This Charming Man (45 page)

‘Enjoy the trip.’

‘Who?’

‘You. Ma. Bid. Whoever goes.’

‘But won’t you…?’

‘I. Am. At. Work. You. Are. Retired. He. Is. Your. Dog.’

‘You. Are. Our. Daughter. We. Are. Elderly. And. Poor.’

‘I. Will. Pay. Your. Ferry. Fare. Good. Bye.’

The phone rang. Dad again.

‘What now?’ I asked.

‘How many?’

‘How many what?’

‘How many of us will you pay for? Just me or all three of us?’

‘Three, of course; three, by all means.’

He fumbled his hand over the mouthpiece and called excitedly, ‘We can all go.’

High-pitched happy squeaks from Ma and Bid reached me. Poor fuckers. How easy they were to please. Especially when Bid was so sick.

Then Dad came back on the line. ‘You have a good heart, Grace. Like Damien, you can be brutalin your execution – in that regard you two are well matched – but there is kindness underneath it all.’

When the phone rang again, I answered by mistake. I was expecting it to be Dad once more, wondering if they were permitted to have an allowance to buy tea and sandwiches on the ferry.

‘Grace Gildee, please.’

No! Fatalerror! Never answer your phone if you don’t know who it is! Now I’d have to have a long, sticky conversation with a PR person, as they tried to twist my arm into covering whatever book/gadget/charity they represented.

‘Who’s calling?’

‘Susan Singer.’

‘What’s it in connection with?’

‘My mum. Me and my sister, Nicola, our mum, Mrs Singer? You came to the house in September and talked to her about her biopsy? You sent us the photo of the three of us?’

‘Yes, of course!’

‘She died. Last night.’

‘God! That’s so sad! I’m really sorry.’

‘I just thought you might like… to know. You were nice that day you came, and you sent the photo. She framed it. The funeralis tomorrow morning.’

‘I’ll be there. Thanks for letting me know.’

I was going down to Chomps sandwich bar to get my lunch (it was ten past eleven, but I couldn’t wait any longer) and just before the lift doors closed Casey Kaplan darted in.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Is Jacinta right? Am I smelly?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do I smell of?’

I sniffed the air and thought for a second. ‘Debauchery.’

He seemed pleased. ‘Nice work on Dee Rossini, Grace, that was a rockin’ profile.’

The lift doors opened and we stepped out into the lobby. ‘But what about Chris? Who saw that one comin’?’ He added thoughtfully, ‘Always thought he was a sound guy.’

‘Chris?’

‘Christopher. Holland. Dee’s boyfriend.’

‘You know him?’
My voice was high and anguished.

He gave a what’s-the-big-dealshrug. ‘Yeah.’

‘You knew he was her boyfriend?’ No one else in the entire world had known there even
was
a boyfriend.

‘Yeah. Always thought he was a great guy. But,’ he sighed sorrowfully, ‘the
Globe
ponied up a shedload and I guess, with his gambling debts, it was too much to resist. As the man said, money talks…’

I’d heard enough. I couldn’t take any more of his showing off. Abandoning him mid-conversation, I stalked towards the door, watched by Yusuf and Mrs Farrell, who elbowed each other gleefully.

It was all on the evening news.

That morning in the Dail, the leader of the Christian Progressives, Brian ‘Bangers’ Brady (he had a thriving second-hand-car empire; Irish politicians encouraged nicknames in order to seem like men ‘of the people’), stood up and said, ‘If I might give my right honourable friend, the leader of
New Ireland, some advice…’ Then he leant down to his chair and produced a pink object. Heads stretched to get a better look, then pockets of laughter rose into the air from those who’d seen what it was.

‘This fine object – ’ he raised it above his head and the laughter got louder – ‘is a lady-shave.’ He read from the packaging. ‘I’m assured it guarantees “silky-smooth legs”.’

The crowd roared their amusement. They looked like apes at a rave.

With an unctuous bow of the head Bangers said, ‘We offer it to you, Minister Rossini, a gift from the Christian Progressives, in the hope that you may find it useful.’

‘It was disgusting.’ Damien had actually been there, reporting from the journalists’ gallery. ‘Playground bullying. And it gets worse.’

The leader of the Labour Party was getting to his feet. ‘That was a low blow from the leader of the Christian Progressives,’ he said. ‘The Labour Party would like to offer our support to Ms Rossini. In the form of this usefulitem.’ He whipped out something from his pocket.

