The Truth Club Read online

  Zak isn’t with us this evening because, after he had his lasagne, he went to the pub with some friends. He isn’t the sort of man who prefers being at the pub with his friends; but when the baby is born he won’t see his friends so often, so he wants to have some quality time with them now. He is an accountant, but that simply seems to make the whole profession more glamorous. And Fiona is something very important in software. Sometimes she even gives talks at conferences in London and Paris and Rome.

  We sit in silence while Fiona clearly hopes I will say more about Diarmuid. Eventually she says, ‘Would you like some chocolate cake? It’s home-baked. I got it from the deli too.’

  I look at her warily.

  ‘It’s got cream in it, so it has to be eaten soon,’ Fiona coaxes.

  ‘Oh, all right, then.’ I grin at her. Then I add, and I am not entirely joking, ‘Sometimes I think you’re trying to fatten me up, Fiona. I’m going to be like a woman in a Rubens painting if I go on like this.’

  Fiona smiles serenely and pads, barefooted, to her gleaming kitchen. It has a maple floor and an Aga cooker that she actually understands. I don’t understand my cooker. It does things I don’t need it to, and sometimes it makes strange noises.

  ‘I always find a nice chocolate cake cheers me up when I’m worried,’ Fiona says, as she hands me a large slice on a hand-decorated ceramic plate.

  I’m about to protest that this is nonsense, but then I realise that Fiona does comfort-eat sometimes. I have seen her. But she never gains an extra pound. For a moment I feel like throwing myself on the hand-woven Persian carpet in outrage.

  ‘Sally, I know this really good therapist who –’

  ‘Look, Fiona, I can’t afford to see a therapist right now,’ I snap, my mouth full of creamy calories. ‘I have to write imploring letters to the bank manager about my overdraft as it is. You wouldn’t believe the things I say to him about cash flow.’

  ‘Make it a priority,’ Fiona says. ‘It is a priority. I’d lend you the money.’

  I take another bite of cake and chomp it thoughtfully. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll think about it.’ But what I’m thinking is that I’ve tried therapy, and I just ended up talking about things that happened years ago when I was a kid in California and it looked like my parents were about to divorce. I can’t see how talking about my parents is going to help me decide about Diarmuid.

  ‘Not all therapists get you to talk for ages about the past,’ Fiona tells me. ‘At least talk to me, Sally. You’re unhappy. I can see it.’

  This would be the ideal moment to cry. I should cry. I want to, but I somehow can’t. I don’t feel I deserve to cry, because this situation with Diarmuid is entirely of my own making. He is the one who deserves to cry. He is the one who has been left to share a house with Barbecue Barry. He is the one who has to eat alone tonight because I wouldn’t alter my arrangements.

  Instead I sigh, deeply and dramatically.

  ‘What are you sighing about?’

  ‘About Diarmuid. About how unfair I’ve been to him. Sometimes I wish he’d been able to marry Becky.’

  ‘Who’s Becky?’ Fiona leans forward.

  ‘A girl he loved. They met when he was fourteen and she was twelve. They went out for five whole years.’

  ‘And where is she now?’

  ‘In New Zealand. Her family moved there. She and Diarmuid kept in contact for a while, and then she got engaged to a guy over there. It broke Diarmuid’s heart – I’m sure it did, though he hardly ever speaks about it. His mother says they were an ideal couple.’

  ‘Diarmuid’s mother sounds like a right old bag,’ Fiona snorts, and I do not disagree.

  ‘She’s never really liked me,’ I say, through cake. I am now on my second helping. The icing is a kind of creamy chocolate fudge and extremely tasty. ‘She even has a silver-framed photo of Becky in the sitting-room. She’s in a canoe, looking all outdoorsy and cute. Diarmuid’s mother calls her “the daughter I never had”.’

  ‘That’s outrageous!’ Fiona splutters. ‘You’re her daughter-in-law. She could be a bit more… tactful.’

