The Woman Who Stole My Life Read online

  But it was scary how fast I ran out of energy – if twisting my ankle half an inch exhausted me this much, how would I ever walk again?

  By eight o’clock I’d used up all of my distractions. Maybe I could go to sleep and when I woke up it would be tomorrow and Christmas Day would be over. I closed my eyes and willed myself into unconsciousness, and then I heard footsteps, coming from far away, from the entrance to the ward.

  They were very loud in the silence.

  I recognized the sound. But what was he doing here on Christmas night?

  The footsteps got closer and here he was, Mannix Taylor. ‘Happy Christmas.’ Automatically he got out the pen and notebook.

  I started to blink, ‘What are you doing here?’

  By the time I was two letters in, he said, ‘I thought you might be lonely.’

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Nice day?’ I asked.

  ‘Grand,’ he said. ‘Were your family in?’

  ‘Earlier. You get nice presents?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘A pottery dog and a tuning fork.’

  ‘A tuning fork? From your husband?’

  ‘Jeffrey.’

  ‘Maybe that’s not so bad; he is a teenage boy … Was the dog from your husband?’

  ‘Betsy.’

  ‘What did your husband give you?’

  I didn’t want to say. I was ashamed.

  And this was just too weird. Why was Mannix Taylor here?

  ‘I went in to see Roland today,’ he said.

  ‘How is he?’ I took a proprietorial interest in him.

  ‘Great. Positive. Getting out soon. He said to send his love and undying gratitude to you.’

  Well, that was nice.

  Something flickered at the edge of my vision – there was a woman standing at the empty nurses’ station. It was so unexpected that I wondered if I was hallucinating. She was watching us and my instinct told me she’d been there for a while.

  Her hair was long and dark and her eyebrows were fabulous and she wore a narrow-cut black top and – God! – skinny vinyl jeans.

  She was so brooding and still and out of place, I felt she was being beamed in direct from a horror film.

  Next thing, she was moving towards me and I was afraid. Mannix looked over his shoulder and when he saw her he tensed up tight.

  She crossed the ward in a way I can only describe as aggressively slinky and she looked hard at me, lying helpless on my bed, then she looked at Mannix. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘I mean, really?’

  I wanted to yelp: You’re not seeing me at my best! If my hair was blow-dried like yours and if I had my make-up on and if I didn’t have a life-threatening illness, you might take me seriously. I may never win Miss World but … No, just leave it at that. I may never win Miss World.

  Then she stalked away – and yes, it was a right stalk, a right proper angry, prowly sort of thing – on her long legs.

  A strange silence followed.

  Eventually Mannix spoke. ‘That was my wife.’

  Really?

  But your wife is meant to be cool and calm and Scando-looking. She’s not supposed to be dark-haired and dark-eyed, with magnificent eyebrows and – for the love of God! – vinyl jeans!

  ‘I’d better go,’ he said. And he went.

  Thursday, 5 June

  07.03

  I’m awoken by the sound of my doorbell being rung again and again.

  I take a sneaky look out of an upstairs window, terrified that it might be a journalist. But it’s Karen, already fully made-up and wearing very high, red, patent-leather shoes that look oddly sinister.

  I go down and open the door and she thrusts a newspaper at me. ‘You’d better see this.’

  It’s the Daily Mail and Ryan’s face is on the front of it.

  ‘Where’s Jeffrey?’ Karen looks around, almost fearfully.

  ‘In bed!’ his muffled voice shouts.

  We go into the kitchen, where, with a dry mouth and a thumping head, I read hungrily. It describes Ryan as ‘sexy’ and ‘talented’ and says his house is a €2 million ‘luxury home’, which it so isn’t.

  ‘You’re in it too,’ Karen says. ‘It says you’re a self-help writer.’

  ‘A “failed” self-help writer?’

  ‘No. Because you’re not. Not really. Not yet.’

  ‘Does it say why I’m in Ireland?’ How much of my personal circumstances are out there in the public domain?

