January 1 – Thursday
Amanda King was at her wit’s end. It was the first day of the New Year and none of her family was talking to her. It seemed that each of them blamed her for something and now she couldn’t figure out what she’d done wrong.
It was as she was clearing up after lunch – a silent affair, with only the sound of cutlery, chewing and the incessant ping of messages on her daughter’s phone – that she realised she’d eaten the whole Christmas cake on her own – how had she managed to do that? It was only six days since she’d cut the first generous slice – how could she have eaten the whole thing in under a week, for goodness sake it must have weighed at least four pounds. Amanda could feel herself sink into the kind of dark depression that only comes with a major sugar withdrawal. None of the other wives would have this guilt today, she was sure of that. For one thing, they wouldn’t have celebrated with much more than a lettuce leaf and a stiff drink, or at least that’s all that they’d have allowed to stay down. For another, as far as she could see, Nicola, Clarissa and Megan simply didn’t ‘do’ guilt. Why was that? Surely the nuns had fair aim at all of them, how come Amanda was carrying the guilt for everyone. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have their secrets, after all.
God, but that was depressing. Other women her age were having torrid affairs with younger men or building up their offshore bank accounts, or hiding drinking habits that were out of control. Typical, Amanda King’s dirty secret was she needed to eat less cake and make new friends!
As far as her figure went, the trick was, she told herself, to eat plenty this week. She might even eat enough to put her off food for life. God, wouldn’t that be marvellous. To be reaching for the herbal teabags in a moment of crisis, instead of frothing up a storm of high-calorie caffeine and pairing it with doughnuts or chocolate cake. Sure, everyone knew, diets that began on the first of January always failed. No, she would start when everyone else was falling off the bandwagon, well, that’s what she’d decided as she sat in her empty kitchen at four o’clock in the morning, polishing off the Christmas cake. There, you see, extenuating circumstances – she’d been worried, depressed… lonely?
Lonely, it was a word that she didn’t want to think about too much. Life was moving forward, it was natural for the kids to draw away from her at this stage. Every other mother over time eternal had probably had to stare down the notion of being the most uncool person in the universe, as far as her kids were concerned. Nicola thought all teenagers should be sent away to boarding school. Nicola’s kids were packed off as soon as there was the danger of a negligent hormone ripening to make her perfect life appear untidy. Amanda couldn’t remember being anything like Casper when she was a teenager. Sometimes, when he looked at her, she wondered if maybe his disdain had turned to hatred. She’d looked it up, googled it so often it came up as a default search on her phone these days, even higher in the search engine ranking than Net-a-Porter and Habitat. Mothers across the world were experiencing exactly the same thing; it was normal, apparently. So why did sharing a house with them all feel like the hollowest place in the world? More and more, it seemed to Amanda that her raison d’être was being withdrawn; her primary role snatched stealthily while she tried to grip it even harder. She could fall back on being the perfect wife to try to fill the void, but Richard seemed to be more withdrawn than ever; working late nights and having business meetings over the weekend – there was no escaping it, she felt miserable and empty.
Today, even Richard wasn’t talking to her. He arrived back from the party in a complete huff; he had hardly said two words to her since.
‘How was it?’ she asked when they found themselves alone in the living room that evening. ‘The party, after I left, did you get to schmooze who you needed to?’ She was trying to be funny, but the truth was, all the directors looked the same to her. They were all young, with glowing tanned skin and they looked as though they’d been exfoliated to within an inch of their lives. At the party, they were all in tuxedos, so Amanda found it hard to tell them apart after a while.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He didn’t even look at her, but she had a feeling she’d hit a nerve.
‘Nothing, I was just asking.’ She guessed that Richard had not made the big impression he hoped to on the night.
‘Well, if you were that interested, perhaps you should have stayed around to find out,’ he said, lifting the iPad he was studying closer to his face. She passed across his reading glasses, which he took without any comment. He was still handsome, in a neat, squidgy way that suited his age. He looked after himself, used male grooming products so his hair was always slick, his clothes were always perfect; Amanda knew he was still attractive. His eyes were clear and piercing; he hadn’t fallen down the rabbit hole of booze or worse like so many of his colleagues who couldn’t handle the stress of their careers.