  I know she is right to be annoyed. Diarmuid’s mother, Madge, has never treated me as though I belong in her family. Any time I’m in a room with her, she greets me, talks for a few moments and moves on to someone else. Diarmuid has to keep reminding her to introduce me to their friends and relatives. When he does, she exclaims, ‘Oh, yes, of course – this is Sally. Diarmuid’s…’ And there is always a small pause before she adds, ‘Wife.’ I’ve often asked Diarmuid to have a word with her about it, but he hasn’t done it yet. He’s really worried about hurting her feelings, because apparently she is very ‘sensitive’ and doesn’t mean to be rude, so I ‘shouldn’t take it personally’. I don’t really believe him, because I haven’t noticed her being like that with anyone else.

  I’m amazed at how much I’ve tolerated Madge’s behaviour. Maybe it’s because, deep down, I think she’s right. Becky is the person Diarmuid should have married.

  And I think he knows it too.

  Chapter Four

  I am staring at the aquamarine curtains in Diarmuid’s bedroom. I think of it as Diarmuid’s bedroom even though it is still, theoretically, ours. I took ages choosing those curtains. I wanted them to be textured and soft, and they are. They are also lined in thick cream cotton. It’s expensive lining, because I wanted the curtains to last and not get bleached by sunlight. Everything in this room was chosen with such care and such concern about its durability – apart from the man sleeping beside me. I rushed into my marriage, because I thought no one else half decent would want me, and I was scared of being alone.

  Diarmuid must have felt that way too. He still does. He as much as admitted it just ten minutes ago, before he fell into what seems to be a restive sleep: he twitches every so often, and his face does not hold that childlike softness of forgetting. ‘You can’t believe how lonely I’ve been.’ That’s what he muttered, just before his head deepened on the pillow. ‘I need someone to hold… someone to love.’ And then his eyes closed and he drifted away from me. I wish I knew where he’s gone. I wish I knew so much more about him than I do.

  I am still in a daze. I can’t believe what has just happened. There is something dreadful and lovely about it. Just for a while, when I walked into this room again, I felt such relief that he had made my mind up for me, that all the indecision was over. And now I don’t know what I’m feeling any more. All I know is that I may be pregnant. I do not carry my diaphragm around in my handbag. And I know I must have chosen this, because I let it happen. I must have wanted something to happen to help me make my mind up about my marriage.

  This week my visit to Aggie was unexceptional, until she started to say that the sheep were now floating. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I started to make up a story about how Diarmuid and I had gone into town for lunch last Sunday. I told her it had been sunny enough to sit outside; we’d eaten pasta and drunk fruity red wine, followed by wonderfully frothy cappuccinos. And we’d talked for ages about all sorts of things – our dreams, our hopes, and some of those scary feelings you think no one will understand. Only Diarmuid had understood. I told Aggie that what was so great about him was that we could talk about anything together; and when I got too serious he knew how to lighten things up, make me laugh. I was happy as I spoke about this Sunday lunch, until I remembered it was just something I’d made up. And then my heart filled with this incredible yearning, and I thought, If only what I was saying were true. Because the man I was describing wasn’t Diarmuid. Diarmuid doesn’t know how to be that open. Any time I almost get him to tell me more about himself, his deep secret self, this closed look comes over his face and he changes the subject.

  And I suddenly knew the pain I feel when this happens isn’t a new pain. It’s an old pain, one that I’ve felt with April and my parents. And so – in a weird, wrong way – it sometimes feels right, because it’s familiar. But I also knew that, deep down, I hoped tha
t Diarmuid would prove to be the exception and that we would somehow find a way to reach each other and break down the barriers. That we would discover a new, open kind of love, a more real kind of love. One that I was desperate to believe in.

  As Aggie went on about the floating sheep, I felt pangs of despair. She was the one who had offered me glimpses of this bigger kind of love, and now she was talking nonsense. I was about to do my usual ritual of shooing the sheep into the field when she said, ‘No, leave them. It’s nice to have them here.’ And then this radiant look came over her face, and she said, ‘They’re so, so beautiful.’

  I didn’t ask her why the sheep were so beautiful. I just couldn’t face talking to her any more at that moment. I leaned forwards and kissed her; and she said, very softly, ‘DeeDee can help you, Sally. You’re so alike. So very similar.’ I just looked at her and squeezed her arm. Then I left the room.

