The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It’s always interesting to Fia, the variety of ways in which people dress for the airport.
In her direct line of vision in the departure lounge of JFK, there are travellers who, upon arrival at their destination, could head straight to a boardroom. Right alongside them are people who are head-to-toe beach-ready, and a few others who wouldn’t look hugely out of place in a nightclub.
Generally speaking, Fia has a very definite airport aesthetic, which – if she were called upon to describe – she might characterize as ‘on the way to the hospital to undergo major surgery.’ Maybe even ‘on the way home from the hospital after major surgery’.
The point is, she likes to be comfortable. Style typically doesn’t come into it whatsoever. Sadly, on this occasion, given the presence of everyone she works with, she’s had to step it up a little – quite a big ask, given she left her apartment at 4.30 a.m. In the darkness of her bedroom, she plumped for a stretchy cotton maxi dress and flat trainers, and now, yawning into her coffee at the airport, she idly assesses the outfits of whatever female co-workers are around.
As for the sartorial choices of her male co-workers, she really has no interest in those. Obviously, she spotted Benjamin earlier, as they all stood in line at check-in – she briefly took in his jeans and T-shirt. Nothing special. Still, though. How maddening that despite everything that went down between them last week, she hadn’t been able to help seeking out that little mental note, filing it away. By this stage of the summer, in the course of various activities and events, she has had time to notice how Benjamin’s clothes always seem to hang just right on him, no matter what he wears.
After their bust-up on Friday came the reprieve of the four-day weekend. Kavita and Annie having both left to celebrate American independence with their families, Fia had the apartment to herself the whole time. On an ordinary weekend, she wouldn’t have minded that one bit. In fact, for the rest of the year, it almost never happens, and sometimes she veritably longs for it. The Fourth of July can be a bit of a tricky one, though.
Is it that Fia has a strong desire to put on some stars-and-stripes clothing, have a barbecue? Not really. Having never celebrated the holiday growing up, she has no particular affection for it, no nostalgia for its traditions.
Nonetheless, there turns out to be a slight sense of loss, of inadequacy, when everyone else has a plan and you do not. Everyone Fia knows well is either American or – in a few instances – in a committed relationship with an American, such that they have some natural place at their partner’s family celebrations. Not so for her. And, George aside, she has never much wanted to be a friend’s plus one, imagining she’d feel unavoidably like a hanger-on.
Of course, had she made more effort to specifically befriend other immigrants in the city, it would probably have been different. She could have spent this past weekend in Central Park, cosplaying Americanness with a bunch of fellow Irish people. As it is, she spent most of the weekend by herself, just doing her ordinary things. That was the best way. The year she went to watch the fireworks over the Brooklyn Bridge, stood in the crowds with everyone else, it somehow only made the sense of loneliness even more acute.
After that – after a whole four days of stewing by herself, of trying and failing to distract herself from certain recent developments – she and Benjamin had only one day to endure together in the office yesterday. He made it his business to be elsewhere as much as possible – as, for that matter, did she. To the extent they overlapped, communication was sparse – terse. It was every bit as bad as their very first week together in the office, if not even worse.
And now, this morning, he hasn’t said a single word to her for the entire time they’ve been at JFK.
Of course, plenty of other people haven’t said a word to Fia either – there must be fifty of ZOLA’s lawyers milling around the departure lounge, killing time before boarding. But, just as Benjamin’s was the appearance she’d noticed, his is the silence she’s noticed. She tries hard not to think about what the significance of that – if any – might be.
The flight, when at last they get to it, is more or less uneventful. Fia is seated beside a guy from the banking team whom she barely knows, and he makes his intentions clear from the outset via a monstrous pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It could seem quite hostile – the implication that she is the noise he wishes to cancel – but, in fact, it comes as a complete relief to Fia. Freed from the need to make small talk, she watches a mediocre film and picks at her in-flight meal. Below her armrest, the socked foot of a stranger appears from the seat behind, rotating unappealingly at intervals. A second mediocre film and one fitful nap later, and all of a sudden, the captain has switched the seatbelt sign back on. Their tray tables need to be stowed; the toilets are no longer in use.
It’s 8 p.m. local time when they land at Dublin Airport, but still broad daylight outside. And, though the air is chilly as they all troop down the aeroplane steps, it’s light and fresh – gloriously free of Manhattan’s humidity. Fia feels, in that same fundamental, cellular way she always does, happy to be home.
Inside the arrivals lounge, her eyes dart about, relieved to find no sign of her mam and dad. She had strong, repeated words with them to the effect that she did not need them to pick her up from the airport this time, and thankfully, they seem to have heeded her. That collision of worlds would just have been too discombobulating – probably at any time, but especially after such an early start, such a long flight. And, needless to say, there is one co-worker in particular whom she’s very keen for her parents never to so much as lay eyes on.
The Summer Summit is taking place at a big hotel outside Dublin proper, near the coast, and as everyone else from ZOLA boards coaches bound for Garrett Castle, Fia says her goodbyes, then jumps in a taxi. It’s an expensive option, but she barely registers it. At this point, she is used to things costing so much more than it seems they have any right to. Only days ago, at the Whole Foods on 86th Street, she spent $10 on a punnet of raspberries. So, she just taps her card on the machine as the driver at last slows to a stop on a familiar street, outside a familiar red-bricked semi. Already, she can see a face at the living room window, and Fia feels another unexpected well of emotion, just at the thought that her mother has been looking out for her, waiting for her.
