‘Maybe.’
It’s always the same when we meet Karen there. Pushing open the black door, hit by the cool air and the vanilla-scented candles; our school shoes sinking into the plush cream carpet, expensive clothes draped off black jewelled hangers. The manager looks up, the ready smile on her face dimming when she sees the grey uniform. ‘Yes, girls?’ she’ll say, her voice clipped, until Ali comes closer and she sees who it is. ‘Oh, Ali,’ she’ll coo. ‘You should see what your mother is trying on. It’s divine.’ Karen will push back the heavy cream curtain of the dressing room, wearing yet another dress, or coat, or a T-shirt that she literally has to have. She’ll force Ali into a dressing room then, handing her a pair of jeans to try on, and you can see she’s trying not to wince when she looks at the size. Then she’ll turn to me, and insist I try something on too, and my head will swim when I see the price tags (That’s obscene, I can almost hear my mother say, and with people starving in the world), but Karen will tell me not to think about that, just to pick whatever I want. There’ll be a dress that looks like nothing on the hanger, but when I try it on it moulds to my body like a second skin, and Karen’s jaw drops when I come out of the dressing room. ‘You look stunning. You could be a model,’ she’ll say as she stands behind me, and the two of us look so good together in the reflection that I can pretend for a moment that it’s really us who are mother and daughter. ‘You have to have it. Will you let me buy it for you?’ she’ll ask, and I’ll want to say yes. I will want her to buy me one of everything in the shop. She can afford it. But I won’t. I can’t.
‘I can give Emma a lift,’ Conor says, and I nod at him.
‘See you later, guys,’ Ali calls as we walk away. My phone beeps.
Ali: Are you going to score Conor?
Me: Ugh, no.
Ali: But he looooooves you.
Me: Fuck off.
‘Emmie.’ Conor clears his throat to get my attention. ‘Sorry, Emma. We’re just here.’
‘It’s very . . . clean,’ I say as we get into his car.
He flicks the Lisa Simpson-shaped air freshener with a finger. ‘Is that annoying you? I can take it down if it is. I know perfumes can make you—’
‘I’m fine.’
He reaches into the glove compartment to get his glasses, then reverses the car, his hand on the back of my headrest as he turns to check behind him.
I stare out the window as the closely packed houses of the town centre melt away into a narrow road, curved trees on the right hanging over us, clinging to the ditch. The tide is out, turning the bay on the left to marsh, patchy with green weeds.
‘It’s good to see you,’ he says, turning the radio down.
‘Yeah.’
‘I feel like I never see you any more.’
‘I know. I’ve just been busy, you know, schoolwork, blah blah.’
‘I meant what I said earlier.’ His hands tighten on the steering wheel. ‘About being grateful to you.’
(The O’Callaghan house. A smell of disinfectant. Dymphna smiling as I give her the paisley headscarf I had bought in Dunnes for her.)
‘It was nothing, Conor.’
(Sitting on his bed, staring at the Anchorman poster on the wall. He started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. Be a big boy, my dad used to tell Bryan. Stop that. Wrapping my arms around Conor, heads pressed together.)
‘It wasn’t nothing to me,’ he says. (His head turning slightly then, his breath on my cheek. And I could feel something melting inside me, something that I needed to keep under control.) ‘I want you to—’
‘Yeah, cool,’ I interrupt as the car pulls into our estate. I look through the Kellehers’ window, Nina and her husband Niall thrown on the couch, each with a glass of wine in hand. They’re clinging to either side as if they’re afraid they might accidentally touch. One of the kids runs in. A hand sneaks down, a ruffle of her curly hair, eye contact with the television never breaking. My gaze drifts across all the houses in the estate, a similar scene playing out in each one, chairs and faces focused on their TVs.
Conor parks next to his dad’s Merc, and I have the car door open before he has a chance to pull up the handbrake. He reaches across me, grabbing my wrist. ‘You shouldn’t have laughed.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘Earlier. When Dylan said that about Jamie. You shouldn’t have laughed.’
I can see my mother through the window, a neat lace-trimmed pink apron on, waiting for my father to come home.
You’re just like your mother, you know.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Conor,’ I say. ‘It was just a joke. Lighten up, will you?’
(Jamie’s face in the park, stricken.)
(Jamie coming to my house after it happened last year, crying and crying. What’ll I do, Emma? What am I supposed to do now?)
And I wish I could go back to that moment. I would tell Dylan to fuck off and leave Jamie alone. I would stand up for her. I would be better.
‘What do you mean?’ I lean back in my seat, knowing my unbuttoned shirt is revealing the edges of my black lace bra. Conor glances down, and then looks up again just as quickly.
