Free No Dress Rehearsal by Marian Keyes Page A

felt oddly effortless. She seemed to sail along, as if the entire route was downhill.

CHAPTER TWO
    At the very moment that one of the ambulance men officially declared her dead, Lizzie arrived home. She shared a flat in Rathmines with her boyfriend, Neil. They’d lived there for a year-and-a-half. It was a bit of a kip. Which hadn’t mattered so much in the first flush of love. But it had started to get on her nerves a bit lately.
    She left her bicycle in the hall, and shoved her key in the lock. She took a couple of steps back, like she always did. Then she did a little run at her front door, heaving her shoulder against it. There was something wrongwith the door. It kept sticking. And she kept meaning to do something about it. Like ring the landlord.
    She could hear the telly. Neil was home. She looked into the front room where he was flung on the couch.
    â€œThat bloody door,” she complained. She made her voice sound light and good-humoured because she was nervous. They’d had a row that morning – yet another one. In fact things had been going badly between them for quite a while.
    What it came down to was this. They’d been going out with each other for two years. And living together for eighteen months. Lizzie wanted to settle down and Neil wasn’t so keen. To put it mildly. (That was why she had other things on her mind when she was knocked down.)
    She was thirty-two, and fed-upbeing a party girl. She wanted stability. To own their own place. To think about having children.
    â€œThat bloody door,” she said again. But Neil didn’t speak. He continued to stew on the couch like someone in a coma.
    Lizzie swallowed and made herself ask, “So how was your day?” She said it gaily, happily. Trying to pretend to him that she didn’t really mind if he didn’t make a commitment to her.
    Of course she minded. She minded very much.
    Lizzie wasn’t the kind of woman who normally took nonsense from men. Shape up or ship out was her usual approach to romance. But the problem was that she loved Neil.
    The smile died on her face as, still, he didn’t answer. In fact he didn’t even look up at her.
    She hung around in the doorway, feeling frightened and foolish. She licked her dry lips and tried to think of another light-hearted remark. Nothing doing. All she could manage was to mutter, “I fell off my bike.”
    Still he ignored her. Not a word of sympathy.
    So that’s how bad things had become, she realised. Living under the same roof and not even speaking to each other. It hit her hard. All at once she found it difficult to breathe. She swung away from the living room and went to the kitchen. She rested her elbows on the worktop and gasped into her hands, fighting for breath.
Hot sweet tea
was the only thought she could latch on to. Hot sweet tea was good for shock.
    She didn’t know how good it was for the end of two-year relationships,however. Somehow she reckoned she’d need more than a cup of tea. More like a bottle of wine a night every night for six months.
    As she searched around in the kitchen for something that resembled sugar – she
must
go to Dunne’s, she
must
get her life in order – the phone rang.
    She cocked her ear at the front room. Then she heard Neil say, “What? I don’t believe you. Oh, Jesus!” A few seconds later came the sound of the front door slamming shut (after first sticking slightly).
    She ran out into the hall. What was going on? Where was he gone? She stared at the door, and thought about running after him. Then suddenly she felt too hopeless. What would be the point?
    When she couldn’t lay her hands onany sugar, she gave up the idea of the hot sweet tea. She just sat on the sofa, feeling very odd. She felt cold and dopey. Her ears buzzed and she couldn’t seem to think properly. Maybe she was in shock after the accident, she decided.
    Desperate for comfort, she wanted to talk to