The Woman Who Stole My Life Read online

  I’d give ten years of my life to be able to put on a pair of socks.

  ‘What’s this?’ I asked.

  The next page said:

  Instead of thinking, ‘Why me?’ I think, ‘Why not me?’

  I flipped to look at the cover, something I should have done straight away. The name of the book was One Blink at a Time and it was written by someone called Stella Sweeney.

  ‘Me?’ I was startled. ‘I wrote this? When?’

  ‘What? You wrote a book? You kept that to yourself.’

  ‘But I didn’t. Write a book, that is. Go to the front. See if there’s information.’

  ‘There’s an introduction.’

  Karen and I read it together.

  On 2 September 2010, Stella Sweeney, a mother of two, was admitted to hospital, experiencing fast-moving muscle paralysis. She was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare auto-immune disorder which attacks and disables the central nervous system. As every muscle group in her body, including her respiratory system, failed, she came close to death.

  A tracheotomy and a ventilator saved her life. However, for several months, the only way she could communicate was by blinking her eyelids. She was lonely, frightened and often in acute physical pain. But she never gave in to self-pity or anger, and throughout her hospitalization she remained positive and upbeat, even inspirational. This little book is a collection of some of the words of wisdom she communicated from her locked-in body, one blink at a time.

  ‘Jesus!’ Karen said, almost scornfully. ‘Is that you? It makes you sound like … Mother Teresa, or someone.’

  ‘Who did this? Who made it?’ I flicked through more of the pages, utterly astonished to see things I’d allegedly said.

  When is a yawn not a yawn? When it’s a miracle.

  I’d a vague memory of blinking that out to Mannix Taylor. And:

  Sometimes you get what you want and sometimes you get what you need and sometimes you get what you get.

  The only clue I could find was the name of the printers. I Googled their number and said to the woman who answered the phone, ‘I know this sounds odd, but can you tell me what you do?’

  ‘We’re a private publishing company.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The client gives us their manuscript; they choose the paper, the font, the size, the jacket illustration – everything is bespoke and to a very high quality – then we print it.’

  ‘And the client has to pay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There’s a book with my name on the cover but I didn’t order it.’ I was afraid I’d have to cough up for this and it looked terrifyingly expensive.

  ‘May I take your name? Stella Sweeney? Let me see.’ Clicking noises followed. ‘One Blink at a Time? The order was placed and paid for by a Dr Mannix Taylor. He took delivery of fifty volumes in September of last year.’

  ‘When you say “volumes” do you mean “books”?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why did I get them today?’

  ‘… I’m afraid I don’t know. I suggest you take that up with Dr Taylor.’

  ‘But I’m never speaking to him again.’

  ‘Perhaps you should revisit that decision,’ she said. ‘Because I can’t help you any further.’

  ‘So will the books be in the shops?’ I was a little excited.

  ‘We’re a private publishing house.’ She sounded prim, even defensive. ‘Our volumes are simply for our clients’ personal pleasure.’

  ‘I see.’ For a second there I’d thought I’d written a real book. The tiniest shadow of disappointment passed over me, then it moved on.

  ‘Thank you.’ I hung up. ‘Mannix Taylor is responsible,’ I said to Karen.

  ‘Well! Who knew you were that good in bed?’

  ‘I’m not. He got them done last September.’

  She stared hard at me. Her forehead would have furrowed if it hadn’t been injected into cowed submission. ‘He must … like you. Why?’

  ‘Because I’m positive and upbeat, even inspirational. Allegedly.’

  ‘I’m the inspirational one.’

  ‘I know. So …?’ I asked. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘I see your point. The recycling will cost a fortune, now that they’ve started to weigh the bins. Could you … I don’t know … keep them for birthday presents? Gradually offload them that way?’

  ‘I meant, what should I do about him?’

  Her mouth tightened. ‘Why are you asking me? You know what I think.’

  ‘But you said it yourself: he must like me.’

  ‘You’ve got two children. Your responsibility is to them.’

  ‘He told me he loved me.’