  ‘No, all fairly neutral stuff. But I’ve only read this one and he’s in all the other papers too,’ she said. ‘Well, the Irish ones. But I wasn’t wasting my money buying them; you can read them online. He’s looking well, I must say.’ She studies his picture from various angles. ‘I suppose he was always good-looking, with the dark hair and the dark eyes … It was just that his terrible eejitry cancelled it out. Now, tell me, what are you going to do about him?’

  ‘What can I do? Enda says I can’t section him. Dr Quinn was no help – he was asking for you, by the way, says you did a great job on Mrs Quinn’s whiteheads. It’s pointless talking to Ryan; there’s no way he’s going to change his mind. And I’ve no legal redress because we’re getting divorced.’

  ‘But where’s he going to live when it all goes wrong?’ Karen asks.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He can’t live here.’

  ‘Maybe it won’t go wrong,’ I say. ‘Maybe he’s right and the universe will provide.’

  Karen flashes me a witheringly sceptical bat of her eyelids. ‘The universe helps those who help themselves. Ryan Sweeney will end up sleeping on your couch. Unless, of course, he ends up sleeping in your bed.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  She starts jingling car keys, the international signal for imminent departure. ‘I’m off. Nippers to wash and dress.’

  She sweeps her bag onto her shoulder and click-clacks down the hall in her terrifying red shoes. I follow in her perfumed wake. ‘Karen, what did you mean?’

  ‘I mean, you’re a soft touch.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m stubborn. And proud.’

  ‘You are if someone has really wounded you. But you’re a sucker for a hard-luck story. You’re the first person Ryan will come to when he finds himself homeless. You’d better have your resistance ready.’

  And with that she breezes out through the front door.

  I go online and read the coverage about Ryan. I’m bloody terrified of what people might have written about me – I’d tried to keep my ignominious return to Ireland as low-key as possible. I wanted to keep people from finding out how badly things had gone wrong, in order to buy some time in which to fix them. But Ryan and his fool project have started dragging me reluctantly back into the limelight, where there’s every chance my threadbare truth will be mercilessly spotlit.

  Every article mentions me. ‘He was married to self-help writer Stella Sweeney, with whom he has two children.’ ‘His ex-wife is the writer Stella Sweeney, who enjoyed international success with her inspirational book One Blink at a Time.’

  But nothing too revealing is said. For the moment. This might all wind down and go away.

  Very tentatively I switch on my phone – I’ve twenty-six missed calls. Instantly it starts ringing. I hold it away from me and, with one eye closed, I look at the screen – it’s Mum.

  ‘What?’ I ask. ‘Is it shopping day again?’ I could have sworn we’d gone very recently.

  ‘Your father wants to talk to you.’

  There’s some scuffling and static as the phone is handed over, then Dad’s voice says, ‘He’s on the telly.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That eejit, Ryan Sweeney. He’s says he’s giving all his stuff away. He’s on Ireland AM.’

  I grab the remote and, to my horror, Ryan is indeed on Ireland AM. He’s standing outside his house and chatting enthusiastically. ‘… because of the legalities some of my bigger possessions will be gifted in advance of Day Zero,’ he’s sayin
g. ‘The house you see here behind me, I’ve given it to a homeless charity. The paperwork’s being done by solicitors right now.’

  ‘Very worthy,’ the interviewer says. But she’s trying to hide a smirk. She thinks Ryan’s a nutter. ‘Now back to the studio.’

  ‘Don’t let it get to you, Dolly,’ Dad says. ‘He’s a tool. Always was, always will be. Do you want to come over and go up and down on the stairlift a few times?’

  08.56

  Jeffrey appears. ‘I’m going out,’ he says. ‘I’m going dancing.’

  ‘Dancing? Really?’ How … well … normal! How bizarrely normal!

  Then I realize that this is not normal at all. That, in fact, this is an extremely strange time of day to be going out dancing. Under my anxious interrogation, Jeffrey tells me he is not planning to go to a nightclub and drink until he falls over. No. He’s going to something called a ‘dance workshop’. Where he will ‘work out’ emotions.

  I gaze at him. I have an almost uncontrollable urge to snigger. I have to suck my tongue to hold it back. It takes every ounce of my strength.

