'Are you sure you're OK? Do you want me to go with you, just for the beginning?'

'No, I'm fine, honestly. I don't think there'll be any problem. But I could do with your help tomorrow when I talk to Mum and Dad. Could you be around for that?'

'Of course.'

She got up and we embraced once more. To look at her, you wouldn't have thought she was about to explain to the former love of her life why she'd dumped him. You might have thought she was about to embark on some very exciting adventure.

So, after hearing what Jean had to say I was curious to know what Mike made of it. I left it a couple of days, and without saying anything to Jean, I stayed at work late one evening and called round to his office when I knew he'd be alone. He was staying at work quite late, these days. I hadn't phoned to tell him I was coming but when I arrived he seemed to have been expecting me. 'Kate,' he said. 'Kate,' he repeated, holding out his hands to me. 'I'm so sorry about the other night. I was deranged. I didn't know what I was saying.' His voice was soft and frayed at the edges.

'It's OK,' I told him. 'You were upset. We didn't take any notice. It's fine.'

'No,' he said, 'it's not fine. I had no right to treat you like that.'

His look was deeply intent.

'It's OK, really,' I a.s.sured him. I could see the lines round his eyes and the puffiness beneath. He was doing a good impression of everything having gone back to normal, but it was clear he was still quite rattled.

'Did Jean tell you about our chat?' he asked, with a smile approaching his usual self-possession.

'She told me bits. She said ye were very civilized.'

'Yes, we were. Especially Jean. I've seen her more agitated telling me there's no milk in the fridge.'

I laughed feebly. 'She said you were still a bit dazed but that you were essentially resigned to the whole thing. She said you could see where she was coming from.'

'Where she's coming from?' he mused. 'She's coming from one strange place.' He was shaking his head and laughing. 'She seems to think she's done me a favour. I can now go out and sleep with all the women I've been l.u.s.ting after for years. I can do unmentionably kinky things to them, I can father their children... Yes, indeed, Jean has it all worked out for me.'

'It's not as cynical as you're making it sound. I think she really believes she might have held you back.'

I didn't know if I was defending Jean or trying to pacify him.

'That's the funny thing,' he said then. 'I think so too. And the even funnier thing is that I do see where she's coming from.'

'Oh?'

'I don't mean I'm ready for... well... whatever it is, but the truth is that... maybe some time in the future, it might be nice to have... some options. Oh, f.u.c.k, I don't know what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that, yeah, some part of me realizes that this isn't entirely a bad thing.'

'Oh.'

'I'm sorry, Kate.'

'For what?'

'For everything. For having to listen to me, for having to listen to Jean. We're working things out, we're fine. You've got better things to be thinking about like your own marriage. We're just the idiots who f.u.c.ked it up.'

'She f.u.c.ked it up, not you.'

'No, no, I did too. Look... she's right, I'm not all that surprised. Now that I've calmed down, well, yeah, of course I saw it coming. I just never thought it would actually arrive.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, I'd known our marriage wasn't right for years. But, a.s.shole that I am, I thought I was being the big man and that I was protecting her. I mean, in the beginning, she depended on me. She really was a bit of a mess in those days. I suppose that was part of what I found so attractive in her. But it waned, you know? I mean, she was still needy, but I was finding it less attractive. But I felt that this was what I'd chosen and there was no backing out. So what if I'd fallen a little out of love with her? I'd learn to live with it. But I suppose I was actually being arrogant, believing she still needed me. That was why I was so shocked when it turned out that she didn't need me, after all.'

'Is that true?'

'That is the sorry truth of our fifteen-year marriage.'

'Is that what you told Jean?'

'Mostly. I didn't labour the bits about her being needy, but she knew it anyway. She's much more perceptive and self-aware than I'd thought.'

'Yeah, me too. We're getting on really well now.' me too. We're getting on really well now.'

'She told me.'

'It's weird.'

'Weird is not the word.'

We laughed. It was was weird, and it would probably get weirder. weird, and it would probably get weirder.

'Anyway,' he said, 'enough about me. How are you? How was your holiday? How's work?'

'Work is terrible. I think I want to pack it in.' I was surprised by my outburst. Had I been thinking this already or had it just occurred to me?

