Page 35 of Such a Good Couple
From her years of punishing exercising routines, she knew all about the dogged pursuit of the personal best.Shit, shit, shit.Now Clara was the lone cheater in this situation.
With Ollie’s childhood, Maggie couldn’t imagine him getting over this anytime soon.Maybe me and Fionn can give them money for couples therapy.She silently searched for solutions, trying to ignore the voice pointing out that they could possibly do with a bit of couples therapy themselves. Though with the way things were, Fionn would probably send Brody instead of actually showing up himself.
Clara was still staring at her phone, her lips silently forming the words over and over again. When she looked up and found Maggie’s eyes, Maggie could see that a tinge of worry seemed to be overtaking her indignation of the previous hours.
‘But,’ Clara pulled at her bottom lip, ‘he’s out at weird times. And the showers …’
Maggie reached over to rub her shoulder as, across from them, Annie sighed. ‘He told me he’s trying to train when it’s not full-on kid time. So that he’s not leaving you with all the parenting.’ She delivered this unhappily.
Oh God. Poor Ollie.Maggie stole a glance at Fionn to see if that had landed with him at all, but he was looking at his phone. God, even in the middle of their friends’ crisis he was distracted. Her eyes narrowed just as he glanced up. Catching sight of her expression, he quickly mouthed ‘sorry’ and slipped it back off the table.
‘Clara, you need to talk to him,’ Annie was saying urgently.‘We googled the wrong website this morning. He wasn’t buying stuff off HardBodies.com, he was buying stuff off HardBodies.ie – it’s a protein bro site. For supplements, energy gels and stuff.’
Clara was staring down at the table now, looking uneasy. ‘Right.’ She drew a slow breath. ‘Ballsed this up spectacularly, didn’t I?’
Maggie raked her fingers through her hair and tried to ignore the headache building behind her right eye. ‘He’ll understand. Explain that the guy was gay. Gays don’t count, surely.’
‘Maggie,’ Annie snapped, ‘that’s a fucking shit thing to say.’ She looked furious as she mimicked Maggie’s words, ‘Uh… gays don’t count.That’s fucking horrible.’
‘I just meant …’ Maggie’s eyes began to sting in response to Annie’s anger. ‘Oh, I don’t know what I meant, okay? You’re right. I’m a shit person.’
Annie just gazed at her, making no attempt to argue on this point, and Maggie slumped back against the shack wall. These seemingly endless spikes of tension since the start of the holiday had been exhausting.
From the off, every one of them had been mired in their individual dramas. With hindsight, it now seemed inevitable that they’d ended up ringside atsomeone’scataclysmic confrontation. And jabbing tetchily at each other in the aftermath. Maggie wished they weren’t in this glorified shed miles from anywhere. Slivers of icy breeze were breaching the wooden wall behind her back. She shivered, cold to the bone and utterly spent.
Clara looked no better – not so much upset as utterly shook – while Annie was grim-faced.
‘I think we should get going.’ Maggie began to rise. ‘Me and Fionn can go in one buggy and you two in the other. Do you feel okay about driving it, Annie?’
‘It’ll probably take about ten hours to get back but yeah,grand.’ She stood and nudged Clara. ‘Come on, you.’ They made their way outside.
Maggie turned to Fionn, who was still sitting. ‘Do you want to look for a piece of paper and pen to leave Pauline and yer man a note?’ she asked.
‘Eh … suuuure,’ he said slowly, though he made no move to get up.
She noticed Fionn’s phone was back on the table. Was there even signal out here? It also occurred to her that this was the first moment they’d been alone together in months. She turned and started to scout around for a pen or paper on the window sills cluttered with ancient-looking tchotchkes. Beyond the glass panes, she could see Clara and Annie’s buggy crawling up the track before dropping below the dune closest to the shack.
‘Maggie?’
‘Hmmm?’ She glanced his way as he tugged on her hand, pulling her towards him and then wrapping his arms around her. He lay his head against her stomach, which she automatically sucked in while trying not to completely tense her whole body.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispered.
She bent slightly to nuzzle his hair and inhale him. It was crazy that even after the last tumultuous years and the, let’s face it, pretty lonely stretches without him, his arms, his smell, still meant home to her.
‘I’ve missed you too.’ She knew it was just so much easier to simply play nice. She didn’t want to waste the time they had together picking apart the trickier things in their marriage, especially after the blow-up they’d just witnessed. Clara and Ollie’s anger had been so potent, it’d overtaken the whole place like a storm system. Maggie couldn’t face a confrontation, it just wasn’t worth it. Fionn was her best friend; she couldn’t forget that. It was natural that there would be adjustments as hiscareer continued to evolve.We will get to spend more time together. I’m happy for him. He’s worked so long and hard for it. It won’t always be like this—
‘Listen.’ He interrupted her thoughts. ‘I kinda promised Edwin that I’d stay here tonight.’ He continued to hold her, nuzzling her and not meeting her eye.
Maggie’s tentative optimism withered, a sudden cold front chasing out the warm feelings she’d been having towards him just seconds before.
‘Of course you did.’ She straightened up but remained in his embrace, mainly so that she wouldn’t have to look at him either.
‘Maggie …’ His wheedling tone scratched at her. He sounded like one of the twins trying to get something out of her. She glared at Ensel’s curtained wall opposite. She hadn’t seen the auteur speak directly to her husband the entire time they were there. This staying the night business had been planned in advance. Clara had said as much during her rant.
‘Maggie,’ he repeated, in the exact same pleading voice as before. He pulled back from her and looked up, trying to find her eyes.
‘Can you not say my name like that?’ She pulled his arms from her body and stepped back.
