This Charming Man (84 page)

‘Cripes, look at this!’ Had kicked up legs so energetically that had overturned one of the pages and on the back was picture of Claudia, at launch of new Athlete’s Foot powder. Her 3-D knockers almost jumped out of the page and hit me in the eye. She was posing cheek by jowl with TV3 weatherman. Her new boyfriend apparently. Quote said, ‘Claudia and Felix. Very much in love.’

‘We can stop worrying about her now,’ Treese said. Treese very dry.

Back to dancing on Paddy de Courcy’s face.

‘What is danger of you having relapse on the wedding day itself?’ Bridie asked.

‘Time will tell, I suppose,’ I said.

Bridie displeased. ‘Course you won’t have relapse!’

‘Well, why you ask –’

‘– Rhetorical, rhetorical. You are over him. In fact, let’s gatecrash K Club and you can throw confetti.’

‘Let’s not.’

‘You not feel better enough to throw confetti at his wedding?’ Bridie’s eyes narrowed.

‘Not exactly, but don’t feel like throwing rotten tomatoes either.’

‘So what was bloody point of that lovely showdown with him?’

‘Facing fears and all that. And am much better than was. Work going well.’

Modest understatement! Was riddled with work. Had been wobbly when first returned but now was in the zone and at top of my game. Everything I did was a triumph – not boasting, no, not boasting, simply saying how it was. Could ‘cherry pick’ jobs, keeping best-paid, most interesting ones for me and passing on overflow to – yes – Nkechi. Why not? She was excellent stylist.

Also she had suffered a loss. In stunning, shocking move, Rosalind Croft had left her husband, the horrible Maxwell Croft. Unprecedented. Society wives
never
leave society husbands, always other way round. Rosalind Croft no requirement for stylist because no jingle to pay for one. Nkechi down one very lucrative client.

‘Remember the night of the soup?’ Bridie chortled. ‘When you camped outside Paddy’s front door and asked me to bring you soup. God, you were certi
fiable
!’

‘Haha, yes, indeed.’

‘Was a few months there,’ Bridie said, ‘when I thought you would never be normal again!’

‘I thought would never be normal again either,’ I said, remembering just how wretched had felt.

‘But,’ said Treese firmly, ‘your life definitely back on track.’

‘Never thought it would happen, never thought it
could
happen, but damage done by de Courcy seems to have healed,’ I said. ‘Look at me now.’ Swished hand around self to indicate sleek hair, calm demeanour, phone which never stopped ringing.

No need to go into it with Bridie but I knew would never again be the person I was before I met Paddy. Was less naive now, less trusting – but maybe that not a bad thing? Less scared, also. Not afraid of being back in Dublin. In fact, nice to be reinstated in own flat, with fully connected telly, right in the thick of things with grunty men wrestling outside my window at four in morning.

Transition, naturally enough, not entirely smooth. Missed things about Knockavoy: the peace, the cleanness, the sea air – despite ruinous effect on hair – and of course my many, many friends.

Thought of them often, with great fondness. Frequent memories
of Boss, Moss and the Master, accompanied with slight dread in case they made good on their promise to visit me in Dublin.

Thought of Mrs Butterly every day, especially when heard
Coronation Street
music.

Also thought of some of others every day. Sometimes twice a day. Or even more if, for example, heard ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ on radio (mercifully rare occurrence) or saw programme about badgers or passed by eco-swot Prius in street.

Or noticed man with unkempt hair or heard the word ‘pothole’ or used shower cap or ate tortilla chips and brushed crumbs onto floor.

Or drank Fanta or saw someone tossing a coin or noticed
Law and Order
in TV listings.

Or bought new bulb for bedside lamp or wondered if should do home cholesterol-test or tried new flavour smoothie. (Not Knockavoy memories so cannot account for this phenomenon.)

Considine texted often, with caring questions about my progress.

Always replied:

Initially slightly exaggerated quantity of work I was receiving. Important for him to think I was doing well. Had been instrumental in my rehabilitation and he deserved to feel warm glow of satisfaction.

However, he did not mention visiting Dublin and – unlike Boss, Moss and the Master – would have actually liked him to come. But that is men for you. All liars.

Not bitterness, no. Simply the way things are.

