The Woman Who Stole My Life Read online

  She turned her attention to a computer printout. ‘So I see that movement is returning to several of your muscle groups,’ she read. ‘Why don’t you show me what you can do and we can use that as a platform to build on.’

  I shut my eyes and folded myself deep inside my head.

  ‘Stella. Stella? Can you hear me?’

  Not today.

  I was incredibly depressed. I couldn’t figure out exactly what had gone on with Mannix Taylor and me, but I felt rejected and humiliated on an epic scale.

  Days passed and Rosemary Rozelaar dutifully visited, but she never mentioned Mannix and I resolved to never ask about him again.

  Soon Rosemary began to express dismay at how my recovery had slowed down. ‘On your chart it shows you were doing very well before Christmas.’

  Was I?

  ‘You’re going to have to work at this, Stella,’ she said, quite sternly.

  Am I?

  ‘Is there anything you’d like to ask me, Stella?’ She had her pen poised over a sheet of paper but I refused to blink. There was only one question I wanted the answer to; I’d already asked it of her and I wasn’t going to mortify myself by asking again.

  Later that day, Karen came to visit. ‘Wait till you see who’s in RSVP!’ She shoved a magazine in front of my face and there was a photo of Mannix Taylor (41) and his lovely wife, Georgie (38), at some New Year’s Eve ball.

  Mannix was wearing a black dicky bow and looked like a man facing a firing squad.

  ‘Happy little bunny, isn’t he?’ Karen said. ‘You never told me his wife was Georgie Taylor.’

  That’s because:

  A) I am mute,

  B) I didn’t know Georgie Taylor was ‘someone’.

  Karen had never actually met Georgie Taylor but she knew everything about anyone worth knowing and, to my shame, I was ravenous for information.

  ‘She owns Tilt,’ Karen said.

  Tilt was a boutique specializing in those odd asymmetrical Belgian designers. I’d gone there once and tried on an enormous, cripplingly expensive, lopsided coat made of grey carpet underlay. The sleeves had been attached with giant staples. I’d stared at myself in the mirror, desperately trying to love the coat, but I’d looked like an extra from a medieval drama which featured lots of stumpy-looking peasants who had walked long distances on bad roads.

  ‘Fabulous-looking, isn’t she?’ Karen ran her professional eye over the photo. ‘Eye-lift, jaw-lift, Botox round the eyes, fillers in the marionette lines. Not much. A natural beauty. No kids,’ she added, meaningfully.

  I already knew that.

  ‘They’re that type, you know,’ she said. ‘Kids would interfere with their skiing in Val d’Isère and their last-minute weekends in Marrakech.’

  I said nothing. Because obviously I was unable to. But it struck me how little we know about people. How we so often buy the surface story they sell us.

  ‘And she’s not thirty-eight, she’s forty.’

  I knew that but how on God’s earth did Karen?

  ‘Enda’s sister works in the passport office. She saw Georgie’s application for her new passport. Saw that she’s really forty even though she’s going round town telling everyone she’s thirty-eight. Fair enough, we all lie about our age.’

  I managed to ask Karen how long the Taylors had been married.

  ‘I don’t exactly know,’ she said, turning information over in her head. ‘A good while. It’s not a recent thing. Seven years? Eight? At a guess, I’d say eight.’ Suddenly she narrowed her eyes. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  Just making conversation …

  Her face cleared, then she looked almost angry. ‘You fancy him.’

  I don’t.

  ‘You’d better not,’ she said. ‘You’ve got a good husband, who’s killing himself to keep everything going. You know he went out to buy tampons for Betsy?’

  Christ. Would I never hear the end of how Ryan had gone out to buy tampons for Betsy? It had become like a tale from Irish mythology. Great deeds done by Irish men: Brian Boru fighting the Battle of Clontarf; Padraig Pearse reading the Proclamation of Irish Independence on the steps of the GPO; Ryan Sweeney buying tampons for his daughter, Betsy.

  And here came the mythological hero himself.

  ‘Hi, Ryan,’ Karen said. ‘Here, have my chair. I’ll go now.’

  Ryan sat down. ‘Fecking January. It’s freezing out there. You’re lucky to be here in the warm all the time.’

