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but she reached into her bag and took out a book, The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, and was soon turning the pages, engrossed.
a pregnant woman came down the aisle and sat in the vacated seat across from him. He sat breathing in her scent until it occurred to him that there must be thousands if not hundreds of thousands of women who smelled the same.
She had slept for an hour or more before walking to Tesco’s for groceries, and making dinner: chicken roasted with branches of thyme, garlic and courgettes. The woman could cook; even now, he had to say that much for her. But a part of him always resented the number of dirty dishes, having to rinse them all before stacking them in the dishwasher – except for the roasting dish which she usually said they could leave to soak overnight, and was still there in the sink when he got back from work on Mondays.
Almost everything she brought home she cooked with apparent light-handedness and ease, with what Cathal took to be love.
‘And there’s no reason why we couldn’t have a child,’ he said, ‘if you wanted.’ He’d watched her closely; she didn’t seem to turn away. ‘You like that idea?’ Cathal asked. ‘A child is not an idea,’ she retorted. ‘And we could get a cat,’ he said quickly. ‘You’d like a cat, I know.’ She’d let out a genuine laugh then, and Cathal felt some of her resistance subsiding and closed his arms around her – but it took more than three weeks and some persuasion on his part before she finally relented, and said yes. And then another two months passed before she found an engagement ring to suit her,
‘Do you think I’m made of money?’ he’d said – and immediately felt the long shadow of his father’s language crossing over his life, on what should have been a good day, if not one of his happiest. She had stared at him and was about to turn and walk, but Cathal backed down, and had apologised. ‘Please wait,’ he’d pleaded. ‘I didn’t mean it. I just didn’t want to be taken advantage of, is all. I got it all wrong.’
‘You know that this item is non-refundable now, that it’s custom-made and cannot be returned?’ ‘There’ll be no need for anything like that.’
There was nothing fresh there: a jar of three-fruits marmalade, Dijon mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise, champagne, a packet of shortdated rashers, a phallus-shaped cake with flesh-coloured icing which his brother had ordered, as a joke, for the stag party.
‘Did you think I would come with nothing?’ ‘It’s just a lot.’ He’d tried to explain. ‘A lot? I do not have so very much.’ ‘Just a lot to deal with.’ ‘What did you imagine?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Not this. Just not this.’ ‘I cannot understand,’ she told him. ‘You knew I had to leave the flat in Rathgar by the end of the month. You asked me to come here, to marry you.’ ‘I just didn’t think it would be like this, is all,’ he said. ‘I just thought about your being here and having dinner, waking up with you. Maybe it’s just too much reality.’
‘She said things may now be changing, but that a good half of men your age just want us to shut up and give you what you want, that you’re spoiled and turn contemptible when things don’t go your way.’ ‘Is that so?’ He wanted to deny it, but it felt uncomfortably close to a truth he had not once considered. It occurred to him that he would not have minded her shutting up right then, and giving him what he wanted.
‘Do you know you’ve never even thanked me for one dinner I have made here, or bought any groceries – or made even one breakfast for me?’ ‘Did I not order your dinner tonight and pay for it? Did I not buy all those cherries for your fancy tart? And haven’t I helped you here all day, moving all your stuff?’ ‘Did you help – or just watch?’ she asked. ‘And that night you bought the cherries at Lidl, you told me they cost more than six euros.’ ‘So?’ ‘You know what is at the heart of misogyny? When it comes down to it?’ ‘So I’m a misogynist now?’ ‘It’s simply about not giving,’ she said.
You knew exactly what I meant – but you cannot even give me this much.’
He felt hot and took his socks off and dropped them on the floor and left them there. There was such pleasure in doing this that he wanted to do it again.
He swallowed mouthfuls of the cake and drank the champagne neither slowly nor in any rush until the cake and the champagne were gone, and then a painful wave of something he hadn’t before experienced came at him, without blotting out the day, which was almost over.
His father was at the head of the table, with himself and his brother seated on either side. Both were in their twenties at that time, in college, and had gone home for the weekend, with their laundry. His mother had served everyone, brought their plates to the table, and they had begun to eat. When she went to sit down, with her own plate, his brother had reached out and quickly pulled the chair from under her – and she had fallen backward, onto the floor. She must have been near sixty years of age at that time, as she had married late, but his father had laughed – all three of them had
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Disgusting
He thought of those cherries and how she had halved and stoned them that evening he’d asked her to marry him and how she’d made the tart, and what his going over their cost, that six euros, had cost him. Then he thought of that clafoutis, and how it had turned out to be burned at the edges and half-raw in the centre – and a strange, almost comical noise came from somewhere down inside;
didn’t they say that a woman in love burned your dinner and that when she no longer cared she served it up half-raw?
Love
There was small triumph in doing this without having to lift the lid, without having to put the lid back down and having to wash his hands or making a pretence of having washed his hands afterwards – but the pleasure quickly vanished, and he then had to make himself climb the stairs.
he felt himself holding on to the banister, realising he was pulling himself along, woodenly, up the steps. He knew he could not blame the champagne but nonetheless found himself blaming it.
if things have not ended badly, that they have not ended.
