How to Fall in Love (9 page)

‘Get out,’ Susan said quietly.

‘I’m sorry?’ I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. This had been my worst nightmare. I had lived this scene a thousand times in various ways and through the eyes of many people in my late-night/early-morning fears, but I didn’t think it would actually come to fruition. I thought my fears were irrational; the only thing that had made them bearable was knowing they weren’t real.

‘You heard me,’ she repeated, pulling her daughters further into the room so that the doorway was clear for me to leave.

I was frozen in place, this wasn’t happening. It took Adam placing a hand on my shoulder and giving me a gentle shove to finally make me come to my senses. We didn’t speak until we were both in the car and on the road. Adam opened his mouth to speak, but I got there first.

‘I don’t want to talk about that.’ I struggled not to cry.

‘Okay,’ he said gently, then he looked like he was going to say more but he stopped himself and looked out the window.

I wish I’d known what it was.

I grew up in Clontarf, a coastal suburb of North Dublin. When I met Barry, I obligingly moved to Sandymount, his side of the city. We lived in his bachelor pad because he wanted to be close to his mother who disliked me because I was Church of Ireland although I didn’t bother practising – I wasn’t sure which bothered her most. After six months of dating, Barry proposed, probably because that’s what all our peers were doing at the time, and I said yes because that’s what all our peers were saying, and it seemed like the mature and grown-up thing to do at our age, and six months later I was married and living in a new apartment we had bought together in Sandymount with the party behind me and reality now and for ever stretching ahead of me. My business remained in Clontarf, a short DART journey away each morning. Barry had been unable to sell his bachelor pad and instead rented it; the rent paid the mortgage. It would solve a lot of our current problems if Barry moved back into the pad he had made such a song and dance about leaving, thereby allowing me to stay in our home, but no, he was claiming our apartment. He was claiming our car too, so I was currently driving a friend’s car; Julie had emigrated to Toronto and still hadn’t managed to shift the car, which had been for sale for a year. In return for the favour of driving it, I was also responsible for taking care of its sale, advertising it with a
FOR SALE
sign on the front and rear windows with my phone number, and as a result fielding phone calls, enquiries and test-drives. I was learning that people had a tendency to phone at random hours looking for the very same details as the car magazine advertisements already stated, as if they were expecting to hear a completely different answer.

My office was on Clontarf Road, on the first floor of a three-storey house which had been the home of my dad’s three spinster aunts, Brenda, Adrienne and Christine, for whom me and my two sisters were named. Now the building was home to my dad and sisters’ firm, which was called Rose and Daughters Solicitors because my dad was a feminist. My dad had held his practice there for thirty years, ever since his remaining aunt decided to move into a self-contained flat in the basement instead of looking after a large house by herself. As soon as my sisters were qualified, they joined the firm. I had been dreading the day I’d have to tell him I didn’t want to work for the family firm, but he was more than understanding. In fact, he didn’t want me to work with him.

‘You’re a thinker,’ he said. ‘We’re doers. The girls are like me, we do. You’re like your mother, you think. So go, think.’

Brenda took care of property law, Adrienne took care of family law and Dad liked to chase the accidents, because that’s where he believed the money was. They took over the top floor, my office was on the first floor along with an accountant who had been there for twenty years and who hid a bottle of vodka in a drawer in his desk and thought nobody knew about it. It was obvious from the smell of the room and his breath, but mostly I knew because of Jacinta, the cleaner, who gave Dad all the gossip on each of the offices that paid rent. It wasn’t a spoken agreement, but they had an understanding that the more information she supplied, the more Dad paid her. I frequently wondered what she told him about me.

The ground-floor businesses had changed so many times in the past few years I didn’t know who was who when I passed them in the halls. Thanks to the recession, businesses were moving out as quickly as they moved in. The basement, which had been my great-aunt Christine’s home in her final years, had gone from being an insurance company to a stockbrokers to a graphic design studio, and it was currently my home. From one Christine to another. My dad had grudgingly agreed to let it to me and furnish it for me; the day I’d arrived I’d found a single bed in the bedroom, a single chair in the kitchen and an armchair in the living room. I had to kit the rest out myself by raiding my sisters’ houses. Brenda had found it hilarious to donate her son’s Spider-Man duvet cover to me. She’d thought it would cheer me up, but it had only made me sadder about the state of my affairs. A duvet cover I could easily afford, so for the first few days I kept meaning to change it, only to keep forgetting until I got to the point where I didn’t even notice it any more.

