The Closet of Savage Mementos (9 page)

‘What the fuck?’ I say.

‘That’s old footage,’ Struan says. ‘It’s from a few years ago.’

‘Your lot are at it again. There’s been another bomb,’ Pearl says, staring at me.

‘They’re not my lot.’

‘Anyone dead?’ Struan asks.

‘I’m waiting to find out,’ Pearl says. She points her finger at me. ‘You ought to be ashamed, hen.’

‘That’s enough, Mum.’

‘I’m only saying.’

‘Well don’t.’

We sit side by side on the sofa, staring at peach and grey smoke pluming out of the London Stock Exchange.

‘Who?’ I ask.

‘“Who?” she says. The IRA. You can be sure of it.’

Pearl flicks the remote control to see which station has the latest. On each channel the newsreader has the same small updates: there was a warning; the building had been evacuated; there were no casualties.

‘Thank God for that,’ I say.

‘Why is the child of one black and one white parent always called black?’ Pearl says. ‘Surely they’re as white as they are black?’

I glance from her to Struan.

‘Mum, what are you on about?’

‘Look at him,’ she says, pointing at the newsreader, ‘he’s neither here nor there.’

‘I think we should head north now,’ I say. ‘It’s a long drive.’

We all stand up. Pearl holds her eyes over our heads, so she won’t have to look at us. She sits down and picks fluff from the sleeve of her dressing gown.

‘I’ll never understand you young people.’ She looks back at the TV screen. The footage has changed: they are showing archive photos of more London bombings. ‘We’re only bodies, anything can happen.’ Pearl waves at the images on the television. ‘So there we are. Things can always get worse,’ she says, more to herself than to us.

We say goodbye and she doesn’t stir; she is like someone who has shut herself down. Struan kisses her head, tells her to take care and we leave.

Chapter Ten

M
y brain is thundering with a hangover. I am meeting Robin at the National Gallery and I am late. Robin makes no comment when I skitter up to him in the café, apologising and shaking my head.

‘Where’s the jacket I bought you?’ I ask. ‘I hate that frog-spawny one.’ I pull at his collar and sit down beside him.

‘I wish you wouldn’t call it spawny. It sounds lewd.’

‘And
you
object to lewd?’ I hug him with one arm. ‘I ming of booze. I went straight to Verity’s last night from the airport and Anthony was there on a flying visit from Galway. Next thing you know the three of us are full of drink and carousing away. The two of them all reminisces and laughter. The things they said! My poor ears. We drank four bottles of wine between us and Anthony ended up staying the night. I rang your flat to get you to come over.’

‘I was out. Is Anthony gone back to Galway?’

‘After some conference thing today. You know, I looked at him and Verity at the breakfast table this morning, bickering madly and poking at each other’s soft spots, but still fond of each other. It made me wonder what it would have been like if they’d stayed together. If we would have turned out differently.’

‘You can’t change the past,’ Robin says.

‘I know that.’ I turn away from him, irritated. ‘God, my head is lifting. If I puked I’d be the better for it.’ My hangover has made my body alert and jumpy, as if it has forgotten how to be still.

‘Come on.’ Robin stands up and holds out his hand. ‘A quick turn around your favourite paintings will sort you out. An eyeful of
Cupid and Psyche in the Nuptial Bower
will take that puss off your face. Won’t it?’ I grunt and Robin kneads my shoulder. ‘Come on, Lillis.’

I feel groggy and narky, but my hangover grumpiness doesn’t faze Robin; it’s real grumps he can’t handle. Standing up, I hug him hard.

‘I’ve missed you, Rob.’

‘So, when is this famous man of yours arriving?’ he says. ‘Highlander.’

‘He flies in tonight.’

‘I hope he’s ready for the Yourells.’

‘Oh stop. I’m as nervous as all fuck.’

We wander through a hall of marble sculptures, each erect pubescent form thrusting either a smooth breast or a reposing penis into my sightline. Robin seems off with me; there is a pull in the silence between us and I am not sure what to say to make things softer or easier. I stop in front of a statue of a supine couple, wrapped limb on limb around each other. Their white bums are puckered with tiny holes, probably from being rain-beaten in the garden of some Italianate villa. I touch the woman’s cold skin.

‘She’s got cellulite on her arse,’ I say, expecting Robin to laugh. He gazes at the sculpture, his face set and solemn. ‘What’s wrong with you, Rob?’

‘Are you serious about this bloke? This
Struuuuu-an
.’ He bugs his eyes, to show me he thinks it is a stupid name.

‘Serious-ish. Why?’

‘If you end up living in Scotland it means I have to stay here and mind Verity. Forever.’

‘It doesn’t, you know. She’s not our responsibility.’ I rock on my feet and look around at the other statues in the room. ‘Half of these are eunuchs.’ I point to the memberless hordes who stand nearby and make chopping motions with an imaginary blade.