  ‘He doesn’t even know you.’

  Karen insisted our mobiles were powered off when we were ‘doing’ someone; it was professional-seeming, she said. But at twelve thirty, when Betsy and Jeffrey were on their lunch break at school, I didn’t have a client, so I switched my phone on to give them a quick ring. This was my campaign to win them back – to offer as much time as they needed as well as regular, non-guilting reminders of my love.

  I said a little prayer that their angry hearts might have softened and I could hardly believe it when Betsy answered. ‘Hi, Mom.’

  ‘Hi, sweetie! Just saying hello. How’s your day going?’

  ‘Good!’

  ‘Did you have lunch?’

  ‘Yes, Mom,’ she said gravely. ‘And I got dressed this morning, and put on my shoes.’

  ‘Very good! Hahaha! And you had breakfast?’

  ‘… Sorta. You know Dad. He’s a little domestically challenged.’

  This was not the time to start slagging off Ryan. Proceed with caution, I counselled myself. Keep it neutral. ‘Okay, well, call me if you need anything, if you want help with your homework, anything. Day or night.’

  ‘Okay. Love you, Mom.’

  Love you! This was an enormous leap forward.

  Buoyed by this, I immediately called Jeffrey.

  Oookaaay. Less of a leap forward. He was still refusing to talk to me. As was Ryan.

  But, ever hopeful, I took a quick look at my messages. And there were four voicemails. All from Mannix Taylor.

  I darted a fearful look over my shoulder – Karen would go ballistic if she caught me listening to them. Then a strange calm descended. I was a grown woman. Who only had one life. I was going to hear what he had to say and I’d take the consequences.

  I got a bit of a land when the phone then started to ring. And it was him: Mannix Taylor.

  Confidently, I touched the green light. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to answer.’

  ‘Well, there you go.’

  ‘Did you get the books?’

  ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘Meet me and I’ll tell you.’

  I had a think about it. ‘Meet you where? I’m not going to your apartment. I’m never going there again. And no, you can’t come to my house, don’t even ask.’

  ‘Well, how about –’

  ‘Fibber Magee’s for a pint and a toasted sandwich? No. Some fancy restaurant for an awkward conversation with all of the waiters earwigging? No. The Powerscourt Hotel where I’d bump into every person I’ve ever met? No.’

  He laughed softly. ‘There’s a holiday cottage in Wicklow, on the coast. I own it with my sisters. It’s only half an hour’s drive from Ferrytown – and before you ask, Georgie hasn’t been in years. She says it’s boring.’

  ‘So it’s okay to take me to a boring place?’

  After a pause, he said, ‘… You won’t be bored.’

  ‘And I won’t have to get a taxi home when you’re done with me?’

  Another long pause. ‘I won’t be done with you.’

  Following Mannix’s directions, I drove south with the rest of the evening rush-hour traffic. At Ashford I turned off the main road, then off a smaller road, then down a lo
ng, long boreen, passing fields of rough marram grass. Light was lingering in the evening sky – spring was coming.

  I could smell the sea and I crested a hill and suddenly there it was, heaving and swelling below me, pewter-coloured in the on-coming night.

  Down to the left, all alone, was an old, single-storey farmhouse, lit with welcoming yellow lamps. That must be the place.

  I drove through a gateway with dry-wall posts and up to a bright porch featuring some sun-bleached chairs and a couple of those eco-unfriendly heaters that everyone frowned on. (Although, to be honest, I never had any issue with them; I’d rather be warm.)

  Mannix was in the yard, carrying an armload of logs.

  He watched me as I parked and got out of the car.

  ‘Hi.’ He smiled.

  ‘Hi.’ I looked at him. Then I smiled too.

  ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘It’s cold out here.’

  Inside, everything was cosy in a rough-and-ready way. A fire was on the go in the grate, sending shadows jumping up the walls. Rugs were strewn across the wooden floor and two big shabby chenille couches sat facing each other. Fat cushions and throws in faded colours were dotted about the room.