‘I mean, I’m just, I mean . . .’
‘Yes?’ My voice is soft. I shift forward, a strand of hair falling in front of my face. He puts his hand up to brush it out of place, then jerks back.
‘Thanks for the lift, Conor.’ And I get out of the car.
*
My bedroom is immaculate again. The oak four-poster bed has been remade, the lilac patchwork quilt neatly tucked in and turned down. The magazines have been stacked at the base of my bed, the tops of my make-up bottles put back on and organized on my vanity table, any streaks of foundation on the white wood washed off. Even my earrings and necklaces have been tidied away. I open the doors of my wardrobe and find everything has been neatly folded or hung properly on the good, wooden hangers. Mam has been at work.
A good daughter would feel grateful. (I didn’t say she could come into my room.)
It was a nice thing of her to do. (But I never asked her.)
(I won’t be able to find anything, she’ll have put stuff away in the wrong places, like she always does.)
I wish . . . I don’t know what I wish.
I lie on my bed, staring at the constellation of glow-in-the-dark stickers on the ceiling, the back of my legs sticky against the damp material. The heat is oppressive, almost like it’s pressing down on me, like it might make an indentation in my skin. I turn on to my front, then my back again, then curl on my side, but nothing helps.
I lie there for hours.
Friday
After school, the four of us are in Maggie’s car again, rolling down the windows to let the hot air escape, Jamie and Maggie bickering over whether to listen to Kate Bush or Taylor Swift. We drive through Ballinatoom, and around, and up Main Street again, and around again, over and over. I watch the sunlight on the bare skin of my forearm resting on the open window, anticipation licking my stomach. Maybe this will be the weekend something, anything, happens.
Ali grins at me. ‘Wait, I totally forgot to ask you about Conor O’Callaghan.’
‘What about Conor?’
‘Did anything happen when he dropped you home last night?’ I groan out loud as she waggles her tongue at me.
‘Ugh, no. As much as he wanted to, obviously.’
‘Oh, obviously, but of course, mais oui,’ Maggie teases. ‘The menfolk can’t resist your charms, you sorcerer, you.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Seriously though –’ Maggie glances at me in her rear-view mirror – ‘Conor’s a good guy. You could do a lot worse.’
‘You have done a lot worse,’ Jamie mutters under her breath.
‘Keep your eyes on the road, please, Mags,’ I say. ‘And yeah, Conor’s cool and everything, but I’d never actually be with him.’
‘I thought you had scored with him already?’ Jamie asks, jabbing at the volume control on the radio.
‘Conor? No, we’
ve never been together. What made you think that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She shrugs. ‘You’ve been with everyone else. It’s hard to keep track.’ She laughs, like it’s only a joke. She pulls down the sun visor and watches me in the mirror to see my reaction. I laugh too. (Fucking bitch.)
‘I’d better get home,’ I say, looking at my phone.
‘I thought we were all going to the match together?’ Ali says. ‘I thought we’d agreed.’ She leans forward so her head is between the two front seats. ‘You two are still coming, right?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jamie says. ‘I promised my mother I would give her a hand with Christopher. He’s being really clingy at the moment.’ She looks at me in the mirror again. ‘And I have a shitload of homework to do as well. Not all of us are so lucky that we can just “forget” to study and still come out with A’s.’
‘What’s that supposed—’
‘Why don’t we go back to my house?’ Ali says quickly. ‘Come on. Just the four of us.’
‘I’m in,’ Maggie says. ‘I want to see the new swimming pool.’
‘I don’t have togs with me,’ I say.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ Ali says, ‘we have loads of spares.’
I can’t think of any other excuse, so I nod, ignoring Ali’s squeal of delight. We drive almost five miles away from the town centre until we get to Ali’s house, the Old Rectory. It’s surrounded by high brick walls, and she leans out of the window to key in the code on a silver flat-screen set into the wrought-iron front gates. There is a gravel drive, almost a mile long, surrounded by acres of empty fields. Her parents keep buying up more and more of the land around them. You could fit my entire estate in here.
Maggie parks beside the porch. The three-storey red-brick house has huge windows with white latticed frames covered in climbing wisteria and roses. Did you see the price of the place the Hennessys bought? my mother asked my father, waving the property supplement at him. He took it from her, putting on his reading glasses so he could see. It was all anyone could talk about for months afterwards. You’re rich, the other kids would say to Ali in school. My mam says your dad is a millionaire. She would get flustered, drop her school books or her bag or her lunch box, her face aflame.
Being wealthy is wasted on someone like Ali.
