Thirty-One

Three and a half weeks later

“Are you sure you only need one more session?” Michael leaned forward in his chair, the comfy basement dining room of Annie’s restaurant still bustling with its Saturday lunchtime crowd at five minutes to two.

“Yeah.” Alex nodded. “Catriona and I agreed—I’m ready. I mean, this is the longest spell I’ve gone without an attack in a year: five weeks.”

“No, six.” Joan smiled. “I logged it in my phone. There was no way I was letting this milestone pass.” She waved her debit card at the server, who returned with the handheld payment machine. “My shout.”

“Thanks, Joan.” Alex swirled her spoon in a pool of chocolate ice cream. “I’m definitely coming back here for that cheese and onion pie.”

“I’m surprised you wanted to come into town.” Joan inserted her card into the debit machine. “You’ve been eyeing up that Italian place near the pottery studio for weeks.”

“We can go there any time. I’ve missed Manchester city centre.”

“Ooh, does this mean you might stay?” Helen scooped up the last spoonful of the jam roly-poly she was sharing with her husband. A hopeful smile raised her chubby cheeks.

Alex glanced from Helen to her dad, her eyes resting on Joan beside her. “I love being here, but…”

“It’s not home.” Joan winked, punching in her PIN.

“Lucy and Freddie will be happy to hear that,” said Michael.

“I’ll have to tell Freddie myself—Lucy’s still not speaking to him.”

“She’ll come around. God love her, that girl has a big heart. She won’t be cross with Freddie for long.” Joan raised her eyebrows. “Mark, though…”

Helen looked at Michael, who became suddenly interested in the framed Grand Theatre poster that hung beside their table.

Alex breathed deeply. “Joan, it’s okay. Just say it.”

“I promised I wouldn’t.” The server handed Joan her receipt, which she slid into her wallet a little too carefully, buying time before she had to say another word.

Michael’s eyes bore into his mum.

“Promised who? Dad?” Alex’s stare travelled from Joan to Michael. “I know you guys made a pact. So obvious.”

Michael blew out his cheeks. “We didn’t make a pact—”

“Dad, I’ve seen the looks you’ve shared. I’ve been here almost two months, and you haven’t mentioned Mark once. That takes a scripted effort.”

Joan wrapped her arm around her granddaughter. “When we saw you blocking social media, love, we realized you were doing everything you could to move on and feel better. We just followed your lead. Us having a bloody great whinge about how terrible he behaved—well, it wasn’t going to help you, was it?”

“Believe me, whatever you were thinking would have paled in comparison to what I’ve already thought or said to Lucy. I don’t need to be protected in bubble wrap. What I do need is for you to be honest. I won’t shatter if you tell me the truth.”

“It’s just with the panic attacks…” Helen looked at Michael. “We would do anything to make them go away…”

“We didn’t want to undo the good Catriona was doing, that’s all.” Michael patted Helen’s arm.

“Mark was a lovely lad,” Joan blurted out, staring at the fairy lights strung across the ceiling. “But he’s made me so angry. I just want to deck him.”

“Join the club,” said Alex. “I think Lucy has first dibs.”

“I’m not naïve.” Joan tilted her head. “Every actress has seen affairs begin behind the scenes. Back in ’56, my best friend fell for the lead in our musical. They both had sweethearts at home, but maybe sneaking around was exciting? I don’t know. I don’t understand why people do it. And Mark, he had you, a pretty, talented girl, and a family here who loved him like our very own…I feel like he cheated on us, too.”

Helen nodded.

Joan leaned in. “I’ve been so close to telling you exactly how I felt, but I bit my tongue because, well, like those Cosmo articles say, if you two got back together, I’d regret everything I said—”

“We are never ever getting back together.”

“Ha! Taylor Swift!” Joan elbowed Alex. Helen and Michael just looked confused.

“No, I’m done with actors. Two was two too many.”

“You’ll find someone who deserves you, pet.” Helen set a reassuring hand over Alex’s.

“Maybe one day. Right now, the only company I’m keeping is my laptop.”

Michael stood up, holding his wife’s coat. “Alex, did you hear back?”

“I did! Late yesterday. One of the theatres is interested in Suffragettes. Three years on, and it might finally see the light of day. And for the heck of it, I applied to the TV development scheme with Channel Four…” Alex’s phone buzzed on the table. Tugging on her coat, she squinted at a new text. “…so I’ve got a few things in the pipeline. I can’t wait to get back.”

Joan shoved an arm through her parka’s sleeve. “Everything okay, love?”

“Yeah, it’s Lucy. She emailed new scans of her drawings. Wants my feedback ASAP.”

“She’s such a bossy boots!” Joan laughed and zipped up her coat. “Why don’t you come with us to the National Football Museum? There’s a new Fergie exhibition!”

