Land of Dreams: A Novel (35 page)

I had not felt so alive for years—so reckless and free. I was, in reality, far from either of those things, but I was drunk and I was dancing, so it felt the same, and in the moment that this lunatic man was spinning me around and around, it seemed that was all that mattered.

During my final wild turn I spotted Leo watching me and, unsure whether it was horror or admiration on his face (and deciding that he was probably uncertain himself), I wrenched myself away from my partner and walked over to him. As I did so, I noticed Stan moving in my direction, on his own. He caught my eye before I could turn, by which time Leo had already disappeared back into the crowd.

I was flushed and still a little heady from the dancing. I did not want to talk to Stanislaw Lilius.

“Ellie?”

“Hello,
Stan
,” I said. Oh God, I sounded drunk. Was I drunk?

“You look well,” he said. He wanted to be talking to me just as much as I wanted to be talking to him. In that spirit I decided to keep him there, talking.

“I like your new girlfriend, Stan. She has lovely
teeth
.”

He knew what I meant.

“They’re her own,” he assured me. He could take a joke, I’d say that for him.

“Are you sure?” I said. “All of them? Have you checked?”

The girlfriend was following behind him with two drinks. Actually, this could be fun.

“Who’s your friend, Eileen?” Mr. Lookalike-Errol-the-Peril arrived at the same time as Marjorie (now that I was drunk I could remember her name), the not-his-usual-type screenwriter.

I was about to address her and comment on her teeth when my erstwhile dance partner grabbed the two drinks from her hands, downed them one after the other and yanked her by the waist onto the dance floor into a dramatic tango. I was enraged! The bitch had taken my composer, and now she was taking my dance partner. And while I’d been making a pure show of myself trying to jitterbug, they were doing a tango. I wanted to tango!

“Come on, Stan,” I said, grabbing him by the hand, “let’s show them how it’s done.”

“I think it’s time for you to go home,” he said.

Now that was
not
very nice. I did
not
like the way he said that.

“You’re not being very nice,” I said, then I leaned back and, pointing at his girlfriend and my mustachioed suitor, shouted, “Someone get that woman a rose, but tell her not to bite down too hard or her teeth might fall out!”

I remembered laughing, and then there was a gap when I don’t remember anything at all.

I woke up in the front seat of Stan’s car, which was parked outside my house and my friend was beside me.

My head hurt. He passed me his cigarette, then reached into the glove compartment, took out a big fat cigar and lit it, covering his face in a cloud of white, opulent, satiny smoke.

“Really, I must stop smoking those spindly little sticks. I hate them.”

“How long was I asleep?” I asked.

“About an hour,” he said. “It’s not very late, so I decided to let you sleep it off for a while, rather than drag you into the house, with Bridie in there. I thought . . .”

“Thank you,” I said. “Sorry for ruining your party,” I added after a moment or two, “and I’m sorry for insulting your girlfriend.” I picked up my bag from the floor. “I had better go inside.”

“Marjorie is a great woman . . .”

I didn’t want to have this conversation, so I opened the door and said, “I’m sure she is, and I am sorry for insulting her.”

“. . . but she’s not you.”

I closed the door again, a little too firmly.

“I am sick of all this, Stan. First, I discover that you are a womanizer, that you have slept with half of the starlets in Hollywood.”

“Maybe more than half,” he said, smirking.

“It’s not funny, Stan! Then, it seems, you have this nice woman, whom you are supposed to be taking seriously, but have left standing at a party, to come here with me . . .”

“You are more important to me than all of these women, Ellie.”

“Again this stupid stuff about me being ‘the great love of your life.’ I don’t believe you, Stan. You’re playing me. If you are so in love with me, what are you doing with her? With the peroxide blonde in your house?”

Now it was his turn to speak his mind. Any hint of softness was gone from his voice.

“Life is not a movie, Ellie. I have written enough romantic scores—it’s my speciality, actually—to know that. When I fell in love with you, I thought, ‘This is going to happen now for sure. I have met my great love. We will be together always. This is
meant
to happen’—just like in the stupid movies I have written. What a fool I was! So then, it didn’t happen, so what should I do now? Put my life on hold? Never sleep with another woman, while I wait and hope for you?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “That’s exactly what you should do!”

