I'm Still Standing Read online

  I’m not pausing because I don’t know. I’ve got a crystal-clear idea of what I want, but I don’t know if I’m ready to share it yet. I doodle a moment on my board, then rub it out with my sleeve. I’m really not sure about this. It’s a lot to put out there. And at the moment, it feels very fragile. It can hardly hold its own weight in terms of possibility.

  I look over to James; he’s still staring out of the window.

  ‘Take your time,’ says Shannon. ‘We can take as much time as you need.’

  With that, James straightens up in his seat and starts writing on his board with intense focus.

  Okay, if James is getting stuck in, then I need to pull my finger out. I twirl my marker in my fingers, close my eyes and try to imagine my life in five years. I’ll be thirty-three. I see it in my mind’s eye, clear as day. It’s like I’m watching a snippet of a home movie with a cast of characters from my life, but we are all on set in some unknown location. We’re at a party, and I’m wearing a huge maternity dress. My mother is nearby, laughing with my sister, and there are lots and lots of happy, smiling people around – eating, drinking, dancing. I’m perfectly happy, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I rub my swollen tummy, so excited about the future, about this forever family.

  But how realistic is this? Every time I’ve brought it up with James, that maybe I should come off the pill, that we could start trying for a baby, he rubs his neck and sighs and says that we agreed we wouldn’t do that until we finish the cottage properly, until we turn thirty, until we go on another holiday, until he finishes his latest job. There’s always something else to do first, always waiting until…

  ‘Ready?’ asks Shannon. I am jolted from my thoughts. I scribble down two bullet points.

  To start a family (1–4 children, but happy with whatever, don’t want to sound greedy)

  Cottage to be finished

  I reimagine my party scene and realise how important this is to me. In five years’ time I want to be living a life of purpose, full of hope and love and meaning. I want my life to feel like it’s begun, rather than shuffling around aimlessly in a waiting room located somewhere between the past and the future. Seven years ago, we bought our dream house, a seaside cottage in our home town, on a hill overlooking the Atlantic. It was near derelict, but that made it affordable. And after all, I wanted to put our own stamp on it, develop its potential. With James being a builder, you’d imagine that it would be straightforward. Except the last thing he feels like doing after a day’s work is more building. Hence we have an unfinished construction-site shell of a house. So my dream in five years? To have a home worth inviting people into, a space filled with laughter and music. Friends and family could come to stay – a guest room for my sister when she comes down from Dublin, even my mother when she babysits! Oh, and a nursery…

  I look over at James. He finishes writing and places his marker on the table with a satisfied grin.

  Shannon opens her hands towards us both. ‘Show each other your boards, please.’

  Right, here goes everything.

  James squints at mine. ‘Children and house, basically. No surprises there.’

  I nod. ‘This isn’t a game, James. I didn’t come here to trick you.’

  I lean in to read his. It looks like a long equation.

  5 years = 260 weeks

  260 weeks = 1,820 days

  1,820 days = 43,680 hours

  43,680 hours = 2,620,800 minutes

  ‘Do I know what I am doing in 2,620,800 minutes time?’ he says. ‘No, I don’t. I think it’s fairly ridiculous looking that far ahead yet.’

  Even Shannon inhales deeply.

  James shrugs. ‘I don’t get why this is a big deal. Who knows what could happen between now and then? We might be completely different people, wanting totally different things. That happened before, so why wouldn’t it happen again? It’s a useless activity. Simple as that.’

  And it is as simple but also as complex as that. This is the moment when it becomes clear that staying together is holding us both back. For better or for worse, it is time to go our separate ways. Although we can’t get on, we love and respect each other too much to keep throwing all our energy into fixing something that is unfixable. We were the first of all our friends to fall in love, the first to promise forever, and now we’re the first to realise that we’ve made a massive boob. The end of the road for Mr and Mrs O’Connor, and back to being Evelyn Dooley.

  But this time I’m a twenty-eight-year-old divorcee without the faintest idea about what’s supposed to happen next.