'OK, OK,' he said. 'Just how terrible? Are you in any... trouble?'

'Trouble? Oh, G.o.d, no. At least, I don't think so. No, I just hate it. I've always hated it. I can't pretend to be a solicitor any longer.'

'Right. Well, you've loads of options. You still have a very good degree, and your training and experience won't go to waste. There's a lot you could do within the law field.'

'But I'm so fed up of the law!'

'Well, in that case, you could go back to college for a year. Retrain.'

'At my age?'

'Of course. You're not over the hill yet. You just need to think about what you'd like to do.'

Mike was was so level-headed. He could make any problem seem clearer. so level-headed. He could make any problem seem clearer.

'Thanks, Mike. I'll do that. And listen,' I added, 'if you need anything... or you want to talk...'

'Thanks, Kate, but I'll be fine. You have your hands full looking after one half of this mess. Go home and take a rest.'

I went home, where I found Jean in the lotus position on the couch eating a tub of ice-cream and watching Emmerdale Emmerdale. Life seemed good.

9.

Whenever I wonder what makes Keith such a nice person, I have only to think of his parents. They are incredibly nice people. My parents are good people (though they have their flaws), but 'nice' isn't a word I would use to describe them. My mother is a sn.o.b and a bit highly strung and a desperate social climber (I do realize I'm like her in many ways). My father is an ambitious go-getter who loves his family utterly but isn't all that bothered about anybody else. Most people admire them, or are slightly in awe of them, or wish to compete with them, but I don't think anybody thinks they are nice.

Now, Keith's parents are are nice. Even as I use the word I know it's losing its meaning and that's an awful shame because it's a good word to describe a good thing. I've never underestimated the simple goodness of being nice. People who are genuinely nice who do nice things for people and say nice things about them and mean it are generally good people. And while sometimes they might not be the most exciting people in the world, they're better than most of the rest. nice. Even as I use the word I know it's losing its meaning and that's an awful shame because it's a good word to describe a good thing. I've never underestimated the simple goodness of being nice. People who are genuinely nice who do nice things for people and say nice things about them and mean it are generally good people. And while sometimes they might not be the most exciting people in the world, they're better than most of the rest.

Anyway, Keith's parents good people. We were at their house in Corbally one evening and his mother was excited that we had been invited to a Doheny family wedding. 'Of course, it's a late invite,' Irene explained. 'Breda's wedding's only three weeks away, Keith, but seeing as the family's so big, your aunt Nuala decided not to ask any of the cousins to the main wedding and invite all of them to the afters. That way no one would be left out. But now, you see,' she continued, sitting down beside us on the couch, 'it seems that a lot of the family that was to travel from America won't be able to make it. There's a dying uncle in Colorado, you see, and a very sick aunt in Utah and the families don't want to travel. You can understand that. And I think there's a conflict with some of the family on the other side, I don't know what it's about, but the numbers will be down there too. So the upshot of it all, anyway, is that Nuala has decided to ask the cousins to the full reception. I'm delighted. You can travel with us and we'll stay the night in the hotel. It'll be great altogether. Of course, that's if ye can go. Keith always has a devil of a time getting off work Kate, sure you know that, they work him far too hard out there in Shannon. And you're very busy too, Kate aren't lawyers always busy? But it would be really lovely if ye could come.'

She sat there looking as anxious as if she'd asked us to do something criminal, and could only expect an answer in the negative with a rap on the knuckles. Actually, I was enthralled by the whole idea. Having a very large, overbearing family myself, I was always curious about other people's. And, I guessed that Keith's family was large and overbearing in a different way from mine. 'We'd be absolutely thrilled to go, Irene,' I said. 'I'm dying to meet all the family.'