‘What is it?’ I asked Damien.

‘Scholl foot rub.’

Even the Green Party offered Dee a bottle of lavender oil for her cellulite.

‘Nothing from the Socialist Workers’ Party,’ I remarked, touched by their forbearance and wondering if I should vote for them at the next election.

‘Probably because they didn’t have the funds,’ Damien said. ‘If they could have raised the price of a tub of foot cream between them, you can be sure they would have.’

Dee’s eyes were suspiciously shiny, but she stood there and took it, she even managed to smile and, as a result, the government survived.

‘But she’s on her last chance,’ Damien said. ‘One more drama and she’s a goner. And if she’s gone, so’s the Nappies’ coalition partner. Which means the government is gone. How many pairs of socks do I need to pack?’

‘How many nights are you going for?’

‘Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday – three.’

‘So how many pairs do you need?’

‘Three.’

‘Excellent. Catch.’ One after the other, I lobbed three pairs of balled-up
socks across the room. Gracefully he caught each of them one-handed, and dropped them into his bag, one, two, three.

‘Poor Dee,’ Damien said.

‘Who’s doing that stuff to her?’ I asked.

‘The Chrisps, obviously. They’re the only ones who stand to benefit.’

‘But do you know individualnames? Like, is it Bangers? Is it coming from the top down or what?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But even if you did, you wouldn’t tell me.’

‘I couldn’t.’ He had to protect his source.

‘Why are they picking specifically on Dee?’

‘Because they’ve already tried a direct hit on the Nappies with Teddy’s “loans”.’

The leader of the Nationalist Party of Ireland had been caught accepting personal ‘loans’ that ran into tens of thousands, ‘loans’ that he’d had for over a decade and hadn’t made one repayment on. But he had toughed it out and simply refused to go.

‘The Nappies and Teddy are Teflon-coated. The only way left for the opposition to attack them is to go for their coalition partner. And unlike the rest of them, Dee is honourable. If she’s pushed enough, she
will
resign. How cold will it be in Hungary?’

‘What am I? The weather channel?’

He shook his head, almost in pride. ‘You’re so narky.’

It made us both laugh. ‘You’ve taught me everything I know,’ I said. ‘It’s November. Leave your shorts at home.’

‘… God, look, Grace.’ He was staring at the telly.

A juggernaut carrying cigarettes had been hijacked. The two thieves had shoved the driver out of his high seat into the road and screeched away, heading north, no doubt laughing their heads off.

‘That could have been us,’ Damien said, his expression aglow with cigarette hunger. ‘A whole lorryload. Once we were sure we’d shaken them, we could have pulled into a lay-by and climbed into the cargo bit of the lorry and smoked ourselves sick.’

‘We could have opened hundreds of packs –’ I cried.

‘– and thrown handfuls of cigarettes up in the air and covered ourselves in them –’

‘– and lit dozens and only half-smoked them –’

‘– or smoked six at the one time –’

‘– and had mad nicotiney sex, rolling around on a bed of cigarettes. God…’ My words trailed away and I sighed.

Then he sighed and, with resignation, returned to the business of packing. It reminded me of
The Little Matchgirl,
when her flame goes out and the beautifulvision disappears.

I put an emergency stash of sweets in his suitcase and, for a moment, considered adding a note saying, ‘I love you,’ but that was so out of character for me that I thought it might scare him.

‘Charity.’

‘No!’ Jacinta said it automatically now, no matter what I proposed. ‘You’ve gone so…
do-goodery
. With your abused women and your homeless people and now your charity.’

‘Three or four profiles on the different faces of charity.’ I just carried on as if she was fizzing over with enthusiasm. ‘The society woman who goes to all the fund-raisers; the administrator who controls funding for developing countries; the compassionate individualwho gives up her job for six months to feed the starving.’

She liked it. I had her at ‘the society woman.’

‘Hey, Declan, who’s the hottest charity queen?’ she called.

Declan O’Dowd (‘He never gets out’) squinted at us. ‘Rosalind Croft. Wife of Maxwell Croft.’

‘I knew that,’ Jacinta hissed in triumph. ‘I’ll spend the day with her, shadowing her every move. I hear she’s very generous. She might give me a handbag. Set it up, Grace.’

‘And I’ll do the dull ones?’

‘Yes, yes, you’llhave a wonderfultime with the bleeding heart who goes to Africa. You can have a good old rant together about globalism – you’ll enjoy it! Try to find someone who’s not too minging for the photo.’

