This Charming Man (63 page)

But once my bout of sarcastic inner-dialogue passed, I started having creeping thoughts that perhaps Marnie wasn’t simply insanely selfish. That perhaps she
couldn’t
stop drinking. And that no matter how much she insisted otherwise, she knew it too.

When my bum started to go numb from cold on the fire-escape step, I decided I’d better go back into the office. Funnily enough the freezing air hadn’t cured my ear; it actually felt worse, like it was on fire.

When I approached my desk, Tara looked up hopefully. ‘Did you get cake?’

‘Uh… no.’

‘We thought you’d gone to get cake.’

‘Sorry. No.’

‘She didn’t get cake? Clare asked.

‘You didn’t get cake?’ TC stared at me accusingly. ‘So where the hell were you?’

‘But I never said –’

‘For the love and honour of Jesus!’ Jacinta slammed a pen down on her desk. ‘If it means that any of you will do any work this afternoon, I will buy you a fucking cake!’ She grabbed her handbag (black, of course, it being January) and stormed towards the swing doors.

‘Don’t get an orange one!’

‘Or coffee.’

She swivelled around to look back at us, planted her legs wide, like a superhero, and yelled over the heads of countless staff, ‘I will get whatever flavour I fucking well like!’

There was one person who would definitely know who John Crown was. He would know because he was a smart-arse who knew everything. But I would not ask him. I’d go to my grave, still ignorant, rather than ask him.

I didn’t mean to look. I actually meant to look at my slice of cake (walnut and coffee, Jacinta had found the worst in the shop) but my eyes were operating independently of the rest of me and they went ahead and stared in the direction of Casey Kaplan. He was on the phone and when my treacherous eyes met his, he smiled and winked.

I tore my eyes back from him and focused on my cake; maybe if I could pick the walnuts out it mightn’t be so bad…

Then I grabbed my phone and tried Dickie again. Still on Mars.

‘Kaplan. Can I have a word?’

He had his feet up on his desk, looking like a sheriff in a cowboy movie. I found this profoundly irritating. He swung his feet onto the floor and sat up straight. ‘Grace Gildee, you can have anything you want from me. Is this a private word? Should we repair to Dinnegans?’

‘Shut up. You know everyone, right?’

‘Well, not everyo –’

‘No need to be modest, we all know you’re fabulous. I need you to help me.’

His body became still and when he spoke again, the bantering tone had disappeared. ‘Just a soup¸on of advice, Grace. When you require someone’s help, it oils the wheels somewhat if you can manage to be nice.’

I stared stonily at him.

‘Nic-
er,’
he amended.

‘You stole my Madonna story,’ I said. ‘You owe me.’

He tilted his head in acknowledgement. ‘If this is what it takes to balance the books…’

‘Does the name John Crown mean anything to you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who is he?’

He stared at me. ‘You don’t know who he is?’

‘I wouldn’t be asking you if I did.’

‘I’d say you know him.’

‘I’ve never heard of him!’

‘Why do you want to know?’

Suddenly distraught, I said, ‘That’s my business.’

‘Grand. Sure. Sorry. John Crown is a driver, a rich-man’s fixer.’

I kept looking at him. I needed more than that.

‘But you might know him better as Spanish John.’

Spanish John?

Paddy‘s driver.

‘He works for Paddy de Courcy.’

I was going to vomit. The urge happened so quickly: a draining away of my blood, a wash of puke in my throat, a tingling in my feet and fingers. (And ear, for what it’s worth.)

Paddy had arranged –
paid
– for my car to be burnt out. It was unbelievable – it was like having wandered into a true-life crime – but I knew it was realbecause the timing was right. Six days earlier…

‘Grace, are you all right?’

‘Yes, look – ’ I lurched towards the Ladies and my lunch roared from me. My stomach convulsed and squeezed until all that came up was bitter yellow bile.

Once I knew, it was like I’d always known.

I
should
have known. I wasn’t stupid and I knew what Paddy was like. He’d known how much I loved my car. He’d watched me driving it, whizzing around with pride and pleasure.

I got to my feet and on trembly legs made my way to the taps. I looked in the mirror and I asked my waxy reflection, What can I do?

Nothing.

Forget it, I advised myself. It was done, it was over, it was in the past. The most sensible thing I could do was to pretend that it hadn’t happened.

