Page 110 of Such a Good Couple
‘I want to finish this movie. That probably sounds really fucked-up. It probablyisfucked-up, but I want to be someone else for a while. I want to just escape my life. I want to escape from being myself even if it’s just for a few hours a day.’
‘But the girls need you.’
‘I know,’ he said forcefully. ‘And I need them. I can’t leave them right now. I can’t imagine ever leaving them again.’
‘So that’s the decision made then. You don’t go.’
‘Clara,’ he looked at her and she sensed he was gearing up to something, ‘will you come with me and Dodi and Essie to Spain? It’d be for a few weeks max.’
‘Fionn—’ she started, but he cut across her.
‘I know it’s a lot to ask but there’s no one else. Annie’s pregnant. Conor doesn’t know a thing about taking care of kids. You’re one of my oldest friends. We’d rent a house there; I’d be home in the evenings. The girls love you.’
Clara couldn’t bear to tell him ‘no’ outright. ‘Fionn, I can’t leave Ollie and the boys. I need them so much right now and they need me.’
He didn’t seem to be listening. ‘After the shoot wraps, then I can disappear. We all could, you and Ollie, the boys, and Conor and Annie and Rachel. We could all go somewhere and just be together.’
‘Fionn,’ she spoke gently, ‘we all have lives here. I have a job. I have to go start my shift right after this.’
‘I’d pay you.’ He lurched forward, clear desperation in his eyes. ‘I’d pay you more than the call centre.’
‘I don’t want you topayme to help you.’ Clara sighed.
‘But I would,’ he insisted. ‘You don’t even like your job, Clara.’
She had no reasonable response to this. Of course she didn’t like her job. Most people didn’t like their jobs. It was normal.
‘Please think about it.’ His face was a mask of anguish. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask but please? Talk to Ollie. Take some time.’
Clara pushed the bag of pastries further across the table. ‘If you eat something, I promise I’ll think about it. Okay?’
Clara had no idea what the right course of action was. Pull the boys out of school again? Could Ollie come? What about her job?There was no more leave to take, not after Greece. But looking at Fionn’s bald desperation and thinking of the twins rattling around the playroom full of everything little girls could want but the one thing that mattered most – her heart seized with the pain of it all and she felt utterly torn.
When Clara got home that night, the boys were already in bed. Ollie was playing Xbox but got up to make her tea.
‘How did it go with Fionn this morning?’ He handed her the mug and deposited a packet of chocolate digestives on the couch between them.
‘Bleak.’ Clara blew on her tea and stared at the game Ollie had paused. A small glowing creature stood in an enchanted landscape. This was Ollie’s way to decompress.We’re all escaping, she thought. Her main escape was sleeping but it came with a terrible side-effect –every morning she woke up and for a split second she remembered nothing, until the full weight of Maggie’s absence came back down on her like an avalanche.
Ollie spoke quietly. ‘He texted me. About the Spain plan.’
‘God … I’m not sure, Ollie.’ Clara shook her head.
‘I told him you’d come around. It’s the ultimate part-time marriage after all.’ He gave her a wry smile.
Clara put her mug on the floor and pulled Ollie’s arm around her. ‘I am so done with that. I want a full-time, round-the-clock, twenty-four/seven marriage. I want the drudgery and the fighting and the mess.’
‘Beautiful, Clara.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I still think we should do it.’
‘We?’
‘Fionn won’t mind us all coming. We could rent out the house again to cover the bills. Fionn wants to pay you, so what the fuck, let him. Half of the time out there will be during the Christmas holidays so the boys won’t miss much school. The kids will allhave a tutor, Fionn says. We’ll get to dodge the worst weeks of the year here; you hate January. Having the boys there will be good for Dodi and Essie.’
‘Let’s think about it.’ Clara sipped her tea.
Later, Clara lay in bed. It wouldn’t be that long. A month out of her life. On her phone she opened up Slags For Life and tapped on their icon photo. It was the three of them at about thirty at a festival – how had it been more than a decade ago? She stared at Maggie with freckles on her nose, grinning in a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses. In this picture, three-quarters of Maggie’s life was already behind her. What if she’d known she only had ten years left? What would she have done differently? Nothing? Everything?
Clara started to type:
