The O’Hara Affair (31 page)

What? For a moment Dervla wondered if Daphne was talking to her, but she’d given no indication that she’d seen her. And there were no clothes strewn over the bedroom floor. What was she talking about?

‘Well, Maurice?’ said Daphne, in a peremptory voice. ‘Do you expect me to pick up after you? I must say that I have no intention of doing so. I did not marry you to be your servant, and if you think I did, then you have another think coming. I
beg
your pardon? Then we are clearly going to have a row. My mother told me that I must never tidy up anyone’s mess other than my own. You make your bed, you must lie in it. I am going to pick up the phone to Mother right now and tell her to come over here. I might even get into the car and drive myself to her house. Yes. That is exactly what I am going to do. I am going to drive to Mother’s. And when I come back, I want every trace of your clothing hung back in the wardrobe. Is that loud and clear?’

Dervla looked at Daphne with an expression that was half-apprehensive, half-fascinated. She took a step into the room, and Daphne said: ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Dervla, Daphne, with a fresh bowl of cereal for you.’ Dervla set the bowl on the breakfast table, then left the room without a backward glance and went back into the kitchen.

‘She was talking to Maurice. Oh, God help me. She was talking to her dead husband. Oh, God. How spooky is that?
Oh, oh, oh – where’s the phone where’s the phone where’s the phone?’

It was on its recharger, on the window ledge. But there was something else there, too. A spider. The biggest, blackest spider Dervla had ever seen.

‘Oh, crap, oh, crap. Oh – oh, how do I get rid of it?’ she said in a panicky voice.

Dervla never killed spiders. She didn’t even find them scary, although if they were really big she’d ask Christian to get rid of them for her. But this arachnid was like a CGI spider from a horror film, and Dervla found herself hyperventilating as she rummaged in the cupboard beneath the sink. She emerged with a can of fly spray.

‘Oh God oh God oh God.’

Wresting off the cap, Dervla stretched out an arm, aimed the can at the spider, depressed the nozzle – and suddenly the creature was covered in toxic white foam. It went into a spasm, sprang to the far end of the ledge, shuddered once or twice…and then it went still.

Dervla set down the fly spray, then leaned up against the central island. She allowed herself time to calm down, then reached again for the phone.

No!
It lived! The bugger made a kind of bouncy movement, and Dervla shrieked and lunged for the fly spray with her free hand, spraying the insect as if it were on fire and she was trying to put it out. The spider went apeshit – like an ink doodle in motion – and then it fell off the window ledge into the recycling bin.

‘Oh God oh God oh God.’

Dervla’s thumbs twinkled over the keypad as she sped along the hall, heading for the front door. Christian picked up on the third ring. By now she was out in the courtyard, starting to pace.

‘Hi. It’s Dervla calling from the house of horrors,’ she said, trying to catch her breath.

‘Oh, God. What’s happened?’

‘The Crunchy Nut Cornflakes tasted of dust. She tried to brain me with a spoon. She’s giving out yards to your dead father for not hanging his clothes back in the wardrobe, she’s threatening to drive to her mother’s house, and I’ve just had a close encounter with an arachnid that even her beloved David Attenborough would find repellent.’

‘Oh, darling. I’m sorry.’

‘I know you are.’

‘How are things in the – er – hygiene department?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Has she been to the loo?’

‘Definitely,’ she said with assurance.

‘OK.’ Christian gave a sigh. He always sighed when he was thinking hard. ‘Here’s what I suggest. I suggest you leave her alone for an hour. You need some time to yourself. Plug yourself into your iPod and get out your yoga mat.’

‘Oh ho!’ said Dervla. ‘Are you mad? There’s no way I’m plugging myself into my iPod while I’m living in this house.’

‘But you love your iPod.’

‘I know. But I’ll need to keep my wits about me in case your mother sneaks up and starts firing missiles at me. Come to think of it, I’d better hide the fly spray in case it gives her ideas.’

‘OK. Go for a run.’

A run! A run was exactly what she needed. ‘Good idea. I’ll go right this minute. Talk to you later, love.’

Dervla went back into the house and cleared away the remains of Daphne’s breakfast. She dumped the dishes in the dishwasher, put an audio book on Daphne’s CD player, then changed into her running gear. Before she left the house,
she put her head around Daphne’s door and said: ‘I’m off for a quick run, Daphne. I’ll be back in half an hour.’ ‘You may do as you please.’

Dervla swung through the door of the cottage and locked it behind her. Then she called for the dog, who was lying on the doorstep of the Old Rectory, clearly waiting to be let back into her own house. Dervla knew how the poor thing felt. ‘Come, Kitty! Come on, girl!’

Together they raced down the driveway, then diverged onto a path that would take them down to the river. Dervla was glad she hadn’t bothered with her iPod: it was much more satisfying to hear the rush of the river, the thud of her feet on the hard-packed earth, the ebullient birdsong above. She wondered what it might be like to have your movement restricted, as Daphne’s was, what it must be like not to be able to dress yourself or wash yourself, or wipe your own bum. Not to be able to dance or do yoga or vault a gate – as she herself had just done. Not to be free to go wherever on God’s earth you wanted to go, not to be able to make love, not to be able to exult in the sheer pleasure of feeling your own body move at full tilt, not to be able to count your blessings.

Dervla ran and ran and ran, as if her life depended on it.

Poppet and Hero were sitting together on their divan in the library, talking about poetry.

Have you ever read any of Rochester’s poems?
Hero asked her.

No. Who’s he?

I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him. Your real-life hero Johnny Depp played him in the film,
The Libertine
.

What’s it about?

It’s about this bloke the Earl of Rochester, who meets an aspiring actress at the theatre, and sets out to make her a big star
.

How romantic!

You should get it out on DVD. Are you still stuck in Lissamore?

Yes.

I don’t think the local store would stock it. It’s more arthouse stuff
.

Poppet stood up and performed a twirl.
Will we visit our cottage tonight?

I’m not going to be able to stay online much longer. I have a play to go to
.

Are you helping your casting friend again?

Yes
.

What are you going to see?

A Rough Magic production of
Mother Courage
.

Lucky you. I’d love to be able to go to the theatre.

Actually, she wouldn’t much fancy
Mother Courage
. Bethany didn’t enjoy political theatre. She preferred the romantic comedies of Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward, or the heady drama of Shakespeare. She performed a series of twirls along the balcony, hoping that by reminding him how well she danced, Hero might realize that he hadn’t taken her to Sweethearts since that first time.

When she stopped, she turned to see that Hero wasn’t looking at Poppet. He had been joined by a very glamorous avatar, at whom he was blowing a kiss. The avatar was dressed in a full-length red gown with a train and fluted sleeves, and she had green eyes, thick dark hair and magnolia-white skin. Her name was ScarlettO’Hara Sahara, and Bethany disliked her at once. What kind of a stupid name was that for an avatar, and how dare she come and interrupt her tryst with Hero?

‘
Good evening, madam, and welcome
,’ said Hero, and Bethany suddenly felt incandescent with rage. How dare he blow this ScarlettO’Hara Sahara a kiss when he thought she wasn’t looking? How dare he welcome her to ‘their’ library? She’d teach him. Poppet turned her back on the pair of smirking idiots in a huff, and teleported.

The minute she’d done it, she regretted it. What had she done, leaving her Hero alone with a Vivien Leigh lookalike? Scarlett O’Hara was famous for her craftiness and her flirting skills. What if the green-eyed temptress tried to seduce him? But Poppet couldn’t go back now – she’d look like an eejit. Stupid, stupid,
stupid
Bethany!

She got up and went to the window. It was a beautiful
night. The moon was peeking out from behind a mantilla of cloud, like a lovely lady giving a come-hither look, and the sea was gleaming like polished pewter. She was admiring her reflection in the surface, the lovely lady, waiting for the cloud to clear so that she could admire her cloak of stars. The words of a Yeats poem she’d loved at school came back to her:

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Oh, why had she teleported in a huff? She could have told Hero about the poem. Stupid Bethany. You’re back to being bored now, and it’s all your own fault.