  Lucky? Am I?

  ‘So you’ll be wanting news, I suppose,’ he said. ‘Well, the tiles for the hotel in Carlow still haven’t left Italy. Can you believe it? Oh,’ he said, suddenly remembering something. ‘I went to that place last night.’

  What place?

  ‘You know, Samphire, the restaurant you gave me the voucher for. I went with Clarissa. A quick bite after work. God, talk about overrated.’

  Anger roiled in my gut. You selfish prick, I thought. You selfish, selfish prick.

  Friday, 6 June

  06.01

  I wake up and I want to die – I’m in carb-withdrawal. I’ve been here before and it’s horrible. I have no energy and I have no hope. Down in the kitchen is 100g of cottage cheese that I am entitled to for my breakfast but I can’t be bothered.

  Instead, I pick up my iPad and peruse the Ryan situation. He’s posted hundreds of items for his giveaway and his four video blogs have been watched hundreds of thousands of times. The media coverage is worldwide and every piece is positive. There’s talk of ‘the New Altruism’ and ‘Altruism in a time of Austerity’.

  09.28

  I’m in the kitchen, gazing at a small bowl of cottage cheese and trying to muster the will to eat it, when the doorbell rings.

  I tiptoe into the front room and take my sneaky cowboy-in-a-shoot-out look out of the window and almost collapse when I see that it’s Ned Mount. From the telly. From Saturday Night In. Ryan must have put him up to this!

  And yet I open the door. Because I think warmly of him. He’d interviewed me on the radio when One Blink at a Time came out and he was generous and kind. And he’d given me a water filter. Although, actually, I’d only dreamed that, hadn’t I …?

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Ned Mount.’ He sticks out his hand.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.’

  ‘Of course I remember you.’ I have a wobbly moment when I fear I’m going to tell him about my dreams. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Would that be okay?’ He’s twinkly eyed and smiley. Because that’s his job, I remind myself.

  In the kitchen, I make a pot of tea. ‘I’d offer you a biscuit,’ I say. ‘But I’m doing a carb-free thing and I had to clear the house of nice stuff. Would you like some cottage cheese?’

  ‘I don’t know … Would I?’

  ‘No,’ I admit. ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘So you’re back living in Dublin,’ he says. ‘I thought we’d lost you to the States.’

  ‘Well.’ I squirm. ‘Between one thing and another … Anyway, I’m guessing you haven’t just dropped in for a bowl of cottage cheese.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He nods, almost regretfully. ‘Stella …’ His look is sincere. ‘What can I do to persuade you to come on the show with Ryan tomorrow night?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Please. I can’t do it. I can’t go on telly. Everything’s too –’

  ‘… Too?’ he prompts, his eyes kind.

  ‘I can’t sit there and pretend everything is good … when everything is bad.’

  I’ve said too much. Ned Mount’s antennae are on the alert and I’m on the verge of tears.

  ‘Look.’ I try to regain control. ‘I don’t think Ryan is doing the right thing. I’m worried about him. I think he’s having a breakdown or something.’

  ‘So come on the show and say that.’

  I take a moment to reflect on how utterly shameless they are, media people. No matter what way you try to wriggle off the
hook, they always manage to shove you back on it again.

  ‘You’d get your say,’ he says. ‘I’m sure lots of people would agree with you.’

  ‘They wouldn’t. I’d be the most hated person in Ireland. Ned, I just want a quiet life.’

  ‘Until the next time you have a book to promote?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I really am.’

  I’m distracted by a strange lurching sound in the hall. It’s Jeffrey. He bursts into the kitchen, looking wildly dishevelled. His gaze flicks from me to Ned Mount but he doesn’t seem to be actually registering either of us. ‘I danced non-stop for twenty-two hours.’ His voice is hoarse. ‘I saw the face of God.’

  ‘Go on.’ Ned Mount leans forward with interest. ‘And what was it like?’

  ‘Hairy. Really hairy. I’m going to bed.’ Jeffrey departs.

  ‘Who was that?’ Ned Mount asks.

  ‘No one.’ I feel intensely protective of Jeffrey.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  We stare each other out.

