The Closet of Savage Mementos (11 page)

‘Bed now, Mam,’ I say, patting her hand. ‘Time for beddy-bye-byes.’ It is always a risk using the softly-softly approach with Verity; she takes offence so easily. When she is prone to contrariness, I often want to batter her or throw a tantrum to match one of hers. But what would be the point? She is like a pre-pubescent girl sometimes, incapable of learning.

‘What’s that, Lillis?’ she says.

‘Bedtime. You’ve had a long, full day.’

She tries to focus on me and realises she can’t, so she nods, pulls at her mouth with her napkin, then places it onto the table with care. I lean forward, kiss Struan on the lips and tell him I will be back shortly. I take Verity’s elbow; she waves absently at Struan and I guide her up the stairs. Once in her room, I put her sitting on the bed; she lies down and sighs.

‘You look like you’re wearing widow’s weeds,’ she says, thrashing her hand at my black dress.

‘I like it.’ I smooth down the nap of the sleeves, hug myself with both arms. Verity is snoring lightly. ‘Come on, Mam. We need to get you out of those things.’

She doesn’t move. I undo her shoes, peel off her tights and skirt, and hoosh the covers over her. I shake out the tights, then hold them up to look at them; Verity’s foot shape hangs inside the bottom of both legs, gullying them out like ghost feet, about to walk away. I fold the tights and her skirt, and place them on the sea chest. In a ritual from my childhood and teens, I put on the lamp, leave a glass of water and some tissues on the bedside table, and open the window a crack.

‘I’ll leave you now.’

‘I’m glad I came. But I think I’ll remain sober for the rest of my stay – less room for error that way.’ Verity murmurs the words through the sheet she has pulled up to her nose.

‘That might be an idea. Goodnight, Mam’

‘Night, night, Lilybelle. Be good.’

I close her door quietly and stand on the landing, looking down into the stairwell; I can hear the faint clink-clank of dishes and glasses from the bistro, the low burble of piped music. Be good, Verity says, one of her mantras.
Be good
. How many thousand times have I heard those words from my mother?
Be good. Be good. Be good.

‘I am good,’ I say, into the darkness, ‘you just choose never to notice.’

A door opens further along and a couple come out into the corridor, laughing; I turn from Verity’s bedroom door, put my hand on the banister and walk down the stairs to where Struan sits waiting for me.

Chapter Twelve

W
hen I think of Dónal, I imagine the warm smell of skin, his tongue hot with the tang of beer, and him walking towards me through the city, cool under a sweep of ochre leaves. In my mind, Dónal is all about late autumn: gelid air, snug jackets and early-dark nights. I skitter backwards and remember his wide, little-boy smile as he sallied along, never in a hurry.

Some days he would turn up to meet me after my photography course or work – it was never pre-arranged – and we would walk a crowded Westmoreland Street or up Grafton Street, Dónal taking my hand. I would rub the rough pads of his long fingers while we strolled and talked. I looked into his face, liking the jag of his cheekbones and the way he tossed his head to chase the fringe out of his eyes. He was the type of boy that made everything not as it was. Dónal carried an air of impending excitement about him, and being with him meant a feeling of suspension in anticipatory moments. We walked Dublin without direction and sometimes we would end up by the quay wall in the dark, smelling the river.

‘I’d hate to fall in there,’ Dónal said once. ‘I have a morbid fear of dying suddenly. Dramatically, you know?’

I hugged him from behind, my arms tucked around his waist, gently nosing the tobacco smell of his hair.

‘Mmm,’ I said, peering into the black churn of the water.

I turned him around to face me and pressed his back into the river wall; I took his cheeks in my hands and pushed my tongue between his lips. He tasted of the barley sugar sweets he sucked after each carefully smoked cigarette.

I remember the first time we tried to have sex; we had made a pact to practise together, the way youngsters do. We had already spent a couple of years perfecting our kissing on each other. I sat on the draining board; Dónal stood between my legs, his hands resting on my waist. My dress was pushed up on my thighs; I fiddled with the hairs on the back of his neck and looked over his shoulder at the clock.

‘Half three. Verity will be back around five,’ I said.

I stared at the stuffed rooster perched on a shelf, his beak a full grin of sharp teeth, his comb mottled and stiff. He wore a mossy tweed waistcoat. I was bothered that day; Verity had been drinking in the mornings – I could see it on her. She was fidgety and tense in the evenings; mellower during the day.