We needed a new couch. The frame had cracked on our current one. ‘Grace,’ Damien said, ‘I’d rather saw my own leg off than spend a Saturday in the January sales traipsing around a furniture shop, but we need to buy a couch this weekend.’

‘I can’t,’ I said desperately. ‘I’ve to go to London. I can’t stay away from Marnie.’

There was just the tiniest of pauses. ‘I know, I know. I understand.’

‘I’m sorry, Damien.’

‘I’ll come with you to London,’ he offered. ‘Why won’t you let me come with you?’

‘Because it would be awfulfor you,’ I said. ‘I’d feelshitty about your weekend being ruined too.’

‘Couldn’t be any more shitty than having to go to World of Leather.’

I sighed and shook my head. ‘It would.’

‘Why won’t you let me help you?’ He sounded suddenly angry. ‘You’re so… independent.’

‘I thought that’s what you liked about me.’ I tried a smile.

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Damien, it’s just… having to watch Marnie all the time, it’s so… sordid. It’s so soul-destroying.’

And I had a suspicion that Marnie mightn’t like it if I arrived with Damien. Not that I was making any progress with her, but I had a feeling that Damien’s presence might shame her into drinking even more than she already did.

‘Let’s see how I get on this weekend with her,’ I said. ‘Could that be some sort of compromise?’

‘Okay.’

On Friday night when I let myself into Marnie’s house, I was very glad I’d talked Damien out of coming with me. Marnie was lying in the hall, naked – why? God only knows – and so drunk she was incoherent. I poured water and B vitamins into her (as advised by the helpline), sobered her up and got her through Friday night without her drinking again. Then I slept with one eye open (at least that’s what it felt like) and got her to an AA meeting on Saturday morning. On Saturday afternoon I made her go for a walk, then cooked dinner for her on Saturday night and again slept with one eye open. (Different eye this time, just for the variety.)

But somehow, on Sunday morning, she got her hands on some alcohol. One minute we were having a perfectly normal conversation about Sienna Miller’s thighs, then the next I noticed her words were slowing and slurring. I was astonished – I thought I’d disposed of every bottle in the house – then a disappointment so bitter swept over me that I wanted to simply lie down and sleep for ever.

‘Where did you get it?’ I asked.

‘Got nothing,’ she mumbled. ‘Les have some music.’

With astounding speed – whatever she had drunk, she must have imbibed an awfullot of it – she passed out.

Angry and frustrated and oh so
depressed,
I rang Damien.

‘How is she?’ he asked.

‘Comatose.’

‘What? I thought things were going well!’

‘So did I. But I think she has a bottle salted away in the bathroom and I can’t find it. I’ve done everything bar move the bath into the landing and I still can’t find it.’

He sighed. ‘Come home, Grace, you’re not helping her.’

‘Don’t say that, Damien.’

Silence fizzed on the line. After a while I asked, ‘How was the poker game in Billy’s last night?’

‘Hugh turned up.’

‘Your
brother
Hugh?’

‘That’s the one. He bumped into Billy at a funeral. Got himself invited along.’

‘Ah here.’ Hugh was like a radioactive terrier. All teeth and hunger to win. His competitive spirit would have changed a casual beer-and-cards night into something with a nasty edge.

‘Did he win?’

‘Need you even ask? All fifty-one euro and seventy cents.’

‘It’s not even like he needs the money.’

‘Not like us.’

‘You know, Damien, one day it’ll all come crashing down.’

‘Go on.’ Damien liked this game.

‘Hugh’s kids.’ Agrippa, Hector and Ulysses, the poor little bastards. ‘They’ll join the Moonies.’

‘Say the–’

‘Hugh – ’

‘– or Brian – ’

‘– or preferably both, will get done for having sex with one of their anaesthetized patients on the operating table.’

Damien laughed quietly. ‘That’s my favourite.’

‘They’ll be struck off and it’ll be a huge scandal. And in the meantime you’ll be made editor of the
Press,
the youngest ever.’

‘Yeahhhhh…’ He sighed, a little disconsolately. Time for me to stop slagging his family. Personally, I could have gone on for ages longer but too much bitchiness made Damien uncomfortable. Because – credit where it’s due – they never meant to make him feelbad. It was never deliberate.

‘So what are you doing today?’ I asked.

‘I’m going out to buy us a new couch.’

