She’s slumped back in the armchair now, long legs dangling over the side, frowning deeply and playing with her pigtails. All her little-girl mannerisms totally at odds with the glass of wine in her hand.
‘Pro,’ she goes on, taking another slug of the wine, ‘you may not even get the job in the first place, so is there really any point in bothering to mention it to him at all? You might only end up worrying him over nothing.’
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head firmly. ‘It wouldn’t be fair not to tell him. Aside from the fact that I physically get heartburn when I try to keep secrets from anyone. It’ll be unpleasant in the short-term, but it’s got to be done. Besides, you know what he’s like. The whole way back from Dublin this afternoon, all I could think was…if this did happen and if things actually went my way for once…I wonder if he’d even notice that I wasn’t around any more?’
‘I take your point,’ says Jules, nodding sagely. ‘There’s every chance you could take the job, disappear off and he’d barely even cop that you weren’t here.’
I throw her a grateful smile. God, it’s so lovely to talk to someone who understands exactly where I’m coming from. Really understands that is, as opposed to telling me what a lovely husband I have and how lucky I am to be married to such a hard-working man with such a strong work ethic who always puts his job first and blah-di-blah.
‘Oooh, here’s a thought. You could always just leave a note behind, saying that you’ll explain it all to him on your deathbed.’
‘Serious suggestions only, please.’
‘I was being serious. You’re a living saint to have put up with everything that you do round here, Annie, I really mean it. Remember the anniversary? You were so patient with him. I think I’d have flung my stuff into a suitcase, jumped into my car and headed straight for the nearest motorway after that episode.’
I shudder a bit just at the memory. The anniversary she’s talking about wasn’t our wedding anniversary by the way, but the anniversary of when we first got engaged, oooh, what feels like about two hundred years ago, when we were both just twenty-three years old. It was early December and at the time, we were in New York on holiday, in the dim and distant days when we still did romantic couple-y things together. Dan had just passed his finals in college and I’d just finished my first, proper acting gig at the National, my big breakthrough role, so this was like a double celebratory trip for us. We were young, we were in big love, in proper astonishing movie love and it honestly felt like the world was our oyster.
Anyroadup, one night we went ice-skating in the Rockefeller Center…that is to say, Dan was ice-skating while I was clinging onto him with one hand and onto a railing with the other, petrified I’d fall. And it started to snow very lightly and he turned down to kiss me and…well, that’s when he proposed. Completely spontaneously, totally out of the blue and yet if he’d stage managed the whole thing, the moment couldn’t have been one iota more flawlessly perfect. Even the snowflakes gently showered us, as though on cue. And it was just so unbearably romantic that ever since, that’s the date we’ve always celebrated as opposed to our wedding anniversary. December the first.
So this year, given the ridiculous hours he’d been working and the fact that we’d barely spoken to each other in I don’t know how long, I really made the effort and pulled out all the stops. I booked dinner for the two of us in Marlfield House, a stunning five-star country house hotel about fifty miles from here – one of those super-luxurious places where the staff all call you Madam and even the cushions have cushions. Not only that, but as an extra surprise, I even booked an overnight stay there for us too. That way neither of us would have to drive home and so it really would be like the second honeymoon the two of us so badly needed. All proudly paid for from my humble book shop earnings, so he couldn’t back out of it by saying it was too expensive for us either.
Anyway come the big day, Dan was out doing TB testing, a laborious, time-consuming and ongoing part of his job, so I went ahead of him to Marlfield House in my own car so as not to waste the day, arranging to meet him there in good time for dinner. But…disaster: he got a last-minute emergency call to deliver a foal on a farm a good forty miles away and wasn’t able to make it, leaving me at the hotel all alone and all by myself. Stood up by my own husband. Not his fault of course, but then it never is, is it? And it’s impossible to have a row with Dan, ever. He’s just way too reasonable and always takes full blame for everything himself, in a sort of row-avoidance, pre-emptive strike.
Completely and utterly pointless my even getting upset about it – this is the life of a country vet and by extension a country vet’s wife. This is what I signed up for. Of course I understood and didn’t get annoyed…sure how could I? And what was I going to do anyway? Get snotty because Dan works hard at a job that’s pretty much twenty-four-seven?
But it left its fecking sting all the same.
Suddenly I’m up on my feet, pacing. Dunno why but I can’t seem to sit still any more.
‘This evening,’ I say firmly. ‘For better or for worse, I have to tell Dan this evening. Even if I have to throw his mobile phone into the fish tank and physically grasp his head between my two hands in a vice grip to get his attention.’
‘Hmmm, I know what you mean,’ says Jules, wolfing back a bag of nachos now. ‘Terrible pity you’re not a sick animal, isn’t it? You know Dan, he can’t resist the scent of the wounded.’
I nod, knowing only too well what she means.
‘Tell you something though, Annie.’
‘What’s that?’
‘This could just be the fright that he needs to put manners on him. You know, when he realises that you’ve actually got a life and a career of your own outside of here. God knows, you’ve made enough sacrifices for him these past few years, and you get sweet feck all in return. If you ask me, he totally takes you for granted and never once have I heard you complain.’
She gets absolutely no argument from me on that score.
‘So,’ Jules goes on, stretching her long legs out towards the fire, ‘maybe this’ll be just the kick up the arse that he needs. I mean, when you tell him that you’re not prepared to sit around and play the surrendered wife any more. Hey, I don’t suppose there’s any chance I can stay and watch?’
Unsurprisingly, I do NOT let her stay and watch. Come eight o’clock, there’s still no sign of Dan, quelle surprise and it turns out Jules is meeting up with one of her pals from college, who lives in Lismore village not too far away. So I wave her off, full of promises to report back the full, unexpurgated transcript of my Big Chat with Dan later on.
It was my full intention to wait up for him, so he couldn’t head straight for bed without saying two words to me, like he normally would. But by half eleven, I’m stretched out on the sofa in front of the fire with the TV still on, out for the count and utterly drained after all the hoofing up and down to Dublin earlier today.
The dogs are the first to wake me; Dan often takes them out with him on farm calls and they always go bananas whenever they get back home. So the minute I hear barking and paws scratching to get through the living room door, I’m groggily hauling myself up, all set for the almighty show-down.
‘Dan?’ I call out, sleepily stumbling to my feet, ‘I’m in here.’
Our three Labradors are first into the room, jumping and slobbering all over me as I pet each one in turn. Then I look up…and there he is, filling the door with his huge, broad-shouldered, hulking frame, still wearing the giant, oversized wax jacket he wears out on farm calls and looking more exhausted than I’ve seen him in months. Honest to God, the dark circles lining his face are now exactly the same shade of black as his eyes.
‘Hey, you’re still up?’ he says, in a voice flat with tiredness. ‘I thought you’d have been in bed hours ago.’
‘Emm…yeah, I….