‘Fleming, right now all you have to do is listen to my lines. Don’t speak. Just listen. Think you can manage that?’
‘I think we should go for another roll in the mulch instead.’
‘Oh, boy.’
‘Or tell me more about the sister. I’m curious.’
‘I’m bored now, Fleming. I’m going to gather some mushrooms.’
‘I have one more question.’
‘Spare me.’
‘How are you going to kill her?’
Fleming. He’s always teasing me. I suppose it’s one of the things about him that keeps a girl coming back for more. We’re together, Fleming and me, through muck and mirth. Sickness and health. Better and worse. More worse than better, but hey, you can’t always have the fairy tale.
9
Mother is on the case again. Be here inside the next twenty minutes or else. Or else what, mother? I do so wish she’d complete some of these text messages now and then. It might prevent the occasional misunderstanding between us. I fully accept our existence together. She with her new man, boxset television and tricksy foot. Me with my fondness for dark-of-night soups, devotion to the silver screen and recently stalled career. At times either one of us a crutch for the other – like we have been since Jennifer took off. She gets so annoyed with me, though, and who can blame her? Especially in the kitchen. I am constantly boiling the kettle. Thirty-seven times in one day she clocked me at. The tin of teabags needs regular replenishing. Sugar has become a precious commodity. What can I do? Drinking tea is one of the things I now do best. Heating up cans of spaghetti. Making Chef brown sauce sandwiches. Night soup.
Mother connects my unconventional food habits with what happened at the theatre, and who am I to say she is wrong? The early hours in the kitchen have provided the setting for some of my finest moments. And also some of mother’s. (It’s three o’clock in the morning, Laura! What are you at?) And yet no matter how reasonably I put it, my alive-and-well theatre ambition doesn’t seem to register. Sometimes I think I should become something more vigorous. Like fire. And I’m not talking about a fluttery flame or two, easily doused with a splash of water or quickly smothered by a sturdy boot. I am talking about proper fire. The blazing Bette Davis fasten-your-safety-belts kind. The kind that will burn high and far and wide. Flames that roam and make you dizzy. A conflagration. That is the word I am looking for. In this, Fleming might be of some use. When the time is right I can persuade him to strike the match. Here, I’ll tell him as I produce the blowtorch I have liberated for my purposes. How is it the saying goes? Build a man a fire, keep him warm for a day. Set a man on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life. And here is mother again. Pick up some quinoa in Brady’s. Chocolate Emeralds. And get an apple tart. Quinoa. What is that when it’s at home?
*
‘Ah, look who it is,’ Glick Nolan says when I saunter into Alice Brady’s shop.
‘Who is it?’ I say back.
‘How’s the patient?’ Alice asks from behind the counter.
‘Which patient would that be, Alice?’
‘Your mother! How is her foot since the operation?’
‘Let’s just say she has very quickly figured out how to rest up.’
‘Anything strange yourself, Laura?’ Glick says, opening the newspaper he is holding.
‘Oh, I’m a busy bee, Glick. Flat out, I am.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Got to get my act together for a very important part.’
‘A part, is it?’
‘That’s all I can say for now. They’ve sworn me to secrecy. Don’t want the press sniffing around. Not to mention the paparazzi.’
‘Ah, the paparazzi,’ Alice says, offering Glick a sideways look.
‘Listen to this,’ Glick says, peering into his Advertiser. ‘Man jailed for stealing anti-wrinkle cream. That’s a strange one, isn’t it?’
‘Why, not three hours ago I was telling a nice couple on Nimmo’s Pier all about that, Glick.’
‘The defendant claims he wanted the cream for his girlfriend. He better pray he gets locked up after an admission like that.’
‘What can I get you, Laura?’ Alice asks me.
I ask for a naggin of brandy and watch Alice stand it on the counter. Grab four or five bags of Chocolate Emeralds (I like them as well as mother). Then the shelves of wine catch my eye. Mother doesn’t like me having wine, or any other kind of booze. She is right not to but any time I see wine my happy hormones lick their lips and say guzzle guzzle. In for a penny, in for a pound. That’s what I say. You may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. By the look in her eye sometimes, mother will gladly volunteer a sturdy noose.
