Angels Read online

  ‘“Book learning”?’ Emily whispered. ‘What is she like?’

  ‘Sshhh,’ a poster girl for tie-dyeing hissed fiercely at her.

  ‘… he’d the heart of every woman in Ireland broke. Every mother in the townland had her eye on him.’ A professionally timed beat. ‘And not just for their daughters!’

  Much laughter ensued and I took advantage of the disturbance to make wind-it-up gestures at her. She saw and acknowledged. Mind you, she looked disappointed.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she cut across the laughter, ‘ladies and gentlemen. As you can see, my daughters have arrived and want to take me away to the Viper Room.’

  Instantly, several heads snapped around and glowered.

  ‘So reluctantly I have to take my leave of ye.’

  ‘“Ye”?’ Helen questioned. ‘“Ye”?’

  ‘Couldn’tja wait five minutes?’ a large pony-tailed man turned to us and asked aggressively. ‘We wanna hear the end of the story.’

  ‘Yeah,’ someone else called. ‘Let Johnny Depp wait.’

  How was it we were getting the blame? ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Makes no odds to us.’

  ‘Wisha,’ Mum acted coy. ‘I’d no idea ye were enjoying it so much. Sure, if ye insist…’

  ‘WE INSIST!’ the room erupted, then one of her front-row acolytes touched her gently and said, ‘Carry on, Mammy Walsh.’

  Mammy Walsh carried on for quite some time, and by the time they finally let her go, she was floating on air and so was Dad. Unfortunately, things got a little ugly out on the street when she discovered that she wasn’t really going to the Viper Room, that it had only been a ruse – agreed upon by herself, we had to remind her – to get her out.

  ‘I want to go to the Viper Room.’ She sounded like a spoilt child.

  ‘You can’t, you’re too old!’ Helen said.

  ‘You said it was oldies’ night.’

  ‘It was a joke. And we’re knackered, our jet lag has caught up with us, we’re going home to bed.

  Mum turned an Et Tu, Brute? look on Emily and me. ‘I’ve a screenplay to write,’ Emily said nervously. ‘I need my zeds.’

  ‘And I’m helping her. ‘Night all, see you tomorrow.’

  Emily and I hurried into the house and closed the door behind us, but from the street we could still hear her plaintively insisting, ‘But I’m on my holidays. You lot are no fun.’

  40

  The holiday that was supposed to do Garv and me the world of good did the exact opposite. We returned frayed and shrouded in a dreadful suspicion that everything we did together would go wrong, that we were travelling on a non-stop, one-way ticket to disasterville, and that the more we struggled to extricate ourselves, the more trapped we’d become.

  The atmosphere remained strained on our return and once or twice I caught Garv looking my way, with blame in his eyes. But about ten days after we got back, we had an appointment with Dr Collins, my gynaecologist, where we tried once again to find a reason why I’d miscarried twice. It was in that room that the final prop was removed for Garv and me. I can pinpoint, almost to the second, the exact moment that my marriage keeled over and died.

  However, often when fatal things are happening, you don’t know at the time that they’re fatal. You get an inkling that they’re Not Good, that they Haven’t Helped, but only the passage of time will reveal just how bad they are.

  I blame routines. Routines mask disaster. You think if you’re getting up in the morning, putting on clean clothes, going to work, eating from time to time and watching East-Enders that everything’s under control. And we were doing all that, but dragging the weight of our moribund relationship with us.

  After the first miscarriage, we’d both been eager to try again immediately. We’d had a lot of hope that a new pregnancy would erase our sadness. This time was different. I think I was afraid of getting pregnant again, in case I miscarried once more. But nevertheless, I consulted my temperature thing daily, and Garv and I dutifully had sex if the signs were auspicious. Until one day something that had never before happened, happened. We were in bed and Garv was about to enter me, when I noticed that he was having trouble. His erection had gone a bit bendy and flippy.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s just a bit…’ he said, trying again to hit the target.

  But he hadn’t a hope, and before my eyes it got softer, softer, softer, shrinking in seconds from a hard baton to a shy marshmallow.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, rolling away from me and staring at nothing. ‘It must be the drink.’