  10.10

  My doorbell rings. I flatten myself against the bedroom wall and take a sneaky look, like a cowboy in a shoot-out. It’s not a journalist, it’s Ryan, and I’m happy to welcome him in because I’m prepared to bet that all this media coverage has shocked him back into sanity.

  ‘Come in, come in!’

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he says. ‘I’ve had a call from Saturday Night In.’

  Saturday Night In is an Irish institution: a chat show which was presented since the Stone Age by televisual dinosaur Maurice McNice – real name Maurice McNiece, but everyone called him Maurice McNice, even though I’d always found him to be spiteful and patronizing. But two short months ago, Maurice McNice keeled over and passed into the great green room in the sky, and the battle between Irish broadcasters to replace him was a hard-fought and bitter one. The microphone of power had eventually been won by the inhabitor of my dreams, Ned Mount.

  ‘And –’ I ask, cautiously.

  ‘The thing is, they want both of us on the show. You and me together.’

  ‘For what? For why?’

  ‘Because we have a story. Both of us. You and your books and me and my art.’

  ‘Ryan, we’re separated, we’re getting divorced – there is no story.’

  ‘You could do with some publicity.’

  ‘I couldn’t! I have nothing to promote. I’m trying to keep a low profile. I’m trying to put my life back together. The last thing I want is to go on national telly and tell everyone how bad it all is. And look at my belly!’ I’m practically shrieking. ‘How could anyone go on telly with this belly?’

  ‘They don’t want me on my own,’ he said. ‘I need you to do it.’

  I take a deep, deep breath. ‘Read my lips, Ryan.’ I enunciate the words clearly. ‘There is no way on earth I’m going on Saturday Night In.’

  ‘That was a long, complicated sentence,’ he says. ‘It’s a good job I’m not deaf because I wouldn’t have had a clue what you were saying.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not deaf. You heard what I said. I’m not doing it.’

  ‘You are incredibly selfish.’ He shakes his head, the way a very bad actor would, to convey contempt. ‘And judgemental. Totally rigid. You know what happens to the person who doesn’t bend, Stella? They break. And you wonder why your life has fallen apart? Well, you made it happen; you brought it all on yourself.’

  Holding his back ramrod straight, he says, ‘I’ll see myself out.’

  And even though I’m very, very upset, I reflect on the fact that I’ve never before heard a person say those words in real life.

  11.17

  I eat 100g of cottage cheese. It doesn’t uplift me the way, for example, 100g of milk chocolate would.

  12.09

  I sit at my keyboard and type the word ‘Arse’.

  12.19–15.57

  I cease typing and start meditating upon my life. Am I as judgemental and rigid as Ryan says? Are my current circumstances all my own fault? Or could I have done things differently?

  I don’t know … I try to not think about what happened because it’s simply too painful. At the time I’d decided on a clean break because I knew it was the only way I’d survive. I didn’t want doubts stirred up about whether I’d done the right thing. I did what I did at the time because I had no other choice.

  But what if it had been the wrong thing …?

  Oh, feck Ryan for opening this can of worms in my head!

  15.59

  I decide to go for a jog. Just a small one. To ease me back into exercise.

  16.17

  I find I am still sitting at my keyboard.

  But I’ve made a decision: I’m giving up on this book business. I can’t do it. I have nothing to say and I can’t bear the publicity end of things. However, I need a job. I need to earn money somehow. Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?

  … Well, I am a trained beautician.

  There! That’s the solution: I’m going back into the beauty game! You never forget those skills. It’s like riding a bike, right?

  17.28

  It’s not like riding a bike.

  I ring Karen and tell her of my plans and she says, ‘Ummhmmm. I seeeee. You can thread lady-sideburns?’

  ‘Well, no …’

  ‘You’re trained in medical pedicures?’

  ‘Well, no …’

  ‘You can do micro-needling? Mesotherapy?’

  ‘… No.’ I don’t even know what those last two are. ‘But I can wax, Karen, I can wax for Ireland.’