She left the window, and went back to her computer, to try to find something to amuse herself with. Going to the Eircom home page, she clicked disconsolately on random news items. There was nothing of any interest. If she’d been at home in Dublin she could be curled up on the sofa with her mother watching reruns of
Friends
, but there was no television here in the cottage in Lissamore, and anyway, watching
Friends
on your own was no fun. YouTube beckoned. You could waste hours on YouTube.

What had she used to do, before her parents had allowed her unsupervised access to the internet? She’d played games on her Xbox, but she’d grown out of that now. She’d devoured books as a child – it had been her way of escaping from real life – but she hardly read at all now. She was, she realized,
as dependent on Second Life as a means of escape as she had once been on books.

Oh, God. Was she turning into a loser? Would she end up like one of those big fat people who sit around in front of screens and stuff their faces with junk food all day? She couldn’t be a loser. She was a well brought-up, well educated girl. She talked about poetry and plays on the internet, not loser crap!

But without Second Life she was feeling a little lost. Maybe she could do some research, find out stuff about the Earl of Rochester to impress Hero with next time they met up. She went to her Google toolbar and typed in ‘Earl of Rochester’.

He was, she learned, a famously debauched member of the court of Charles the Second. He had seduced the actress Elizabeth Barry when she was just seventeen. He had written obscene verse, had had a string of lovers both male and female, and he had died of syphilis. His poem – ‘A Ramble in St James’s Park’ – was the most disgusting thing Bethany had ever read. Oh. He wasn’t romantic at all. Why had Hero brought him up?

She felt dirty, having read the poem. She’d expected ‘A Ramble in St James’s Park’ to be something lovely and buoyant and pastoral, not the corrupt musings of a sex-addicted sicko, which was clearly what this Rochester had been.

Bethany went into the bathroom and ran herself a bath. Her phone rang, just as she was stepping into it. She checked out the screen, hoping it might be her mother, but a private number was displayed. Bethany never picked up private numbers. She set the phone down on the bath rack, and slid under the water.

As a little girl she’d pretended to be the Little Mermaid any time she took a bath. The film had been her all-time favourite: she adored Ariel, and to her mind the handsome
prince was the handsomest of all the Disney heroes. But when she got around to reading the Hans Christian Andersen original, she was shocked to find that it did not have a happy ending. In the Hans Christian Andersen version, the little mermaid sacrifices herself so that the prince may live happily ever after with his human bride. Bethany wished afterwards that she hadn’t read the original fairy tale. She wanted to believe in happy endings. Still did – even now. But Bethany knew that growing up meant putting childish things behind her. Her Facebook friend, Flirty, had sent her a new message recently. Something from Simone de Beauvoir…
One is not born a woman. One becomes one.

Bethany guessed that – like Wendy in
Peter Pan
, she had to come to terms with the fact that becoming a woman meant she couldn’t fly any more. Or maybe, she wondered, as she reached for the soap, she should try flying in a different direction?

Her mother’s dog-eared copy of Erica Jong’s
Fear of Flying
was in the bookcase downstairs. Maybe she’d try that as her bedtime reading tonight.

Dervla took a deep breath, and opened the door of Daphne’s bedroom. This morning she would endeavour to get her mother-in-law washed. Yesterday, after the spoon incident, she had decided that she’d skip the bathroom bit, but Nemia had told her that Daphne couldn’t go more than forty-eight hours without a wash, and Dervla knew she couldn’t postpone the ablutions any longer.

‘Who’s that?’ asked Daphne, turning to the door.

‘It’s Dervla, Daphne. I’m staying here while Nemia is away. She’s gone to Malta on holiday.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I thought you might like to have a wash before lunch.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘Well, I’ve run some water into the basin, and put on the heat in the bathroom, so it’s nice and warm for you in there. And after we’ve had a wash, you might like to go into the sitting room. There’s a present waiting for you in there.’