Next door was a bookshop, the Book Stand, also known as the Last Stand due to its stubborn inclination to stay open and current when every small bookshop for miles around had been forced to shut. It was run by my close friend Amelia, and I suspect that ordering books for me was the only thing keeping her in business, as the shop was almost always empty. The stock was low and most things you wanted had to be ordered, which meant it wasn’t appealing to browsers. Amelia lived above the shop with her mother, who was in need of constant care as a result of a severe stroke. More often than not the bell ringing in the shop was not the sound of a new client coming through the front door but her mother upstairs, needing some attention. Still a child when her mother fell ill, Amelia had been caring for her ever since and she seemed to me to be in desperate need of a break, of some TLC. Like most carers, she needed someone to protect and care for her for a change. The bookshop seemed almost secondary to what Amelia spent her days doing, which was being at her mother’s beck and call, devoting every thought and waking moment to her.

‘Hi, sweetheart.’ Amelia bounced up from her stool where she’d been reading to pass the time in the empty shop. She looked over my shoulder at Adam, who followed me in, and her pupils dilated at the sight of him.

‘I thought you were waiting in the car,’ I said.

‘You forgot to leave the window open for me,’ he said, poker-faced, looking around the shop.

‘Amelia, this is Adam. Adam, this is Amelia. Adam is
… a client.’

‘Oh,’ Amelia said, disappointed.

I knew what I wanted and headed straight for the self-help section. Adam wandered around the shop, seeming dazed, withdrawn, looking but not really seeing.

‘He’s gorgeous,’ Amelia whispered.

‘He’s a client,’ I whispered back.

‘He’s gorgeous.’

I laughed. ‘Fred wouldn’t like to hear you say that.’

She studied her fingernails and lifted her eyebrows. ‘He’s asked me to go to the Pearl for lunch.’

‘The Pearl? That’s very fancy.’ I was confused by this, as Fred was not the spontaneous romantic type. Then it hit me. ‘He’s going to propose!’

Amelia couldn’t keep a straight face any more, clearly thinking the same thing. ‘I mean, he might not, he probably won’t, but you know
…’

I gasped. ‘Oh my God, I’m so happy for you!’ We hugged excitedly.

‘It hasn’t happened yet.’ Amelia hit me. ‘Stop jinxing me.’

‘Can you put this on the tab?’

Amelia looked at my book selection. ‘
At last!
Christine, that’s great,’ she said, with relief.

I frowned. ‘It’s not for me. What do you mean?’

‘Oh. Sorry. Nothing. No. It’s … Nothing.’ Her cheeks pinked and she changed the subject. ‘Barry called me last night.’

‘Oh?’ Fear flooded my body.

‘It was quite late. I think he’d had a few drinks.’

I nibbled on my nails.

Adam joined us. He was like a shark, sensing blood, he knew exactly when to be around me each time my life was being chipped away at.

‘I’m sure it wasn’t true, or maybe it was, but … but he shouldn’t have said it to me anyway. Whatever you two talk about together really should be kept private, even if it is about me, so I’m not blaming you for what you said about me.’ She looked hurt, her face contradicting everything she had said.

‘Amelia, what did he say?’

She took a deep breath and went for it. ‘He said that you think I’m a loser for living at home with my mother, that I need to get a life and move out. That I need to put her in a home and move in with Fred or else you wouldn’t be surprised if he left me.’

‘Oh my God.’ I hid my face with my hands. ‘I am so sorry he said that to you.’

‘It’s okay. I told him that I knew he was hurting but he was disgusting. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘No, that’s fine, you’re totally entitled to say what you like.’ My face was red and I knew it, revealing my guilt. I couldn’t deny that Barry and I had discussed those things, but how dare he tell Amelia. I wondered how many phone calls he’d made last night and how many truths he’d told to the people I loved, hurting them in order to hurt me.

Amelia waited for me to tell her it wasn’t true.

