Page 15 of One More Day
‘I’m sorry,’ I say out loud. ‘How many times do I have to say I’m sorry? I’m sorry, OK?’
I apologise, not knowing who I’m apologising to this time. To my dog? To Michael? To my family? Or to myself for how my own life is working out?
Michael and I often joked how we were living the dream, but the dream is over now. No more New Year Resolutions on the banks of Fanad Lighthouse where we’d feel like we were on top of the world. No more planning to travel the globe together. No wedding, no family, no nothing.
Yet to the outside world, I’ve been doing just fine.
I’ve created a whole new life in Dublin. I’ve been doing my best to start all over again. I’ve been trying so, so hard not to ‘move on’ or ‘get over’ his death as I don’t believe there’s such a thing, but to keep on living and be happy again like he’d want me to.
Yes, I can deliver award-winning speeches.
Yes, I can clinch shit-hot marketing contracts from under your nose. But at the end of the day it’s just me dressed up as something I’m not, pretending to be braver than I really am, all lipstick, powder and paint and a broken soul wrapped up in cheery smiles and vintage clothing.
Behind the mask, it’s just me and my dog, alone in a world I can’t find my place in. And although that may be all right for some people, it isn’t for me. I’m aching inside for … I’m aching for connection, for friendship, for company, and most of all I’m aching for the love I had with Michael, to let me feel that again in my life, just once more.
My phone rings so I pull in at the side of the street just across from the café with its steamed-up windows and twinkling fairy lights. I’m hoping it might be Rusty on the phone, or Marion who may have come up with some sort of last-minute idea for where I can spend Christmas.
But no, it’s Carlos.
I shake off my misery, sit up straight, flick back my hair and step into character.
‘Hey love,’ I sing, and when I catch a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror, I see that I’m evensmiling. My eyes are bloodshot from tears, my insides are crawling with fear and yet I’m smiling. When did I become such a good actor?
‘Rose, Rose, my beautiful Rose.’
He sings down the phone to me.
‘Everything is fine here at work, so don’t panic. I just need to hear all about it,’ he says with a burst of energy that never simmers. ‘I’m in the office here up to my eyeballs in the Rainey account and it’s boring me to death. Is it just as you remembered it? Has it changed at all? Tell me everything!’
‘About what? The Rainey account?’
‘No, your Granny Molly’s ancestral cottage,’ he exclaims. ‘Donegal! Fanad? The little slice of heaven you’ve escaped to?’
Ah, of course.
‘The cottage, well it’s not my Granny Molly’s cottage any more, you see,’ I say, trying to buy myself some time to explain. ‘It’s … it’s an Airbnb now called Seaview Cottage, and … yes, well it’s – it’s …’
‘Rose?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you all right? You sound like you’re still in the car. You didn’t get lost, did you? I thought you knew that place so well?’
I quickly turn the engine off, determined to hide the truth for fear that he’ll try once again to convince me to ditch my last-minute plan that didn’t work out and join his family for Christmas. No offence to Carlos and his lovely dad, but I can’t think of anything worse than trying to be all things merry and bright.
‘Oh, no, Iamhere – I’m in the car, yes, you’re right. I was just out grabbing some groceries,’ I mutter, closing my eyes and cursing myself inside for telling lies. ‘You know, mince pies, shortbread, chips and dips, the works. It’s a lovely walk into the village, but it’s also just beginning to snow here. As beautiful as it is to look at, I don’t fancy slipping and breaking my ankle on my first day.’
I force a laugh and hear my colleagues chatter in the background at the other end – our designer Mia’s distinctive infectious giggle and our copywriter Rory’s husky voice as he entertains her singing Christmas carols. They’re seeing each other on the sly, I just know it, even if they’ve denied it for years.
At least I’m not the only one living a big fat lie.
‘Ah, Rose, you’re making me green with envy which is exactly what I’d hoped for,’ says Carlos. ‘Verde de envidia. It’s lashing rain here in Dublin. Grey, murky, horrible, sleety and wet. It would depress a dolphin just by looking out at it. Goon. Tell me more. I’ve hit a creative slump on this account, so I need some inspiration. Tell me exactly what you see right now.’
I close my eyes and giggle at Carlos. Depress a dolphin? That’s a new one, even coming from him.
I try to look out through my car windscreen and realise that even if I did want to tell the truth I couldn’t, as a sprinkle of snow is now covering the glass like a thin veil of white cotton. So I use my own, always vivid, imagination.
‘Well, the smoke is billowing from the cute little chimney of the whitewashed cottage,’ I tell him, as he almost melts on the other end of the phone. ‘There’s a big roaring fire in the hearth and I can see the orange flames dancing from where I sit outside.’