Keith was delighted that, for once, he didn't have to persuade me into it. He's very fond of his extended family even though he readily admits that half of them are a bit nuts. But isn't that the way with all families? And he's very, very fond of his parents, and very protective of them. His father is recently retired, having worked all of his life for CIe and then Iarnrod e ireann. He's a quiet man who likes to let his wife do the talking when the topic of conversation is in her arena and outside his, like family weddings, for example. But if sports or politics are on the agenda, he will argue with the best of them. His mother, I suppose, is a typical Irish mammy, adoring her two sons beyond anything in the world. They and her husband have been her whole life, and it's clear she's enjoyed every minute of it. Keith is very good to them, giving them generous presents and still spending a lot of time with them. They say that a girl should always watch the way a man treats his mother because he will eventually end up treating her like that. If it's true, I'll have a lovely life, if a little quiet.

Ever since our first meeting, after we'd got engaged, Irene and Tom had treated me as if I was already part of the family. Keith's older brother Kevin isn't married either, and they were getting a little worried that there wouldn't be any grandchildren. When I met them I was a little freaked out by how willing they were to believe that I was the girl of their son's dreams and that I would make him blissfully happy for the rest of his life. I didn't think I could take the responsibility. They were such nice people whatever I might end up doing to Keith, I couldn't hurt them. But they did what people like them always do: they put me at my ease and made me believe that everything would be all right. And each time I met them, I felt confident I could be a successful daughter-in-law.

Having established that we were going to the wedding, Keith's mother was now getting on with what she does best: serving tea and cakes. Every day Keith's parents drink leaf tea out of china cups, poured from a china teapot. Irene bakes a small brown loaf of bread or white scones every alternate day and a Victoria sponge at the weekend. If visitors are likely she might run to an apple tart or a spotted d.i.c.k. Not having grown up with home baking, I find it the most heavenly thing in the world. Today, Irene has made a bread and b.u.t.ter pudding, soaked in whiskey (the only place you'll find alcohol in Keith's house is in the baking), and served with hot custard made from scratch. Everyone should have a wife like Irene.

'Oh, that's marvellous, dear. We'll have a lovely time, won't we, Tom? I know Keith's been dying for you to meet the cousins. They had such fun growing up together and now they're scattered all over the place. It'll be great for everybody to get together again. I was talking to Nuala only last night, Kate, and she said she couldn't wait to meet you. They're all agog. And ye were so quick with everything Breda's been going out with Tony for nearly ten years. Of course, they were trying to buy a house for ages but the prices kept getting more and more ridiculous. Ye were so lucky, both of you, to have bought houses when ye did. When Keith was buying his in Clareview we thought it was an awful price didn't we, Tom? We didn't know how he could afford it but sure now look at the price of those houses. There was one in the paper last week and they wanted three hundred and fifty thousand for it! Now it was extended, all right, it would have been a lot bigger than Keith's, but three hundred and fifty thousand euros! I suppose you've found the same with your flat? It's on Hartstonge Street, isn't it?'

'That's right.'

'That's very central that whole part of town has opened up so much. When you're young it's great to be in the middle of everything. Do you find it can be noisy at night?'

'Not really,' I answered. 'I like a bit of noise, anyway.'

I was about to tell her how Keith and I sometimes hang out of the bedroom window at night, watching people pa.s.s by and earwigging on their conversations, and how sometimes, maybe if we're a little tipsy, we call out to them, then collapse into bed, weak with laughing. But I remembered that Keith's mother believes vehemently that Keith lives in his house and I live in mine, and while we might pay visits to each other, we sleep in our own beds. And that is how Keith wants to keep it. I used to be impatient with that sort of thing if a person is of age and living their own life away from their parents, they should be able to do as they please and not have to make up stories about it. I've always been brutally honest with my parents whether they liked it or not. (Well... maybe not always.) But Keith explained to me that it was simply a case of considering their feelings. They can't help the world they grew up in, or the strongly held beliefs they can't abandon because their son wants to get it on with his fiancee on a regular basis. They really believe that having s.e.x with someone before you're married is wrong. Well, as Keith reminded me, it's what the Pope believes too. I suppose, in a way, I'm a little envious of people who have a really strong faith. Sometimes I think I have more faith in my night cream than I do in anything else. Anyway, chast.i.ty was the story we were sticking with. In Keith's house. My parents were beyond thinking about it.