  ‘You only had two pints. It’s me, you don’t fancy me any more.’

  ‘It’s not you, of course I fancy you.’

  He rolled back to me and we lay wrapped around each other, rigid in our separate miseries.

  The next time we tried, it happened again and Garv was wretched. I knew, from Cosmopolitan and sessions with my girlfriends, that this was the worst thing that could happen to a man, that he felt his very manhood was failing him. But I didn’t have what it took to provide comfort. I was wound too tightly around myself; sore that he’d rejected me and angry at his uselessness – how could we ever have a baby with this carry on?

  We had one more disastrous attempt, before reaching a silent, mutual decision not to chance it again. From then on, we barely touched each other.

  One Sunday night, we were watching a video – I think it was Men in Black – one about the world being about to end unless someone does something heroic very quickly. It was near the end of the film, time was running out, urgent music was playing, it was all very tense… And suddenly Garv says, ‘Who cares?’ ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Who cares? Let the world end. We’d all be better off.’

  It was so unlike him that I took a good look to see if he was joking. But, of course, he wasn’t. I watched this person slumped on the sofa, his hair flopping over his dark, mutinous face and I wondered who he was.

  The following morning, I’d got up, had my shower, had my coffee and got dressed, and he was still in bed.

  ‘Get up, you’ll be late,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not getting up. I’m staying in bed.’

  He’d never done that before.

  ‘Why?’

  He didn’t reply and again I asked, ‘Why?’

  ‘For tax reasons,’ he mumbled, turning his face to the wall.

  For a short time I stood looking at the inert mound of him under the duvet, then I left the room and went to work. He wouldn’t talk to me and I was barely even frustrated. Upsets no longer sent me plummeting with despair, they simply settled calmly on top of the others. Probably because there was no place left for me to plummet to – I was as low as it got.

  Apart from the occasional day skipping work – but never together – our routines kept us running like rats in a wheel. We thought we were moving forward, but all that was happening was that we were marking time, getting nowhere. It was around then that I started drinking my contact lenses.

  Click, click, click, the days passed. We paid our mortgage, we marvelled at how expensive our phone bill was, we discussed Donna’s love life – all familiar stuff, the lifeblood of normality. We went to work, had the occasional night out with friends where the pretence was maintained, then went to bed without touching, and got a few hours’ sleep before waking at four a.m. to worry. And yes, I did wonder when things were going to get better. I was still convinced that this horrible patch was temporary. Until the night, shortly before it all went pear-shaped, when I was afflicted with sudden x-ray vision. I could see straight through the padding of the daily routine, the private language and the shared past, right into the heart of me and Garv, into all that had happened. Everything was stripped away and I had a horrible, too-clear thought: We’re in big trouble here.

  Somehow, three months had passed since the holiday in St Lucia.

  The day we were supposed to be going out with Liam and Elaine dawned no differently from any of the others. No one could hav
e predicted that today was the day that the whole rickety structure would come crashing down. Then, inexorably, the series of events kicked off – the flat-screen telly falling on Liam’s toe, the phone call where I said I’d pick up some food, the box of truffles in the chilled compartment – ending with the awful tableau of Garv lifting the chocolates out of the shopping bag and exclaiming, ‘Hey, look! Those sweets again. Are they following us?’

  Then I was looking at him, at the box, then back at him. Baffled.

  ‘You know’ he insisted happily. ‘The same ones we had when –’

  And then it all went see-through and I knew. He was talking about someone else, another woman.

  I felt that I was falling, that I would go on falling for ever. Abruptly, I made myself stop. The gig was up, the end had come and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to watch the downward spiral of my marriage begin to catch other people and spin them into the vortex too.

  41

  On Friday, Dad went to the chiropractor and Mum, Helen and Anna went to Rodeo Drive. Mum had insisted on going, even though we’d told her it was very expensive. No doubt she’d enjoy it, or at the very least she’d enjoy tut-tutting about the outrageously high prices when she returned.