‘I didn’t know you drank brandy, Laura,’ Alice says.
‘I don’t. I need some wine too.’
‘Don’t we all,’ Alice replies with her ridiculous laugh. She gives me a long minute or two to join in, and I stand there drumming the counter with my fingers until she gives up.
‘Well! What sort of a wine would you like?’
‘Red,’ I say, and she puts three or four bottles on the counter beside the brandy.
I pick up the first one. A bright crimson red whose plum and raspberry aromas mingle elegantly with vanilla notes after six months aged in French oak barrels. Well balanced, with sweet tannins and a velvety finish.
‘Your mother doesn’t drink it either,’ Alice says. ‘Brandy, I mean.’
‘No.’
‘So you’ve just decided to buy some anyway?’
‘Listen to this, Alice,’ I say, picking up the second bottle. ‘A deep black-cherry colour, an intense bouquet with scents of vanilla, French toast and coffee, entwined with notes of red berry fruit and dry plums. On the palate it is silky smooth, structured and complex with well-integrated oak, and a remarkable finish.’
‘It’s for the returning sister. The brandy,’ Glick says, delighted to be able to offer something significant to the conversation.
‘Ah, that’s right,’ Alice says, her twitchy nose settling down now that the mystery has been resolved. ‘I almost forgot. It’s your sister, isn’t it? And how is Joanna?’
‘Jennifer,’ I say, with gritted teeth.
‘Jennifer, Jennifer. That’s the one. And how is Jennifer?’
‘I hear she’s doing powerful work in poor countries.’ Glick again.
‘This one is a cabernet sauvignon,’ I say, holding up the third bottle and trying to picture Glick after I have bumped the bottle down on top of his head. ‘Medium-bodied with rich aromas of berries, clove and vanilla. On the palate, it delivers fine concentration with flavours of ripe black fruit and earthy undertones.’
‘I heard drinking one glass of wine a day is the same thing as doing an hour’s exercise,’ Glick says next.
‘You must be the fittest lad in the world so, Glick,’ I say, paying, and I grab the booze and sweets, and without further ado I trudge out of there.
*
En route to the house, I conjure what will be said when mother is fussing over our reunion. Oh, look who it is, Laura. She has come such a long way. You are to be polite and friendly and welcoming. You are to make her feel at home. Do you think you could manage this, Laura? Do you?
Polite and friendly and welcoming. Why certainly, mother, I can do that. I can be all that and more. Little me? As well as being a troubled genius I am a natural-born charmer.
And, tell me, mother, what would you like me to say to my oh-so-perfect sibling? What version of my complicated self should I present?
Should I try a semblance of the truth:
Why hello, Jennifer. It is I, your little sister, Laura Cassidy. I am now all of twenty-five years old, though I have been told I would pass for seventeen. I am four feet eleven and a half inches tall, and proud to have made it this far. I like making soup, belching at terrorists and sitting up in the quiet hours of the night. As well as belch, I can spit, curse, glare, hop, skip, climb, jump, barf, lick, gibber and bite. I have been known to make shadows leap.
Though when I want to, I can drift with the ease of the clouds and the tides.
I cross the road, narrowly avoiding a manically honking motorist. A perfect candidate for the tides – the high and all-devouring kind.
Perhaps I could offer Jennifer some of my Femme Fatale technique:
Hey, sister. What say you and me blow this joint once and for all? With knives in our nylons, pistols in our furs, we can rescue ourselves from the quicksand shadows of this dirty town.
Then again, I’m not so sure I want Jennifer as my accomplice.
Maybe I could announce myself with something startling. Something short and succinct, and that instantly catches the attention:
Why hello, Jennifer, did you know there is a devil in charge of me? That’s what mother reckons, and I take it as a compliment.
Maybe I should hint at the dark places I have thoughts about visiting. Secret affairs with ledges of tall buildings. Flings with high-up open windows. Brief encounters with railway bridges. Wait and see, sister. I am only getting started.
I pass the swan sanctuary and the boathouse, the path curves and I find myself slowing down as I approach the house.