He let out a laugh.

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“Well then, Stanislaw Lilius, you don’t really love me.”

“You are a practical woman, Ellie, you have to be realistic,” he said. “How can you say this ridiculous thing? How can you say I don’t love you, when I have opened my heart to you?”

“Because I have loved,” I said, “and been loved. When you love somebody, you will wait forever for them.” Then I opened the car door and, before stepping outside, said, “Women like me don’t just fall into your lap, old man. You have to work for us. You have to be prepared to go to the ends of the Earth and back again.”

It was an arrogant thing to say, but Stan deserved it, and I left before he could make another trite comment. I knew he was watching me walk into the house, and was glad the emerald satin was wrapped so tightly around my curves. He didn’t drive away until I was inside and out of sight.

Susan was in the hallway putting her coat on.

“I thought you’d be later,” she said. “Good night?”

“Great,” I said, “but it’s good to be home. All in bed?”

“Bridie wouldn’t go to bed. She said she wanted to see you when you got in—see how the party went. She was in a great mood tonight, Ellie; she and Tom were dancing to the radio earlier! She was very lucid too, chatting about the film stars you might meet. we had quite a conversation about Carole Lombard.”

“She does
not
approve!”

“So I gather! Anyway, she’s having a bit of a snooze now. I’d say she’s pretty exhausted, so she should go down easy. There’s the remains of macaroni and cheese, if you like. Tom ate a pile of it before he went to bed. He should sleep late in the morning. Where’s Leo?”

“I left him to it. I had too much to drink—Stan dropped me back.”

“Well, good for you,” she said, laughing. “Ellie, you certainly deserve a good night out!”

She stood at the door to leave, and as she was about to go I had a sudden urge to embrace her. I put my arms around her and said, “Thank you, Susan—for everything. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

She patted my back and said, “It’s my pleasure, Ellie. Anytime.”

“Maybe sooner than you think. Tomorrow, if this head gets any worse . . .”

“I’ll call by in the morning.”

I felt good walking in through the hallway and into the living room. I had friends; life was good. To hell with Stan—I didn’t need a man anymore.

Bridie was snoozing in her chair. I put a pan of milk on the gas. The pair of us would have a nice hot drink and a chat, before I persuaded her into bed. I hoped she wouldn’t give me too much trouble tonight; my head was starting to pound and I wasn’t sure I had the energy for a fight—another one!

I broke some bread into two tin mugs and threw a spoonful of sugar in before pouring the warm milk on top. The concoction was called “goodie.” Maidy used to make it for us as children in Ireland—the ultimate warming bedtime snack—and I had carried on the habit with my own children. Some days, it was all Bridie would eat for me.

I laid the two mugs down on the table. “There you are now, Bridie.”

When she didn’t wake up I reached over and touched her hand. She seemed chilly, so I put my hand on her shoulder and, as I did so, her head lolled forward and to one side.

A noise came out of me—a short, sharp shout of sudden, involuntary grief.

Bridie was gone.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-F
OUR

I was not ready for Bridie to die, but as soon as I realized she was gone, I knew that it was her time.

She would have liked to hold on until I got home, perhaps, but she didn’t. Even Bridie wasn’t so organized that she could time her death down to the last minute.

Perhaps, after another few months of her health declining, I might have grown intolerant and waited for this moment. Bridie had known that, and would not have wanted to make a drudge or a nag out of me. Her pride would not allow her to decline any further than she did. She was old, and her time was now. It was for the best.

I knew all of those things and yet I was completely distraught. Even when you know it is coming, even when you expect or even wish for it, death is always a cruel and unexpected joker.

For a moment I sat tapping her hand, trying to wake her, refusing to believe the obvious truth of her passing. Then, afraid that Tom would wake up, or that Leo would come in from the party, I ran out of the house and got Susan.