  I couldn’t go with them because, as Emily put it, I had to help her hammer the final few nails into the coffin of her rewritten script. Larry Savage wanted it by lunch-time and it was all hands on deck. We worked through the morning, reading aloud, looking for inconsistencies and checking for continuity. Then at midday – High Noon, Emily kept calling it – we printed it out, the courier came, and Emily kissed the bundle of pages goodbye, ‘Good luck, you poor bastard.’

  Straight away, an exhausted Emily went to bed. With Lou. I found myself at an unexpectedly loose end. It was too hot to sunbathe, there was nothing on telly and I was afraid to go shopping in case I bought stuff.

  My thoughts turned to that night’s dinner. I was pretty sure Shay wouldn’t show; you’d want to have seen his face when Dad had strong-armed him with his invitation. Not keen – he’d just said yes so he wouldn’t give offence, and it would come as no surprise to get a message saying he’d been unavoidably detained at a meeting or something.

  But what if he did come? Then what?

  In no time at all, I’d decided to get my hair blow-dried. My only real option was Reza; she was strange and narky, but she was only two minutes down the road and, apart from the way she’d gammied up my fringe the last time, she’d done a fine job. I’d just wear tights on my head for a couple of hours when I got home and I’d be grand.

  I rang for an appointment, and when I showed up at the salon it was no surprise that Reza wasn’t friendly – but she wasn’t as brusque as she’d been the other time, either. In fact, she seemed a little subdued. A few times while she was lathering my hair she exhaled wearily on to my scalp, then as she started tugging the head off me with the blow-drying brush, she gave a big, heavy, despair-sodden sigh.

  Seconds later came another huge sigh, gathered up from her toes and released like a hurricane all over me. Then another. Eventually I had to ask, ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘Er, what’s wrong?’

  Another sigh was on the way. I could feel it, being collected, climbing its way through her body, expanding her chest, then being exhaled. It took so long I thought she wasn’t going to answer me. Then she found words. ‘My kusband is cheeedink me.’

  God, was I sorry I’d ever risen to the bait. ‘Cheedink you? Out of money?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘No!’

  Oh dear, I didn’t think so, and I simply couldn’t bear to discuss unfaithful husbands.

  ‘He has found another love.’

  To my horror, a tear zoomed down her cheek, then another and another.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’

  ‘But still he sleeps in my house and eats my food and rings this whore on my phone bill!’

  ‘That’s really terrible.’

  ‘Yes, my sorrow is great. But I am strong!’

  ‘Good for you.’

  Then she seemed to notice my hair for the first time in ages. ‘Your bangs are too long,’ she said mournfully.

  ‘Ah, no they’re fine!’

  But it was too late. She was reaching for the scissors, then she was cutting and all the while tears filled her eyes, blinding her vision. Blinding her vision.

  It only took two or three seconds for the terrible damage to be done. One second I had normal hair, the next my fringe was a pure diagonal, as if I was a New Romantic. At its shortest point it was less than an inch long. Appalled, I gazed into the mirror. Reza might as well have gone the whole hog and given me a Mohican. And what could I say? I could hardly berate her, a woman in her condition. (Not that I would anyway. Don’t we all know that it’s harder to be honest with hairdressers than it is to get a camel through the eye of a storm, or whatever it is.)

  Feeling sick, I paid up. Then, my hand over my forehead, I hurried towards home. But as I passed the Goatee Boys’ house, Ethan opened a window and yelled, ‘Hey Maggie, your bangs look kinda weird.’

  In no time, in a reprise of my last visit to Reza, the three lads were on the street examining me.

  ‘I think it’s cool,’ Luis said.

  ‘I don’t. I’m too old for novelty hair-dos. Have you any suggestions for fixing it?’

  Luis studied me thoughtfully. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Great. Tell me.’

  ‘Let it grow.’

  At least the whooping noises from Emily’s room had stopped. They must have gone to sleep. The sky had clouded over and it was fearfully hot, so I turned the air-con up full, watched telly and willed my hair to grow. This was like a sign: I’d never impress Shay Delaney. It just wasn’t going to happen.