  After we thank Shannon Brannigan for her help, James and I take the lift together down to the ground-floor reception. We stare ahead at the brushed-metal doors, both in shock, unsure of what is supposed to happen next. Incredulous at everything we’ve learnt in such a short time, stunned that such a momentous decision took less time than a trip to IKEA.

  ‘Are we really going to go through with this?’ I ask.

  James takes a deep breath. ‘I guess so. Time for a new chapter. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s going to be weird at first, for a while. But I agree, new chapter.’ I nudge him with my elbow. ‘Just think, no more driving at the speed limit. No more poncey wine. No more having to sit through MasterChef. Plenty to look forward to.’ I smile.

  He smiles too, and nudges me back. ‘You’ve got a point there. And what about you? No more speeding tickets, or boxers left on the stairs, or cigarette butts by the back door.’

  The lift doors open. But we don’t leave; instead, I turn to him.

  ‘We weren’t all bad, Mr O’Connor. We had some good times.’

  He nods, his eyes meeting mine. ‘Good luck, Evelyn. I mean it. I hope everything works out.’

  ‘You too.’

  We hug our final goodbyes, then step out of the lift and go our separate ways. Choosing to go it alone, to walk into the life that awaits us, whatever it may hold.

  I cross the street, climb into my car and start to drive. I don’t head in any particular direction; I just want to hit the road, to feel like I’m going somewhere. I turn on the radio, shake out my hair and roll down the windows.

  Wow. It’s done. And we’re both okay.

  In fact I think we’re both a bit excited.

  I put my foot down on the accelerator and turn up the music.

  I know I am.

  Chapter Two

  THREE MONTHS LATER

  Bacon. The most effective alarm clock in the world. I can hear it sizzling. Despite myself, I can feel my body gravitating towards it like a homing device. The smell of oak-smoked rashers fried in butter wafts down the hall and curls into my bedroom.

  I am back home. I can tell before I even open my eyes – the glorious aroma of a full Irish on the go, the whistling of the kettle on the Aga, the lowing of cattle out the back, the local radio station announcing updated hourly news on weather and funeral arrangements.

  I cup my hands over my eyes. I’ve slept so much while I’ve been here. Mum reckons I must have needed it. Emotional burnout or adrenal fatigue or just being knackered and needing some good old-fashioned Mammy Dooley cosseting and lots of rest. Whatever it is, I do feel better. Only problem is, it’s almost like I never left. And that’s not a good sign for a fully grown woman. I’ll have to get my own place, learn to live on my own, start thinking about the specifics of that… but not just yet. Before I came here, I was too stressed to think about it. Now I’m probably too relaxed to hassle myself with a task that I can simply put off for another day.

  So here I am, back at the farmhouse. Tucked into the bottom bunk, which is still covered in stickers of fairies and love hearts alongside the encrypted initials of crushes we had through our teenage years, etched into the metal frame. I’m back, on the other side of love’s young dream, in the bedroom I shared with my sister all my pre-marriage life.

  ‘Evelyn, are you up? Breakfast is on the table.’

  I know it’s lovely that she’s mothering
me. Smothering me in lovingly buttered slices of home-made bread and cheese and freshly laid hen’s eggs and lashings of milky sugared tea… But I can’t go on like this. I know it myself: for my own self-respect and cholesterol count, I need to start thinking of moving out… again.

  ‘Did you hear me, Evelyn? Get it while it’s hot.’

  I groan and kick off the duvet and can’t help but think that I was probably a bit hasty in moving out of the cottage. Yes, it is the site of my heartache, yes, it’s a health-and-safety nightmare, but at least it didn’t make me feel nine years old again.

  I make my way to the kitchen wearing huge bear-paw slippers, and stand in the doorway in my dressing gown, rubbing my eyes in the morning sunlight.

  ‘Sit down there and get that inside you. Great way to start the day.’ She adds another sausage to my plate. And then a slice of black pudding.

  ‘Mum, please, I can’t keep eating like this.’

  She looks up at me. ‘What’s wrong with… Oh my word, hold on.’

  She dashes back to the Aga, tea towel ready in her hand, and comes back with a bowl of wild mushrooms.

  ‘That’s the job.’ She sits, smiling to herself. ‘Now, what could possibly be wrong with that? Great feed, fit for a king.’