‘Look, I obviously didn’t phrase it like
that
.’

She looked offended.

‘I just worry that you’re always looking out for other people and not for yourself. That it would be nice for you and Fred to live together, to have a life
together
.’

‘But this is how it’s been since I was twelve, Christine, you know that.’ Amelia was becoming angry. ‘I’m not going to ship her off to a home while I go live the life fandango.’

‘I know, I know, but you haven’t even been out of the country
… ever. You’ve never taken a holiday. That’s all I said – promise. I was worried about you.’

‘You don’t need to worry about me,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘Fred is fine with the way things are. He understands.’

We were interrupted by the familiar sound of the bell. Amelia quickly excused herself to see to her mother. I left the shop with the book tucked in my bag, hidden away from Adam’s eyes, feeling worse than ever.

‘So now he’s ringing your friends. That’s smart,’ Adam said. ‘Your day keeps getting better and better.’

I put my chin up. ‘Yes, but you know it’s all about how you deal with it, Adam. Face it with positivity.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘I have a problem with that. For example, I think your friend shouldn’t be getting ahead of herself about her lunch today.’

‘You were listening.’

‘You were squealing.’

‘He’s taking her to the Pearl!’

‘So?’

‘Well, that’s where people propose.’

‘That’s also where people eat lunch. She shouldn’t get carried away before it happens. It might not happen.’

I sighed, feeling his energy draining me. ‘You know, that’s what we need to fix. You’re a negative thinker. You keep thinking about all the bad things that
might
happen all the time. Eventually you begin to make them happen. Are you aware of the laws of attraction?’ I thought about my run-in with Simon’s wife, how I had replayed that scene over and over in my head until it had eventually happened. ‘If you think life is crap, life will be crap.’

‘Again, I don’t think this is official therapist terminology.’

‘So go see a real therapist.’

‘No.’

We stepped inside and walked up the stairs to the first floor.

I stopped at the door to my office and struggled to get my key in. I tried another, then another, then another of the ten keys I had on the chain.

‘What are you, a prison warden?’

I ignored him and tried the next key.

‘Damn it. They’ve done it again. Come on.’ I trudged up the stairs.

My sisters and my dad were sitting around the meeting table in their office when we entered. Dad was perfectly turned out in a pin-stripe suit, pink shirt and tie and handkerchief. His shoes were black and highly polished, there wasn’t a hair out of place on his head, his fingernails were manicured and buffed so that there was a sheen from them. He was short and appeared more like a tailor than a solicitor.

‘I knew it was because she’d met another guy,’ Brenda said, snapping her fingers as soon as she saw Adam. ‘Jesus, Barry will die when he sees him. How’s his baldy little head going to compete with that?’ she referred to Adam’s mop of blond curls.

‘Hello, family,’ I said. ‘This is Adam – he’s a
client
. Adam, this is my dad, Michael, and the two witches are Brenda and Adrienne.’

‘Named after two of the witches who once lived here,’ Adrienne told him, then looked at me and added: ‘The third being Christine – so you are in fact one of us, no matter how much you try to flee.’

‘They had purple hair and smoked a lot,’ said Brenda, still scrutinising Adam.

‘They never married,’ Dad chipped in.

‘Lesbians,’ Adrienne said.

‘Were not,’ Brenda disagreed. ‘Adrienne was a slut. She was proposed to five times.’

‘By the same guy?’ I asked.

‘No. Different men,’ Dad said. ‘I think the third man went on to murder someone. But,’ he frowned, ‘I could be mistaking him for someone else.’

‘Slut,’ Brenda confirmed.

‘She didn’t sleep with them,’ Dad said. ‘Proposals were different in those days.’

‘Lesbian,’ Adrienne insisted.

I waited for them to finish. They played ‘slut or lesbian’ all the time with different people.

‘You think everyone is a lesbian because you’re one,’ Dad said to Adrienne.

‘I’m bisexual, Dad.’

‘You’ve had five girlfriends and one boyfriend. The man was an experiment. You’re a lesbian. The sooner you realise that, the sooner you will be able to settle down and have a normal family,’ he said.

‘So how do you know Christine?’ Brenda asked Adam. ‘Take a seat,’ she pulled out a chair.