It was while Irene was wittering on like this that she said something rather startling: 'I was saying to Tom last night, when I got off the phone from Nuala,' she began, 'that we hadn't seen the two of you for ages. Isn't that right, Tom? I was trying to think was there any more news. Kevin was over earlier in the evening he called into us on his way home from the airport. He was in America for a couple of weeks, Kate, his work had him over there. He said he hardly saw the outside of the place the whole time he was there. He was in Seattle, Kate, that's where the headquarters of his company are. And the whole time they were indoors, working, or travelling to the other factories. Oh! He has a new girlfriend! Another new girlfriend. He always has new girlfriends, Kate. I never knew anyone like him for having new girlfriends all the time. And you won't believe who it is, Keith! It's a sister of Jacqueline Dunleavy, your Jacqueline. A younger sister. Would you believe that? Isn't it a small world, Kate? Oh, listen to me, I probably shouldn't be talking about old girlfriends, isn't it true, Kate, but I was so struck by the coincidence. Now, he said very little about her isn't that always the way with Kevin? but sure he was in good form anyway. Will I put a little hot water in the pot? Would you drink another cup, Tom?'

And off she went to the kitchen, leaving the rest of us behind, literally. Now, here was something to think about. Obviously I had no right to be getting on my high horse because Keith had some old girlfriend he'd never told me about. There was the odd dark chapter in my life that I'd never told him about, including the most recent one. We'd had the conversation of the exes, and while mine was highly edited and sanitized, I'd had no idea that his might have been too. To be honest, I wasn't that interested in Keith's old girlfriends. I believed him when he said that n.o.body had meant anything to him before me, that they were pale imitations, forgettable, inconsequential, but I didn't believe he would actually forget about one of them, not about his his Jacqueline. I looked at Keith, straight on, believing my face to bear the signs of a mild, bemused curiosity. Without catching my eye, he grabbed my hand, prised a piece of cake from it and whisked me out of the door. Jacqueline. I looked at Keith, straight on, believing my face to bear the signs of a mild, bemused curiosity. Without catching my eye, he grabbed my hand, prised a piece of cake from it and whisked me out of the door.

'We're just going for a walk,' he hollered. 'Back in a while.'

Mmm, now what did my Keith have to say for himself?

If he was feeling guilt or remorse, or whatever one feels in these situations, I didn't want him to feel it for too long. I began in a very airy tone: 'No... no... You definitely never told me about a Jacqueline. Fancy name, Jacqueline. You don't get that many around Limerick any more...'

He stopped us in our tracks we were only a couple of yards down the road and pulled me to him so I had to look him in the eye. 'You know there's nothing sinister in this, don't you? I'm not keeping anything terrible from you. She really is just an old girlfriend, no skeletons, no love children, no secret marriage.'

I hadn't thought it might be any of those things and now I was sorry he'd been so quick to put me straight. If I'd known this was the kind of mood he was in, I might have had a little more fun with him. 'Really, Keith? No skeletons, no love children, no secret marriage?'

'Please don't make fun of me. Yeah, when we talked about old relationships, I didn't tell you about Jacqueline. I should have I'm not even hiding anything, for G.o.d's sake. I just didn't feel like talking about her at the time.'

I didn't want to make fun of Keith. And he was only acting weird now because lying, or having lied, or even evading a little of the truth was so alien to him that he didn't know how to handle it.

'Just tell me about her,' I said.

'Well...' he paused '... I went out with her before you, but we were broken up nearly a year before I met you. We'd been together for about three years '

'Three years!' I interrupted.

'Please don't interrupt me.'

'OK.'

'We'd been going out about three years and, well, we were naturally drifting towards the inevitable. We were both over thirty, we seemed to be very steady, there was no reason why we wouldn't do what several of our friends had already done go and get married. But there's why I didn't tell you about her all around that time, before we broke up, I realized I'd been drifting and that I could continue, very easily, to drift into marriage with her. She was a nice girl, we had loads in common, we had good times together, but I knew, deep down, that I wasn't in love with her. You know? I suddenly thought, Well, this is it. She's the one. This is your life. And I didn't want it. I mean, I'd always been the sort of guy who knew he wanted to get married. I'd never seen the attraction in running around and sleeping with girls all over the place. I suppose it's part of the way I was brought up. That's probably why I let things with Jacqueline drift for so long. But when it came to it, I didn't see myself married to her, for good, because that's what it would have been.'

