No Dress Rehearsal

  MARIAN KEYES

  NO DRESS REHEARSAL

  Marian Keyes is one of Ireland’s most successful authors with impressive international success. Her books include This Charming Man: A Novel (William Morrow, 2008); Anybody Out There? (2007); Angels (2002); Sushi for Beginners (2000) and many more. Marian was born in Limerick and lives in Dublin.

  NO DRESS REHEARSAL

  First published by GemmaMedia in 2009.

  GemmaMedia

  230 Commercial Street

  Boston MA 02109 USA

  617 938 9833

  www.gemmamedia.com

  Copyright © 2000, 2009 Marian Keyes

  This edition of No Dress Rehearsal is published by arrangement with New Island Books Ltd.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design by Artmark

  12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5

  ISBN: 978-1-934848-09-8

  Library of Congress Preassigned Control Number (PCN) applied for

  OPEN DOOR SERIES

  Patricia Scanlan

  Series Editor

  CHAPTER ONE

  Lizzie has just died. She simply hasn’t realised it yet.

  You’d be amazed at how often this kind of thing happens. Usually to people who were never very popular in the first place. When everyone starts completely ignoring them, they just accept it. Like they’d always thought it might happen, anyway. Sooner or later.

  This wasn’t the case with Lizzie, though. She was a popular girl. She just happened to have a lot on her mind on the afternoon in question.

  Anyway, what happened was Lizzie was cycling home from work. Weaving her way through the cars. Most of the time, going faster than them. On the Ranelagh road she got caught by traffic lights. “Come on,” she muttered. “Change!”

  As soon as the lights changed to green she took off like a hare out of a trap. She cycled out into the clear road, heading for home. Next thing, her bike slid on a patch of oil. In slow motion she saw herself flying straight into the path of an oncoming Volvo. She watched the wheels speed towards her. Far, far too close to her head. This isn’t happening, she thought.

  A film-reel of pictures raced behind her eyes. All of them about her. Aged four, falling out of a tree. The dog she’d had when she was seven. The coolest pair of cowboy boots she’d got when she was twelve. Her first romantic kiss. Her last day at school. Meeting Neil for the first time. Moving in with him. Going to work this morning. Leaving work this evening …

  And then everything stopped. No more pictures. For a few shocked seconds she lay on the greasy road. Her cheek was pressed against the tarmac. So close that she could see hundreds of pieces of tar-coated gravel. They’d been smoothed by a million car tyres. So many little stones, she thought. Then, I wonder if I’m badly injured?

  Slowly, carefully, she told her leg to move. It did so without sending hot agony shooting through her. This could only be good. She tried her other leg. No pain there, either.

  Testing each limb, she gingerly climbed to her feet. All the while, she expected some body-part to object. But to her relief it looked like she had no bones broken. In fact, as she checked herself, it seemed that she wasn’t even cut. How lucky was that!

  It was then she saw that the driver of the car had got out. He came towards her. His face was twisted into a mask of horror.

  “It’s okay,” she said, shakily. “I seem to be in one piece. Luckily!”

  To make him feel better she faked a laugh. But he paid her no attention. From the shapes he was making with his mouth, he seemed to be trying to talk. But he wasn’t having much luck.

  “I swear to God,” she said, “I really am fine! Don’t ask me how, but I am.”

  Still he didn’t speak. Suddenly she went weak. She was hit by a longing to be at home.

  She left the driver to his silent mouthing and got on her bike. By some miracle it was undented. And away she cycled. Leaving her still and bloody body lying beneath the car wheels.

  As she wobbled off, she almost bumped into someone. A tall, pale figure in a long, black, hooded cape. He nodded at her in a friendly way. But she hardly noticed.

  She still didn’t know what had happened. Nor did she notice the crowd of curious and worried people gathering around her body. She didn’t hear the ambulance siren in the distance. She didn’t see the huge queue of cars along the Ranelagh road. All delayed on their way home because her body was blocking the road.