‘I had to leave, you know that.’ There was no point going over it again. Richard wouldn’t have minded if she’d stayed at home, probably. It was Amanda’s idea to tag along, well, it’d look very strange if she didn’t and Nicola Lennox had a nose for anything that seemed even a little bit peculiar. If Amanda hadn’t gone to the New Year’s party they’d have assumed it was because she couldn’t find a dress to fit, or worse, that there was some kind of trouble between herself and Richard. ‘Anyway, I hoped that you’d enjoy it. I really didn’t want to spoil your night, if I could have sorted things out here and taken a taxi back I would have…’ It wasn’t strictly true. She’d come home because she couldn’t stick it any longer. As it turned out, she was very glad she did. But, by the time the kids were in bed, Amanda felt as if the night had sucked the life from her. All she was fit for was her pyjamas, Christmas cake and a very large glass of liquor – well, it was still the season to be merry. She hated having fights, she especially hated that they always led to this cold war. That was probably the worst, for her, living in this atmosphere of rigid silence.
‘Whatever,’ Richard said and, for a moment, Amanda thought he sounded like a spoiled child. She dropped her magazine and headed for the fridge.
It was all very well for Richard, perhaps it was a man thing, but the kids, the house, absolutely nothing seemed to faze him these days. It was probably why he was so good at his job, she often thought. Richard worked very hard indeed, but you had to, as he kept telling her. Since Brexit, the Irish banking sector was under even more pressure than ever before. Everyone knew the financial services centre in Dublin was a hub of banking commerce and in the last few years it had become a portal between Europe and the rest of the world. So, while Amanda worried about cake, her husband doled out money to keep whole economies alive, drive planes around the world and establish power plants in regions she’d never heard of. Of course, with that came opportunities to make even more money, it was all about the bonuses and their divvying out was performance-related. Richard worked to get the best accounts and make the most profitable deals. His work, as he kept telling her, was not just nine to five, and so their whole lives had become trussed up in this thing he called success. Funny, but Amanda sometimes wondered if it was all worth it; as far as she was concerned, they had enough to live comfortably for the rest of their days. Of course, she’d never say that to Richard, or the girls, but it niggled at her, sometimes, it made her feel like she was completely out of kilter with everyone around her. She suspected it added to her sense of loneliness.
*
The following day, Richard was back at work and Amanda was getting his suits ready for the dry-cleaners. She always checked his pockets. He had a habit of leaving notes in them. Sometimes it was just fivers, but often enough there’d be a fifty hiding in the inside pocket, where he’d gone to buy lunch or dinner and thought better of it and put it on the gold card. They might be loaded, but Amanda could remember when fifty euros meant something to her. Fifty euros would put books in a child’s school bag in September. There were people who had to save hard for that luxury. She laid the lot on their bed and decided she may as well get his tuxedo done too. It could be months before he took it out again, but it would need freshening before he wore it for a second time.
No fifties here, she thought as she checked the pockets automatically. Then something scratched her finger, a silver foil. She pulled it out, aiming for the wastepaper basket, but suddenly froze, stared at the packet in the palm of her hand; it was a condom. She felt the blood drain from her head, as though it was rushing out of her feet. She began to sway, catching her breath. In the room next door, the thump of bass music played on as though everything in the world was as it should be. Casper was studying for his exams; or supposed to be. For a ridiculous moment, Amanda wanted to scream. She wanted to wail at the unfairness of having her tubes tied when she really hadn’t thought it fully through. She wanted to kick Richard in his bony, arrogant, vain backside.
All those years ago he’d been a player, but that had stopped the day they said ‘I do’. Hadn’t it? This condom was not for them and so her mind raced with the terrible likelihoods. ‘For God’s sake, Casper, turn off that noise, it’s doing my bloody head in.’ Of course, she didn’t say a word. Instead, she dropped onto her lovely French empire bed and examined the foil wrapper in her hand, working hard to even out her ragged breath.
