Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [197]
‘Oh, I deserve it,’ Clodagh sat at the table and wiped her leaking eyes. ‘I’m not saying I don’t. But it’s so hard. Whenever I see him he has more bad news and he makes me feel awful.’
‘So what’s he done?’ Marcus demanded again.
‘He made me give back all my credit cards. And he’s closed our joint account and instead he’s going to give me an allowance every month. For guess how much?’
Sobbing again, she named a sum so low that Marcus exclaimed, ‘Allowance? That’s more like a forbiddance!’
She rewarded this with a trembly smile. ‘Well, I’ve been a bad girl, what do I expect?’
‘But he has a duty to look after you, you’re his wife!’ Marcus’s vehemence wasn’t matched by his actions. He was fumbling in the containers along the window-sill.
‘But I suppose he doesn’t feel he should take care of me…’ She paused. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for a pen.’
‘Here.’ One was located in Craig’s pencil case. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Just…’He scribbled something on a scrap of paper. ‘Something. Let’s go to bed,’ he murmured into her neck.
‘I thought you’d never ask.’ She summoned a less watery smile and led him to the front-room. But Marcus paused and wouldn’t go in. The novelty of having teenage sex on a couch had begun to pall.
‘Let’s go upstairs.’
‘We can’t.’
‘How long is this cloak-and-dagger stuff going to go on for? C’mon Clodagh,’ he cajoled. ‘They’re only kids. They don’t understand.’
‘You brat,’ she giggled. ‘You’d better not make noise.’
‘In that case you’d better not be so fucking sexy.’
‘I’ll try,’ she grinned.
The sex was fantastic, as always. She managed to lose herself and her shame and her new-found penury with each stroke that Marcus banged into her. Until she felt his rhythm falter.
‘Go faster!’ she hissed.
But he went even slower, then stopped altogether.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Cloooodaaaagh.’ His voice was full of warning, his eyes were focused elsewhere and she was hurriedly excavating herself from under him. I forgot to lock the door.
It was both a shock and not a shock to see Craig framed in the doorway, staring at Marcus.
‘Daddy?’ he asked in tremulous confusion.
‘Mum, it’s Lisa.’
‘Hello, love,’ Pauline said warmly. ‘How lovely to hear you.’
‘You too.’ Lisa’s throat ached at the love she heard in her mum’s voice. ‘Hey, I was thinking of coming to see you and Dad next weekend. If it’s good for you,’ she added hastily.
‘Do you know?’ Pauline mused. ‘We couldn’t possibly think of anything we’d rather do. We’d absolutely love to see you.’
When Lisa had left Kathy’s house on Friday night she’d felt raw, naked and exposed, as though everything which made her who she was had been stripped away. And out of nowhere she’d wanted her mum.
It was an unexpected reaction, and so was what followed next – the first shock of realization passed and it no longer seemed so dreadful. You can take the girl out of the council house, hut you cant take the council house out of the girl, she half-laughed to herself. She wasn’t exactly happy about it, but she wasn’t exactly unhappy either.
In the immediate aftermath she’d been engulfed with the desire to run away. But that had left her and instead she wanted to return to the source.
‘I’m so looking forward to seeing you, Lisa. It’s cheered me right up.’ Such was Pauline’s delight and warmth that Lisa wondered how much she’d imagined her parents’ uncomfortable awe of her. Had it all been projected by herself?
The days stacked up for Ashling. The world remained a griefscape and when she woke up every morning, she felt as though she’d been drinking really heavily the night before. Even on the nights when she hadn’t. But after a couple of weeks she realized that the small things, like brushing her teeth and having a shower, no longer seemed ridiculously onerous.
‘That’ll be the anti-depressants taking hold,’ Monica said, in one of her many phone calls. ‘Those Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors are a godsend. Much better than those old-fashioned Tricyclic whatever-they’re-calleds.’
Ashling was surprised. She hadn’t expected the anti-depressants