  ‘It’ll be warm soon,’ he said. ‘The place heats up quickly.’

  He threw the logs into a box and walked under an archway, into the kitchen. On a long wooden table were two bottles of wine and an enormous bag from the Butler’s Pantry.

  ‘I got food,’ he said. ‘Dinner. I mean, I didn’t make it. I picked it up. We just need to put it in the oven. Red or white?’

  I hesitated. I didn’t know how this was going to go. What if I decided to drive home? What if Betsy or Jeffrey needed me? ‘Red.’

  You will be punished.

  I took a seat at the table and a glass of wine was put in front of me.

  ‘I’ll just sort out the white.’ He produced a bag of ice cubes and, with a tremendous rattle, emptied it into a metal ice bucket. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with the ice? Why’s it so loud?’

  Clearly he was as jumpy as me.

  While he was jamming the bottle of white wine into the bucket I took the copy of One Blink at a Time out of my bag.

  I waited until he had poured himself a glass of red and was seated opposite me.

  ‘So!’ I said, all business. ‘Tell me about this.’

  ‘Right!’ he said, equally businesslike. ‘I was just giving your own words back to you. In hospital, remember the conversations we had? When you blinked stuff and I wrote it down? Well, I kept the notebooks.’

  ‘Notebooks? Plural? How many?’

  ‘Seven.’

  I found that astonishing. I’d never even noticed one notebook filling up and being replaced by another. All I’d been concerned with, at the time, was making myself understood.

  ‘Why did you keep them?’

  ‘Because … I thought you were brave.’

  Oh. I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t been bred for praise.

  ‘You didn’t know how sick you were. You didn’t know that almost no one thought you’d recover.’

  ‘God.’ Maybe it was a good job I hadn’t known.

  ‘And after we started doing the Wisdom of the Day thing? You said a lot that was wise.’

  ‘Ah, no, I didn’t,’ I said, automatically.

  ‘I used to read them, when I knew Georgie was never going to have a baby and that she and I weren’t going to make it, and they made me feel …’ He shrugged. ‘You know? They made the … sorrow, if that’s the right word, feel smaller.’

  ‘But why get them made into a book?’

  ‘Because … I wanted to.’

  That was him in a nutshell: because he wanted to.

  ‘Roland put the idea in my head,’ he said. ‘After he came out of rehab, he wrote a book about his dissolute life. No one would publish it, so he contacted these people. Then he realized that it mightn’t be the best idea to put himself further into debt by publishing a book about owing a fortune. But it made me think about your stuff. It gave me something to focus on, choosing the paper and the script and all. I hoped I’d be able to give it to you sometime.’

  ‘Did you do it before or after you and Georgie had split up?’

  ‘… Before.’

  ‘That’s not good.’

  ‘It’s not good. Which is why it’s no surprise that Georgie and I are getting divorced.’

  Okay. Next item of business. ‘Why didn’t you come after me?’ I asked. ‘The other night?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I’d been asleep and I’d just woken up. I was trying to show that I’m cool with you having kids, and the next thing a shoe is being thrown at my head.’ He leaned towards me and said, with intensity, ‘I got it wrong. I called and explained. I was sorry. I rang you eight times.’

  I nodded. He had.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ he asked.

  I was startled. ‘Are you kidding?’

  ‘No. I apologized. I held my hands up. There was nothing more I could do. So why didn’t you ring me?’

  Why didn’t I ring him? ‘Because I have pride.’

  ‘A lot of it.’ He gave me a long, long look. ‘We’re very different, you and I.’

  ‘Is that going to be a problem?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  A cracking noise made us both jump. It was the ice in the ice bucket melting and it broke the tension.

  ‘Do you have a blindfold?’ I asked, suddenly.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘I’m here … we might as well have fun.’

  ‘What do you … Why a blindfold?’

  ‘I’ve never done it. I’ve never been tied up either.’

  ‘… Haven’t you?’ All kinds of emotions were moving behind his eyes – caution and curiosity. And interest. ‘Ever?’