‘Make sure you put on that foundation.’ Bid walked into my bedroom, like she did every morning. There was no privacy in this house. No privacy and no heat and no biscuits. ‘We didn’t spend our hard-earned pensions… What in the name of
God
is wrong with your chin?’ The entire lower part of my face was weeping, blistered and crusty.

‘It’s a cold sore,’ I said wearily.

‘That’s no cold sore.’ Bid was appalled. ‘That’s some sort of disease. Trenchfoot. You look like you’re rotting.’

‘It’s a cold sore,’ I repeated. I used to get them when I was a teenager. ‘It’s just a very bad one.’

Bid yelled from the landing, ‘Is that alleged cold sore any better?’ She was pretending that she couldn’t bear to enter the room because of my disfigurement.

‘No. It lasts for ten days, I keep telling you, and I’ve only had it for four.’

She came in anyway. ‘Is that another cold sore on your eyebrow?’

I got out of bed and looked in the mirror. ‘I don’t know. It might be just a spot.’

‘A boil, you mean. Mother of the divine! You’ve more on your legs.’

I looked down. Christ alive. A selection of medieval-style boils had erupted around both ankle bones.

I was almost afraid to investigate further but I had to. I whipped down my pyjama bottoms to confirm the presence of several eruptions on my thighs.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ Bid moaned, raising her cardigan to cover her eyes. ‘You could have warned me you were going to flash your growler. And why haven’t you had a Brazilian? Is it any wonder he got sick of you?’

The following morning, when I woke, I heard Bid poking about on the landing.

‘Bid!’ I called. ‘Bid!’

‘What is it today?’

‘Bid! I’m blind.’

My right eye had swollen shut because of a stye.

Ma was summoned. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ she said. ‘I’m taking you to Dr Zwartkop. You might be anaemic or something.’

‘I’m not.’ I knew what was wrong with me. ‘Ma, I’m not going to the doctor. I’ve to go to work.’

But she rang Jacinta and said I’d be late – I was thirty-five and I was getting a sick-note from my mum – and I went along with it because I didn’t know how to resist. I’d forgotten how to do that; it was a skill I’d had once, but didn’t have any longer.

‘Interesting thing,’ Ma mused, as we sat in traffic, on the way to the doctor. ‘Some people, Marnie to take one, become really quite beautiful when they’re heartbroken. Strangely luminous.’ Then she clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Grace, sorry. I wasn’t thinking!’

Dr Zwartkop was a woman – Ma wouldn’t countenance anything else. Ma knew her well enough to call her Priscilla. She also knew her well enough to insist on accompanying me into the consulting room, as if I was six.

‘Cold sore,’ Priscilla said to me. ‘Boils. Stye. Anything else?’

‘An ache in my chest,’ I said. ‘And an ache in my face and head.’

She gave me a sharp look. ‘Have you had some sort of loss recently?’

‘My partner… ten years. We split up two weeks ago.’

‘No chance he’ll come back to you?’

‘No chance, Priscilla,’ Ma answered quickly.

‘I could send you for blood tests –’

‘But they’ll come back normal,’ I said.

Priscilla nodded. ‘I suspect they will.’

‘Anything else you can suggest?’ Ma asked.

‘Anti-depressants?’

‘Anti-depressants?’ Ma coaxed me.

I shook my head.

‘Something to help you sleep?’ Priscilla said.

‘Some nice sleeping pills?’ Ma suggested kindly.

Once again I shook my head. I’d no trouble sleeping.

‘You could get your hair cut. Or…’ Priscilla cast around for another
suggestion. ‘Or have an inappropriate fling. Or go on holiday.’ She shrugged. ‘Or, indeed, you could do all three.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. Maybe a holiday… ‘C’mon, Ma. I’ve got a job to go to.’

I ran out of petrol on the way to work. I’d known my car had needed petrol but over the preceding few days there had been so many choices at the station – premium and super-premium, diesel and non-diesel – that I’d had to drive away, convincing myself that I had enough left for one more journey.

When the engine spluttered and died, I didn’t even care. I just abandoned the car on the Blackrock bypass and got the bus the rest of the way to work, then I rang Dad and asked him to get a canister of petrol and go down and retrieve it.

When I finally got to work it was midday. I walked into the office and they howled with laughter when they saw the stye on my eye.

‘We’ve a present for you,’ TC said.

‘What?’ For some reason I thought it might be cake. Between my disfigurements and my petrol-free car, I’d thought they might have got me a nice cake.

