Page 15 of The Snag List
‘Look, Tom.’ She turned him towards the windows. ‘We look like an episode ofBlack Mirror!’
He laughed and she nudged the volume down, hopping back under the covers.
‘I definitely think Holly finds all this remote marriaging weird,’ Ailbhe continued. ‘She will not drop the intimacy-exchange spreadsheet.’
‘I love Holly as you know, honey, but maybe she just has a narrow worldview, Ailbhe.’ He was still pronouncing her name ALE-ve, she noted.Tell me your marriage was a rush job without telling me your marriage was a rush job, she thought. He ploughed on, ‘I could have Maia do up a deck for Holly outlining how disastrously the conventional “in-person” marriage model has performed historically. Look at the dismal success rate – only about 50 per cent of marriages survive.’
Ailbhe grinned at the image of this. A deck on the efficacy of marriage would leave Hollymorebaffled, not less. Meanwhile Tom continued his impromptu TED Talk.
‘If marriage was an app that had such low satisfaction among its user base, we’d have scrapped it or at the very least done some updates. Thanks to Covid, we now know remote working works. What’s wrong with remote relationships? Anyway, we won’t always be remote. In two months, we’ll be toasting our new life here with Mom and Pop and you’re going to love it.’
They’d hung up, and shortly after Tom followed up with a satisfaction report. No joke. It was one of the new additions to Optimise that Tom was trialling. Five statements – including ‘My emotions were given sufficient space’ and ‘My discussion points were addressed’ – were to be answered with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down emoji. Ailbhe couldn’t even imagine how Holly would react to the information that Tom liked status updates on everything from money to feelings.
She dutifully ticked off the thumbs-ups and closed Optimise. Even though she was still feeling a bit ick from the champs, she reached over to retrieve the glass she’d brought up.Medicinal, she thought. It’ll help the headache. Still lying down, she dribbled a little carefully into her mouth, and on autopilot opened Instagram next. She’d vowed to stop but it was so damn moreish. Despite how well things were going with Tom, she’d found it impossible to stay away ever since the night of Tilly’s birth when, in a spooky bit of synchronicity, she’d received a DM from Seb. ‘Still thinking about you …’ he’d written.
Seb knew nothing of her pregnancy. For obvious reasons, she’d kept the news firmly off social media, abandoning her own Insta account the second she’d calculated her conception date. She and Seb had run in the same crowd back in their twenties but she knew he’d drifted. Plus she’d taken pains to keep the pregnancy as quiet as possible, telling Holly and her mother that she didn’t want people judging how recently she and Tom had gotten together.
She’d never answered Seb’s DM: it remained hidden in her phone but nagging at her like an irresistibly pushable red button. She avoided looking at the message, but still every couple of weeks the urge to check his account struck. It was like her hands were tapping of their own volition. Seb Knox was easy to find. She searched ‘Seb’ and it was the first account suggested. Easy to find, not so easy to lose. He was something she picked at – satisfying in the moment but ultimately knowing it could hurt her.
@SebKnoxTV’s bio was frustratingly minimal.
Telly guy. Founder and director of Knox Pictures. Dublin sometimes, London mostly.
She looked down through Seb’s profile. One picture showed him with his arm slung around Brendan Gleeson, who was gripping a BAFTA. It was clearly some champagne-soaked afterparty where middle-aged men swaggered and ingénues perched on every surface, hopeful to be noticed and lifted out of the struggling years.No more struggling years for me– her gaze drifted to her left hand and the rings (most likely chosen by Maia). No more struggling years for Seb either, clearly. For years he’d seemed so flaky. Always drifting in and out of TV work. Always seeming to have stuff ‘in development’, never getting anything into production. Now since their last encounter –Don’t go back there! God, it wasn’t even good, Ailbhe!– it seemed his star had ascended. He was doing well. Would that have changed her decision? She didn’t like the thought and turned away from it.
She scanned Seb’s profile. She knew all the pics. He hadn’t updated in two months, not since March, when he’d shared the BAFTA Brendan Gleeson pic.At least he’s in London. It felt safer that way. She could browse without fear of being forced to confront anything. She opened his stories. First up was a pint picture with some text proclaiming ‘9 a.m. airport drinkie, it’d be rude not to …’
A rush of adrenaline whipped through her. So much for ‘at least he’s in London’.
The next story calmed her. A selfie on the plane captioned ‘Transatlantic calls for shots!’ She pressed her thumb to the screen to hold the picture in place. He was Tom’s polar opposite. Tom had a very cute goofy quality to him, whereas Seb was arrogant as hell. Though why? He was nowhere near as successful as Tom, never would be. Tom had gotten into and out of hedge funds in less than five years with enough money to start up Optimise before he was even twenty-five. Seb was forty-five at least and probably didn’t even own acarhe could start up. They were both hot but again on opposite ends of the spectrum. Seb had a square build and Travolta-ish grey quiff, laugh lines and quite a toothy grin. Tom was baby-faced by comparison, with wavy shoulder-length black hair and gorgeous full lips.
