CALLUM
Abby took the death of her elderly neighbour terribly, sobbing at the funeral, as though the woman was her very dear and treasured grandmother instead of a mildly acquainted neighbour she occasionally had tea with. The autopsy confirmed she died of a stroke. It’s been a week, yet Abby wears a permanently haunted look. I can’t shake this horrible feeling that she is troubled by something closer to home.
Things should be looking up. I’ve secured a full-time carer for Dad, and he’s actually enjoying the company. I’ve forged the foundation of a relationship with Abby’s family. Noel has been in touch a few times. Harmless sporting exchanges, but it’s a promising start. Then there’s my best friend’s upcoming wedding only a few short weeks away. Yet for some reason, Abby and I are paralysed in some weird limbo that I can’t for the life of me understand. She answers when I talk to her, but there’s a faraway look in her eyes. I can’t remember the last time she initiated a conversation that didn’t revolve around dinner.
She lands back through the front door, sweaty and flushed from a long run, the only thing she claims lifts her spirits. I’m yet to see it, but don’t argue with her, trying not to take it personally that she can’t gauge some kind of comfort from me. Little by little, she’s becoming increasingly distant. I can’t go on like this. Tact has never been my strong point. After breaking down all of her carefully assembled walls to get to where we are, if I don’t pull her on it soon, the barricades will be rebuilt so high and wide that I might never successfully penetrate them again.
I open a bottle of chardonnay and prepare fresh salmon while she showers. I’m driving up and down to Carton House most days, afraid to leave her alone too long in this semi-fragile state. Yet the more time I spend here, the more distant she becomes. Maybe she needs space? I’m at my wit’s end, in this weird state of nothingness.
Returning from the shower with towel-dried hair, she slips her arms around me, nuzzling into my back. Physically, things are better than ever between us. The wild, frenzied sex has progressed into something much more tender, yet equally enthralling. She reaches for me every night, and most mornings too, recently with a slower appreciation. But each time, I’m led to believe she’s preparing for the last time. It’s the only time I can connect with her. Mentally, she’s withdrawing. Maybe it’s paranoia, but it’s like she’s preparing to leave me. It’s eating me alive.
‘Abby.’ I turn to face her, searching her eyes for the answers I live for. She squeezes them tight, leaning into my chest, closing off from me mentally, unwilling to talk.
‘When you don’t talk to me, I assume the worst. Something’s changed between us. What is it?’
It’s killing me, being suspended in mid-air waiting to see which way the ball will land.
She lets out an enormous sigh and takes a sip of her chardonnay, buying time while she assembles the words. ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy. And maybe I am,’ she admits warily, taking a seat at the table.
‘Well I’m going crazy as a result, so you’re not alone. I need to know, Abby. Is it something I did? Or did somebody say something?’ Maybe she’d stumbled across something about me that she didn’t like. God only knows there’s enough of it out there on the World Wide Web that I can barely stomach, let alone expect her to.
I sit in the chair opposite and take her hand, willing her to communicate with me. Her withdrawal reminds me of my mother’s all those years ago. I swallow back the memories.
‘Alright. I’ll tell you. I’m sorry if I made you feel it’s something you’ve done. It’s not you. You’re perfect.’ She takes another mouthful of wine. I turn the cooker down and prepare myself for the ‘it’s not you it’s me speech.’ The wait is killing me. My breathing labours in a state of nervous apprehension.
‘A few months ago, Karen dragged me to a fortune teller in Wicklow.’ She pauses to look at me meaningfully. I try not to laugh at the absurdity, failing to understand the relevance.
‘She told me three things. First of all, that I’d get an opportunity at work which I’d be successful at. Secondly, that somebody close to me will die.’ She eyeballs the direction of Mrs Boyle’s recently vacated property to the right of us.
Okay, I’ll admit, it’s a little eerie.
‘She told Karen that she wouldn’t marry Dan next year,’ she adds. ‘I never believed in any of this bullshit, by the way, but she’s been proven one hundred per cent right about every single thing she predicted.’
I fail to see what this has to do with our relationship. I don’t have long to wait to find out.
‘The last thing she told me, before I left, is that I’d marry a man called Patrick,’ Abby says quietly, sourly into her wine glass.
I sit back to process her revelation. Confused fog clouds my mind as I decipher what she’s really saying.
‘Let me get this straight. After everything we’ve been through together, you’re withdrawing from me, because some old lady predicted you’d marry a man called Patrick?’ It sounds absurd, even as the words tumble out of my mouth. If it wasn’t so serious, it would be hilarious. Only as I speak aloud, does the real problem hit me like a tonne of shit.
The reappearance of Sean Fitzpatrick a few weeks earlier.
She’s still thinking about him. Does she consider him ‘the one that got away’? He’s called Patrick. She picked me in Carrick, but maybe she’s regretting it.
Now I’ve dragged the truth of the matter out of her, I wish I hadn’t. I rise from the table, shoving half my fist in my mouth to prevent saying something I might regret.
Alarm spikes in her darkening eyes, confirming my worst fears. I’ve hit the nail right on the head.
‘Have you been seeing him behind my back?’ I have to know.
‘Of course not. Not like that, anyway.’ Her answer does nothing to appease me.
‘Like what exactly then, Abby?’ I don’t want the answer, but forever left to wonder would be worse.
‘He’s still turning up in places where he knows I’ll be. In the park, outside my work. He doesn’t talk to me. He just stares.’
‘Abby, you promised you’d get a restraining order. After everything that happened in Carrick, I honestly thought this was behind us. You lied to me.’ Even if it’s by omission.
I trusted her to take care of it. I wouldn’t hesitate to do the same for her, had it been a woman from my past. She guiltily eyes the floor. Maybe she enjoys Sean pursuing her? Perhaps it soothes her battered ego in a way that I would never achieve.
I’m suffocating here, the lemon walls closing in. I’d opened up to her, given her my everything and now she’s holding back, and for what? A stupid prediction or an old flame? Whichever it is, I’m done trying to work it out. I walk out the front door unable to say a word, leaving the dinner in the oven to burn or catch fire. Either way, I don’t care.
I could fight for her. I could show her my passport or my driver’s licence, if a simple word meant so much to her. Would it make a difference? My remaining shred of pride prevents me from finding out.
I can’t fight for a woman who won’t fight for me. I can’t be with a woman that ultimately doesn’t want me, regardless of my name.