  But if she had, she would have burned with shame. Because she was wearing her worst knickers. They were arm-pit high and the colour of porridge. How could she not have realised that they’d get an audience? It was as good as guaranteed.

  Most days Lizzie arrived home breathless and sweating, with her thigh muscles on fire. The cycling was yet another of her many efforts to get fit and skinny. Especially skinny. But today the journey felt oddly effortless. She seemed to sail along, as if the entire route was downhill.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At the very moment that one of the ambulance men officially declared her dead, Lizzie arrived home. She shared a flat in Rathmines with her boyfriend, Neil. They’d lived there for a year-and-a-half. It was a bit of a kip. Which hadn’t mattered so much in the first flush of love. But it had started to get on her nerves a bit lately.

  She left her bicycle in the hall, and shoved her key in the lock. She took a couple of steps back, like she always did. Then she did a little run at her front door, heaving her shoulder against it. There was something wrong with the door. It kept sticking. And she kept meaning to do something about it. Like ring the landlord.

  She could hear the telly. Neil was home. She looked into the front room where he was flung on the couch.

  “That bloody door,” she complained. She made her voice sound light and good-humoured because she was nervous. They’d had a row that morning – yet another one. In fact things had been going badly between them for quite a while.

  What it came down to was this. They’d been going out with each other for two years. And living together for eighteen months. Lizzie wanted to settle down and Neil wasn’t so keen. To put it mildly. (That was why she had other things on her mind when she was knocked down.)

  She was thirty-two, and fed-up being a party girl. She wanted stability. To own their own place. To think about having children.

  “That bloody door,” she said again. But Neil didn’t speak. He continued to stew on the couch like someone in a coma.

  Lizzie swallowed and made herself ask, “So how was your day?” She said it gaily, happily. Trying to pretend to him that she didn’t really mind if he didn’t make a commitment to her.

  Of course she minded. She minded very much.

  Lizzie wasn’t the kind of woman who normally took nonsense from men. Shape up or ship out was her usual approach to romance. But the problem was that she loved Neil.

  The smile died on her face as, still, he didn’t answer. In fact he didn’t even look up at her.

  She hung around in the doorway, feeling frightened and foolish. She licked her dry lips and tried to think of another light-hearted remark. Nothing doing. All she could manage was to mutter, “I fell off my bike.”

  Still he ignored her. Not a word of sympathy.

  So that’s how bad things had become, she realised. Living under the same roof and not even speaking to each other. It hit her hard. All at once she found it difficult to breathe. She swung away from the living room and went to the kitchen. She rested her elbows on the worktop and gasped into her hands, fighting for breath. Hot sweet
tea was the only thought she could latch on to. Hot sweet tea was good for shock.

  She didn’t know how good it was for the end of two-year relationships, however. Somehow she reckoned she’d need more than a cup of tea. More like a bottle of wine a night every night for six months.

  As she searched around in the kitchen for something that resembled sugar – she must go to Dunne’s, she must get her life in order – the phone rang.

  She cocked her ear at the front room. Then she heard Neil say, “What? I don’t believe you. Oh, Jesus!” A few seconds later came the sound of the front door slamming shut (after first sticking slightly).

  She ran out into the hall. What was going on? Where was he gone? She stared at the door, and thought about running after him. Then suddenly she felt too hopeless. What would be the point?

  When she couldn’t lay her hands on any sugar, she gave up the idea of the hot sweet tea. She just sat on the sofa, feeling very odd. She felt cold and dopey. Her ears buzzed and she couldn’t seem to think properly. Maybe she was in shock after the accident, she decided.

  Desperate for comfort, she wanted to talk to someone. So she rang her best friend, Sinead.

  Sinead always made her feel better, even if she couldn’t provide words of wisdom (and usually she couldn’t). But at the very least Sinead had the decency to be almost more fed-up with her life than Lizzie. Like Lizzie, Sinead hated her job. But Sinead’s job was far more stressful than Lizzie’s. Like Lizzie, Sinead had man-trouble. But Sinead’s trouble was that she had no man at all.