  ‘Okay.’ I give in. ‘He’s my son. He’s Ryan’s son. But, please, Ned, don’t try to make him go on the telly. He’s only young and a bit …’

  ‘… A bit …’

  ‘… A bit, well, into yoga and … vulnerable. Just leave him alone. Please.’

  13.22

  In their weekly online poll, Steller magazine have voted Ryan Sweeney the sexiest man in Ireland. There’s a photo of him looking like Tom Ford’s less handsome brother. Interestingly, in at number nine, also a new entry, is Ned Mount.

  ‘You can flirt with danger but you can pull back from the brink.’

  Extract from One Blink at a Time

  Mannix Taylor never came back and I stayed horribly angry with him. He was the one who had complained about the hospital system being inhumane, but he’d abandoned me. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

  As the days went by, Rosemary Rozelaar was in despair at how my progress had stalled. Eventually my condition became such a worry that even the elusive Dr Montgomery visited to deliver a rousing speech. ‘What did I say the first day I saw you?’ he demanded of me. ‘I said, “Keep her going there, Patsy.” Come on! Don’t fall at the final hurdle! Keep her going there, Patsy!’ He swept his arm out to encompass his retinue and the nurses and Ryan, who happened to be visiting. ‘Come on, lads. Say it with me. “Keep her going there, Patsy.”’

  Dr Montgomery and goofy Dr de Groot and all the ICU nurses chanted, ‘Keep her going there, Patsy.’

  ‘Louder,’ Dr Montgomery said. ‘Come on, Mr Sweeney, you’ve to say it too.’

  ‘Keep her going there, Patsy!’

  Dr Montgomery cupped a hand around his ear. ‘I can’t hear ye.’

  ‘Keep her going there, Patsy!’

  ‘Louder!’

  ‘KEEP HER GOING THERE, PATSY!’

  ‘Once more for luck!’

  ‘KEEP HER GOING THERE, PATSY!’

  ‘Good.’ Dr Montgomery beamed. ‘Good. That should do the trick. Lord, would you look at the time. The fairway beckons! God bless!’

  I turned my gaze inwards. My name was not Patsy and I would not be keeping anything going. Not here, not there, not anywhere.

  On 15 February everything changed: I suddenly decided to get better. Ryan had given me nothing for Valentine’s Day, not even a card, and I saw, with chilling clarity, how my life was slipping away. Ryan was bored with me being sick and so were the kids, and, if I didn’t rally soon, there would be nothing left to return to.

  And there was something else – I wanted to get out of hospital, away from the system and the illness which had made me vulnerable to whatever strange stuff had gone on with Mannix Taylor. I knew that when I was better he would no longer have any power over me.

  I took charge of my recovery and, almost overnight, my improvement began. I started blinking instructions all day long and my new steeliness must have been evident because everyone obeyed me. I requested and got strong painkillers when my freshly covered nerves started itching and burning. I alerted Rosemary Rozelaar to each new twitch in my muscles and insisted that a physiotherapist come every afternoon to help me to exercise. In the evenings, when the physio left, I kept at it, flexing and squeezing my muscles until they gave up with exhaustion.

  The hospital staff had no other case to compare me against but, still, I knew they were amazed by my sudden steep recovery arc.

  By early April, the muscles of my ribs and chest were strong enough for me to be taken off the ventilator, first for five seconds at a time, then ten seconds, then whole minutes. Within three weeks I was breathing unaided and I was moved from intensive care to a regular ward.

  In May, I stood up and walked a step. Soon I was moving around, first in a wheelchair, then with a frame, then with a single crutch.

  Another massive milestone was the return of my voice. ‘Imagine if you started talking all posh,’ Karen said. ‘Like the way people’s hair grows back totally differently after chemo? What if you sounded like something out of Downton Abbey. Wouldn’t that be gas?’

  The last muscles to recover were the ones in my fingers, and the first text I sent felt like a miracle.

  By late July, I was deemed well enough to go home and a small army of staff turned up to wave me off – Dr Montgomery, Dr de Groot, Rosemary Rozelaar and countless nurses, porters and aides. I scanned the faces, wondering if he might appear. There was no sign of him, but by then I’d made peace with it.