It was a paper bag. Big enough to fit over my head.

‘We’ve cut out eye-holes,’ TC said.

I tried to laugh but – to everyone’s horror – tears came to my eyes.

‘It was only a joke,’ Lorraine said anxiously.

‘Maybe you should take some time off,’ TC urged. ‘How much holiday time have you left?’

‘A couple of weeks.’

‘Go someplace. Maybe get a bit of sun.’

I went to Jacinta, who wasn’t unsympathetic. ‘One of the Canaries?’ she suggested. ‘Lanza-grotty? Costs nothing at this time of year.’

But I’d no one to go with.

So I’d go on my own, I decided. It would be good practice for the rest of my life.

That evening Marnie rang Ma. They spoke for ages, then Ma handed me the phone. ‘She wants to talk to you.’

‘I hear you’re going on holiday,’ Marnie said.

‘That’s right.’

‘I could come with you.’

It was an olive branch.

‘I won’t drink,’ she promised.

Of course she’d drink, but it was better than going on my own.

Paddy got married. All over the news. Not exactly skipping around my flat, throwing hat up in the air, as if had just won 8 million euro, but didn’t have relapse. No demands for non-lumpy soup, no driving around the city without due care and attention. Day passed ‘peacefully.’

Phone rings. Bridie.

‘You want to go Knockavoy next weekend?’ she asks. ‘Patrick’s Day holiday?’

‘Thought Cousin Fonchy had house booked.’ (Another peculiarly named relation. Is there no end to them?)

‘He had but fell off ladder. Temporarily blind. Can’t drive. Will we go?’

Texted many Knockavoy pals to notify them of my forthcoming arrival.

We went to Tenerife. We got a little apartment in a resort that was faked-up to look like a fishing village. The place was about a quarter full and Marnie and I were the only people under ninety. Every day we each lay on a lounger beneath the weak March sun and I read thriller after thriller and Marnie read biographies of people who’d killed themselves. Every evening we had our dinner in the same restaurant and every night we both slept for twelve hours.

We took care of each other, finding lost books and sunglasses, rubbing on each other’s suncream, warning each other about overdoing it in the sun. There was no mention of Paddy or the bitter falling-out we’d had. We were like two frail, elderly convalescents, doing for each other what we weren’t able to do for ourselves.

I’d decided I didn’t care if Marnie drank – but, true to her word, she didn’t. Maybe that was all she’d needed, I thought wryly. A fortnight in the Canaries, to cure her of alcoholism.

We talked a lot while we lay on our backs facing up through sunglasses at the sky.

‘Funny how our lives have paralleled each other’s,’ I said.

‘You mean, both of us being left by our men?’

‘Yes, I suppose.’

‘Was it my fault that you and Damien split up?’ she asked. ‘Because of all that time you spent with me?’

‘No, of course not.’

But I understood that perhaps I’d welcomed the chance to spend weekends in London with Marnie, because it took me away from the stilted terribleness of Damien and me.

By the time we’d passed the halfway point on the holiday, I was certain that Marnie wouldn’t drink. Then, on the eighth day, she had a tearful phone call from Daisy – and just like that, she was off, drinking round the clock.

For three days I spoke to no one. I just read my books and lay on the
lounger and let the sun warm my eyelids. Now and again I’d go back into the apartment to check that Marnie was still alive.

Every five hours or six hours, she’d come to, get up, go out, buy more vodka, come back, drink it and pass out again. Dutifully I’d pour away whatever was left in the bottle, but when she emerged from her coma, I didn’t try to stop her from going to the mini-market to buy more.

After three days she stopped, like she’d run out of the necessary self-hatred to fuel the binge.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered at me.

‘It’s okay. Don’t worry. Do you feel well enough to go out for dinner tonight?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘I could cook. You haven’t eaten in days. You should have something.’

She was confused. Through her haze, she asked, ‘Why are you being so nice to me?’

‘Because I love you.’ The words were out of my mouth before I’d thought them through. ‘You’re still my sister. I’ve always loved you. I’ll never stop.’

‘Why aren’t you angry with me for drinking?’ Marnie asked.

Again the words came without my volition. ‘Because there’s nothing I can do about it.’ It didn’t mean that it wasn’t breaking my heart, because it was, but I knew now that there wasn’t a thing I could do to change things.