CHAPTER SEVEN

      That weekend, Lizzie couldn’t resist the roses at the Saturday market. Their velvety crimson petals were just beginning to unfurl and she thought how beautiful they’d look in the old crystal vase standing on the polished hall table. Throwing caution to the wind, she bought two bunches and was rushing down Main Street to her car, face framed with the fat bouquets, when Mrs Hegarty, one of the surgery’s most constant visitors, appeared from the post office.

      ‘Oh, Lizzie, what beautiful flowers,’ cooed the old lady.

      ‘Aren’t they?’ said Lizzie, admiring them. They didn’t smell, not like her own roses, but those wouldn’t be out for ages and there was something so nice about coming home to that flush of rosy colour.

      ‘From someone special, I hope?’ continued Mrs Hegarty.

      Lizzie grinned. ‘You could say that,’ she joked, but before she could point out that the someone special was herself, Mrs Hegarty had taken a wild leap to the wrong conclusion.

      Her tiny wrinkled face, round as a crab apple, softened. ‘Ah, dear Myles. Give him our regards. It’s lovely the way you two meet up and stay such friends.’ Mrs Hegarty’s sloe eyes twinkled. ‘We’re all always hoping that you pair will see sense and get back together again.’

      ‘Well, I am going to meet him,’ began Lizzie because Myles had asked to see her urgently, and for once he hadn’t said what it was about. They didn’t meet that often, although they spoke on the phone about the kids, but today’s meeting sounded different. What had he said? ‘I’ve something I need to talk to you about.’

      But Mrs Hegarty’s mind had moved on to the absorbing subject of her husband’s varicose veins.

      ‘They’re at him again and he’s tormented with them. I said, if only you’d wear support stockings, Liam, I said, you’d be fine, but oh no, men don’t wear them, he said. So I said…’

      Mrs Hegarty’s monologue went on and Lizzie waited patiently. Some of the people in Dunmore considered her on a par with the doctor, as if all Dr Morgan’s years of medical training had somehow rubbed off and Lizzie was perfectly able to diagnose all manner of illnesses.

      ‘He should call in to the surgery,’ Lizzie said, as she always did. ‘I should rush, Mrs Hegarty, I’ll be late.’

      ‘Ah.’ Mrs Hegarty was all smiles at the thought of Lizzie rushing to see her ex. What with that and the confusion over the flowers, it would be all over town that the Shanahans were getting back together. Lizzie sighed. Chinese whispers was Dunmore’s favourite occupation. But she was smiling as she bade Mrs Hegarty a fond goodbye.

      As she drove out of town with the ancient Golf clanking gears noisily, Lizzie’s eyes were drawn to the bouquet lying on the passenger seat. Myles had never been much of a man for flowers. He liked to buy either practical presents or gift vouchers.

      ‘What’s the point in me buying you a fleet of things you don’t need,’ he’d smile, ‘when I can get you a voucher and you’ll pick out what you really want?’

      It had made perfect sense to Lizzie. Men hated shopping. The world and his wife knew that.

      In a small Italian coffee shop scented with amaretti biscuits and freshly crushed coffee beans, Myles waited for Lizzie. He’d attempted to speed through the crossword but he was just too nervous. Throwing the paper down on the seat beside him, he fiddled with his Palm Pilot, counting how many months there were until Debra’s wedding. Three and a half. Three and a half months to sort it all out and hope the whole family could come to terms with his news.

      He hadn’t planned for it to happen. Well, who’d have thought it would? Certainly not Myles. When he and Lizzie had split up, he hadn’t thought he’d meet anyone else. That hadn’t been on his radar at all and it wasn’t why he’d left Lizzie.

      Male friends all assumed he’d wanted out of his marriage because he was bored and wanted to be footloose and fancy free. But it wasn’t that. Myles and Lizzie had had to get married and for all his married life Myles had thought of a time in the future when he’d have done his duty and could do what he wanted to in life. He didn’t regret a second of his family life, it was just that he knew there were sides of himself that he could never express with Lizzie and he wanted to explore these while he still had the courage. Freedom to be his own person had been the spur – not the freedom to make notches on his bedpost. The very notion of that was ridiculous. Myles had no illusions about his chances of turning into Warren Beatty once he was no longer married. His appearance reflected his character: understated.

      Joe managed to make the Shanahan male pattern baldness look interesting by keeping his receding thick dark hair short and wearing trendy black-rimmed glasses and casual chic clothes. But Myles would never be a trendsetter. He was a laid-back sort of man with an air of quiet intensity. And women, according to those male friends who’d tried to take him in hand when he and Lizzie had split up, were not mad for quietly intense, divorced civil servants with meagre wallets.

      That was fine by Myles. He wasn’t expecting wild passion. Despite all this, he’d met Sabine, thought she was gorgeous and, incredibly, it transpired that she was interested in him. He was fitter than he’d ever been, tanned from his time on the ocean. And the contentment he felt in his new life must have shown on his face, lending him an attractiveness he hadn’t had in years. But he was still pleasantly surprised that she appeared to like him so much. He had acted as if they were just friends at first, like all the others on the scuba-diving course. For four weekends, the group of ten had driven in the minibus to Donegal to stay in the hostel and get their dives in, laughing and joking, retiring to the pub for song-filled evenings. He’d liked Sabine, was touched by her shyness and by how her light, pure voice wobbled with nerves when it was her turn to sing alone, but how she still entered into the whole thing with gusto. He’d liked the way her pale freckled skin looked almost translucent in the clear Donegal light, and he liked the way she smiled at him…

      The door of the café opened and Lizzie whirled in, her cheeks flushed from running. Lizzie was always rushing. Myles’s earliest memories of her were as a laughing schoolgirl hurrying to class, weighed down with an enormous schoolbag, her hair flying. She might have been a lot older now, but the hair was still the same, a shoulder-length mop of shaggy curls, and she still had a big bag, this time an elderly leather one she’d had for donkey’s years. Lizzie’s bag used to be a family joke.

      ‘The kitchen sink bag,’ Joe would tease her, hoisting it up and pretending to groan under the weight. ‘No wonder you’ve good muscles, Mum, from lugging this around.’

      ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Lizzie gasped, reaching his table. ‘Couldn’t park the car.’

      Now that she was here, Myles felt the desire to tell her his news and disappear. His stomach churned with anxiety.

      ‘You’ve finished your coffee, shall I get you another?’ she said cheerily.

      Myles nodded.

      When she got back with fresh coffee, he’d nervously rolled and rerolled his empty sugar packets