Hmm. Otherwisr there is hope?
he did not want to close his eyes; when he closed his eyes he could see more clearly the white cuff of his wedding shirt poking out through the wardrobe door, the stack of unopened, congratulatory cards and letters on the hallstand, the wedding dress she had insisted on showing him, the sons he would never have and the non-refundable diamond ring, which he couldn’t return, shining inside its box on the bedside table, and could hear her saying, yet again, and very clearly, and so late in the day, that she’d changed her mind and had no wish to marry him after all.
Omg
She felt she could sit for days, reading and working, seeing no one. She was thinking of her work, and how exactly she would start, when the house phone rang.
The time, now, on this, her thirty-ninth birthday, was just past midday.
looked out over the ocean, so wide and blue under the wide, blue sky.
When the water reached her ribs, she took a breath, rolled onto her back and swam far out. This, she told herself, was what she should be doing, at this moment, with her life. She looked at the horizon and found herself offering up thanks to something she did not sincerely believe in.
Back at the house, she thought of her work while she made a dark chocolate cake.
She made for herself a light supper of sliced tomatoes and cheese, and ate at the table with yesterday’s bread and a glass of red wine.
There was a gold-framed picture on the wall depicting a naked woman and a purple jug whose handle was broken. Something about the picture nauseated the bride-to-be; at every minute she was on the point of bursting into sobs, of throwing herself out the window and running away.
‘Is there anything you would not give me?’ she had once asked. ‘Nothing,’ he had said, instantly. ‘There is nothing.’ For some reason, she had kept looking at him, and had waited. ‘Well,’ he had said, clearing his throat. ‘Maybe the land. I wouldn’t want to give you the land.’ And land, she had always known, was all he cared about.
When she returned to her home town, the local boys cried out ‘Betrothed! Betrothed!’ in mockery, over the fence – but it was little attention she paid to them, and in the end she once again said good-bye to her family, and went back, in high spirits, to the city.
At seven o’clock, she felt a strong urge to write but told herself it was not something she could do, because of the German professor. She would be starting, just getting warmed up when he would come and then her work would be disrupted and she would have to stop. She did not like stopping, once she had started.
His hair was thick and white and from his neck, on a long cord, was hanging a large decorative cross.
He glanced at the picture of Böll, at the framed letters on the walls. He glanced at her notebooks, her scraps of paper on the desk, and followed her along the corridor through other rooms, looking into them the way people look into rooms which are completely empty.
He lifted his shoulders and let them fall, a child’s response. He could neither create conversation nor respond nor be content to have none.
Slowly they walked to the door. While she was opening the latch, she had a strange notion that he might like to lock her out, so she let him out first and followed him.
‘You come to this house of Heinrich Böll and make cakes and go swimming with no clothes on!’ ‘What are you saying?’ ‘Every year I come, and always it is the same: people going around in their night clothes in the middle of the day, riding this bicycle to the public houses!’
Our system breeds fear and loathing in separated couples, writes Jeanne Sheridan. Just this week, 80 per cent of Irish farmers said they would be in favour of legal, pre-nuptial agreements which would prevent their wives having any rights to their land. She looked at the date on the paper, turned out the lights and lay back in the light of the fire. There she took deep breaths and slowly let many things pass through her mind.
she stretched herself and knew she was preparing for his long and painful death.
Ooo tricky
She wished the world could turn into a fabulous, outrageous red to match her mood.
She filled the tub, kept the water hot as she could stand it. He came in and stripped to the waist and shaved at the handbasin with his back to her. She closed her eyes and listened to him work the lather, tapping the razor against the sink, shaving. It was like they’d done it all before. She thought him the least threatening man she’d ever known.
“I know what you need,” he said. “You need looking after. There isn’t a woman on earth doesn’t need looking after. Stay there.” He went out and came back with a comb, began combing the knots from her hair. “Look at you,” he said. “You’re a real blond.
“Pretend you’re America,” she said. “I’ll be Columbus.”
watched a documentary on Antarctica, miles of snow, penguins shuffling against subzero winds, Captain Cook sailing down to find the lost continent. He came out with a tea towel draped across his shoulder and handed her a glass of chilled wine. “You,” he said, “have a thing for explorers.”
She could stay drunk; she could live like this.
She had a nice, long neck.
and tore the doughy heart out of the loaf.
There was something creepy about his cat.
She hung up, became aware of a presence behind her, waiting. “You never said good-bye.” He was standing there, a black wool cap pulled down low over his ears, hiding his forehead. “You were sleeping,” she said.
He was staring intently at her mouth. “Smile,” he said. “What?” “Smile.” She smiled, and he reached over and pressed the tip of his index finger against her tooth. “There,” he said, showing her a tiny speck of something. “It’s gone now.”
Handcuffs. She was startled but did not think fast enough to object. “You’ll like this,” he said. “Trust me.” He bound her wrists to the head of the brass bedstead. A section of her mind panicked. There was something deliberate about him, something silent and overpowering.