  Something weird had happened between us, I was able to acknowledge. There had been some connection – in fact there had been ever since the car crash. In the aftermath of the collision, we’d had a few seconds of communicating almost psychically.

  It was natural that I’d got a little crush on him – I was vulnerable and he was my noble guardian. As for him, he was carrying some heavy burdens and the project of curing me had given him a focus.

  He’d done the right thing by cutting me dead. I was committed to Ryan and my family, and clearly Mannix was committed to his wife.

  Things in life, relationships, they don’t ‘just happen’. You can flirt with danger, you can test the edge of your marriage, and you can pull back from the brink. You get a choice; he’d made that choice and I respected him for it.

  On 28 July, almost eleven months since the tingling had first begun, I saw my bedroom again. I’d missed a whole academic year in my children’s life, but I resolved to not be sad. The only way to do this was to slot back as quickly as possible into my life, to be the best wife and mother and beautician that I could be. So I did, and I forgot all about Mannix Taylor.

  Monday, 9 June

  07.38

  I wake up and I can hear the telly on in the sitting room. Jeffrey must be up. Assailed with dread, I go downstairs and sit beside him on the couch.

  ‘It’s started already,’ he says, tonelessly.

  Ireland AM is on and Alan Hughes is reporting from Ryan’s street.

  ‘I’m live from Ryan Sweeney’s Day Zero.’ Alan Hughes is almost shouting with excitement.

  Day Zero actually started last night – a few early birds came in vans and slept overnight outside Ryan’s house. It’s like the first day of the sales.

  Alan is interviewing some of the hopefuls and asking what they have their eye on. ‘His kitchen table,’ one woman says. Another says, ‘His clothes. He’s the same size as my boyfriend. He’s up in court a lot for petty crime, so he could do with some nice suits.’

  In the background is a cordon of police in high-viz jackets. After Ryan’s dazzling appearance on Saturday Night In – yes, in the end the interview went ahead without me – the authorities realized that this thing had the potential to turn into a stampede. So ground rules have been laid down: people will be admitted in batches of ten, they will be permitted to stay in the house for a mere fifteen minutes and allowed to take only what they can physically carry.

  ‘The atmosphere here is very festive!’ Behind Alan Hughes’s
head, three men are passing, a king-size mattress hoisted onto their shoulders. ‘Hello there, gentlemen. I see you got yourselves a bed.’

  ‘We did, we did!’ The men lean in to talk into Alan’s microphone. But the mattress is heavy and wobbly and, because the men have ceased their steady forward propulsion, it starts flipping and flopping and then topples to one side, knocking Alan Hughes over and pinning him to the ground.

  That bit is funny.

  07.45

  ‘I’m Alan Hughes, reporting live from under Ryan Sweeney’s mattress.’

  We can hear him, but we can’t see him.

  ‘This is horrific.’ Jeffrey makes a low moaning noise.

  ‘One, two, three, HEAVE!’ Several men work together to lift the mattress up onto its side and to free Alan Hughes and his microphone.

  Alan Hughes gets to his feet, looking tousle-haired but in good form. ‘That was gas,’ he says. ‘Has anyone a comb?’

  ‘Jeffrey,’ I say, ‘I had a very difficult labour with you.’

  Jeffrey is silent, but his mouth goes tight.

  ‘It was agony, so it was.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It was long; it was twenty-nine hours –’

  ‘– and they wouldn’t give you an epidural,’ he says. ‘I know. What do you want?’

  ‘Go to the Spar and buy me some Jaffa Cakes.’

  I will start my protein thing again tomorrow. But today? Today is impossible.

  08.03–17.01

  Jeffrey and I keep vigil as, all day long, various radio and TV stations cross live to Project Karma. Now and again, Ryan himself appears, full of smiles and saying how delighted he is with how it’s all going. Sometimes the interviewers praise him; sometimes they can barely hide how insane they think he is.

  It is mortifying, depressing and actually very boring. And gets more boring as the day goes on and people emerge with smaller and crappier things: tarnished spoons; decommissioned mobile phones; keys to garden sheds that no longer exist.