Of course, she’s made this journey back to Dublin a fair few times by now. She’s not sure why she seems to feel like such a wreck this time around. It might be the tumult of the past five weeks – that seems reasonable – or it might be the tumult of the past few days. That feels a lot less reasonable – the notion that a falling-out with Benjamin Lowry, of all people, would leave her feeling fragile and off-kilter. Hasn’t she more or less been in one long falling-out with Benjamin Lowry for the guts of the past decade? Why would this latest conflict be any different?
In any case, she’s home now, at long last. The front door is opening before Fia’s even out of the car, and her father is rushing out to help the driver with her suitcase. He gives her a smile and a little pat on the shoulder.
‘Flight all right?’ he asks.
‘Yep, it was perfect,’ she replies, leaning forwards to kiss him on the cheek.
This is his way of saying that he could not be more delighted to have her home, and her way of saying that she could not be more delighted to be here.
With her mother, meanwhile, these sentiments are exchanged much more literally, and Fia lets herself be wrapped in a big hug, ushered inside.
In the living room, she finds Maeve, and they each let out an involuntary little squeal of delight, rushing towards each other.
‘Oh my God, you’re here!’ Fia exclaims.
Maeve still lives at home, but she spends plenty of nights at her boyfriend’s place, too, so, Fia didn’t necessarily expect to see her immediately.
‘’Course I’m here – I wanted to be part of the welcoming committee, didn’t I?’
They hug each other tight, and as they pull apart, Fia looks at her sister appraisingly.
‘You look nice,’ she says. ‘I’m liking these jeans.’
A tell-tale pause follows.
‘Do not tell me,’ Fia warns then. ‘Do not.’
‘TK Maxx. Twenty euro, down from eighty-five!’
Fia shakes her head as if in disbelief, though she’s smiling all the while. ‘I swear to God – just tell me the stuff is from Anthropologie and have done with it, would you? It would make me happier. I’ve seriously never met anybody who’s as lucky as you in that place.’
‘It’s not a question of luck, Fia,’ Maeve corrects, and she’s grinning, too. ‘It’s a question of commitment.’
They flop down on the sofa together – the same floral one that’s been there since their childhood – their mother lingering in the door frame.
‘Will you have a bit of dinner, Fia? Or a wee sandwich even?’ she asks, her northern lilt as strong as ever, despite forty years down south. ‘Did you get something to eat on the plane?’
‘Mmm, not really,’ Fia replies. She doesn’t know that she could face a full meal right now, though. She has that unsettled feeling in her stomach that comes with having eaten odd things at odd times. ‘A sandwich would be amazing.’
Her mam nods. ‘I’ll make you a wee cup of tea with it, will I?’
‘Oh yeah, no odds about me, Mother,’ Maeve chimes in, though her voice is all teasing, no malice.
‘Sure, I’m never done making you cups of tea that you never drink!’ their mother tosses back.
‘I do! I drink at least half the cup all the time!’ Maeve exclaims, laughing, and Fia’s not entirely sure she gets the joke on this one. There’s some inconsequential little snippet of history she might have missed.
In any event, their mother just tuts affectionately at Maeve. ‘Come into the kitchen, the pair of you, and give us a bit of your craic from the big smoke, Fia,’ she says. She makes her way through the hall, both girls following obediently as though they are children again. ‘… And Maeve might have a bit of news of her own, mightn’t you, Maeve?’
‘What is it?’ Fia pounces, as Maeve just grins.
In the kitchen, their father already has the kettle on, and by the expression on his face, Fia suddenly has the unmistakable impression that everyone here knows something she doesn’t.
When she turns back to Maeve, her sister is holding up her left hand, a diamond sparking on her ring finger. ‘Conor proposed!’
‘Oh my God!’ Fia says, and she can only hope, in this moment, that her face looks right. She hopes it displays the sort of utter, unqualified joy that she could perhaps only really feel if she, herself, were already extremely happily married. As it is, she’s sort of … the opposite. Right now, she feels like she’d be only too delighted never to hear the words wedding, marriage, matrimony or any variants for the rest of her natural life. That’s probably a futile hope, though. Even setting aside the demands of her professional life, she’s a woman with more or less her entire thirties ahead of her.
‘It just happened last week, and I wanted to wait and tell you in person! Can you believe it?’ Maeve exclaims.
There is no right answer to that one. Yes, I’ve been expecting this every time you went on a mini-break for the past three years and No, this has come like a total bolt from the blue would both seem inappropriate. Oddly, Fia feels like they are both sort of true.
‘It’s so great!’ is what she settles for instead. And then – because this is what you say to people, even your own sister – ‘Congratulations!’
‘You’ll be my chief bridesmaid, obviously.’ Maeve beams, and Fia can only smile in return. Of course, she would want nobody else to fulfil that role for her only sister. But, equally, the thought of fulfilling it herself does make her feel a little … off balance, somehow.
‘I have to say, Conor timed it well, all right,’ their mam says, reaching for the bread in the cupboard. ‘We’re going to have a wee engagement party next Friday, just here at the house – take advantage of you being home to celebrate, Fia. Eoin’s going to come up from Cork as well.’
‘Oh, fab. I know how you like to have all your offspring under the one roof,’ Fia says, slightly teasingly.
Her mother merely smiles in response. ‘Ah well, you can laugh. But I’m telling you, it’s the most contentment I ever feel in the world, when I know yous are all home and all safe.’
And, as it turns out, Fia can’t find it in herself to come up with a silly reply to that. She can only offer a little smile of her own, a little nudge of a shoulder against her mother’s. Every minute of the journey here – every minute of the boredom she’ll have to endure at the Summer Summit, the potential weirdness with Benjamin fucking Lowry – feels suddenly well worth it.