Maybe I should just tell her precisely what the genius in St Jude’s said to me. Paralysed by fear I am. Ah! That caught your interest. He’s also the one that said I could pass for seventeen. Something to do with my sluggish emotional development. And an inability to function properly in the world. But, you know, I’m not so sure I see things this way myself. I am stuck. Those words do not belong to the genius. Once again, they are mother’s words and so do not count.
Hmmm.
That doesn’t sound right. It’s sending out the wrong impression. It’s not a good way to say hi to someone I haven’t seen in six years. It’s not a good way to go about renewing my acquaintance with my wonderful save-the-world sister.
I’ve reached the house and I linger at the gate.
Maybe I should just reveal all:
Oh, and did I tell you, Jennifer? I’m going places, set to be a mover and shaker. Any day now worldwide fame beckons for me. Not for me this leaky old waterfront street with its perfectly attired terrorists, bobbing boats and crazed seabirds. No. I am going to be a star. Something that was decided a long time ago. Daddy, actually, remember him? He’s the one who first gave me the idea. It’s just a matter of time before someone spots me. Plucks me out of the horde and hauls me off to Tinseltown. You’ll see. A signed napkin from me will be worth thousands. Touch me anywhere and you’ll never wash your hands again.
But of course, she already knows all of this.
And so, right now, if it’s all the same with you, sister, I don’t have time for you. I have to meet my fans. Sign some autographs. Mollycoddle a reporter from the weekend editions. In your own words, Laura, tell us what inspired this latest role . . .
Isn’t that right, Laura?
Yes it is, Laura. Yes, indeed, that’s right.
10
‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘I had things to do.’
‘Your sister is here. She’s been here all day. And Juan is so tired we had to put him to bed. Where on earth have you been?’
‘Oh sister, my sister. How could I possibly have forgotten my precious sister?’
‘Hush, will you?’
Fine by me, I am about to say, but there is no time. Jennifer has appeared, and is now standing in front of me. That recent photograph of her was not lying. Time away has transformed her. The sparkly hair. The long, slender legs. Violet eyes, if you don’t mind. But the first thing I notice are her arms. They are perfect. Brown, blemish-free and oh-so lean. I cannot stop looking at them. And am gripped with an urge to touch them. And so I reach out my own arm to do just that. Except that Jennifer thinks I am offering my hand and she takes it in both her own, pulls me to her and wraps her arms fully around me.
‘Laura!’ she says, once she has squeezed the last drop of air out of my mangled lungs.
‘That’s me,’ I say back, my voice little more than a wheeze.
‘It’s so wonderful to be here,’ she says. ‘I can’t wait for us to have a good catch-up. Mam has been telling me plenty already. It’s going to be wonderful. I just know it is.’
She takes another hold of my hand and keeps going. Throughout all this it’s-going-to-be-wonderful talk, mother gives me her suspicious eye. What does she think I am going to do? Pluck Jennifer’s nose off? Yank out the woman’s waggy tongue? Those violet eyes?
Then she stops talking. Obviously, it is now my turn to come out with some of this you’re-wonderful goop, and when I don’t oblige, the pair of us stand opposite each other without a word being said.
‘Well, aren’t you going to say something?’ mother says, anxious to break into the silence.
‘You have beautiful arms,’ I say, and let go her hand and look from my own to her perfect arms. Then she laughs, while mother rolls her eyes and ushers us into the kitchen.
Don’t ask what made me blurt that out about her arms. Don’t want her laughing either. Am ready to clear out of there again, slam the kitchen door on them, get upstairs. Too late. Mother is pulling out chairs, gesturing for Jennifer to sit, bopping around her like someone made of spring, here and there grabbing Jennifer and hugging her all over again.
‘Oh, look,’ mother squeals, when she has finally released Jennifer. ‘My two daughters. Together again.’
She clears tears away from her eyes. I grip the fork I could use to help her. Jennifer sits there and puts on an amazing smile. As though she has just popped by for a cup of tea and a ham sandwich. Her tears at a halt, mother is talking again.
