Angels

Free Angels by Marian Keyes Page B

Book: Angels by Marian Keyes Read Free Book Online
Authors: Marian Keyes
Tags: Fiction
thinking in the circumstances; they didn't seem weighty enough.
    But they were all I could manage—why? Shock, maybe? Or could it be that Anna was right and Cosmopolitan was wrong—that perhaps I was depressed?
    “Why L.A.?” Garv asked stiffly.
    “Why not? Emily's there.”
    He gave me a look that I didn't understand.
    “I've no job and…you know…” I explained. “I might as well. I know we've got a lot of stuff to sort out, but…”

    62 / MARIAN KEYES
    “When will you be back?”
    “Don't know exactly, I've an open-ended ticket. In about a month.”
    “A month.” He sounded weary. “Well, when you come back, we'll talk.”
    “That'd make a change.” I hadn't meant to sound so bitter.
    Rancor mushroomed between us like a cloud of poison.
    Then—poof!—it was gone again and we were back to being polite adults.
    “We do need to talk,” he stressed.
    “If I'm not back in a month, you can come and get me.” I strove to sound pleasant. “Then we'll get lawyers and all that.”
    “Yes.”
    “Don't you go jumping the gun and getting one before me.” It was meant to sound lighthearted, but instead emerged sounding spiteful.
    He looked at me without expression. “Don't worry, I'll wait until you're back.”
    “I won't be working, so I'll pay the mortgage from my Ladies'
    Nice Things account.”
    I had a separate bank account in addition to my joint one with Garv, into which I put a small amount every month—just enough to cover impractical sandals and unnecessary lip glosses without feeling riddled with guilt at spending our mortgage money. Some of my friends—specifically, Donna—wondered how I'd conned Garv into agreeing to it, but in fact it had been his idea and he was the one who'd come up with the jokey name.
    “Forget the mortgage,” he sighed. “I'll cover it. You'll need your Ladies' Nice Things money to buy ladies' nice things.”
    “I'll pay you back.” I was relieved to have a bit more money for Los Angeles. “Is it okay for me to go to the house to get some of my stuff?”
    “Why wouldn't it be?” Something guilty and defensive flickered.
    He knew exactly what I was talking about, but he ANGELS / 63
    pretended not to. And I didn't bother to elucidate. There was a funny complicity between us, and an awful lot not being said. It was the way I wanted it: if he had someone else, I so did not want to know. “It's your house,” he said. “You own half of it.”
    It was then that I had the first normal thought that a person whose marriage has just broken up should have—we'd have to sell the house. The mist cleared and my future unspooled like a film.
    Selling the house, having nowhere to live, searching for somewhere else, trying to make a new life, being alone. And who would I be ?
    So much of my sense of self was tied up in my marriage that, without it, I hadn't a clue as to who I was.
    I felt dislocated from everything, floating in empty time and space, but I couldn't think about it now.
    “All in all, how are you? Are you okay?” Garv asked.
    “Yeah. Considering. You?”
    “Yeah.” A breathless little laugh. “Considering. Keep in touch,”
    he said, and made a funny move toward me. It began as a hug, but ended up being a pat on my shoulder.
    “Sure.” I slid away from his heat and familiar smell. I didn't want to get too near him.
    We said good-bye like strangers.
    Through the window, I watched him leave. That's my husband, I told myself, marveling at how unreal it seemed. Soon to be ex -husband, and more than a decade of my life is going with him.
    As he walked out the short driveway and became hidden by the hedge, I was ambushed by an inferno of white-hot fury. Go on , I wanted to empty my lungs and bellow, fuck off back to truffle woman . As quickly as it had appeared, the rush of rage receded, and once again I felt heavy and kind of dead.
    Helen was the only one who approved of my going to L.A.
    “Smart work,” she said. “Just think of the men. Lovely sexy

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