Dónal’s hands slid up my thighs and he hooked one finger inside the leg elastic of my knickers, tickling at the hairs beneath. I looked straight into his eyes.

‘Not here,’ I said, sliding off the sink.

‘OK.’

I pulled him from the kitchen through the sitting room, where Verity’s dog lay on the sofa, showing her flabby underbelly with its spattering of mauve teats. When the dog walked, her belly swung in a way that I hated.

‘Get off the sofa, Maxine.’

The dog looked up then turned her head away lazily; I poked at her with my boot, said, ‘Stupid dog’, and left her where she was. Dónal followed me up the steep stairs, into my bedroom. Verity used one corner of my room as a dump: perched in a heap were two broken chairs, piles of old magazines, a roll of chicken wire and a skew-eyed, stuffed squirrel. The heat of the house gathered in a fug in my room, under the pitched roof and, apart from my mother’s mess, I loved it in there.

I sat on a pile of
National Geographic
magazines. Dónal knelt in front of me, the floorboards surely denting his knees. He slipped his hands under my skirt again and I slid forward for him. I pushed my nose into his damp neck and breathed on the smell of his unwashed skin. Pushing my feet into the floor, my toes slid inside my boots, while his fingers fumbled and poked. Dónal’s breath was hot on my ear and I examined my fingernails behind his back: they were ridged and split, waiting to be picked at. A thin, dark line curved under each nail; later I would have a bath and watch the dirt loosen and float away. Dónal stopped his churning between my legs and kissed sloppily at my neck.

‘Why don’t we get into the bed?’ Dónal said.

‘All right.’

We lay down and I pulled off my knickers. Dónal slipped his jeans to his knees and yanked down his boxers. He climbed on top of me and kissed my neck some more.

‘Is this OK?’ he said, trying unsuccessfully to penetrate me, with short, sharp stabs. It hurt and I was pinned down and uncomfortable. I felt raw and annoyed and, after a while, I pushed him away, wiping at the slather he had left on my neck.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said, pulling at his jeans; he tilted his head to look into my eyes.

‘I think I heard Verity come in.’

‘OK.’ Dónal stood up. We fixed our clothes and trotted down the stairs.

‘Hi, Lil, I didn’t know you were here.’ Verity looked up at us, then back at Maxine who lay beside her on the sofa; she stroked the dog and crooned into her face. Maxine’s head was thrown back, her gums set in an ecstatic leer.

‘You’re back early, aren’t you?’

‘Will you stay to dinner, Dónal? I’m making a vegetable satay,’ Verity said.

Dónal glanced at me. ‘Sure.’

‘You set the table,’ Verity said to me, and stood up. ‘Dónal can help me chop.’

In the kitchen, I watched my mother: she and Dónal were the same height, so when they turned to talk to each other, their noses nearly met. Verity asked Dónal how he was enjoying his mechanics course.

‘Ah, it’s grand. Something to do.’

‘So, have you learnt anything?’ I watched Verity lean towards him, her eyebrows questioning neatly.

‘A few things, I suppose.’ Dónal smiled at Verity, his eyes locked onto hers; it was the same look he gave me. Even the intimate, casual way he talked with my mother was the way he talked with me. I coughed; they turned away from each other and looked over.

‘Are you all right there, sweetheart?’

‘I’m fine.’ I fiddled with a fork. ‘You never ask me about my course.’

Verity turned back to Dónal. ‘I’m having a party on Friday night, Dónal: a few people, some music. You should come. Tell your parents. And Cormac.’

I snorted. ‘Cans of Tuborg and a plate of Scotch eggs for a load of ancient hippies does not constitute a party.’

‘Ignore her,’ Verity said, ‘she’s mad with me for loving life.
And
for leaving her father.’ She laughed.

‘I think you’ll find that he left you, Mother. And, actually, it’s your drinking that pisses me off.’

Dónal frowned. ‘I’m going away this weekend with the lads.’

‘You never said.’ I knew I had no right to make demands when I wouldn’t commit to anything more than the casual thing we had, but I was put out that he hadn’t told me.

‘Maybe I’ll stay,’ he said. ‘I’ll see.’

I wore one of my mother’s cotton kaftans for the party: it had a pattern of brown and red swirls and it smelt of camphor. I pinched my hair up with a Spanish comb.

‘Wow, you look gorgeous,’ Dónal said, when I let him in. He pulled me into his arms to kiss me.

‘There’s no one here yet,’ I said, pulling away from him to open the sitting room door.

Maxine ran to Dónal, sniffed his fingers and started to lick them; he bent down and rubbed her back.