  After that weird conversation, I was pleased when Diarmuid just happened to be driving by when I was waiting for a bus. I welcomed the distraction, because I had started thinking about DeeDee again. I didn’t want to be similar to her. I began to wonder if Aggie was just being sly when she said those things. Maybe she thought that saying DeeDee could help me would make me want to look for her.

  ‘Hi there, Sally!’ Diarmuid actually managed to make it seem like he was driving past just by chance, though now I know he must have watched me walking down the road. ‘Would you like a lift home?’

  I accepted because I knew I could be waiting at the bus stop for half an hour. In fact, Diarmuid’s ‘lift’ was very welcome – until I realised he wasn’t driving me to my cottage. He was driving me to ‘our’ house.

  ‘Diarmuid,’ I said, very calmly and evenly. ‘Where exactly are we going?’

  ‘I’m driving you home,’ he said. ‘To your real home. This thing has gone on far too long.’

  I just sat there, numb with disbelief. This wasn’t like him. But then, so many things didn’t seem like him these days. Sometimes he seemed like one of those paper samples of paint – the colour always looks so different when you actually get it on a wall.

  ‘Everyone says I’ve been too patient with you,’ he continued. The word ‘everyone’ seemed to boom reproachfully. ‘If we’re going to save our marriage, we at least have to be under the same roof.’

  We drove on in silence. I felt I should put up some kind of fight, but I didn’t know what to say. He pressed one of the gleaming buttons on the radio, and the Corrs started singing ‘I Would Love To Love You’, which seemed very insensitive of them: even though it’s a lovely song, I didn’t want to love Diarmuid like he loved me. His view of love seemed entirely different from mine. I glowered at Diarmuid and he smiled at me, and the Corrs sang about this love we had; and somehow the song became just about me and Diarmuid, and how great it would be if all these barriers between us could come crashing down and disappear.

  For some reason, I suddenly remembered my mother’s voice – the hushed tone, the genuine concern: ‘Do you think Sally will ever find someone?’ I’d come over for Sunday lunch; afterwards, when I was supposed to be watching television, I had got up to make myself a cup of tea and heard my parents talking in the kitchen. I stood stock-still in the corridor and waited for my father’s reply.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I worry that she’s turning into the kind of woman who’s got some idea in her head about her ideal man.’ There was the sound of clinking crockery. They were washing up. ‘I really hope she isn’t ignoring the decent, good, unglamorous men who could love her. Sally needs love.’

  ‘We all need love,’ my mother said rather brusquely. And I knew the conversation had become about them, so they would immediately start discussing something else. On this occasion it had been whether they should put the leftover chicken in the freezer.

  I roused myself from this reverie and said sharply to Diarmuid, ‘I want to go back to my cottage.’ I said it far too late. We were virtually in ‘our’ driveway.

  ‘Let’s talk about that over dinner,’ he said. ‘I’ve got us some beef with black bean sauce and green peppers – oh, yes, and extra garlic.’ He smiled; I always ask for extra garlic with this particular dish.

  He’s trying to lure me back with food, just like he did with the mice, I thought. But I was suddenly very hungry.

  When the car was parked, Diarmuid came around and opened my door for me. Then he held out his hand and virtually pulled me from the car.

  Diarmuid held my hand as he unlocked the front door, and he held my hand as he led me upstairs to ‘our’ bedroom with its view of the Dublin mountains. He held my hand as we sat down on the bed. Then he kissed that ultra-sensitive spot behind my ear and started to undress me. And, just as I was thinking that I must call a taxi immediately, he poured me a large glass of red wine – he had an open bottle and glasses on the bedside table. He handed the glass to me and I gulped it down like lemonade. ‘Just hold me, Diarmuid,’ I said. ‘I just want you to hold me.’ The wine was already going to my head. I must be the cheapest drunk in Ireland. I wanted, needed, someone to comfort me; and that person was Diarmuid, even though he was the reason I needed comfort in the first place.