It was raspberry flavour, she stifled what she knew was a frantic laugh. The thoughts of Richard – her Richard – he didn’t even like raspberries. He was a strictly apple and orange sort of bloke; none of these girly fruits for her husband. Why in God’s name had he chosen raspberry? And what on earth was her Richard doing with a condom in his pocket?
*
It rattled around in her head for hours. A raspberry-flavoured condom. It paced with her. It thrummed out a beat of its own. Soon it sounded like one of those annoying songs that won the Eurovision years ago, and somehow pops into your head and there is no way of getting it out again. A raspberry-flavoured condom. There it was again.
In the end, she took Richard’s suits to the dry-cleaners, decided to leave the tuxedo back on the hanger and placed the offending silver packet exactly where she found it. Perhaps it had been some kind of prank. Yes, that would be it. It hadn’t been used, so, really, it meant nothing. It was just a silly mistake. Some of the wags at the office playing a practical joke, she reassured herself with the sensible voice she once used when her children were young enough to take notice of her advice. Deep down, far down in her psyche, another voice whispered, but it was too low for her to pay it any heed. That voice echoed what had lurked within her for a very long time. He’s being unfaithful to you and no matter how you try to cover things over, you know, he’s being unfaithful to you.
There was no way, her sensible voice raged loud within her… Well, it was unthinkable. Her Richard. Not in a million years. She took down their wedding photograph from the dressing table before the window. They’d been so happy that day. It was the wedding of the decade. Everyone said so. They had Bollinger champagne flowing as steady as Irish rain and a week of celebrating with the best food and music for guests who travelled from all over the world to enjoy their hospitality. She looked into those young eyes, staring back at her full of eager expectation. She had so wanted to be Mrs Richard King. She had so wanted this life. To live in a period townhouse, have the perfect two children – they were living the dream. They drove nice cars, wore expensive clothes and holidayed in parts of the world that most people hadn’t even heard of.
It wasn’t enough though, was it? It mustn’t be, not for Richard, not if he was… God, she wanted to curl up and howl at a moon that she wasn’t even sure was there anymore. He wasn’t having an affair, it was as simple as that and she wouldn’t think of it again, she told herself sternly for the umpteenth time. She couldn’t think about it. She couldn’t think of him being with someone else.
God, suddenly it came to her. Standing there on the hotel steps, her reflection staring back at her. What was she? What had she become? It was another question she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask or to answer.
She sat outside the dry-cleaners and cried for a full hour. A solid hour of wailing and huge wracking sobs that gave her body shivers as if she was blown through a hurricane of emotion. Eventually, she felt the shuddering subside. It was almost worse when the tears stopped, because then she felt something she didn’t at first think she’d ever felt before. She was numb. She was a walking, emotionally void caricature of what she thought she should be. Somewhere, between the photograph that sat on her dressing table, taken all those years ago, and now, Amanda King got lost. Where was that girl she used to know? Had she known then that she would have to become someone else? Probably.
Richard was the first man she had loved, if you didn’t count Rhett Butler. He was the first man she had slept with and she had always believed he would be the only one she slept with. Part of her knew then that she was stepping into a role. It was the role of her dreams. She was starring in the movie of her dreams, only today all those lines she’d said, all those costume changes, the beauty treatments and sly tweaks to stave off any signs of age, they all seemed to be completely inane. She was living a lie and the worst part was maybe she’d known it all along.
Okay, so she didn’t expect to find a condom in her husband’s tuxedo, but the rest, what she had become; it seemed suddenly she had an aerial view of her own life. Far from being a fairy tale, it was a tragic parody of the children’s story, she had built a straw house and now it was starting to crumble when the wolf came to breathe on it. She wiped her eyes with a ferociousness that her beauty therapist would scorn. She would have to confront him, wouldn’t she? She knew she would. However silly it turned out to be, however ridiculous she looked with a raspberry-flavoured condom as her only tangible proof, she had to ask Richard if he was having an affair – otherwise she had a feeling she would go mad.
Tonight, she would ask him tonight.