“Nah, I need to get Freddie a card. His birthday’s next Saturday. Then, I’ll head straight back and edit my play a dozen more times.”

Joan smiled. “If you change your mind, you know where to find us.”

“And watch you drool over that big United team painting again? It’s not an interactive exhibit, Joan. I think they’re serious with the Do Not Touch sign.”

Michael nodded. “Yeah, I really don’t want to get chucked out again, Mum.”

“Bloody Nora.” Joan threw her hands up. “You reach up and touch Beckham’s pecs the one time and you’re branded for life!”

The Sinclairs zigzagged through the tables and climbed the stairs, trading the restaurant’s homey warmth for a cloudy Manchester April afternoon. Alex shivered as the damp chill pierced her coat.

“There are some lovely card shops in the Arndale Centre.” Helen ushered her family down narrow Old Bank Street. “Rain’s held off. Why don’t we take the scenic route down to King Street and then up Spring Gardens? Isn’t that Italian restaurant there? The one owned by that United player? What’s it called?”

“Rosso.” Joan nodded enthusiastically and turned right onto Cross Street. “That randy old git in my class wants to take me there. I’d love to go, but not with him. It’ll turn into grab-a-granny night. He’s handsy.”

“The Arndale, it’s a bit out of the way. I was going to pop into the card shop in the arcade…” Alex pointed over her shoulder in the opposite direction. “…right there.”

“We’ll walk with you,” said Helen.

“Yeah, for all of one minute!” Alex joked.

“Embarrassed to be seen with us, love?” Joan nudged Alex with her elbow. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“We just want to spend more time with you, Alex, that’s all.” Michael smiled.

“Dad, I’m rarely out of your sight.” Alex hugged him. “I’m just gonna grab a card and get back. Yesterday’s session was a double, so I’m behind in my writing.”

“What type of card are you looking for?” Helen clutched her stepdaughter’s waist and steered her along Cross Street.

“For Freddie?” Joan laughed. “Has to be a cheeky one.”

“Has Simon told his parents yet?” Michael pulled his coat closed against the breeze.

“Freddie would be a lovely son-in-law,” said Joan.

Alex’s head pinged back and forth, dizzy with their non-stop interrogation. She swerved left to the arcade’s entrance. “Okay, twenty questions ends now.” She laughed. “Bugger off. Go enjoy the football museum. I’ll see you at home.”

“Okay, well…” Michael nodded. “Call if you change your mind.”

“I won’t. Go.” Alex backed up towards the arcade’s entrance.

Joan’s eyes roamed to the darkening sky. “Don’t dillydally. Looks like rain.”

“If you hurry love, you can catch the 2:25 train home.” Helen didn’t budge.

Alex’s eyebrows met in the middle. “Okay, weirdos. I’m going…even if you’re not.” She skipped under the stone arch and into the Royal Exchange Arcade.

• • •

Finding Freddie’s card proved more difficult than Alex thought. Ten minutes and three cards later, she stood underneath the arcade’s Cross Street entrance, watching the pummeling rain flood the road. What to do? Buy a cheap umbrella? Grab a taxi? All the cabs splashing through the dirty puddles were occupied. Alex looked at her phone: only two fifteen P.M. Hmm. The entrance to the Royal Exchange Theatre was next door, just a quick dash away. If she had to wait out the rain…

Pulling up the collar of her coat, she ducked her head and dodged the fat raindrops. She ran up the theatre’s stone steps and through its glass doors. Craning her neck, Alex’s eyes climbed the soaring columns that reached upwards to the ceiling of the Great Hall, a historic meeting space once used as the epicenter of Manchester’s booming 1920s cotton trade.

“Gorgeous,” Alex sighed aloud, happy to revisit the beauty of the hall’s massive glass domes dominating the ceiling. Even with the unrelenting downpour outside, natural light spilled through the glass, illuminating the floor.

Cafés and a gift shop hugged the perimeter of the cavernous space. The steel and glass theatre, suspended from the building’s four columns, commanded attention in the centre like a seven-sided spaceship. Alex weaved around theatre fans, their anticipation contagious as they rushed to their seats for the matinee’s start.

Why not? Since she was here… head down, texting furiously, she strode over to the box office line. She hit send.

Dad, change in plans. Seeing a play! Be back for tea.

The play would be…research. Yeah. Not only would she chill out for two hours or so, but she would also get a grasp of the stage size, how intimate the space was for the audience, all need-to-know details if she was to submit work there.

She dug for her wallet but got interrupted by a buzz in her hand.

Alex, your writing won’t get done sat in a theatre.

Oh, Dad. She shouldn’t have mentioned at lunch about falling behind in her writing. His motto was always work now, play later. She didn’t reply and stuffed the phone in her pocket as the woman ahead of her turned away from the ticket window.

