Page 76 of The Snag List
‘That’s so shit, hun,’ said Lindy, who’d just appeared in time to hear this gloomy update. ‘Absolute torture,’ she added, rooting in the brown paper bag Eileen was proffering. ‘Did you actually speak to Tom?’ Lindy asked Ailbhe, unwrapping a cheeseburger.
‘Yup.’ Ailbhe nodded. She felt bad that her marital problems had kicked off this whole fuck-show, yet she and Tom were the ones still speaking. ‘We already did an OptimEyes call at 6 a.m. And he’s flying back tomorrow. Couldn’t be leaving his precious baby in this dungeon of debauchery, could he?’ Ailbhe shrugged unhappily. ‘He’s acting like we’re the Manson Family or something. Just for some friendly little magic mushrooms.’
‘I feel terrible.’ Eilers sighed.
‘You should,’ snapped Ailbhe. ‘It was all your fault.’
‘Ailbhe!’ Lindy and Roe admonished her in unison.Thank God I still have them, Ailbhe thought,even after telling them the sickening truth about Tilly.
‘Ailbh?’ Eilers piped up. ‘Can I go in and get Tilly? She is so adorable first thing in the morning,’ she told Lindy and Roe before trotting out to the hall.
Once she was gone, Lindy leaned over the island and dropped her voice. ‘She doesn’t know, I take it?’
‘No one does but you guys.’ Ailbhe grimaced. If Roe hadn’t figured it out, Ailbhe would never have said a word to anyone, of that she was certain. The only way to keep a secret was to pack it away deep down inside. Anyone you ever told made a crack through which that secret could one day seep out.
‘Do you have any idea what the hell you’re going to do?’ Lindy offered her the curly fries as she spoke, which Ailbhe gratefully accepted. She couldn’t conceive of having this depressing conversation without some salty carbs.
‘Tom and I are going to have a big heart-to-heart tomorrow. He didn’t tell me this, obviously – Maia just added it to our calendar.’ She pulled up Monday 4 August and turned the screen to Roe.
‘Wow,’ Roe breathed. ‘It literally says “Heart 2 Heart”.’
‘To be fair, the call this morning actually went pretty well. He seems to have calmed his tits significantly, which is a relief. And I told him about my whole new “grow the fuck up, Ailbhe” plan. He was encouraging. Sort of. He seemed to want to believe me, thank God. Last night scared the shit out of me … I came so close to fucking this whole thing up. And not even over my REAL betrayal, like – the actual irony if he’d ditched me for being dosed with shrooms.’
‘To be fair,’ Lindy’s voice leapt up into a higher defensive register, ‘you’ve never turned down a substance the entire time I’ve known you. And I’ve never seen you drink tea!’
Ailbhe laughed. ‘Yeah, I know, I know! Relax. It was a mistake – you think I’m going to be a bitch about other people’s mistakes?’
‘Listen, Ailbhe.’ Lindy was now giving her the full Brené Brown look and Ailbhe wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable accompanying psychoanalysis. ‘The thing with Seb … doesn’t it seem a bit like subconscious self-sabotage? Didn’t you say last night that it happened just hours after Tom told you he loved you for the first time?’
‘Hmmm.’ Ailbhe shoved in more fries so she didn’t have to answer, but both of them were staring at her now. ‘OK, fine, it probably is self-sabotage. Lindy, I was near-jilted when I was thirty-four! It made me a textbook never-get-attached person. I was scared that Tom’d get over his little phase with me and leave – find some wellness hun who sages her arsehole and matches his whole “lifestyle” thing. Then after the pregnancy he was so excited, and I think I was able to lie to him because we were hardly ever on the same land mass! I thought we’d be safe from it all once we got to America. I guess I had kind of convinced myself that the thing with Seb hadn’t happened or didn’t matter as long as I never saw him again. But when she was born, having her in my arms really stirred it all up. But last night, it just hit me. If you love someone, you give up some of your own power. You kind of have to. No matter what, Tom will always have this power over me because I love him and Tilly and I want us to all be together. And it’s just made me realise that you can’t be commitment-phobic about your own family. Itreeeallydoesn’t work. I can’t be a mother and a wife and stay totally independent.’
‘But, Ailbhe, are you actually going to stay his wife?’ Lindy asked. ‘And never tell him the truth about Tilly’s father?’
‘But he IS her father. Basically. He’s been there every moment of her life, albeit as Tiny Phone Dad sometimes. He loves her. It would kill him to find out. And it would kill our family. You both have to take this to the grave. No one can ever know. I am changing my ways and I will atone for this in my own way.’
Eileen bustled back in to the tense kitchen and Ailbhe was desperately grateful for the reprieve. She took the baby from her mother and buried her face in her daughter’s soft, wispy hair to avoid the dismay on her friends’ faces. And to hide her own shame from them.
25
ROE’D BEEN HOME FOR MORE THAN FOUR HOURS, and in that time Eddie hadn’t once met her eyes. The day outside was oppressively nice in contrast to the still, clotted atmosphere in the house. Since Eileen, Ailbhe and Lindy had dropped her off that morning, he had walked out of every room she’d followed him into trying to talk.
At last, around six, as he poured a beer into a tumbler in the kitchen, he spoke. ‘I can’t take this any more.’ His words clattered into the dead silence.
‘Eddie—’
Abruptly, he hurled the glass into the sink and stormed out of the room. Incredibly, it didn’t actually break – Monteray perfection could not be easily shattered – but the noise sent a dart of panic up Roe’s spine and into her skull. She gave him a few minutes before she followed him up to the third floor.
She hovered just outside the door to the dressing room in her bedroom, confused at hearing her own voice, breathless with joy, coming from beyond the door. ‘I have never been this happy in my whole life. If anyone out there is thinking it’s too late, it is never too late. The musical is the most joyful expression of a story. I can use my whole being – my heart and my body and my soul – to create this human experience.’
‘Roe O’Neill is without a doubt the beating heart and towering talent of this production. Just listen to her take on ‘Waterloo’ at the end of Act II.’ Now it was Róisín’s voice Roe was hearing, and she realised Eddie must be watching the footage fromGlee Me. Lindy had sent it, she was very efficient when she had an idea.
Roe held her breath as the opening bars of her last number of Act II started, while Róisín continued to speak over it. ‘In musical speak, this is the Big Gloom, the moment when Niamh Kavanagh believes Dustin the Turkey is going to take her place as Ireland’s 1994 competitor. Roe brought me the idea of slowing ‘Waterloo’ right down and creating this beautiful a capella composition to convey the moment where all is lost.’ Róisín’s voiceover faded out and Roe’s song swelled at the crucial line that promised love for evermore. Maybe Eddie would see now why she’d done it. See how important the show was and how well she was doing. It didn’t make up for what she’d done, but maybe he would understand better.
The audio cut abruptly and she heard Eddie sigh heavily.
Roe wet her lips nervously and tugged at her hair to smooth it, then she entered the room. Her appearance seemed to send a charge straight through Eddie, who sprang to his feet.
‘No, Roe.’ He marched to the far wall and started to tear through the drawers in the walk-in, refusing to look at her as he savagely grabbed underwear and T-shirts and flung them in the general direction of the weekend bag flopped open in the middle of the floor.
