‘Pass,’ he’d say, frustrated, trying to grab the box anyway.
‘No passing, Lou, you know this one,’ she’d say firmly, blocking the shelves.
He wouldn’t know the answer but she’d make him know it. Somehow she’d push him until he reached deep into a part of his brain that he didn’t know existed and he’d find the answer he never knew that he knew. Just before making love, she’d stall and pull away from him.
‘Answer me this.’
Despite his protests and wrestling to get what he wanted, she’d hold back. ‘Come on, Lou, you know this one.’
If he didn’t know it, he’d make himself know it.
They planned to go to Australia together after university. A year’s adventure away from Ireland before life started. Determined to succeed and follow friends over there, they spent the year saving for the flights; him working behind a bar in Temple Bar while she tended tables. They saved for the dream together, but he failed his final exams and Ruth didn’t. He would have packed it all in there and then, but she wouldn’t let him, influencing his decision and convincing him he could do it, as she did everything. So while he began the first few months of the same year again, Ruth celebrated passing with flying colours, receiving an honours degree at a graduation ceremony that Lou couldn’t bring himself to attend. He’d attended the afters, though, had a few too many drinks and made the night miserable for her. He could at least do that for her.
In the year waiting for him to finish, Ruth completed a Business Masters Degree. Just for something to do. She never once pushed it in his face, never made him feel a failure, never celebrated any wonderful achievement of her own in order not to make him feel any less. She was always the friend, the girlfriend, the life and soul of every party, the A student and achiever.
Was that when he started resenting her? All the way back then? He didn’t know if it was because he never felt good enough, whether it was a way of punishing her, or whether there was no psychology behind it and he was just too weak and too selfish to say no when an attractive woman so much as looked his way – never mind when they’d grab their handbags, their coats and then his hand. Because when that happened, he forgot all sense of himself. He knew right from wrong, of course he did, but on those occasions he didn’t particularly care. He was invincible, there would be no consequences and no repercussions.
Ruth had caught him with the nanny six months previously. There had only been a few incidences with her in particular, but he knew that if there were levels of fairness for having affairs, which in his opinion there were, sex with the nanny was somewhere close to the bottom. There had been nobody since then, apart from a fumble with Alison, which had been a mistake. If there were levels of acceptable excuses for having affairs, and there were for Lou, then that would have been at the top. He’d been drunk, she was attractive, and it had happened but he regretted it deeply. It didn’t count.
‘Lou,’ Ruth snapped, breaking into his thoughts and giving him a fright.
He looked at her. ‘Morning,’ he smiled. ‘You’ll never guess what I was just thinking ab—’
‘Do you not hear that?’ she interrupted him. ‘You’re wide awake, staring at the ceiling.’
‘Huh?’ He turned to his left and noticed the clock had struck six. ‘Oh, sorry.’ He leaned across and switched off the beeping alarm.
He’d clearly done something wrong because her face went a deep red and she fired herself out of bed as though she had been released from a catapult, then charged out of the room, her hair firing out in all directions as though she’d stuck her fingers in a socket. It was only then that he heard Pud’s cries again.
‘Shit.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly.
‘You said a bad wud,’ said a little voice from behind the door.
‘Morning, Lucy,’ he smiled.
Her figure appeared then, a pink-sleeping-suited five-year-old, dragging her blanket along the ground behind her, her chocolate-brown hair and fringe tousled from her sleep. Her big brown eyes were the picture of concern. She stood at the end of the bed and Lou waited for her to say something.
‘You’re coming tonight, aren’t you, Daddy?’
‘What’s on tonight?’
‘My school play.’
‘Oh yeah, that, sweetie; you don’t really want me to go to that, do you?’
She nodded.
‘But why?’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly. ‘You know how busy Daddy is, it’s very hard for me to get there.’
‘But I’ve been practising.’
‘Why don’t you show me now, and then I won’t have to see you later.’
‘But I’m not wearing my costume.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll use my imagination. Mum always says it’s good to do that, doesn’t she?’ He kept an eye on the door to make sure Ruth wasn’t listening. ‘And you can do it for me while I get dressed, okay?’
He threw the covers off and, as Lucy started prancing around, he rushed about the room, throwing on shorts and a vest for the gym.
‘Daddy, you’re not looking!’
‘I am, sweetheart, come downstairs to the gym with me. There are lots of mirrors there for you to practise in front of, that’ll be fun, won’t it?’
Once on the treadmill, he turned on the plasma and started watching Sky News.
‘Daddy, you’re not looking.’
‘I am, sweetie.’ He glanced at her once. ‘What are you?’
‘A leaf. It’s a windy day and I fall off the tree and I have to go like this.’ She twirled around the gym again and Lou looked away and back at the TV.
‘What’s a leaf got to do with Jesus?’
‘The singer?’ She stopped spinning and held on to the weights bench, slightly dizzy now.
He frowned. ‘No, not the singer. What’s the play about?’
She took a deep breath and then spoke as though she had memorised the story by heart. ‘The three wise men have to find a star.’
‘Follow a star,’ he corrected her, picking up the pace now and breaking out into a jog.
‘No, they find a star. So they are judges on the Find a Star show, and then Pontius Pilate sings and everybody boos and then Judas sings and everybody boos and then Jesus sings and then he wins because he has the X-factor.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Lou rolled his eyes.
‘Yes, “Jesus Christ the Superstar” it’s called.’ She danced around some more.
‘So why are you a leaf?’
She shrugged and he had to laugh.
‘Will you come to see me, pleeeease?’
‘Yep,’ he said, wiping his face on a towel.
‘Promise?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said dismissively. ‘Okay, you go back up to your mum now, I’ve to take a shower.’
Twenty minutes later and already in work mode, Lou went into the kitchen to say a quick goodbye. Pud was in his highchair, rubbing banana and Liga into his hair; Lucy was sucking on a spoon and watching cartoons at top volume; and Ruth was in her dressing gown making Lucy’s school lunch. She looked exhausted.
‘Bye.’ He kissed Lucy on the head; she didn’t budge she was so engrossed in her cartoon.