'Oh!'

'Yeah, and when it came to us talking about exes, I didn't want to remind myself, or admit to myself, how close I had come to something that wasn't right.'

'Was she mad as h.e.l.l?'

'Ahm, yes. Yes, she was.'

'Do you feel guilty?'

'Well, I know I did the right thing but, yeah, I was guilty of stringing her along, of not knowing my own mind. But as soon as I realized it, there was no way I could continue to go along with it. That would have been worse.'

'Does she hate you?'

'I don't know. She probably did for a while. We had endless sessions of thrashing it all out. It totally wrecked my head. But the bottom line was, she wanted to stay together and I didn't.'

'Right. I had no idea you had it in you.'

'Had what in me?'

'The ability to break up with someone like that. Pa.s.sion, I suppose. I had no idea you had that kind of pa.s.sion.'

'Well, I have. I have it for you, Kate. All my pa.s.sion is for you.'

I was taken aback. In fact, what he had told me was far more shocking than any love children might have been. It wasn't the Keith of my imagination. And it scared me. How wrong was I about him? How well did I know him? I liked to believe that he was partly my own creation, and of course that's not true. He is a man with all that pa.s.sion I never knew he had.

It's not an easy thing for a man to do break up with a woman who thinks she has a future with him. Some men won't do it and others do it so unsatisfactorily that the women never recover. Keith, it seems, had done it. Daniel O'Hanlon did it. But not very well. The woman is still in recovery.

Things with Daniel started to go wrong when I stopped believing that it was all a perfectly under-control adult entertainment being mutually enjoyed by two equally under-control adults. Things with Daniel went wrong when I started to believe we had a future together. Paris was the catalyst for everything. We were doomed before we ever got on our separate planes from separate cities in our separate lives. Daniel was already feeling the strain of dividing his life and I was feeling the strain of living half a life. I wanted more and he wanted less. It was that simple. In a perfect world we would have continued to see each other occasionally and pa.s.sionately. We would have loved being together and we would have had enough in between to love being apart. But the world, as we know, is flawed.

After my high-alt.i.tude crisis on that first day of our secret romantic tryst, we did go and get drunk. Or, at least, I did. Daniel's beyond that sort of adolescent behaviour. We holed up in a bar on the Left Bank while I drank very expensively for the rest of the afternoon. I don't remember the details very well (that's one of the nice things alcohol can do for you spare you the memory of your most embarra.s.sing moments) but the afternoon went along the lines of me telling Daniel how much I loved him and how we could be blissfully happy together if only he'd leave his wife, and him telling me that now was not the time to talk about it and of course he loved me but it wasn't as simple as that. I had become the thing he dreaded an out-of-control woman who could, at any moment, tip the finely balanced equilibrium of his life. I had transformed myself from an easy-going, self-contained, self-fulfilled libertine to a clingy, hysterical wannabe wife. I had really upset his day.

It was over that afternoon. It was only a matter of time before I realized it and he managed to say it out loud. We didn't have s.e.x again. When I was back home and I was left alone in my flat for the last time, one of the most heartbreaking things was that I couldn't remember the last time we had kissed truly pa.s.sionately, truly blissfully. One of the things he said to me was that I couldn't have expected more from him. I'd known his situation from the beginning. I must have understood it could never be more than it was. I hadn't expected more: I had discovered more, and discovered that I wanted it.

When we got back to the house Keith's mother had cleared away the afternoon tea-things and was wondering if we'd like a bit of cold meat and salad as there was plenty left over from lunch. We a.s.sured her that we were still full of bread-and-b.u.t.ter pudding and Victoria sponge and, anyway, we had to be getting back. I had a suit to iron and Keith needed to check on the house in Clareview. We said our goodbyes and Irene told us again how delighted she was that we were coming to Breda's wedding. Just as we were about to go out of the door Tom got up from his chair and strolled out to the car with us.

'Irene can talk too much at times,' he said, 'but she'd never mean any harm.' He spoke quietly and almost into my ear. His words were meant only for me.

'Oh, I know,' I said. 'There's no bother.'