  ‘Ryan was fairly … vanilla,’ I said.

  Mannix laughed. ‘And you’re not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never bothered to find out. And now I want to.’

  He stood up and grasped my wrist. ‘Come on, then.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’ I grabbed my bag and he hurried me down a wooden-floored hallway.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘that you’ll change your mind.’

  He opened the door to a room and looked in, as if assessing it for its tying-up possibilities. I pushed the door further – it was a bedroom, which was lit by a dozen or so fat white candles. Flames flickered and reflected off the brass poles of the bed and the duvet was almost completely hidden by a thick layer of dark-red rose petals.

  I didn’t know whether to be offended or flattered. ‘You fancied your chances.’

  He looked like he was trying to come up with a plausible lie, then he shrugged and laughed. ‘Yeah. I did.’

  Hungrily, we kissed, and he steered me across the room. I fumbled at his shirt buttons and managed to open three, then the bed hit the back of my knees and I tumbled onto the mattress, pulling him on top of me. Petals flew everywhere and the smell of roses filled the air.

  He straddled my hips and slid his hands over my fitted shirt, inserting his finger in the gaps between buttons and rubbing until, one by one, they popped open. I was wearing a black front-opening bra and slowly, almost experimentally, he snapped the clasp and my boobs spilled out, looking pearly white in the candlelight.

  ‘God.’ He stopped in his tracks.

  ‘Okay?’ I could hardly breathe.

  He nodded, his eyes gleaming. ‘Very okay.’

  Quickly he undid the last two buttons of his shirt and threw it off. Then he whipped his belt through the loops of his jeans and pulled it taut between his two hands. He looked at me, as if he was trying to decide something.

  Was he …?

  ‘You want to try?’ With lightning speed, he turned me over, rolled up my skirt and flicked my bum with the tip of the belt. It hurt.

  ‘Stop! I’m vanilla, I’m vanilla!’ I was shrieking with excitement and glee, and he
collapsed onto me, laughing his head off.

  ‘Okay, we won’t do that again.’ He pulled me to him, his eyes sparkling. ‘But you want to be tied up?’

  ‘No. Yes. I don’t know!’

  ‘Right.’ He positioned me in the centre of the bed, stretched my arms above my head, then wrapped his belt around my wrists and fastened it to a bar in the headboard. In the candlelight, he was a picture of concentration as he checked it was secure.

  ‘Should we have a “word”?’ I was suddenly anxious. ‘If I want to stop?’

  That made him laugh once more.

  ‘Don’t mock me.’ I felt wounded.

  ‘I’m not. You’re … sweet. Okay. How about “No”?’ He quirked an eyebrow. ‘Or “Stop”?’

  Uncertainly, I watched him.

  ‘Just say, “Stop, Mannix”,’ he said. ‘And I’ll stop.’

  He started to fold his shirt.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I don’t have a blindfold handy,’ he said. ‘I’m improvising.’

  He kept doubling the shirt over on itself until it was an impressively neat strip.

  ‘Okay?’ He held it above my face.

  I swallowed. ‘Okay.’

  He lay it across my eyes and fixed it in a knot, tight enough to generate a twinge of fear.

  ‘Can you breathe?’

  I nodded. Instead of roses, all I could smell was him.

  I felt his hands working, easing my skirt off, followed by my knickers. A door creaked open – I guessed it was the wardrobe – then something cool and silky was slid and knotted around one ankle; I was fairly sure it was a tie. There was a tug that went all the way to my hip socket, then I couldn’t move my leg. The same happened on the other side and suddenly I was stretched and immobile. It was hardly a surprise, but yet it was. I gave an experimental pull on my hands and again felt that little thrill of fear. I’d asked for this and now I wasn’t sure.

  The room was silent. I couldn’t hear him. Had he left? My anxiety went up a couple of notches. I could be abandoned in this remote house – no one knew I was here and …

  Unexpectedly his weight pressed down on me and his breath was hot in my ear. ‘You will enjoy this,’ he whispered. ‘I promise you.’