  Around five, Emily emerged in her robe and wandered about yawning and smoking, then saw me and stumbled in fright. ‘What happened to your HAIR?’

  ‘Reza.’

  ‘Why did you go back after the last time?’

  ‘Because I’m a fucking eejit,’ I said disconsolately. ‘Is there anything you can do?’

  She tried to pick up the shortest bit of the fringe. ‘’Hmmm,’ she said speculatively. ‘Let’s see. I’ll get some stuff.’

  Minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom with a ton of gear for taming unruly hair – gels, wax and spray – and rummaged through them. ‘I think we’ll need warp factor ten. Class A. The hard stuff.’ She showed me a tin of wax. ‘They use this on horses, you know.’

  While she was coaxing the lard-like horse wax through my butchered fringe, the phone rang and she said urgently, ‘Don’t answer. Let the machine get it. It’ll be Larry the Savage, getting me to rewrite more of that fucking script and I’ll lose my reason.’

  We listened, but it was a hang-up. ‘Another one,’ frowned Emily. ‘There’s been a fair few over the last day or so. Don’t tell me I’ve got a stalker, on top of all my other troubles. There now, how’s that?’

  I looked in the mirror. She’d done a very good job of sweeping the fringe over to one side and making it look almost normal.

  ‘Great. Thanks.’

  ‘You’ll need a lot of wax and hairspray to keep it in place, but it should work. And don’t go back to that woman again.’

  ‘No, I won’t. Sorry. Thanks.’

  The dinner that evening was in some outdoor place in Topanga Canyon, and the cast of characters were me, Emily, Helen, Anna, Mum and Dad – proudly sporting his brand new clicked-back-into-place neck. (‘I thought it was a gun shot but instead it was my own neck!’)

  We had all squashed into Emily’s jeep and the restaurant, when we got there, was beautiful. Lanterns were strung through the trees, a rushing sound indicated a stream nearby, and it was mercifully cooler than it had been on lower ground.

  No sign of Shay. We were herded into the bar to wait for him and I nervously went to the bathroom to check my fringe, but I shouldn’t have gone because when
I came out Emily and Dad were squaring up to each other and the atmosphere was tense.

  ‘Mr Walsh,’ Emily said, ‘I really don’t want us to fall out over this.’

  My heart sank. What was happening?

  ‘I have my pride,’ Dad said.

  ‘Let me make this very plain,’ said Emily. ‘I will buy the first round. I live here, you are the guests, it’s appropriate that I buy the first round.’

  Sulkily Dad said, ‘And what about the second?’

  ‘One of you can get it.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know. You can fight it out amongst yourselves.’

  But as it happened, the first round was bought by Shay, who strolled in, blond and hunky, suavely flicked some sort of gold card at the bartender, then smilingly said hello to us all in turn.

  ‘Hi, Maggie, you look beautiful. And so do you, Emily. And there’s Claire. Oh, sorry, Mrs Walsh, I thought for a minute you were Claire.’ Then he moved on to Helen, who was more beautiful than the lot of us put together, but she bared her teeth in a silent snarl and all his words disappeared. He never got to Anna. Instead Dad locked him into a conversation, proudly boasting about how loud his neck fixing had been. (‘I thought a gun had gone off, so I did.’)

  After our drinks, we were led to a table beneath the stars and surrounded by rustling, fragrant trees. Our waiter was the usual full-on experience.

  ‘Where you guys FROM?’ he shrieked.

  ‘Ireland.’

  ‘Iowa? NEAT.’

  ‘No – oh never mind.’

  Then we had the performance about that day’s specials. Vegan this, lactose-friendly that and zero per cent the other. The waiter addressed most of it to Shay, who made murmury, approving noises until the guy went away and then said, ‘God, it’d wear you out. Why does it always have to be so complicated? But that’s LA, I suppose’

  ‘Do you like it here?’ Mum asked him.

  ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘So long as you realize that this town is all about movies, nothing else matters. Like, remember when the American hostages were released from Iraq?’