Angels (45 page)

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 hairdos. 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-conditioning 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?”

362 / MARIAN KEYES

“Because I'm a fucking idiot,” 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.”

She emerged from the bathroom with a ton of gear for taming unruly hair—gels, wax, and spray—and rummaged though 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 lardlike horse wax through my butchered bangs, the phone rang and she said urgently, “Don't answer. Let the machine get it. It'll be Larry the Savage, wanting me to rewrite more of that fucking script, and I'll lose my mind.”

We listened, but it was a hang-up. “Another one,” frowned Emily.

“There've 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 my bangs over to one side and making them look almost normal.

“Great. Thanks.”

“You'll need a lot of wax and hair spray to keep it in place, but it should work. And don't go back to that woman AGAIN.”

The dinner that evening was in some outdoor place in Laurel Canyon, and the cast of characters was me, Emily, Helen, Anna, Mum, and Dad—proudly sporting his brand-new clicked-back-into-place neck. (“I thought it was a gunshot, but instead it was my own neck!”)

We 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.

ANGELS / 363

No sign of Shay. We were herded into the bar to wait for him and I nervously went to the bathroom to check my bangs, 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 among 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 in 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, including the performance about that day's specials. Vegan this, lactose-friendly that, and zero percent the other. The waiter addressed most of it to Shay, who made murmury approving noises until the guy went away and Shay said, “God, it'd wear you out. Why does it always have to be so complicated?

But that's L.A., I suppose.”

364 / MARIAN KEYES

“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 Iran?”

Everyone nodded, though I'm sure they didn't.

“I was in the Grill Room that day for lunch with two agents and one of them said, ‘Did you hear they released the hostages?’ And the other guy says, ‘Released it? I didn't even know they'd started shooting it.’ It's that kind of place. Hey, Mr. Walsh,” Shay urged,

“tell the snooker story.”

“Should I?” Dad asked shyly.

“Ah, do,” we all urged, so Dad told the story of the only day in my entire life that he persuaded me to do something wrong—to take a day off from school, pretending to be sick, because he'd gotten tickets to the snooker final and had no one to go with—and how it ended up being on the evening news. Really, it did. As the champion sank the winning shot, right behind him, as clear as day, clapping like a stupid idiot seal, am I. I am more in focus than the champ, and the clip got shown on the six o'clock news, again during sports roundup, then a longer piece on the nine o'clock news, and even though I didn't see it myself, I'm told it was on the late news too. It got run on the following day's lunchtime news, then on the weekend when they were doing a review of the week.

Even at the end of the year, when they were showing the year's sporting highlights, once again I could be seen. In fact, only about a year ago, when the player announced his retirement, they ran the clip again and there I was, the fifteen-year-old me, with my terrible fifteen-year-old hair, grinning and clapping happily.

Everyone in the whole country saw me at least twice, and included in their number were my teachers. Some were sarcastic:

“Feeling better now, Maggie?” But more of them were confused.

“I'm surprised at you,” several said. “You're normally so good.”

ANGELS / 365

Dad told the story so well that we were all crying with laughter.

“I'm terrible at being bad,” I agreed, wiping my face. “Every time I do something dangerous, I get caught.”

I couldn't help it. I looked at Shay and he was looking at me and our smiles kind of faded. I looked away, and the next thing there was quite a fuss as a cordon of people surrounding another person moved as one well-oiled machine through the tables.

“Celebrity alert,” Emily said.

The whole restaurant was trying to look without seeming as if that's what they were doing, then a word began to ripple, almost as if it was being carried on the wind. Faint and whispery at first,

“…hurll…hurll…hurley…lishurley…lishurley…Liz Hurley.”

“It's Liz Hurley,” Emily hissed, and that was our cue to dislocate our necks looking. It was hard to see through the wall of minders, then one of them moved slightly, the light from a lantern caught her face, and it was! It was Liz Hurley.

“Does anyone dare me to go over there and ask for her autograph?” Helen asked.

“Does anyone dare me to go over there and tell her to wear more clothes?” Mum asked.

Shay shook his head admiringly. “I'm not daring you, Mrs.

Walsh, because I know you'll do it. You're a wild woman.”

“The nerve of you, I'm a respectable married Catholic.”

“You're a wild woman.”

As Shay and Mum twinkled at each other, I watched with a bittersweet amusement. Mum and Dad were mad about Shay. What would my life have been like if I'd married him instead of Garv?

A lot easier with my family, that was for sure. Mind you, Helen didn't seem to like him any more than she'd liked Garv.

“Okay, GUYS.” The waiter was back, doing his interpretation of the dessert list. “Fat-free ice cream, anyone?”

366 / MARIAN KEYES

“Ice cream?” Shay asked me softly.

Mutely, I shook my head.

“Some other time,” he said. It sounded like a promise.

It was a nice night, apart from the fight over the bill. Shay tried to pay it and Dad nearly had a fit; then Emily threw her oar in, insisting that the evening was on her. Eventually some kind of compromise was reached and we made our way to the car valets.

