finished.

“No, not that time.  As I said, he did try and contact me, saying things like ‘I don’t want to part on bad terms’, things like that, but I didn’t want to hear it.  And up until a week or two after he left, I was still convinced he’d come back to me.”

She shook her head sadly.  “About six weeks into his travels, he sent me a letter, basically saying that he’d forever treasure our time together, and it was a shame it had to end badly.”

Ruth sighed dreamily. “I can see now why you’re kicking yourself – he
does
sound perfect.”

“He was,” Dara said quietly, “but I was an idiot.”

“But that was what, ages ago?  Surely, you’ve seen him since? Surely he’s come home since?”

Dara shook her head. “I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so.”

“He never returned at all? For Christmas, holidays – nothing?”

“Not that I know of.  And given his circumstances after that I doubt it,” she added cryptically.

“So what happened?” Ruth implored. “Why did he stay away? Or
did
he get kidnapped or stabbed or … Sorry,” she added quickly, when Dara glared at her. “Seriously, what
happened
?”

Dara shrugged.  “He just settled elsewhere.”

“Look, you said that letting him go was the biggest mistake of your life.  Well, for someone who made such a big mistake, you didn’t exactly bust your backside trying to rectify it, did you? When you finally came to your senses or should I say – when you finally
grew up
– sorry –” she gave Dara a winning smile, “why didn’t you go after him – or try and contact him –
something
?”

Dara sighed. “It was too late by then.”

“But why?”

Then Dara told her how, upon finally realising that she had made a huge mistake, she’d tried to find some way of contacting him, perhaps an address, mobile phone number, email address – anything.

She’d made a few cautious enquiries of Noah’s parents and discovered that he was still travelling, but as far as they were aware, perfectly fine.  He was by then nearly six months into his travels and “probably in the middle of the Outback somewhere”, his mother had told her, and apparently they hadn’t heard too much from him recently. 

“And did he say when he’d be back?” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral, not wanting to push it.  It was obvious by Carol Morgan’s clipped tones on the other end of the telephone that she wasn’t going to give Dara too much information.  Noah’s mother obviously had some idea of the reason they’d split, and she probably didn’t want this desperate madwoman following her son halfway across the world, trying to get a ring on his finger.  It had been mortifying, but Dara had to know.

“He’s staying away for another six months – probably longer – that’s all I know.”

“Oh.” Dara was disappointed.  She’d hoped a year away travelling had meant just that.

So, for the time being, she told Ruth, she could do nothing other than simply wait for his return.  She couldn’t follow him, as she didn’t know where in the world he might be – she couldn’t contact him, because according to Carol Morgan, he didn’t stay in any one place long enough to have a base.

In the meantime, she got on with her life, she worked long hours at her new job, saw some of her friends get engaged, and a few of them get married, while all the time her mothers’ spinster-related comments got louder and more annoying.  But Dara had no interest in going out with other men and wasting her time and theirs, when she knew in her heart and soul that Noah was The One for her.  She just hoped that when he did eventually come back, he’d feel the same way.  It was a hell of a chance to take, but what else could she do?

But when a further year passed, Dara began to get tired of waiting for his return and decided to take matters into her own hands.  If his mother wouldn’t help her, then she’d find a way round it, she’d find some way of contacting Noah. 

One day she hit on the idea of running his name through the Google search engine, hoping to find an email address or perhaps some mention of him. Yes, it was a very long shot but it was worth a try.  And there couldn’t be
that
many Noah Morgans in the world, could there? 

She was wrong.  There were hundreds of them, most of them American – and Dara spent ages trawling through pages and page of links, trying to find some mention of a Noah Morgan from Ireland.  Eventually, she narrowed the search terms by including the words ‘Ireland’ and ‘Irish’. 
Duh!
 

Seconds later, a list of links popped up. Great! Dara thought, optimistically.  She’d was bound to find something here …

But as Dara read down through the links, one about halfway down the page knocked her for six.

‘Maria Brown from Manchester, pictured at The Spanish Steps with her Irish groom,
Noah Morgan
.’

As if in a daze, she clicked onto this link, and almost immediately the website of some company – some online
wedding
company – appeared onscreen.

‘
Paradise Weddings . . . your dream wedding abroad . . . beach weddings, themed weddings, romantic weddings in paradise.  Let us know your requirements and we’ll help make the dream come true,
’ read the website description.   The link featuring Noah and this – this
Maria
, was under their ‘Recent Clients’ section.

Dara’s heart was already racing, but it almost stopped as she studied the faces in the accompanying picture.  The full graphic took a while to download, but there was no mistaking the face, no mistaking that square jaw, that lovely smile and those extraordinary green eyes. There he was, all tanned and even more gorgeous than she remembered, standing with this – this strange woman on The Spanish Steps.  It was her Noah all right.

And he was married.  