  ‘It is. It’s delicious. But I’m going to be the size of a house.’ And this is just breakfast. Elevenses will be a hot-out-of-the-oven slice of her moist tea-soaked fruit cake with home-made blackberry jam. Lunch will be a huge plate of fresh salad and herbs from the garden with honey-glazed ham, and dinner will be… Oh, I’m ready to burst at the thought of it. Beef and Guinness pie with creamy mash, or Irish stew with dumplings, or corned beef and cabbage… Anything that comes in at less than ten thousand calories a portion is considered a snack.

  ‘So this is it for today, Mum, okay? I need to cut back,’ I tell her as I bite into a slice of her home-baked soda bread. God, this is good. I’ll start the diet after breakfast. No point starting now, not when it’s so fresh and warm.

  She regards me a minute, grinds salt and pepper over the mushrooms and shoves the bowl across the table to me.

  ‘There isn’t a mother in the country that likes seeing her daughter pale and skinny. You’ve colour coming back into those cheeks now and you’ve gained a bit of weight. No harm. No harm at all.’ She raises her fork in the air. ‘Eat that up now! Think of all the poor starving children in the world who haven’t a bite, and you with a big plate in front of you!’

  I help myself to a heaped spoonful of mushrooms. Any previous plan to studiously push whatever food I don’t want around on my plate evaporates very quickly when my mother pulls this little guilt trip. There’s little chance of getting one over on her. She knows what works. Every time.

  This isn’t exactly how I imagined things would be post-break-up. I was right when I told James that it would be weird at first. It still is. You get so used to someone that not seeing them every day feels like you are on holiday. It doesn’t feel as though it’s going to be like this forever. We didn’t choose a two-week break from one another – we chose to untangle our lives entirely, pack our bags and buy one-way tickets out. And that takes a while to sink in.

  Once the initial admin and logistics of packing and sorting and shifting everything from bank accounts to bedding was done, I felt that the easiest thing was to move back in with my mother. We both felt it was better to make a clean break, too hard to stay amongst all the reminders of an unrealised dream. James decided he was going to take some time off, go travelling. I spent every spare hour I had painting walls, planting the garden, varnishing floors and surfaces to try and add value to the cottage, to try and make it as saleable as possible. Once it was empty and in good nick we could put it on the market immediately. The farmhouse that I grew up in has plenty of room for me to store all my boxes, and my bedroom is virtually untouched since I left, so it seemed like a very natural and sensible choice at the time. But now that I’ve been here a while, I realise that this can’t be a permanent situation if I really want to get out there and do something with my life and my new-found freedom.

  At first I loved being spoilt and mollycoddled. I haven’t lifted a finger since moving in here; Mum does all the laundry, cooking and housework. It’s bliss in that way. But I have to stop myself from getting too comfortable, because if I stay like this, I’ll never accomplish anything; Mum will just do it for me, wanting to save me the trouble, stepping in so I don’t even have to break a sweat. Now that the legal stuff has settled down and I’ve had time to adjust to moving out of the cottage and not being James’s wife any more, I’m going to have to re-enter the real world.

  I guess it’s natural to want to hide away after a major life change; you need time to think, to work out your next move. It all boils down to self-protection. Mum taking care of all the day-to-day stuff has really given me space and time to think without distraction. Time to think about what I really want from my life. So far, I’ve just discovered what I don’t want; I don’t want to build my life around someone else ever again. But that’s as far as I’ve got. Whatever move I make next, I want to be absolutely sure that it’s the right one. I’m hoping I’ll recognise that move when I see it.

  By the time it’s dark outside, I’m chatting to my sister on Skype.

  ‘This is an OPPORTUNITY, Evelyn,’ declares Tara, sipping white wine in her LAX hotel room. Given the eight-hour time difference, it’s an early tipple, but as an air stewardess, Tara doesn’t mark the passage of time in day and night, light and dark. Only in terms of departure and arrival, work time and playtime. ‘This could turn out to be the biggest, most important opportunity of your life!’