They brought Shay's car around first and, next thing, Mum piped up, “We were very cramped in Emily's Jeep coming up. Would you be able to drive one of us home?”

“Sure.” Shay offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

But there was no fear of that.

“I'd better go with himself,” Mum said, nodding at Dad. “Why don't you take Margaret?”

“No, I—” I started.

“Ah, do.”

I was acutely embarrassed. Even more so when Helen said loudly,

“I was reading a thing in the paper about some country where mothers sell their daughters. Where was it again? It began with
I
.”

“India?” Anna said.

“Yes! Or was it Ireland?”

I was perspiring from every pore. I wished the ground would open up and devour me whole; then Shay smiled at me, a smile packed with sympathy, understanding, even amusement. “Okay,”

I said. “I'll go.”

As we drove away, I said, “I'm sorry about Mum.”

“No problem.”

But he said nothing else, so eventually I asked, “How long are you in L.A. for?”

“Until Tuesday.”

“Long time. You must miss your wife.”

“Ah.” He shrugged easily. “You get used to it.”

I didn't know what to say next, and we maintained silence—not entirely comfortable—until, in an astonishingly ANGELS / 367

short space of time, he was pulling up outside Emily's, the engine still running.

“Thanks for the lift.” I reached for the door handle.

“You're welcome.”

I already had the door open when, out of the blue, Shay asked,

“Do you hate me?”

I was so shocked I gave a funny bark of laughter. “Um, no,” I said, trying to recover myself. “I don't hate you.” I couldn't have told you what I did feel, but it wasn't hate.

But if we were asking leading questions, I had one that I'd wanted the answer to for years. “Do you ever think about him?”

Shay paused for such a long time I thought he wasn't going to answer. “Sometimes.”

“He'd be fourteen now.”

“Yeah.”

“Nearly the same age as when we first met.”

“Yeah. Look, Maggie,” he said, flashing me a quick smile. “I've got to go. Early start in the morning.”

“Even on a Saturday? Tough schedule.”

He was handing me a business card. “I'm staying at the Mondrian. Out of office hours,” he said, scribbling, quickly on the card,

“you can get me at this number. 'Night.”

“'Night.”

Then I was out of the car and standing in the humid, flower-scented night, listening to the screech of his tires as he drove away.

I CALLED HIM
in the morning, as soon as it was civilized. I'd been awake since six, my arm itching like crazy, but made myself wait until five past nine before calling. Shay answered, sounding asleep.

“It's Maggie.”

Silence.

“Garv…Walsh,” I explained.

“Oh, hi.” He laughed. “Sorry, I haven't had any coffee yet, brain not engaged. So, ah, last night was good fun.”

“Yeah, it was. Listen, Shay—” I said, at the same time as he said,

“Look, Maggie—”

We managed a laugh and he said, “You go first.”

“Okay.” My blood was pounding in my ears and I plunged into what had to be said. “I was wondering…can I see you? Just for an hour or so.”

“Today's not so good. Or tonight.”

“Tomorrow? Tomorrow night?”

“Okay, tomorrow night. Come by around seven.”

“See you then. Thanks. And what were you going to say to me?”

“Oh nothing, doesn't matter.”

My agitation calmed. I'd see him tomorrow night.

When Emily got up we went to the supermarket for more supplies. As usual, the raggedy man was in the parking lot.

ANGELS / 369

He yelled, “Interior shot. Night. Jill takes a box from under her bed and opens it. Camera lingers on the gun inside…”

“Oh my God, Maggie,” Emily clutched my shoulder. “Listen to him.”

“What?”

“Can't you hear it?”

“What?”

“He's doing a pitch. He's pitching a movie.” She was walking over to him and I was hurrying behind.

“Emily O'Keeffe.” She stuck her hand out.

“Raymond Jansson.” He extended his filthy hand with its long black fingernails and gave her a good, firm shake. From a yard away, I could smell him.

“Is that your movie you're pitching?”

“Yeah.
Starry, Starry Night
.” His eyes were bright in his smeared face.

“Has someone picked it up?”

“Yeah, Paramount, but the producer got fired, then Universal did, but they closed that division down, then Working Title came onboard, but they couldn't get the financing.” Suddenly he didn't seem at all mad, until he said, “But I've got some meetings set up and I think I'm gonna get another deal real soon.”

“Good luck with it,” Emily said, linking arms with me and moving away.

“Jesus,” she muttered, tears filling her eyes and overflowing down her cheeks, “this is an awful town. Is that what's going to become of me? Going loopy from disappointment and pitching to the fresh air? That poor man, that poor, poor man.” She wept all the way through produce, breakfast cereals, baked goods, and dried pasta and didn't stop until we reached the potato chips.

Back home we were unpacking the groceries (mostly wine) when the phone rang. Automatically I went to answer it and what happened next was like the part in a film where a child is about to get run over by a car, and the hero flings 370 / MARIAN KEYES

himself, in tortuous slow motion, into the road and an echoey