  ‘Waxing! Waxing went out with mullets. Here’s the truth, Stella. I wouldn’t give you a job. And I’m your sister. You stepped off the beauty treadmill – vol-un-tar-ily, I might add – and it’s going too fast for you to ever get back on.’

  17.37–19.53

  I sit with my head in my hands.

  19.59

  I gather up all the Jaffa Cakes and granola and other nice carby stuff in the house and throw it in the brown wheely bin, in the front garden. Then I bring out a bottle of washing-up liquid to squirt over it all so that there can be no possible temptation to retrieve anything. Mrs Next-Door-Who-Has-Never-Liked-Me appears out of nowhere. She thinks I’m jumped up. I am jumped up – it’s called social mobility.

  ‘The brown bin is only for food,’ she says. ‘You can’t put the packaging in the brown bin. That goes in the green bin.’

  I restrain myself from squirting the bottle of washing-up liquid all over her. I stomp back into the kitchen and come out in a pair of Marigolds, and grimly I put the packaging into the correct bin.

  ‘Happy now?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m never happy.’

  20.11

  At what time is it acceptable to go to bed? I suspect nothing short of 10 p.m. will do. Okay, I can wait until 10 p.m.

  20.14

  I go to bed. I am my own person. I can do as I please. I am not hidebound by the silly, bourgeois rules of our society.

  20.20–03.10

  I can’t sleep. I toss and turn for almost seven hours.

  03.11

  I go to sleep. I dream about Ned Mount. We’re on a train and we’re singing ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’ I have an unexpectedly melodic voice and he’s very good at doing the barking.

  ‘Getting better is easier if you actually want to get better.’

  Extract from One Blink at a Time

  ‘Stella?’ a voice asked. ‘Stella?’

  I opened my eyes. A woman was standing over me and smiling. ‘Hi, there. Sorry to wake you. I’m Rosemary Rozelaar.’

  And?

  ‘I’m your new neurologist.’

  I felt as if I’d had a hammer blow to my heart.

  Rosemary Rozelaar smiled again. ‘I’ve taken over from Dr Taylor.’

  Locked into my motionless body I stared at this woman with her bland, pleasant smile.

 
I hadn’t seen Mannix Taylor for ten days – not since that strange visit on Christmas night, when his wife had materialized.

  In theory, I shouldn’t have expected to see him – all but the most routine hospital care had been suspended until the first Monday in January. But he’d taken such a personal interest in my case that I felt the normal rules didn’t apply. And that business with his wife showing up on the ward was too weird. Everything felt strange, made ragged by the abrupt way he’d legged it, and some sort of explanation was needed.

  Each day in the dead zone between Christmas and New Year I’d been tense and expectant, and the more time that passed without Mannix Taylor appearing, the angrier I became. I spent long hours in my head practising all the different ways I’d ignore him when he eventually did show up.

  But he didn’t come. And now this woman was telling me that he wouldn’t be coming again.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I began blinking frantically.

  ‘Hold on,’ Rosemary said. ‘Dr Taylor has told me how you communicate by blinking. If you just bear with me, I’ll find something to write on.’

  She twisted around, looking for a piece of paper. She didn’t even know about the notebook in the sterilizer, and I couldn’t help but think that Mannix and I would already be six sentences in at this stage.

  My head was racing. Maybe Mannix had cut down on his hours? Maybe he’d had some tragedy and had to give up work entirely?

  But even then I knew.

  Rosemary had finally located a piece of paper and a pen and, with tortuous slowness, I managed to ask the question ‘WHY HAS HE GONE?’

  ‘Caseload,’ she said. But there was something shifty in her eyes. She wasn’t exactly lying because she didn’t know the full story. But she wasn’t exactly telling the truth either.

  ‘I’m a highly experienced neurologist,’ she said. ‘I share a practice with Dr Taylor. I can assure you, you’ll get the same quality of care from me as you did from him.’

  I wouldn’t. He had gone above and beyond the call of duty.

  ‘I NEED TO SPEAK TO HIM,’ I spelled out.

  ‘I’ll convey that to him.’ And, again, there was that look in her eyes, almost of pity: You haven’t gone and got a great big crush on our Mannix Taylor, have you?