  But something was wrong with her friend’s phone. Lizzie could hear Sinead perfectly but Sinead couldn’t hear her, “Hello,” she kept saying, “Who is it? Is somebody there?”

  “Ah, shag it,” Lizzie sighed. It wasn’t her day. She hung up and rang again, but still Sinead couldn’t hear her.

  “IT’S ME,” Lizzie yelled. “I fell off my BIKE and I’m MISERABLE and Neil has gone OUT without telling me where he’s going – ”

  “Look, here,” Sinead’s voice threatened, “are you the fella who wants to talk about my underwear? Because if you are, I’ve got something to say to you.”

  With that, a piercing whistle screeched down the line. If Lizzie had still had an eardrum it would probably have started to bleed. Rubbing her ringing ear, she hung up. She wouldn’t be calling Sinead again this evening.

  Poor Sinead, she thought. Obscene phone calls were yet another cross that she had to bear.

  So now who could she talk to? She could ring her mother, she supposed. Except she couldn’t, because she’d only start giving out to her. Telling her it was her own fault she was down in the dumps. That she should never have moved in with Neil in the first place. “Why would he marry you when he’s already getting what he wants from you?” she’d say.

  No, she definitely wasn’t ringing Mammy Whelan this evening. Nor was she going to ring her father. Not because he’d give out to her. Not at all! He’d barely say anything. All he ever said when she rang up was, “I’ll get your mother.” You stood a better chance of having a conversation with Shergar.

  But she was mad keen to talk to someone. She’d have to ring the Samaritans at this rate. Or order a pizza just to hear a warm human voice.

  But when she tried ringing the pizza delivery place, it turned out that it was her phone which was broken, not Sinead’s. She could hear the pizza man, but he couldn’t hear her. Which was funny because the phone had been fine earlier. It had obviously been working perfectly when Neil had got the call which had lifted him from the flat like a bat out of hell.

  Now what, she wondered listlessly. She could always overeat, of course. Nothing like milling into a family-sized bag of crisps to keep the blues away. But there were no crisps in the flat. Worse still, she wasn’t hungry. I am in shock, she realised. Bad shock.

  The only time she ever skipped her evening meal was when she went for “just the one” after work. And ended up mouldy drunk on an empty stomach by half-eight. Too jarred to hold a knife and fork, and fit for nothing except bed.

  “Cigarettes!” she thought, suddenly. “They’ll do the trick. And so what if I’ve given them up.”

  Now, where had she hidden her emergency supply? She tried her tights drawer. Then the press in the bathroom. Then under her bed. But no joy. Just when she was losing hope, she remembered. She ran into the lounge and threw herself on a video case. Please let this be the right one. Quickly she pulled it open. And found ten Benson & Hedges inside.

  “Aha!” She kissed the box two or three times. Then she lit a cigarette and pulled on it down to her toes.

  But strangely, even that didn’t make her feel better.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sinead finished blowing her whistle, then she slammed down the phone. The mystery knicker-discusser hadn’t called in a while. She’d thought she’d got rid of him for good. Well, think again. Although he hadn’t sounded himself. Maybe he wasn’t well, she thought sarcastically. He hadn’t done his usual heavy-breathing routing. Or attempted a discussion on the finer points of her underwear. All she’d really been able to hear was a type of faraway keening. A distant whistling. Almost ghostly.

  Suddenly she felt slightly spooked. For no reason at all she flicked a glance around the room. Almost as if she was expecting to see something. She wasn’t quite sure what. But something.

  She pricked with unease, aware that she was alone in her flat. Uncomfortably aware. Then she jumped as the walls of her flat began to squeeze to the sounds of NWA booming from the flat above. Alone? She wasn’t alone. She was never alone as long as Wayne was living overhead.

  Her jaw clenched tightly in familiar tension. She should move. Or complain to someone. Possibly even Wayne. But she was afraid of him. Him and his pit-bull.

