Page 90 of To Hell With It
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As promised Mairéad’s challenges came through shortly after our call and my eyes almost fell out of my head. There was just no way. But then a rush of relief followed as I read her side note that said,just do your best, your best is good enough.
Catch a bus – sit next to someone even if there are spaces!!
Go to the cinema and use the toilet – sit on the seat!
Have a meal out and don’t wipe the cutlery.
Don’t sanitise after you’ve bought something.
Don’t have a shower if someone sneezes.
If you have an intrusive thought while climbing stairs, keep climbing them – DO NOT START AGAIN.
Only check locks, doors and windows ONCE.
NO I LOVE YOUS.
Go out, get drunk, have some fun!!
A taxi happened to pull up opposite me and in a flash moment I made the decision I was going to get in it over catching the bus. I might as well spend my money on being driven around, Mairéad would never know, and anyway, I’d start her challenges in the morning (and do my best) once I’d cleared my head (if that would ever be possible). I jumped in the taxi. I sayjumped. I didn’t jump in at all, and I think you probably know that. It was more of a slow, long, step sideways, carefully manoeuvring myself inside so as not to touch the door or the frame of the car with my head, which was surprisingly difficult. Not because I have a big head, by the way, but because of my position.
‘You all right, love?’ the taxi driver asked me in an English accent. ‘Do you need a hand?’
He must have thought I had some sort of injury the way I was slowly climbing in, all twisted and distorted.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said as breezily as I could. ‘Can I go to Omanu Beach, please?’
‘You’re Irish?’ he said as if I hadn’t just asked him a question. ‘My ex was Irish,’ he added, and I spent the next twenty minutes looking out of the window, while Mitch (that was his name) told me all aboutBloody Noraand how she’d broken his heart. Twice.
ChapterForty-Four
By the time I’d reached Omanu Beach and said goodbye to Mitch, and what felt like Nora too, I was well and truly ready to get out and empty my brain. I’d never heard a man go on about a woman as much as Mitch had gone on aboutBloody Nora,and by the end of it, I felt like cursing her too.
The car park was small and sheltered by dunes covered with reeds that grew tall and thick behind it. There was a toilet block and cold shower on one side and some steps made out of driftwood that led down to the beach at the other, just as Bunty had described it. I stood there for a moment and pictured where she might have parked her van every night before venturing off in the mornings for her runs and naked swims.
Then I took off my sandals and made my way down the driftwood steps to the beach, counting each one as I went.
‘One, two, three, four … Jack’s penis, no, Mr O’Callaghan’s, no, ugh, fuck, trees, trees, trees. One, two, three, four, five … Jack and Emily having sex … six, seven, trees, trees, trees, breathe, trees, trees, trees, eight.’ I took the last step onto the sand and let it sink between my toes.
The beach stretched long and wide and I couldn’t see where it began and where it ended so I just started walking in the direction I imagined Bunty would have. In a strange way, I felt like she was there with me, which was nice because I didn’t feel like being alone.
The beach wasn’t empty. I’d passed a couple of people going in the opposite direction, one man running with his dog and an older woman having a conversation with what looked like herself, which was fine because I did that all the time too.
I couldn’t walk far with my bag – I’d contemplated leaving it on the beach but then what would I do if someone else decided to steal from me? I put it down on the sand, plonked myself next to it and waited for the dolphins to make an appearance. Then my phone buzzed in my pocket and when I pulled it out, I could see Jack’s name flashing back at me.
He was calling me. Jack was calling me. Jack had never called me. What did this mean? Did he want to apologise? Did he want to explain himself? Perhaps there was some explanation that would explain it all – like maybe they’d been separated for a while, at least while he was in Ireland, and he wanted to leave her but hadn’t ended things until he’d got back – after he’d met me. Maybe, possibly, probably, I could forgive him for that.
I answered the call.
‘What the hell have you done?’ His words slapped me in the face and right then all my maybes, possiblys and probablys disappeared.
‘I … I think it’s more what haveyoudone?’ I said, far too politely.
‘I can’t believe this.’ He sounded shocked.
‘What did you expect, Jack? We spent a weekend together and you asked me to come to New Zealand.’
