all.)
When we first started going out together I was waitressing
9 Marian Keyes
most nights, so I could only see him when I finished work. But he would wait up for me. And when I came around, exhausted, after hours of dishing up char-grilled whatever to the people of London (or the people of Pennsylvania or Hamburg, if I'm to be more accurate), he would--and I can't believe it to this day--he would bathe my aching feet and massage them with Body Shop peppermint foot lotion. Even though it was past twelve and he had to be at work helping people fiddle their tax returns, or whatever it is that accountants do, at eight the following morning, he still did it. Five nights a week. And he would bring me up-to-date on the soaps. Or go to the twenty-four-hour garage for me when I ran out of cigarettes. Or he would tell me funny little stories about his day at work. I know that it's hard to believe that any story about accounting could be funny, but he managed it.
And my job meant that we could never go out on Saturday nights. And he didn't complain.
Weird, huh?
Yes, I thought so too.
And he would help me count my tips. And give me great advice about what to invest them in. Government bonds and that kind of thing.
I usually bought shoes instead.
Shortly after this I had the good fortune to be fired from the waitressing job (a silly misunderstanding involving me, several bottles of imported lager, a "dinner-in-lap" scenario and a totally unreasonable customer who had absolutely no sense of humor; anyway, I believe his scars faded almost completely).
And managed to secure another position with more regular hours. So our romance proceeded on a more traditional timetable.
And after a while we moved in together. And after a bit longer we got married. And a couple of years later we decided to have a baby and my ovaries seemed to be game and his spermatozoa registered no complaint on that score and my womb had no objection so I got pregnant. And I gave birth to a baby girl.
Which is where you came in.
So I think we're pretty much up-to-date here.
10 WATERMELON
And if you were hoping for, or expecting, some kind of awful gory de- piction of childbirth, with talk of stirrups and forceps and moans of agony and vulgar comparisons with excreting a hundred-pound sack of potatoes, then I'm sorry to disappoint you.
(Well, all right then, just to humor you, take your worst period pain ever and multiply it by seven million and make it last for about twenty-four hours and then you have some idea.)
Yes, it was scary and messy and humiliating and quite alarmingly painful. It was also exciting and thrilling and wonderful. But the most important thing for me was that it was over. I could kind of remember the pain, but it no longer had the power to hurt me. But when James left me I realized I'd rather go through the pain of a hundred labors than go through the pain of losing him that I felt then.
This is how he broke the news of his imminent departure to me.
After I held my baby in my arms for the first time, the nurses took her away to the baby ward and I was brought back to my ward and went to sleep for a while.
I woke up to find James standing over me, staring down at me, his eyes very green in his white face. I smiled up at him sleepily and triumphantly. "Hello, darling." I grinned.
"Hello, Claire," he said formally and politely.
Fool that I was, I thought he was being grave and serious as some kind of mark of respect. (Behold my wife, she was delivered today of a child, she is woman, she is lifegiver--you know, that kind of thing.)
He sat down. He sat on the edge of the hard hospital chair, looking as if he was going to get up and run away any second. Which, as it turns out, he was.
"Have you been to the baby ward to see her?" I asked him dreamily. "She's so beautiful."
"No, I haven't," he said shortly. "Look, Claire, I'm leaving," he said ab- ruptly.
"Why?" I asked, snuggling back into my pillows,
When we first started going out together I was waitressing
9 Marian Keyes
most nights, so I could only see him when I finished work. But he would wait up for me. And when I came around, exhausted, after hours of dishing up char-grilled whatever to the people of London (or the people of Pennsylvania or Hamburg, if I'm to be more accurate), he would--and I can't believe it to this day--he would bathe my aching feet and massage them with Body Shop peppermint foot lotion. Even though it was past twelve and he had to be at work helping people fiddle their tax returns, or whatever it is that accountants do, at eight the following morning, he still did it. Five nights a week. And he would bring me up-to-date on the soaps. Or go to the twenty-four-hour garage for me when I ran out of cigarettes. Or he would tell me funny little stories about his day at work. I know that it's hard to believe that any story about accounting could be funny, but he managed it.
And my job meant that we could never go out on Saturday nights. And he didn't complain.
Weird, huh?
Yes, I thought so too.
And he would help me count my tips. And give me great advice about what to invest them in. Government bonds and that kind of thing.
I usually bought shoes instead.
Shortly after this I had the good fortune to be fired from the waitressing job (a silly misunderstanding involving me, several bottles of imported lager, a "dinner-in-lap" scenario and a totally unreasonable customer who had absolutely no sense of humor; anyway, I believe his scars faded almost completely).
And managed to secure another position with more regular hours. So our romance proceeded on a more traditional timetable.
And after a while we moved in together. And after a bit longer we got married. And a couple of years later we decided to have a baby and my ovaries seemed to be game and his spermatozoa registered no complaint on that score and my womb had no objection so I got pregnant. And I gave birth to a baby girl.
Which is where you came in.
So I think we're pretty much up-to-date here.
10 WATERMELON
And if you were hoping for, or expecting, some kind of awful gory de- piction of childbirth, with talk of stirrups and forceps and moans of agony and vulgar comparisons with excreting a hundred-pound sack of potatoes, then I'm sorry to disappoint you.
(Well, all right then, just to humor you, take your worst period pain ever and multiply it by seven million and make it last for about twenty-four hours and then you have some idea.)
Yes, it was scary and messy and humiliating and quite alarmingly painful. It was also exciting and thrilling and wonderful. But the most important thing for me was that it was over. I could kind of remember the pain, but it no longer had the power to hurt me. But when James left me I realized I'd rather go through the pain of a hundred labors than go through the pain of losing him that I felt then.
This is how he broke the news of his imminent departure to me.
After I held my baby in my arms for the first time, the nurses took her away to the baby ward and I was brought back to my ward and went to sleep for a while.
I woke up to find James standing over me, staring down at me, his eyes very green in his white face. I smiled up at him sleepily and triumphantly. "Hello, darling." I grinned.
"Hello, Claire," he said formally and politely.
Fool that I was, I thought he was being grave and serious as some kind of mark of respect. (Behold my wife, she was delivered today of a child, she is woman, she is lifegiver--you know, that kind of thing.)
He sat down. He sat on the edge of the hard hospital chair, looking as if he was going to get up and run away any second. Which, as it turns out, he was.
"Have you been to the baby ward to see her?" I asked him dreamily. "She's so beautiful."
"No, I haven't," he said shortly. "Look, Claire, I'm leaving," he said ab- ruptly.
"Why?" I asked, snuggling back into my pillows,
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