Alex looked up.

Fuck?!

She did a double take, her heart stuttering beneath her coat. For the first time in six weeks, her lungs felt heavy, uncooperative. The pale Irish skin. The dark eyebrows. The jet-black hair, misbehaving and tumbling over his forehead. The parted lips that had softly touched hers so many times. The poster’s artwork was abstract, but the identity of the male was unmistakable: Mark. Her Mark was in Manchester on the poster for this play—Constellations—a play she had read and always wanted to see. The beautiful story was a romantic wallop to the gut about fate and what-ifs and clumsy communication; a tale about falling in love, cheating, and breaking up; the cruelty of forgetting and the desire to remember. Her jaw fell open as an unbearable ache pressed down on her chest, her family’s words replaying in her mind: We’ll walk with you…Don’t dillydally…Your writing won’t get done sat in a theatre…

They knew.

The poster was all she could see, the two people who had broken her heart, lost in each other’s eyes: Mark’s intense gaze, drinking in his co-star, his hands cradling her face. Fallon’s body offering the unspeakable: longing, want…love. Mark and Fallon. A couple. On stage. Here.

“Hello, can I help?” The chirpy voice of the woman behind the box office window snapped Alex back into the room. “You all right?”

No, Alex wanted to holler. She breathed deeply, her mind racing, desperate to hold on and not allow this shock to unravel the past six weeks’ hard work. She wouldn’t allow it.

“The performance starts in less than five minutes…”

Alex smiled tightly. “One…please.”

“There’s one seat stage level, back row?”

“I’ll take it.”

• • •

Mark’s hand touching Fallon’s lower back, pulling her closer…that sweet smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes…the urgency in his kiss…the nuances he had shared with Alex triggered memories: warm, loving, painful memories that would never be relived and would be forever altered.

Alex’s hands flitted from her collar to her abdomen to her face, unable to lie idle. Each time Mark touched Fallon, Alex’s stomach dropped, an endless rollercoaster ride—her worst nightmare—except here, she couldn’t scream. She had to take it. Watch it. Even looking away, their voices intermingled like their lips. Was this what it would have been like in Dublin? To watch them together after midnight struck and “Auld Lang Syne” had been sung? Did Mark like the way Fallon’s skin felt? How she tasted? How much of this was acting? How much was real? Alex couldn’t tell.

The theatre had always been her safe place, a port in the storm, but right now it was pushing her under, locked in an undertow that threatened to drown her once again. She squirmed in her chair, nausea swirling in her stomach. Her usual response—her old response—would be to cry and run. Her eyes darted down her row. G10, her seat, was one of three that made up the short back row. It was on the end beside the wall, and the only way out was to her left, past two people sitting beside her. She was blocked in, trapped. She checked her phone: forty of the play’s seventy minutes left to go. Damn.

Catching Alex’s lit phone screen, the woman on her immediate left shot her a dose of side-eye. Alex sat back in her seat. WTF? She knew better. Leaving during a performance was impolite, disruptive, and potentially…revealing. Mark might see her. Fallon might see her. Humiliating if she fled. Heartbreaking if she stayed. Why the hell had she bought that stupid ticket?

She closed her eyes and concentrated on one breath at a time. Inhale…exhale…inhale…

Mark and Fallon’s voices floated to the back of her mind. A new voice took over…her own.

These negative thoughts aren’t good for me. I know this anxious feeling will pass. It always passes. I will be fine.

She captured her roaming hands, squeezing them together in her lap.

Mark and I wanted different things. I believe I did the right thing to be happy, to be healthy. I’m confident I WILL be happy. I know I’m strong and able to have an even better life without Mark.

She continued her measured breathing and opened her eyes. Mark, in character as Roland, was kneeling down in front of Fallon—playing Marianne—with a tiny black box in his hand. Alex inhaled slowly…exhaled…inhaled…

It’s a PLAY. He’s reading his lines. She’s reading hers. He will kiss women on stage. It’s just his JOB…everything is okay. I’m okay.

Her throat was easing, along with her pounding heartbeat. Alex sat back in her seat and breathed in.

I’m determined to enjoy the play and have a good time.

She concentrated on the play, getting lost in the rhythm of its words. Tears collected in her eyes, not for the boyfriend she had lost, but for his mesmerizing performance. Mark wasn’t playing Roland—he was Roland.

The actors spoke their last words. The audience leapt to its feet, showering Mark and Fallon with applause.

I feel better. I’m fine. I really am.

In the back row, Alex stood up. No fleeing, no hiding, although her lack of height and the tall man in the row ahead of her did keep her attendance a secret.

Everything is going to be all right.

Alex applauded as much for herself as the actors on stage.