Not only that, but he was married in Rome, in Italy – in
their
place.  Dara couldn’t comprehend the sense of unbearable disappointment and defeat she felt at that very moment.  It was as though her entire world, all her wonderful memories of the past, all her optimistic hopes and dreams for the future had come crashing down all at once. 

There he was, the love of her life, the man of her dreams – but now he was married to someone else. 

And it was all her own stupid fault.

                                                         *******

“So, what did you do?” Ruth poured another shot of tequila.  “Did you just give up?”

“Of course!” Dara cried. “What else
could
I do?  While I was sitting at home, stupidly thinking he’d come back to me, convinced we were meant to be together, he’d met and married someone else! So, I just had to come to terms with that.”

In the weeks and months that followed, she tried her very best to deal with it, to put it behind her and move on, but stupidly, a small part of her clung to the idea that she and Noah were meant to be.  How could he have fallen for someone else so quickly? When only a year earlier he’d repeatedly told Dara that there would never be anyone else for him?

She remembered thinking then that there had to have been something – something else – that would make him marry that girl and forget all about her.  Was he on the rebound, perhaps?

But no, she decided then, that was just wishful thinking, and she was clutching at straws.  Maybe Noah really did love this Maria person, maybe she made him happy and loved him the way he deserved.  And, unlike Dara, maybe she knew a good thing when she saw it.

After that, she heard nothing more from or about Noah Morgan.  In truth, she didn’t want to know more, she knew her heart couldn’t take it.  Noah was gone – gone for good.  And Dara had to come to terms with the fact that she’d had her chance.  From that day onwards, Dara gave up on the notion of the perfect man, from then on in she began to understand what Sinead and Nuala and her other thirty-something friends were saying.  Maybe there was no such thing as the right guy, the perfect other half – it was simply the stuff of fairytales, and Hollywood chick-flicks. 

Maybe the best any girl could hope for was a kind, decent, reliable man – someone like Mark Russell.  

“It’s as close to true love as I’ll ever get now,” she’d tried to explain to Ruth that night.

But Ruth wasn’t having any of it.  “That’s a pile of crap and you know it. So what if the Noah thing didn’t work out?  That doesn’t mean it was your only shot at it.”

Dara looked at her as though she was mad.  “You don’t know how it was. There could never be anybody else like that, anybody else like him.  What we had was special and …” she shrugged, “I fucked up.”

“So instead you just go and settle for the first guy that looks at you?”

“That’s not how it happened.  And I’m not settling, I’m just – ”

“You
are
settling. You said yourself that Mark’s a nice enough guy but there are no sparks – no bolts of lightning.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes, you did.  But didn’t you ever stop to think that maybe
Mark
deserves something more? That he deserves a woman who loves him honestly and completely and who doesn’t go around telling people how ‘reliable’ he is?”

Dara grew quiet. “I have thought about that.”

“And?”

“And I tried to explain my feelings to Mark before, when we first met. I tried to explain that I’d been hurt by somebody – somebody I cared a lot about.  But he understood.”

“He did?”

Dara nodded. “He said of
course
my feelings for him would be different.  If I’d been hurt in the past then it was only natural I’d be a bit cautious about him.  He reckons that anyone our age is bound to bring a certain amount of baggage into a new relationship.”

“So he knows he’s second string, then?”

“He’s not second string, Ruth,” she sighed. “I do love him.  It’s just … it’s just not the same as it was with Noah, that’s all.  Mark makes me happy, and although it’s different, it’s still good. With him everything is simpler, steadier and there are no surprises.” She thought about it for a moment. “With him I feel … safe.”

“‘Safe’?” Ruth repeated, her brow furrowing. “And do you think that feeling safe is enough of a basis for marriage?  For both of you?”

“I’m not sure,” Dara answered truthfully. “But I certainly hope so.”

*******

Thinking back on it now, as she began opening her work mail, Dara supposed that her decision to settle for Mark had to do with a number of things other than just giving up on Noah.

But no, it wasn’t really ‘settling’, she corrected herself quickly.  Settling was the wrong word.  It implied things like ‘desperate’, and Dara hadn’t been remotely desperate.  At that stage, she was just tired.  Tired of waiting for happily ever after, tired of wondering if the elusive ‘One’ would ever come along.  And finally realising, that perhaps he had – and what had she done only gone and lost him!

Second and third choices were there for a very good reason, she told herself.  When deciding on a university place – essentially deciding on a career – it was mandatory to include a second or third choice if the first choice wasn’t to be, wasn’t it?  So, surely, the same applied in other instances in life? 

Surely it wasn’t all hearts and roses, boy meets girl and lives happily ever after, was it? What if – like in her case – the timing was all wrong?  Boy did meet girl, but girl went a bit mad for a bit, they took a break, and boy went on to live happily ever after with someone else.  How did the Hollywood scriptwriters deal with that scenario, she wondered. 

So, when she hit her thirties, and her mother started making loaded comments about ‘eating dinner out of cartons’ in front of the telly at weekends (which was in fact true), Dara started to think seriously about where she was going with her life.