‘Hello Maxine, there’s a good girl,’ he said.

‘Jesus, that dog. Come on, Max, there’s no party for you, I’m afraid.’ I crooked my finger under her collar and pull-pushed her out the door.

Dónal sat down and looked around. ‘Cool’, he said.

A fresh menagerie of stuffed animals stood around the walls, moved in from Verity’s studio for the party: there was a faded wolfhound, two dinner-jacketed cats, a sneering fox – all of them draped in fairy lights and plastic flowers. The window sills held glasses and cutlery, paper plates and napkins. Verity leapt through the door, her hair wet and her cheeks red.

‘My God, I’m a disaster. What time is it? Hello, Dónal, welcome, welcome, welcome.’ She waved her arms. ‘Where’s Robin? Is he bringing the beer up from the shed? Lillis, are you watching the oven?’

Dónal stood up. ‘Look, you go and finish getting ready, Mrs Yourell, and I’ll check on things in the kitchen.’

‘Oh, you’re a honey.’ She squeezed Dónal’s arm. ‘We’ll keep you.’ She winked at me and ran out of the room.

We went into the kitchen; it smelt of spices and garlic. Robin was sitting at the table smoking.

‘Help me carry the beer from the shed,’ he said to Dónal.

They left through the back door, chatting, and I started to feel I might enjoy the night. As long as Verity didn’t get too drunk and start picking on me or, worse, tell stories about how grumpy I was as a child. Or show the photo of me as a three-year-old on a Galway beach, with the solid hump of a fresh poo visible in my knickers.

Guests began to arrive – a mish-mash of neighbours, Verity’s friends, Robin’s and a few of mine – and the house filled with smoke and chatter. A couple with guitars, old college pals of Verity’s, set themselves up in a corner of the sitting room and started to play. Dónal rolled his eyes and asked the guitar player if he knew any Depeche Mode songs. I laughed and wandered around the sitting room, offering bowls of crisps and refilling glasses. I stopped beside my mother to listen to the guitar player mangle ‘Hey Jude’.

Verity leaned into my side and handed me a can of lager. ‘Robin has hit it off with that chap,’ she said, nodding in the direction of Marcus, one of my course mates.

I took the drink, nodded and smiled, glad that Robin had found someone to chat to. He could be so awkward sometimes: either giddy or sullen, with no in-between mood. I went over to where Dónal was sitting side by side on the sofa with Audrey. I knew she fancied him, so I sat on Dónal’s lap and swung my face into his.

‘Kiss me,’ I said, and Dónal gave me a peck on the lips. I grabbed his cheeks in my hands and kissed him deeply. ‘Like that,’ I said.

‘You’re drunk, Lillis,’ Dónal said, and heaved me off his knees. He grinned at Audrey, who laughed; I stood and stared at them.

‘I’m not drunk. This is my first drink.’ I waved the can of beer at him. Dónal shrugged, then looked over at Audrey and they both cackled. I bent down low to them. ‘Fuck the two of you,’ I whispered, and walked away.

I went into the kitchen and threw patéd crackers and dishes of mini pretzels onto a tray and offered them around. When I got back to the sitting room Dónal and Audrey were gone. A man said I looked just like my mother at the same age. I smiled and linked Verity; we listened to the singing. When the musicians took a break, I ate five cocktail sausages, one after the other, then went to find Dónal. I pushed through the crowds in the kitchen but couldn’t see him. Straggles of guests were gathered in the garden and I walked among them, looking for Dónal’s familiar shape. I shoved open the shed door but there was no one there.

‘Looking for someone?’

I turned to see Dónal sprawled on the grass, smoking a joint with his brother; I hadn’t seen Cormac arrive.

‘There you are,’ I said.

Dónal giggled. I ruffled his hair with my fingers. ‘You need a haircut, Redser.’

‘Here, have a toke on this; it’s great stuff.’

‘Don’t give that to her,’ Cormac said, ‘she’s too young.’ He snapped the joint from Dónal’s hand.

‘I’m the same age as him,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ Cormac said. ‘Don’t smoke it, Lillis, it’ll make you sick.’

I took the joint from Cormac and dragged off it; the smoke hit the back of my throat like a punch and I sucked it in and held it, as I had seen others do. I laughed the smoke out.

‘Jesus, that tastes weird.’

‘Don’t go getting used to it,’ Cormac said, and winked at me.

I felt my whole head blush. I sat on the grass beside them and Dónal squinched up behind me and put his arms around my waist.