‘What can I get you, Jennifer? Look at you. There’s not a pick on you. And you must be hungry again. Did you get something nice in Brady’s, Laura? Did you get the quinoa?’
Mother doesn’t wait for an answer. Another brown loaf she had baked earlier is set down. Some packaged meat. A bowl full of green leaves, sprinkled seeds and chopped tomato that has seen better days. Cups, plates, knives, forks and spoons. A little jug of dressing to go with the salad, for crying out loud. Another check-in with Jennifer to make sure the jet lag isn’t at her. The Cleopatra treatment in full throttle.
‘You’re very quiet, Laura. Have you got nothing to say to your sister?’
I don’t. For now, though, I do as I’ve been told. I sit down at the table, across from Jennifer. I can feel mother’s eyes like hot irons on my face. Jennifer is only too happy to jab into the silence.
‘You look good, Laura. What are you up to these days?’
Listen to her. Two minutes inside our house and thinks she gets to know everything about me. I shrug my shoulders, have no intention of answering. Mother has other ideas.
‘Your sister has asked you a question, Laura.’
For a little effect, mother clicks her fingers. I have just grabbed the salt cellar and in my eagerness I twist the cap right off and empty a small mountain of salt onto my plate of food. At once, Jennifer rescues my plate and begins to clear away the salt, salvage what food she can. Mother is fast to join in, and now I am thinking: high time I was out of here. ‘Help yourselves to my share,’ I say and grab a bag of Chipsticks from the fruit bowl, stand out of my chair and go up to my room.
*
I lie on my bed and stare up at the faces on the walls. Gloria in her pomp. Barbara, sultry and poised. Coy Veronica. And Lana – all pout and platinum blonde. When I first saw The Postman Always Rings Twice I tried to persuade mother and then Jennifer to dye my hair the same colour as hers. Had a go at removing my eyebrows so I could paint them back in the way she did. I thought she had the best frown – so bold, so daring, so not-going-to-take-any-guff-from-anyone. She wasn’t even ten years old when her father’s beaten-to-death body was discovered on a San Francisco street – little wonder she had to toughen up. Right now, she’s looking at me with a look in her eyes that says, What’s keeping you, girl? You know we’re waiting for you. You know we all think you’ve go
t what it takes. There is a star on this Walk of Fame just waiting to be lit up with the letters that spell your name. But it’s not going to be here forever. So then, Laura, chop chop. Barbara and Gloria nod their heads in agreement. Veronica smiles her coy smile. They know precisely what Lana is talking about. They’ve all had to make it the hard way, and something tells me they know that is how it’s going to be for me too.
*
I reach for my phone and message Fleming. Nothing back from him, but someone I haven’t heard from in quite a while has been in touch; someone I hadn’t really expected to hear from once she flew the coop; someone I’m surprised has time to write. Hello Laura! It’s been quite a while . . . but here I am, writing to you from afar. I wanted to get in touch to ask how my favourite understudy has been and share a little of my own adventures . . . It’s quite a lengthy email and so I go on my laptop to read it.
So, yes, I’ve been in London for a while now, it’s where I was discovered, caught my big break. Happened well over a year ago, actually, at about a quarter past ten on a wet Tuesday night after a local production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. I was playing Cordelia, the most loved daughter of them all. A well-known theatre director was in the audience, and after the show he came backstage and there and then offered me the lead in his next production.
Well. Less than two months later I was seated in front of my dressing-room mirror in the Apollo Theatre, as ready as I could be for my West End debut as purring and snarling Maggie the Cat. Every theatre critic in the land was present. Actors from stage and screen. One or two movie producers. The who is who and the crème de la crème. Oh, Laura! Cast and crew alike were bigging me up no end. I had no idea how I was going to get through the next couple of hours. I really didn’t.
We took a thirty-minute curtain call. And fifteen minutes of that was for me and me alone. The rest of the cast stood back, and then disappeared altogether, as I stepped tentatively forward to accept the standing ovation. Brava! Brava! There was camera flash. Blown kisses. Flung roses, if you don’t mind! I waved and bowed and gathered up the red flowers and left the stage to an ear-shattering crescendo.
Laura Cassidy’s Walk of Fame Page 5