No Dress Rehearsal. Marian Keyes

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 on any 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 someone. So she rang her best friend, Sinead.

      Sinead always made her feel better, even if she couldn’t provide words of wisdom (and usually she couldn’t). But at the very least Sinead had the decency to be almost more fed-up with her life than Lizzie. Like Lizzie, Sinead hated her job. But Sinead’s job was far more stressful than Lizzie’s. Like Lizzie, Sinead had man-trouble. But Sinead’s trouble was that she had no man at all.

      But something was wrong with her friend’s phone. Lizzie could hear Sinead perfectly but Sinead couldn’t hear her, “Hello,” she kept saying, “Who is it? Is somebody there?”

      “Ah, shag it,” Lizzie sighed. It wasn’t her day. She hung up and rang again, but still Sinead couldn’t hear her.

      “IT’S ME,” Lizzie yelled. “I fell off my BIKE and I’m MISERABLE and Neil has gone OUT without telling me where he’s going – ”

      “Look, here,” Sinead’s voice threatened, “are you the fella who wants to talk about my underwear? Because if you are, I’ve got something to say to you.”

      With that, a piercing whistle screeched down the line. If Lizzie had still had an eardrum it would probably have started to bleed. Rubbing her ringing ear, she hung up. She wouldn’t be calling Sinead again this evening.

      Poor Sinead, she thought. Obscene phone calls were yet another cross that she had to bear.

      So now who could she talk to? She could ring her mother, she supposed. Except she couldn’t, because she’d only start giving out to her. Telling her it was her own fault she was down in the dumps. That she should never have moved in with Neil in the first place. “Why would he marry you when he’s already getting what he wants from you?” she’d say.

      No, she definitely wasn’t ringing Mammy Whelan this evening. Nor was she going to ring her father. Not because he’d give out to her. Not at all! He’d barely say anything. All he ever said when she rang up was, “I’ll get your mother.” You stood a better chance of having a conversation with Shergar.

      But she was mad keen to talk to someone. She’d have to ring the Samaritans at this rate. Or order a pizza just to hear a warm human voice.

      But when she tried ringing the pizza delivery place, it turned out that it was her phone which was broken, not Sinead’s. She could hear the pizza man, but he couldn’t hear her. Which was funny because the phone had been fine earlier. It had obviously been working perfectly when Neil had got the call which had lifted him from the flat like a bat out of hell.

      Now what, she wondered listlessly. She could always overeat, of course. Nothing like milling into a family-sized bag of crisps to keep the blues away. But there were no crisps in the flat. Worse still, she wasn’t hungry. I am in shock, she realised. Bad shock.

      The only time she ever skipped her evening meal was when she went for “just the one” after work. And ended up mouldy drunk on an empty stomach by half-eight. Too jarred to hold a knife and fork, and fit for nothing except bed.

      “Cigarettes!” she thought, suddenly. “They’ll do the trick. And so what if I’ve given them up.”

      Now, where had she hidden her emergency supply? She tried her tights drawer. Then the press in the bathroom. Then under her bed. But no joy. Just when she was losing hope, she remembered. She ran into the lounge and threw herself on a video case. Please let this be the right one. Quickly she pulled it open. And found ten Benson & Hedges inside.

      “Aha!” She kissed the box two or three times. Then she lit a cigarette and pulled on it down to her toes.

      But strangely, even that didn’t make her feel better.