‘You know, the first time I came to the gallery was with Granny and Grandad Yourell,’ Robin says. ‘You must’ve been a baby. I remember coming into this room and Grandad’s eyes lit up when he saw all the naked girls. Granny ran us through here, tutting and gabbling like a mad old hen, but I saw her wink at Grandad once we were out the other side.’ He smiles. ‘I miss them. They were great, in their way.’

‘You’re very maudlin today, Rob. Cheer up, I’m only home for a few nights. You won’t be stuck looking after Verity. I promise. I’ll make sure.’

I decide it is safest if Struan meets Verity outside of her own home. She is unlikely to arrive drunk to a restaurant but I can’t be sure she doesn’t have a secret stash in her house that she would lay in to, for courage, if I bring Struan there. She is impressed with his choice of restaurant on Saint Stephen’s Green and is gracious in accepting his telephone invitation to have lunch.

Verity flounces in to meet us, looking sober and lovely: she wears a flowing, silver-grey dress and has slung her hair into a chignon.

‘Lovely hair, Mam’ I say.

‘My neck feels as bare and ready as Marie-Antoinette’s,’ she says.

Struan laughs and shakes her hand. ‘You two could be sisters, honestly,’ he says.

Verity grins like the newly mad, loving it, as usual, when someone makes that comparison,
plámásing
and all as it is. We are shown to our table and Struan helps Verity sit before pulling out my chair. We order drinks and Verity looks around the dining room, fingers the napkins and cutlery, then smiles at us both.

‘Very nice, lovely,’ she says, and turns to Struan, dipping her head in that seductive, little girl way she has. ‘So, you’re an arty hotelier? That’ll be right up Lillis’s street. Anthony, my ex-husband, is in education. Quite a gifted scientist.’ Struan nods. ‘But really, it’s foolish to mix science with the arts, as we discovered.’ She giggles, sips her tonic water, then turns to me. ‘I hope our Lillis is behaving herself for you; she can be a handful.’

‘Mam!’

‘Oh, what? I’m only slagging, sweetheart. I’m sure Struan is well able for you.’

‘Ready, willing and able,’ Struan says, smiling across at me.

I start to wish I could leave the two of them to get on with their little pleasantries-fest by themselves. Smiling back at Struan, I place his hand on my knee under the table.

‘Lovely,’ my mother says again, to no one at all.

‘Lillis has been telling me about your art works, Verity. They sound wonderful; I’d love to see some of them.’

‘Oh yes?’ Struan’s hand lies on the table; Verity reaches across and touches his wrist. ‘We can slip down to the Rubicon after lunch and you can view them there, if you like. Bronagh, my dealer, always likes to have several of my pieces in stock.’

Struan looks at me and, though it means we will be spending more of the day than planned with my mother, I nod and push out a smile.

‘Yeah, great,’ I say, ‘let’s do that. Verity, Struan has a gallery in the Strathcorry Inn, you know. It’s fab. There have been some great shows.’

Verity nods. ‘Really?’

The two of them bend over their menus and swap ideas about the food and about art; Verity acts coy and bossy, as she always does around men, and Struan, I can tell, is beguiled. They are enjoying their banter and the restaurant’s elegance so much that I let them choose a soup and a fish dish for me. I don’t even say anything when Struan orders a bottle of champagne, though I had warned him not to fill Verity with drink. I reckon a glass or two won’t send her off and I am right – she is fine.

The overnight mist has thinned the air and I can hear an aeroplane flying overhead; its long, lonely drone makes me think of foreign things: equatorial heat, pale buildings, large over-crowded squares and an emerald sea. Listening to it makes me glad that I am leaving Dublin again for Scotland. I kick my feet into the cooler parts of the bed, then tuck them back under me. The whole hotel room is dull from the fog outside, which came down fast as we made our way back late through the city streets. The ceiling and walls and coverlet all shine, as if fighting against the grey. It reminds me, somehow, of the childhood excitement of waking to the luminescent light in my bedroom that meant new snowfall in the garden. Verity used to hunt me and Robin out of bed, so that we would be the first children in the neighbourhood to walk through the virgin snow. She loved the first snow of winter as much as we did and it makes me happy to remember how good she could be at times.

My mind is too full to be tired; I pull the covers up over my head and try to force myself to sleep by imagining swathes of white paper rolling to a blank horizon. Acres of plain, unpainted paper have always been my substitute for sheep counting. But the image of all those white sheets starts me thinking of snow and then clouds and, soon, aeroplanes and holidays and the journey back to the Highlands. I toss my body sideways and attempt to will myself into tiredness.

‘Stop wiggling,’ Struan says, his eyes still closed.

‘I can’t.’

‘Sleep is so beautiful; you should get more of it.’

‘I would if I could. Something about being here makes me restless.’ I cup my hand over Struan’s cheek; it fits in my palm as snug and firm as an egg. ‘Do you want to have a little hot fun?’

Struan groans. ‘I’m wrecked, Lil.’

‘OK,’ I say.