Distractedly, she sipped from her glass and managed to dribble some on her camisole. She fumbled and dropped the phone. As she picked it up, she accidentally hit a reaction to Seb’s story. ‘Noooo,’ she hissed as heart-eye emojis cascaded up the screen over his selfie.
Fuck fuck fuck. This is the most 2015 mistake ever, she lamented silently.
There wasn’t a second to waste. She tucked the glass she was holding gently under her right elbow and began scrambling out of Seb’s story and into her DMs, where she knew if she was quick she could delete the reaction before he saw it. She held her thumb to the traitorous little heart-eye emoji and the option to delete popped up.Delete delete delete.
The reaction disappeared and she exhaled, slumping gratefully back on her pillows and completely forgetting the champagne flute. The stem cracked clean off and champagne tipped everywhere.Fuck’s sake. She rolled her eyes, picked up the broken glass and immediately nicked her finger.Jesus! What am I like?She suppressed a giggle and pulled off her cami to give the mess a cursory clean.I’ll get it in the morning.
She leaned out of bed and pushed the damp top and the bits of glass under the bed – no need for her mother to come across it. She settled back down to sleep, Tilly no doubt would be up again soon demanding feeding.I’d better defrost a bottle, she thought vaguely as sleep started drifting over her. Just as she was about to drop off, guilt suddenly thudded in her chest.Don’t think about it.That was the problem with moderate drinking: it wasn’t enough to block out unpleasant feelings – if anything, three glasses just made them more heightened.This is the choice I made, she reminded herself.I’ll get used to it.She knew that, in the future, on occasion the hangover of her deception would wash in like a foul tide. This is what she was signing up for, unfortunately, but her life with Tom would be easier and she couldn’t forget that. He was a known quantity. He was sweet, he appreciated her and he wanted to make her happy. And she would be happy.I am happy.
6
EDDIE NUZZLED INTO ROE’S CLOUD OF CANDY-COLOURED hair in bed on the morning of their third Saturday in Monteray. Roe usually loved his big comforting arms around her in bed. He would stroke every curve and dip of her body and she felt desired but, lately, his hands on her body were motivated by something much more complicated. He stroked her stomach.
‘Maybe this month …?’ he murmured sleepily.
‘Maybe!’ She tried to sound cheery, sliding away from him. ‘I’m gonna get the coffee on.’ She smiled over her shoulder, pulling a fine-knit cardi over her lilac silk chemise and made her way down the three flights of stairs to the kitchen. Even though it was officially nearly summer, drizzle coated the windows like lace and the light was muted. It was matching Roe’s mood. She was looking forward to choir this afternoon, but it wasn’t quite enough to balance the rest of the day’s drudgery. Brunch with their parents – Eddie’s folks she loved, her own not so much. Plus, when she got back from rehearsals, they were off to the inaugural Monteray Welcome Mixer. Kicking off the day with that nod to the baby question had dragged her further into her slump. As far as Eddie was aware, they’d been actively trying for two months now. With the move, he had effectively dismantled every roadblock to babydom that Roe had erected: space was no longer an issue, nor was her age – thirty-one was old enough – her career had never been something Eddie had accepted as a decent excuse, which was fair. Despite her dedication, Roe couldn’t pretend she was passionate about DeLacey’s.
Roe knew she hadn’t been forthcoming about how she really felt, but telling Eddie she didn’t want kids was huge. ‘To kid or not to kid’ was pretty much a deal-breaker in a relationship.Anyway, I want a baby. Do I? Sort of. In theory?The concept of a baby was so abstract – how could anyone understand it before it’s dropped into their life?
‘Are you OK, Roe?’ Eddie had followed her downstairs. ‘Are you annoyed that I brought up the baby thing?’
‘No! Of course not! I’m putting coffee on.’ Roe took a deep breath. ‘It’s just I don’t want us to get our hopes up. Best not think about it all the time.’
‘It’s so hard not to! I’m just excited.’ Eddie crouched in front of his cupboard of health bullshit and started pulling out the makings of his customary weekend breakfast.Protein pancakes should be banned, Roe thought. Sometimes she was tempted to vape for breakfast in defiance. God, she wouldn’t be vaping if she got pregnant. Eddie resumed mixing flaxseed with water and tipped vanilla protein powder into a bowl. ‘Areyounot excited? Even a bit?’ He glanced at her. He looked a bit nervous. Very unEd.
‘I am excited. It’s just a lot, isn’t it?’ She edged carefully around the words she was choosing. ‘Like how does anyone actually make the decision to have a baby? Does everyone one day just think: I’m done fucking up my own life and want the opportunity to completely fuck up a whole other person’s life?’
