she said something rather startling: ‘I was saying to Tom last night, when I got off the phone from Nuala,’ she began, ‘that we hadn’t seen the two of you for ages. Isn’t that right, Tom? I was trying to think was there any more news. Kevin was over earlier in the evening – he called into us on his way home from the airport. He was in America for a couple of weeks, Kate, his work had him over there. He said he hardly saw the outside of the place the whole time he was there. He was in Seattle, Kate, that’s where the headquarters of his company are. And the whole time they were indoors, working, or travelling to the other factories. Oh! He has a new girlfriend! Another new girlfriend. He always has new girlfriends, Kate. I never knew anyone like him for having new girlfriends all the time. And you won’t believe who it is, Keith! It’s a sister of Jacqueline Dunleavy, your Jacqueline. A younger sister. Would you believe that? Isn’t it a small world, Kate? Oh, listen to me, I probably shouldn’t be talking about old girlfriends, isn’t it true, Kate, but I was so struck by the coincidence. Now, he said very little about her – isn’t that always the way with Kevin? – but sure he was in good form anyway. Will I put a little hot water in the pot? Would you drink another cup, Tom?’
And off she went to the kitchen, leaving the rest of us behind, literally. Now, here was something to think about. Obviously I had no right to be getting on my high horse because Keith had some old girlfriend he’d never told me about. There was the odd dark chapter in my life that I’d never told him about, including the most recent one. We’d had the conversation of the exes, and while mine was highly edited and sanitized, I’d had no idea that his might have been too. To be honest, I wasn’t that interested in Keith’s old girlfriends. I believed him when he said that nobody had meant anything to him before me, that they were pale imitations, forgettable, inconsequential, but I didn’t believe he would actually forget about one of them, not about his Jacqueline. I looked at Keith, straight on, believing my face to bear the signs of a mild, bemused curiosity. Without catching my eye, he grabbed my hand, prised a piece of cake from it and whisked me out of the door.
‘We’re just going for a walk,’ he hollered. ‘Back in a while.’
Mmm, now what did my Keith have to say for himself?
If he was feeling guilt or remorse, or whatever one feels in these situations, I didn’t want him to feel it for too long. I began in a very airy tone: ‘No… no… You definitely never told me about a Jacqueline. Fancy name, Jacqueline. You don’t get that many around Limerick any more…’
He stopped us in our tracks – we were only a couple of yards down the road – and pulled me to him so I had to look him in the eye. ‘You know there’s nothing sinister in this, don’t you? I’m not keeping anything terrible from you. She really is just an old girlfriend, no skeletons, no love children, no secret marriage.’
I hadn’t thought it might be any of those things and now I was sorry he’d been so quick to put me straight. If I’d known this was the kind of mood he was in, I might have had a little more fun with him. ‘Really, Keith? No skeletons, no love children, no secret marriage?’
‘Please don’t make fun of me. Yeah, when we talked about old relationships, I didn’t tell you about Jacqueline. I should have – I’m not even hiding anything, for God’s sake. I just didn’t feel like talking about her at the time.’
I didn’t want to make fun of Keith. And he was only acting weird now because lying, or having lied, or even evading a little of the truth was so alien to him that he didn’t know how to handle it.
‘Just tell me about her,’ I said.
‘Well…’ he paused ‘… I went out with her before you, but we were broken up nearly a year before I met you. We’d been together for about three years –’
‘Three years!’ I interrupted.
‘Please don’t interrupt me.’
‘OK.’
‘We’d been going out about three years and, well, we were naturally drifting towards the inevitable. We