‘No!’ I barked with shocked laughter. ‘No. Please, Damien… God alone knows what you’ll come home with.’ It would probably be black leather and
enormous
. ‘Get brochures. Get swatches. But Damien Stapleton, I’m warning you, do not buy anything.’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

‘To buy a couch? No! Ring me tonight with a report. And I’m telling you again, you buy something at your peril.’

On Monday morning I woke at 5.30 a.m. in Marnie’s bed. I had the quickest shower ever – it was an unnaturaltime to be washing myself – and as I got dressed I tried to give Marnie a rousing, you-won’t-drink, you-can-do-it speech. But it was too early and too cold and I couldn’t summon the energy. All I could do was beg. ‘Just don’t drink, please, Marnie, please. I’ll be back on Friday, just try not to drink untilthen.’

I caught the 7.45 flight to Dublin and got a taxi to work – straight into a black-handbag day. I’d have delighted in any other colour, even red. I was so tired and black was so
wearing
.

‘Ideas,’ Jacinta commanded, smouldering with a bitter black energy.

‘Sibling rivalry?’

‘No!’

‘The renewed popularity of poker?’

‘No!’

‘Alcoholism in women in their thirties?’

‘No! Back to the drawing board.’

‘Grand.’ As soon as she’d left my desk, I rang Damien. He hadn’t phoned me last night and I was afraid it meant that he’d been persuaded by some slimy sofa salesman to buy a half-price, shop-soiled monstrosity.

‘Why didn’t you ring me last night?’ I asked.

‘Because –’

‘You didn’t buy a couch, did you?’

‘No.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s all right then.’

‘It was terrible, Grace. The places were overrun with couples fighting and it was roasting hot and really crowded. Just like hell. Anyway I got brochures and yokes.’

‘Maybe we’ll take a look at them tonight. When you get home from your me-time with the boys.’

‘I don’t have to go.’

‘Why wouldn’t you go?’

‘Because I haven’t seen you all weekend.’

‘Ah no, go on. It’s important to have a routine when everything is a bit fucked. Anyway I’m too knackered to be any fun. I’ll see you in bed.’

With the aid of unseemly quantities of coffee and sugar, I dragged myself through the day. Unusually for a Monday night, people were going to Dinnegans, but I decided I’d rather go home because I hadn’t been there since Friday morning.

But as soon as I turned my key and let myself into the house, I knew something was wrong, off, call it what you want. I could smell it.

I wandered from room to room, sniffing, concentrating, trying to nail down the elusive, discordant, alien presence.

Something didn’t belong. It hadn’t been here when I’d left the house on Friday morning; whatever it was, it had moved in some time over the weekend.

I stared at the sofa brochures on the kitchen table. Was it them? But surely it couldn’t be?

I climbed the stairs and the sense disappeared. I must have been imagining it. I was just tired, very tired and overwrought. But when I walked into our bedroom, I sensed it again. Or did I? It was hard to trust my own experience.

For a long time I perched on the edge of the bed, sniffing the air and analysing. Smell or no smell? Imaginary or real? And what was it of anyway?

I needed to talk to Damien about it. I’d ask him later.

Or maybe tomorrow when I wasn’t so tired.

I fought my way upwards but slabs of exhaustion pushed me back down into sleep. I had to wake up, I had to come to, why was it such a struggle? What day was it? Maybe it was Saturday, a nice day, and I could eddy back down into the depths? But then I knew it was Tuesday. I had to get up and go to work, but I was so so tired.

Also my nose hurt. Last night I’d been reading the new Ian Rankin – one of Damien’s siblings, I couldn’t remember which, had given me the hard
back for Christmas – and I’d fallen asleep and it had landed on my face and the bloody thing weighed a ton.

I opened my eyes and groaned, ‘Oh Goooooood.’

Damien emerged from the bathroom, a towelaround his waist, his face half-shaved.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘Very tired.’

‘You were comatose when I came in last night.’

‘Taking lessons from Marnie.’

‘You want anything?’

Plenty. My sister to stop drinking. My aunt to recover from cancer. To have never met Paddy de Courcy.

‘Coffee.’

He headed to the bedroom door, to go down to the kitchen. ‘Hey, Damien,’ I called weakly. ‘Was anyone here over the weekend?’

He turned to face me. ‘No.’

But there was a little flicker. A tiny little something. I was on it immediately, my heart suddenly pounding. ‘What?’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Obviously it’s not nothing.’