Susan was shocked, certain that Bridie had been alive when she left. “I am sure of it, Ellie—I am so sorry . . .”

“Never mind, Susan.” And I found myself saying, “These things happen,” as if death were some unhappy domestic accident, like an overturned saucepan or laundry dropped in a muddy puddle.
Bridie would have enjoyed her death to be seen in such terms,
I thought.

Between us, we carried Bridie into her bedroom and laid her out on the bed, as if she were asleep.

“Will you be all right,” Susan asked. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

“No, you go home,” I said. “I’ll call the funeral home in the morning.”

I sat with her then, my surrogate mother, my old friend.

In Ireland we waked our dead. Sat with their bodies overnight until their spirit was gone, talked to them, celebrated their life.

I was not yet ready to send my Bridie out of the world. So I held her hand as it stiffened, and tried to rub some of my own warmth into it. I kissed her cheeks, splashing them with my hot tears. I combed her wispy hair and tidied it back from her face. I summoned her back by telling her how much she had meant to me in my life, and I joked that if she didn’t return to me this instant I would bury her in nail polish and lipstick and a gaudy blouse! When I was satisfied that she was gone, I placed her arms in a cross on her chest, took her rosary beads from her apron pocket, where she always kept them, and arranged them in her old, bony fingers. I closed the door to her room and went down to the kitchen, and cried and cried and cried myself out. Leo came in and found me.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, full of concern. He looked around, perhaps expecting to see Stan. “You ran off from the party, and Stan said . . .”

“Bridie’s dead.”

I blurted it out. I don’t know why. Perhaps to remind myself, more than to tell him, or perhaps because I was afraid that if I left it, I might find it hard to tell him at all.

“Oh.”

“She’s in the bedroom—do you want to see her?”

“No,” he said, “no.”

He sat down on a kitchen chair and bowed his head into his chest. Suddenly my son looked very small, and very young to me. The man, the movie actor, was gone and Leo was the shy, vulnerable ten-year-old boy whom Charles had brought to me all those years ago.

I walked over and, standing next to the chair, buried his head in my bosom. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .” And the two of us wept together. Leo wept for Bridie and for Charles; I wept for them, but also for all the others I had lost: my parents, Maidy and Paud, John. I wept for the children I had carried and lost, and for the two adopted sons I had, and for the fact that they would grow up and leave me. I wept for the knowledge I now had that life itself was simply a process of loss after loss. As soon as you tried to hold anything good in life, to hold it close, to own it, it would fly away. Jealousy, anger, fear—those things you could hold forever and nobody would take them from you; but love, joy, the unspeakable bliss of a baby’s breath on your face, the passionate first kiss from a beloved . . . Blink and they were gone. When you love something or someone, you want to hold on to them tight and never let them go, but life doesn’t work like that. You had to take the things you loved and scatter them about you like petals, throw them to the wind as if they meant nothing to you. Then God might send you something else to love; someone new to care for. Then again, He might not. Life was, with or without God, a chancy business. The only hope was to let go. Of everything.

The funeral director came the following morning and took Bridie’s body away. I called Freddie and he came straight around.

“Will you be okay?” he asked. “You must be pretty shook up?”

“Sure,” I said, “I’ll be fine. I’ve got my boys.”

In truth, I felt as if my world had collapsed. I was there for my boys to lean on—not the other way around. If I leaned back now, there was no one to catch me. Bridie had been sick and I had been looking after her, but—she had still been there. Maureen had her own family to look after and, in any case, she was so far away.

As I said the words out loud, “I’ve got my boys,” I realized: that is
all
I had. Two young dependents; no husband, no parents, no family. A handful of friends, who were busy with their own lives.

I was on my own.

We took Bridie back to New York to bury her with Mr. Flannery. It cost a fortune, shipping her back. Funeral costs and travel costs were at a premium, with a war on, but it was what Bridie deserved. In any case I was blessed in that money was still not an issue for me. I had grown up poor, but with my art selling well and the businesses I had sold in Ireland, it would be a long time before I could not afford to bury my loved ones in style.