I slip from the bed and go to the bathroom. I fill the bath to overfull and lie there in the steam, listening to the gurgle-urgle of the water in the outflow. Struan comes in, sleepy-eyed, and pees a long, slow stream into the loo.

‘How can one man hold so much piss?’ he says. He flushes and sits on the toilet seat. He scoops a handful of water from the bath and throws it over his face, slapping his cheeks and shivering. Bending towards me, he reaches into the bath and takes my hand. ‘Lil, what would you feel about running the gallery at the inn when we go back?’

‘What?’ I sit up and my breasts bob on the water. ‘Really?’

He kneels beside the bath and runs his hand up my abdomen. ‘You’re not going to win any awards for waitressing and I’m run ragged with everything else. You could make something of the gallery. What do you think?’

‘I’d love it; I would just
love
it.’ I kiss him and he climbs into the bath and lies on top of me, sending waves of water slooshing over the sides.

We arrange to meet Robin and Verity on O’Connell Street, to walk to the café owned by Robin’s friend Fidelma, for dinner. We watch Robin teeter up on his bike. A bus blows its horn long and loud behind him; he humps off the saddle and wheels the bike beside the footpath, looking back at the driver who is balling his fist at him. Robin grins and waves and the bus-driver gives him the two fingers. He chains the bike to the post of the glass reliquary that stands on a traffic island. Inside, behind the smudged panes, a heart-bleeding Jesus holds his hands aloft, as if he is directing the traffic. I have always liked the look of that Jesus: his russet robes, the neat beard and seaweedy hair. Robin instructs the statue to look after his bike and I stroll beside him for the short walk to Fidelma’s place on Frederick Street; Verity and Struan walk behind us.

‘They look like a couple,’ Robin says, glancing back. ‘What age is he?’

‘Fifty-one.’

‘Four years older than Anthony. Is that a bit Freudian?’

‘Shut it, Rob.’

We pass a woman with a smashed-up face selling cherries from an old black pram at the bottom of Parnell Square. Struan stops and buys some; he and Verity eat them, their heads bent conspiratorially close, their fingers dipping in and out of the punnet together. Something leaps in my chest but I tamp it down.

Fidelma runs to open the door for us. ‘
Fáilte.
Welcome,’ she says, kissing me on both cheeks.

She is a handsome woman with wide eyes and one of those Irish chins that makes her face look bottom heavy. Fidelma is second generation Irish – her parents had left for England in the fifties – and she says that she feels like an in-between person. Her speech is often macaronic – she likes to speak partly in English, partly in Irish – and she always laments the fact that people in Ireland don’t use their own language every day. I find her boring and domineering, but Robin adores her. We file through her café like a gang of schoolchildren and she seats us at a table at the back. The smells are bacon-and-cabbagey and Struan is charmed by everything.

Robin nods at the ruby lamps on the tables. ‘They make the place look like a brothel,’ he says.

‘I was going for broodily atmospheric, but knocking shop is even better,’ Fidelma says, clapping Robin’s back and laughing.

I sit between Fidelma and Verity over lunch. Robin and Struan sit opposite us, and Fidelma is so loud I can’t hear what they are talking about. Robin laughs a lot and he tries to smother his laughter – he thinks it is excessive, that he is giving too much of himself to Struan. I know this because his eyes fill with suppressed tears and he wipes them away even as he begins to giggle again. This is something he has always done when he is entertained and I am glad of it because it means he likes Struan; it means he is being open to him, allowing him in.

Fidelma wants to know everything about the Strathcorry Inn and Scotland, and she asks if I have been over to the islands where they speak Gàidhlig. She is pleased to know that I have heard it being spoken around Kinlochbrack and that it features on the street signs. She asks Struan about the menu in the bistro at the inn and they swap moans about unreliable staff.

‘Hey, enough of that.
I’m
staff,’ I say.

‘Speaking of which,’ Struan says, raising his eyebrows at me. ‘Do you want to tell them your news?’

‘Oh, OK.’ I turn to Verity. ‘Struan has asked me to manage the hotel’s gallery when I go back.’

‘You?’ she says.

‘Yes, Mam. Me.’

‘Sounds great, Lillis,’ Robin says. ‘Congrats. You could have an exhibition of Verity’s taxidart.’

Verity grabs her Coke and sips it, not looking at me.

‘Would you do that, Mam? Bring your stuff to Kinlochbrack?’

‘I don’t know. Bronagh might get pissed off if I go exhibiting somewhere else. I can’t be running here, there and everywhere at the drop of a hat. How would I even get the stuff transported?’

‘It’s an opportunity, Verity,’ Fidelma says. ‘Go international!’

‘I’ll see,’ Verity says, closing the subject.

The trees along the centre of O’Connell Street are heavy with white bulbs and a parked ambulance splatters its blue strobe across the pathway. A teenage girl is being stretchered into the back, while her friends hold each other up and cry.

‘It’s like Christmas with all the lights,’ Struan says, and I tilt my face up to him and agree.