‘And the administrator?’

‘Send TC if you want. Or you can do it. But get a looker. Where are you going?’

‘Funeral.’

∗

The church was packed and sombre. The two daughters, Susan and Nicola, neat in dark coats and formalshoes, sat in the front row beside a white-faced man whom I assumed was their father. My head ached with unshed tears.

Mr Singer spoke with great tenderness about his wife. Then Susan and Nicola stood on the altar and said formal words of goodbye to their mum, and it was so very sad that I thought my skullbones would burst apart from the pressure. It was a crying shame that the profile on Mrs Singer had never been published. It wouldn’t have cured her, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but it might have made the girls feel a tiny bit better.

‘We stand up now,’ the old man beside me whispered. He had taken it upon himself to prompt me because I didn’t know the sitting/standing/ kneeling sequence of Mass.

The sound of shoes scuffing the wooden floor echoed in the church as we all got to our feet, and in the gap briefly opened up by the moving bodies I saw, several rows in front of me, his unmistakable shoulders. But it couldn’t be him, what would he be doing here?

A wall of backs faced me and I could see nothing else until the old man whispered, ‘Now we kneel.’

The congregation dropped to their knees and I stayed standing long enough to see that it was definitely Paddy.

‘Kneel, kneel!’ the old man said. ‘Get down!’

I dropped to my knees before the old man had apoplexy.

What was Paddy doing here with the Singers? How did he know them? Then it dawned on me: this was his constituency. Politicians always showed up for their constituents’ funerals, in an effort to make voters think they were human.

Outside the church, I watched him, with his overcoat and his height and his charisma, bending his head down to offer words of sympathy to the girls. I remembered Mrs Singer saying that they were fourteen and fifteen – around the age Paddy had been when his mother died.

You could see that even though their mother was dead, it was nonetheless a thrill that the famous Paddy de Courcy had come to her funeral.

Poor little girl-women, to be deprived of their mum at such a vulnerable age. But at least they seemed to have a loving dad. Not like Paddy.

‘Oh my God…’ Marnie had stopped, like she’d banged up against a force field.

It had been a bright June evening, the night before Marnie’s and my Leaving Cert history exam and Ma and Dad were forcing us to walk Dun Laoghaire pier, in the hope that the fresh air would give us a boost in the exam hall the following day.

Business on the pier was brisk; the sunny evenings always brought out the crowds and lots of other parents had had the same idea as Ma and Dad.

‘The Marshall Plan was dressed up as aid but it was a perfidious plot to…’ Dad was ‘helping us revise.’ He came to a halt and looked back at Marnie, a few feet behind him. ‘Why’ve you stopped, Marnie? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ Her face was suddenly bloodless.

‘What? You can’t just say “nothing”. Are you going to faint?’

‘Don’t look,’ she muttered. ‘Don’t say anything, but it’s Paddy’s dad.’

‘Where?’ Ma and Dad’s eyes sought drunkards on benches, enjoying the last rays of the sun.

‘Over there, but please don’t look!’ Marnie indicated a tall erect man, with tightly cut, bristly grey hair, a creaseless tan-coloured shirt and pair of matching trousers. He could have been an army officer.

‘Him?’
This picture of military-like respectability was not what Ma and Dad had been expecting. They’d known from Paddy’s impoverished, hungry demeanour that Mr de Courcy was a mostly absent parent, but as Paddy had never gone into detail they’d drawn the not-outlandish conclusion that drink was the trouble.

Marnie stepped behind me. ‘Don’t let him see me.’

‘He looks pleasant enough,’ Ma said.

‘You mean clean,’ Marnie said.

‘I do not!’ Ma was wounded. ‘When did I ever like clean people?’

‘He looks like he’s in the army. But is he?’ Dad checked.

Marnie shook her head.

Satisfied that he wouldn’t be fraternizing with fascists, Dad took Ma by the elbow. ‘We should introduce ourselves.’

‘No, don’t. Please!’ Marnie said. She pulled them back.

‘Why not? His son and our daughter have been “going” with each other for the last year. It’s only polite.’

‘You don’t understand. Wait a minute.’ She corralled us into a tight circle. ‘Don’t look! Don’t let him see you looking!’

We flicked discreet glances at Mr de Courcy.

‘What is it?’ Dad asked. ‘I see he’s carrying a microphone. Does he sing?’