  The phone rang again. Quickly, she switched on her answering-machine. She wasn’t in the humour to talk to the mystery knicker-discusser for a second time this evening.

  The greeting played. I’m not here right now, but please leave a message.

  “Sinead,” a voice roared into the room. Sinead’s heart sank. It wasn’t the mystery knicker-discusser. She’d have preferred the mystery knicker-discusser. It was Ginger Moran, her boss.

  “I know you’re there,” he bellowed into the room. “Where else would you be? Pick up the phone.”

  Sinead thought about ignoring him. But she knew what he was like. He wouldn’t go away. So she gave in. She snatched up the phone and said curtly, “What?”

  “What yourself,” Ginger said cheerfully.

  “What are you ringing me at nine o’clock for?”

  “What are you ringing me at nine o’clock for?” he repeated in a nambypamby voice.

  She didn’t speak. Then he snapped into action. “You never left me the bill of lading for the tobacco shipment.”

  “It’s in your in-tray.” She kept her voice even.

  “Where in my in-tray?” Sinead had to stand by and listen to sounds of rustling, as Ginger pawed through sheets of paper. “Ah, I have it. See you tomorrow, don’t be late. We’ve that delivery of ball-bearings coming.”

  “And thank you, too,” Sinead said sarcastically, hanging up the phone.

  Sinead had worked for Ginger Moran for a very long time. Too long, she often thought. She was twenty-four when she had taken the job. Just to fill a couple of months while she decided what she really wanted to do. And here she was, eight years later, still working for him.

  He ran an import-export business. It operated out of a busy office and warehouse in Ringsend. And she suspected that a lot of his business deals were very slightly illegal.

  He imported knocked-off cigarettes. Or stolen Nike runners. Or fake Hilfiger T-shirts. She reckoned he’d do anything if there was a couple of bob in it.

  She didn’t know why she stuck it. He was a mad-man. Demanding and narky. As well as her normal working duties, she had to do all kinds of other things for Ginger. Not just the usual stuff, like buying presents for his girlfriends. But
organising dentist’s appointments. Choosing new clothes for him. Keeping him up to date with Coronation Street. And if she missed the evening episodes, he insisted that she watch the weekend omnibus.

  He treated her like a mix of a wife and mother. And the worst thing about him was that he always knew when he’d pushed her too far. When that happened he’d suddenly become contrite and almost sweet. Telling her she was great. Giving her presents.

  Mind you, they were only ever things like a box of stolen Nike runners. Men’s ones. Miles too big. Or a carton of fake Marlboros. Not much use to a non-smoker like herself. She’d given them to Lizzie, who had lit one and then stubbed it out straight away. “Disgusting,” she’d declared. “That’s not tobacco. They must have used tea-leaves! Or worse.”

  In fairness, Ginger paid well. It was probably the one reason why she hadn’t left before now. That and the threats, of course.

  “If you ever leave me, I’ll put a contract out on your life,” he often warned her. This was meant to be a compliment. “If you ever hand in your notice, I’ll kill you and then you’ll be sorry.”

  Sinead half-believed him. There were enough dodgy characters in and out of the office. She was sure he’d be able to lay his lands on a hired killer if he needed one.

  The phone rang once more, and Sinead tensed. Who was it this time?

  “It’s me again,” Ginger bellowed. “Where’s my stomach tablets?”

  Seconds after she hung up, the phone rang again. God, it was all go this evening.

  This time it was Shane, an ex-boyfriend. She hadn’t heard from him in about six months.

  “Come out for a drink, will you,” he asked.

  “Ah Shane, I’m knackered tired.”

  “How come?You’re not still working for Ginger Moran, are you?”

  “And what if I am?” Sinead said, huffily. When she’d been going out with Shane, he’d slagged her constantly about being Ginger’s mammy.

  “No wonder you’re knackered,” he laughed, “being on-call twenty-four hours a day.”