The Woman Who Stole My Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

Jeffrey has already had a shower and all the hot water is gone.
    For God’s sake! My clothes! In one of his many attempts to hurt me, Jeffrey has taken to doing his own laundry – which I have to say isn’t at all hurtful – but he’s after accidentally washing some of my stuff and he’s over-dried them to the point where they’re as stiff as cardboard.
And
he’s shrunk them. I tug on a pair of jeans but I can’t close the top button.
    I try another pair and it’s the same story. I’ll just live with it for the moment. My one other pair of jeans is in the wash-basket and I’d better make sure Jeffrey doesn’t get his hands on them.
    I sit at my desk, I fix a small smile to my face and I read the inspirational words I will read every morning until this book is written. They’re from Phyllis, my agent, and I’d transcribedthem exactly as she’d barked them at me that day in her office two months ago. ‘You were rich, successful and in love,’ she’d said. ‘Now? Your career has tanked and I don’t know what’s up with that man of yours but it’s not looking so good! You’ve a lot of material there!’
    I pause in my reading, to let the words sink in, as you would with a prayer. I’d felt sick then and I feel sick now. Phyllis had shrugged. ‘You want more? Your teenage son hates you. Your daughter is wasting her life. You’re the wrong side of forty. Menopause is racing towards you down the track. How much better does this get?’
    I’d moved my lips but no words had come out.
    ‘You were wise once,’ Phyllis had said. ‘Whatever you wrote in
One Blink at a Time
, it touched people. Try it again, with these new challenges. Send me the book when it’s done.’ She was on her feet and trying to move me towards the door. ‘I need you out of here. I’ve got clients to see.’
    In desperation, I’d clung to my chair. ‘Phyllis?’ I was pleading. ‘Do you believe in me?’
    ‘You want self-esteem? Go to a shrink.’
    I was wise once, I remind myself, my hands hovering over my keyboard, I can be wise again. With vigour, I type the word ‘Arse’.
12.17
    I’m distracted from my scribing by my phone ringing. I shouldn’t even have it in the room, not if I’m serious about doing uninterrupted work, but it’s an imperfect universe we live in, what can we do? I check the caller; it’s my sister, Karen.
    ‘Come over to Wolfe Tone Terrace,’ she says.
    ‘Why?’ Wolfe Tone Terrace is where my parents live. ‘I’m working.’
    She makes scoffing noises. ‘You work for yourself. You can stop any time you like. Who’s going to sack you?’
    I swear to God, no one has any respect for me. Not for my writing, not for my time, not for my circumstances.
    ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
    I throw my phone in my bag and vow, afresh, that I will be disciplined soon. Very soon. Tomorrow.
    In the hall I meet Jeffrey.
    ‘Where are you going?’ he asks.
    ‘To Granny and Grandad’s. Where are
you
going?’ Like it isn’t obvious, the defiant way he and his yoga mat are staring me down, like a couple on the verge of eloping.
We love each other
, they seem to be saying.
Whataya going to do about it?
    ‘Yoga? Again?’
    He looks at me, all sneery-faced. ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Great. Good … er …’
    I am uneasy. Shouldn’t he be going out and getting drunk and into fights like a normal eighteen-year-old boy?
    I have failed him as a mother.
    Mum and Dad live in a quiet side street in a small terraced house that they bought from the council a long time ago.
    Mum opens the front door and greets me by saying, ‘Why in the name of God are you wearing boots?’
    ‘… Aaaahh …’
    She eyes my jeans. ‘Aren’t you roasting?’
    It was early March when I arrived in Ireland and since then I’ve had the same three pairs of jeans on rotation. There’s been so much on my mind that clothes were at the bottom of my list.
    But the season has gone ahead and bloody well changed and