Vincent was away. I was secretly glad. I never feel welcome when he’s there. Always feel he’s thinking, What are these strangers doing in my house?
He never joins in. He’ll come into the room and nod hello, but only because he wants to ask Treese where his dry-cleaning is; then he goes off to do something more important than spend time with his wife’s friends.
He calls Treese by her proper name, Teresa, like it wasn’t our friend he married but a different woman altogether.
He is quite elderly. Thirteen years older than Treese. On his second marriage. His first wife and three young children are stashed somewhere. He is a big cheese in the Irish rugby organization. In fact, used to play for Ireland and he knows everything about everything. No room for discussion with Vincent. He says one sentence and the entire conversation shuts down.
He has a rugby-player physique – muscles, wideness, thighs so enormous he has to walk in a strange side-to-side, just-got-off-a-horse motion. Many women – indeed Treese obviously does; she married him, after all – might find this comely. But not me. He is too butty and… wide. He eats phenomenal quantities and weighs about forty stone, but – I want to be fair – he isn’t fat. Just… compacted.Very dense, like he’s spent time living in a black hole. His neck is the circumference of a rain barrel and he has a stunningly enormous head. Also big hair. Gak.
21.15
Food was delicious. Treese had done a course in classical French cuisine so she could cook the type of food Vincent’s rugby cronies expected. I ate two mouthfuls, then my stomach contracted into a tiny walnut and I had the taste of sick in my mouth.
Bridie was wearing her peculiar green jumper again. Even though I was obsessed with myself and my pain, I couldn’t stop looking at it. As before, it was lopsided, shrunken and embroidered with jockeys . What was that all about?
I wondered if I should say something? But she liked it. She must . Otherwise why would she wear it? So why burst her bubble?
23.59
Many bottles of wine later, although not ones from the bottom shelf, as they are Vincent’s special ones and he would be annoyed if we drank them .
‘Stay the night,’ Treese said to me.
Treese had four spare rooms.
‘You have a dream life,’ Bridie said. ‘Rich husband, fabulous house, lovely clothes…’
‘And the first wife always asking for money! And bratty stepchildren giving me the evils. And terrible worry…’
‘About what?’
‘That my eating disorder will kick in again and I’ll balloon to eighteen stone and have to be cut out of the house and taken away on a flatbed truck and Vincent won’t love me any more.’
‘Of course he will love you! No matter what!’
But, in a secret little chamber in my heart, where I thought my darkest thoughts, I wasn’t so sure. Vincent did not jettison his first wife and children in order to shack up with Jabba the Hutt.
0.27
Tucked up in Number One Spare Room. Softest pillow I’d ever laid my head on; magnificent, carved, antique French bed; brocade chairs with bandy legs; mirrors of Murano glass; weighty, lined curtains in luxurious fabric; and the sort of wallpaper you only get in hotels.
‘Look, Treese,’ I said. ‘The carpet is the exact same colour as your hair! It’s beautiful, beautiful, everything’s beautiful…’
I was quite drunk, in retrospect.
‘Sleep tight,’ Treese said. ‘Don’t let bugs bite and don’t wake at four thirty-six a.m. and decide to sneak out and drive over to Paddy’s flat to throw stones at his windows and shout abuse about Alicia Thornton.’
4.36
I awake. I decide to sneak out and drive over to Paddy’s flat to throw stones at his windows and shout abuse about Alicia Thornton (‘Alicia Thornton’s mother blows the parish priest!’ ‘Alicia Thornton doesn’t wash her lady-bits!’ ‘Alicia Thornton’s father is cruel to the family Labrador!’). But when I opened Treese’s front door,
He never joins in. He’ll come into the room and nod hello, but only because he wants to ask Treese where his dry-cleaning is; then he goes off to do something more important than spend time with his wife’s friends.
He calls Treese by her proper name, Teresa, like it wasn’t our friend he married but a different woman altogether.
He is quite elderly. Thirteen years older than Treese. On his second marriage. His first wife and three young children are stashed somewhere. He is a big cheese in the Irish rugby organization. In fact, used to play for Ireland and he knows everything about everything. No room for discussion with Vincent. He says one sentence and the entire conversation shuts down.
He has a rugby-player physique – muscles, wideness, thighs so enormous he has to walk in a strange side-to-side, just-got-off-a-horse motion. Many women – indeed Treese obviously does; she married him, after all – might find this comely. But not me. He is too butty and… wide. He eats phenomenal quantities and weighs about forty stone, but – I want to be fair – he isn’t fat. Just… compacted.Very dense, like he’s spent time living in a black hole. His neck is the circumference of a rain barrel and he has a stunningly enormous head. Also big hair. Gak.
21.15
Food was delicious. Treese had done a course in classical French cuisine so she could cook the type of food Vincent’s rugby cronies expected. I ate two mouthfuls, then my stomach contracted into a tiny walnut and I had the taste of sick in my mouth.
Bridie was wearing her peculiar green jumper again. Even though I was obsessed with myself and my pain, I couldn’t stop looking at it. As before, it was lopsided, shrunken and embroidered with jockeys . What was that all about?
I wondered if I should say something? But she liked it. She must . Otherwise why would she wear it? So why burst her bubble?
23.59
Many bottles of wine later, although not ones from the bottom shelf, as they are Vincent’s special ones and he would be annoyed if we drank them .
‘Stay the night,’ Treese said to me.
Treese had four spare rooms.
‘You have a dream life,’ Bridie said. ‘Rich husband, fabulous house, lovely clothes…’
‘And the first wife always asking for money! And bratty stepchildren giving me the evils. And terrible worry…’
‘About what?’
‘That my eating disorder will kick in again and I’ll balloon to eighteen stone and have to be cut out of the house and taken away on a flatbed truck and Vincent won’t love me any more.’
‘Of course he will love you! No matter what!’
But, in a secret little chamber in my heart, where I thought my darkest thoughts, I wasn’t so sure. Vincent did not jettison his first wife and children in order to shack up with Jabba the Hutt.
0.27
Tucked up in Number One Spare Room. Softest pillow I’d ever laid my head on; magnificent, carved, antique French bed; brocade chairs with bandy legs; mirrors of Murano glass; weighty, lined curtains in luxurious fabric; and the sort of wallpaper you only get in hotels.
‘Look, Treese,’ I said. ‘The carpet is the exact same colour as your hair! It’s beautiful, beautiful, everything’s beautiful…’
I was quite drunk, in retrospect.
‘Sleep tight,’ Treese said. ‘Don’t let bugs bite and don’t wake at four thirty-six a.m. and decide to sneak out and drive over to Paddy’s flat to throw stones at his windows and shout abuse about Alicia Thornton.’
4.36
I awake. I decide to sneak out and drive over to Paddy’s flat to throw stones at his windows and shout abuse about Alicia Thornton (‘Alicia Thornton’s mother blows the parish priest!’ ‘Alicia Thornton doesn’t wash her lady-bits!’ ‘Alicia Thornton’s father is cruel to the family Labrador!’). But when I opened Treese’s front door,
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