  On hearing this, my mother inhales sharply and brings her hand down on the kitchen table behind me. ‘What are you on about, Tara? Her marriage has failed. How in the name of God could that be considered an opportunity? It is a catastrophe, that’s what it is. An utter disaster in every sense.’

  She strides up behind me, fuming, and leans in over my shoulder so she’s facing Tara on screen. ‘Easy for you to say, missy. Gallivanting on the other side of the world. You’re not here in the thick of things. You know what Ballybeg is like! Whispers and nudges and pointed questions. Only yesterday, I was grilled in the hairdresser’s: “Is it true that your daughter and young James O’Connor have split up? Was he carrying on behind her back? Or was it her?” And you know who I spotted with her head in the sink the whole time? None other than Mrs O’Connor herself! Oh, the shame of it. I didn’t know where to look. I’ve had no peace since this bloody “opportunity”.’

  We sit silently, Tara and me, thousands of miles apart, on either side of the Atlantic, both of us knowing better than to fan the flames or interrupt or, God forbid, disagree. Mum pulls her cardigan round her shoulders and swigs the last of her cardboard-coloured tea from a china cup.

  ‘I’m taking the dog for a walk. I’ve had enough of listening to this nonsense. I don’t know what planet you two are on. Why you can’t just settle down and be happy is beyond me.’

  Muffin rushes over to her, shuttling around her feet excitedly. Mum pulls on her wellingtons and grabs the dog’s lead, raising her eyes to catch mine.

  ‘You know what it is that confuses me, Evelyn? Did you honestly believe that every day of marriage was going to be kisses and roses? I was married to your father for thirty years. Was every day love’s young dream? Of course it wasn’t. But that’s life. You get up and you get on with it. It’s still love. It’s still marriage. But it’s called sticking things out. And if you ask me, it wasn’t love or friendship that was lacking between you and James – it was sticking power. Never mind that marriage counsellor, she only made things worse; you should have come to me. I would have sorted the two of you out.’

  She shakes her head and mutters something to herself about Jesus, Mary and Joseph granting her strength. And patience. And sanity. Muffin grabs a ball in her mouth and runs to the door, her tail wagging.

  ‘Come on, Muffin, le
t’s get out into the fresh air and leave these two to their “opportunities”.’

  The door slams shut behind them and they are gone.

  ‘Oh my God, she’s livid,’ says Tara from behind her glass.

  ‘I know. Usually she’s fine, but if she goes into town and meets her friends, that triggers it all again. Which is awkward now that I’ve moved back in.’

  ‘What’s happened to the cottage?’

  ‘We’re hoping for a quick sale. James left all the paperwork to me, told me he didn’t care how much it went for as long as it was as painless as possible. So if we can actually find a buyer, I’ll take the first reasonable offer that comes in. I invested nearly everything I had in that cottage, so until it’s sold, I’m not free to take on anything new. I don’t think I can stand being here much longer, though. It’s all a bit tense. I thought Mum would mellow over the split, but she hasn’t.’

  Tara sloshes another generous pour into her glass.

  ‘And where’s James gone? Is he back with his folks too?’

  ‘No, he’s still travelling. He’s probably halfway to Ibiza as we speak.’

  ‘Or crashed out on a mate’s floor having missed his flight, or fighting with security at the airport because he’s lost his passport… James can’t get from A to B without you.’

  Out of habit, I go to twist my wedding ring. But it’s not there. Of course it’s not. It’s boxed up in the garage along with my wedding dress, a decade’s worth of photo albums and everything else that I thought was priceless but that now holds absolutely no value to me at all.

  ‘How’s work?’ asks Tara.

  ‘It’s fine, same old St Mary’s. I’ll manage.’

  ‘Evelyn? C’mon, spill the beans. Mum isn’t around now, you can talk to me.’

  ‘It’s crap. Fionnuala got promoted ahead of me and O’Driscoll has it in for me. I know she’d love to see the back of me. If you’re not playing happy families, you’re a pariah in her book. She told me that she doesn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to my personal affairs. That the bishop looks unfavourably on such things and that as far as she’s concerned I’m a school ambassador therefore my name will stay as Mrs O’Connor for as long as I decide to stay at the school.’