  But of course we didn’t just lie together chastely. After a few minutes, he had somehow managed to remove all my clothes and his own. He got on top of me and kissed my lips, my breasts, my hair; his breath was ragged with emotion. And then he was suddenly inside me. Sex with Diarmuid is usually tender at first, but this time it was hard and urgent, raw with intensity; the bed bounced so much I thought we might take off into the air. He didn’t bother to press the right buttons this time. This wasn’t about reaching out to me; it was about something else. I looked into his eyes, and then I looked away. There was more anger in them than love.

  Something in me pulled back and just watched us, pounding against each other on the bed we had chosen together. Why shouldn’t he be angry, and why shouldn’t he use sex to prove that I was still his wife? Sex can be so many things. It doesn’t have to be tender.

  But I needed it to be tender. I closed my eyes as the thrusting became more intense and he groaned and shuddered and just lay there for a moment. I couldn’t look at him. I just wanted him to be off me. I had never felt so lonely in my life.

  That’s why small tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. I tried to blink them away, but Diarmuid must have seen them.

  ‘Oh, Sally, what is it now?’ he asked. He sounded frustrated. Weary.

  ‘It’s nothing.’ I managed a smile. ‘It’s just that all this has been a bit… you know… unexpected.’

  He touched my cheek tenderly. ‘Do you want me to go down and heat up dinner in the microwave?’

  ‘No. Let’s wait.’ I couldn’t tell him I was no longer hungry. And then he said those things about how much he had missed me, and fell asleep.

  I get up carefully from the bed. I start to gather my clothes, which are strewn on the floor. I want to leave, but I don’t want Diarmuid to wake up and find me gone. I want to explain to him that, if I come back to live in this house, it needs to be my decision.

  I start to snoop around the room, like Diarmuid snoops around mine. I expect to find biology textbooks and magazines about cars, and I do. I also find an empty box of Turkish Delight, which makes me smile: Turkish Delight is one of Diarmuid’s few guilty passions. I am about to go downstairs and make myself a cup of tea when I see what looks like a handwritten letter poking out from his brown leather Filofax, which is on a chair next to his navy-blue boxer shorts. I shouldn’t look at the letter. Of course I shouldn’t look at it. It’s a woman’s writing. It must be.

  Diarmuid stirs. I think he’s about to wake up, but instead he turns over, his back to me. I reach for the letter. It’s probably from Charlene, thanking him for the driving lessons. I almost put the letter down; but there is something about the round, enthusiastic handwriting that makes me read it.

  ‘Dear Diarmuid, it was so lovely to see you afte
r all these years. You haven’t changed. I know I must have, even though you say I haven’t.’

  Diarmuid moves again and makes those queer sucking sounds he sometimes makes when he’s waking up. I turn the letter over. I haven’t time to read it all; I just want to know who it’s from. Probably one of his cousins in New York.

  Only it isn’t.

  ‘Do let’s try to keep in touch. Now that I’m back in Dublin, maybe we could meet for lunch again sometime.’ I look at the bottom of the page. The letter is signed, ‘Love, Becky.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘He’s seeing Becky.’

  ‘Who’s Becky?’

  ‘I’ve told you about her, Erika,’ I say into my mobile, somewhat impatiently. I’m striding along a road towards my parents’ house, panting slightly. ‘She’s the girl… the woman he dated for five years. The one who left for New Zealand.’

  ‘Oh, yes… just a moment. There’s a call.’ Erika is working as a temporary receptionist. At this minute she’s saying, ‘International Holdings,’ to someone, though she doesn’t know why the holdings are international or what the company actually does with them.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ She comes back on the line. ‘The calls come in here in bunches.’

  ‘He says he only met her once for lunch and she’s planning to go back to New Zealand soon. He says they’re just friends now.’

  ‘Well…’ Erika hesitates. ‘Well, that’s not too bad, is it? Maybe he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know… there was a funny look on his face when he said it.’

  ‘Sorry. Just a moment.’ She takes another call.

  ‘I slept with him,’ I say, as soon as Erika is back on the line. Knowing that she may disappear at any moment means I have to get to the headlines fast.