We pass the sculpture of a naked woman draped against one of the stone pillars on the porch, her belly bloated and full. Apparently it’s of Karen when she was pregnant, something Ali denies, of course.
‘I still can’t believe you have your own swimming pool,’ Maggie says as Ali opens the front door.
‘Mom’s idea,’ Ali says, leading us through the reception area. It looks like a lobby in a posh hotel, with the Waterford crystal chandelier and what Karen informed us is a Persian rug on the stripped wooden floorboards. It was embarrassingly expensive, girls, she told us, but I just had to have it.
I close the door of the bathroom behind me, the swimming togs Ali has given me in my hands. It’s in its packaging, Melissa Obadash scrawled across the front, the price tag still attached.
More money than sense, my mother’s voice says in my head.
I run my hand over the wallpaper, embossed magnolia with gold flowers etched on it. There’s a freestanding bath with gold claw feet, the toilet paper folded into a point by Magda, the housekeeper, Aveda hand wash and hand cream by the deep cream sink, the taps plated in gold. There’s an antique dresser painted in cream, a selection of perfume bottles on top. Coco Mademoiselle perfume. I’ve wanted that one for ages, But you’ll have to wait until Christmas, Mam told me, or save up your own money for it, Emma.
I spray a little on my wrists.
(They won’t even notice.)
I open my school bag.
(It’s not like they can’t afford it.)
And I stuff it in so quickly I barely even notice myself doing it, so it’s like I didn’t do anything at all. I stand up straight, staring at myself in the mirror. I am beautiful. I mouth the words at my reflection. That is something Ali’s money can’t buy.
We walk through the new sauna, Ali opening a wooden door into a long, narrow gazebo, closed in on all sides with frosted glass. ‘What the . . .’ She steps back, ignoring my hiss as she crushes my toes beneath her feet.
Inside there’s a photographer standing on a step going down into the pool, up to his calves in water, his camera clicking as Karen swims towards him. He backs up the steps, almost knocking over a skeletal woman with peroxide-blonde hair who is sorting through a rail of bikinis, each one smaller than the next. Karen, never breaking eye contact with the camera, emerges from the water, her chestnut hair slicked back off her angular, fine-boned face. She is completely naked.
‘Mom,’ Ali screams, and the spell is broken, everyone turning to stare at us.
‘Oh my God, Ali, you scared me. What’s wrong with you?’
‘You’re . . . You’re not wearing any clothes.’
‘Calm, darling,’ Karen drawls. A mousy-looking girl in shorts and white Converse darts out from behind the rail of clothes and hands Karen a fluffy white towel. ‘I have a bikini on.’ She pulls at the fabric. ‘See, it’s just flesh-coloured.’
‘Mom,’ Ali’s lip starts quivering, ‘what are you doing? I thought we—’
‘Oh, sweetie,’ Karen says, ‘don’t be like that. This shoot is for a different magazine.’ She gestures at the assistant to get her something to drink. The girl rushes over to the desk running the length of the clothes rail, laden down with snacks and bottles, and brings Karen a Diet Coke with a straw in it, holding it out for her to sip from.
‘Hi, girls!’ Karen disappears behind a free-standing room divider, slapping the wet nude bikini over the top as the stylist hands her a silver suit. She steps out from behind the screen, her perfect body barely covered by the one-piece. The stylist moves around her, with a mouthful of clamps, adjusting the material to make sure the fit is right. ‘Jamie, how is Lien?’
‘She’s fine.’
‘We haven’t seen her at Yogalates in ages, I was—’
‘My mother is fine, Mrs Hennessy,’ Jamie says, ‘but I’ll pass on your regards.’
With that she stalks out of the gazebo, Ali hurrying after her, calling her name.
‘Oh God, I’ve said the wrong thing, haven’t I?’ Karen says, looking after them. ‘Ali will probably kill me later.’ She bites her lip. ‘I’m always saying the wrong thing. I really didn’t mean to offend her.’
‘Why would she be offended?’ the photographer says, looking up from his laptop.
Karen lowers her voice. ‘There’s a lot of drama going on for poor Jamie at home. Her father’s Christy Murphy.’ He looks at her blankly. ‘Christy Murphy,’ she repeats. ‘Don’t you ever watch the news? He was in property, building, hotels, the whole lot. Lost everything in the crash.’ Both he and the stylist give a dramatic intake of breath. ‘I know. God, can you even imagine? And Ali told me that Jamie has to work part-time now to help out, you know, financially. The whole thing is so awful. And it’s awkward – I don’t know if Lien even wants to see me. If it was me I’d be too mortified to face anyone, you know?’
‘Maybe the daughter could do some modelling?’ the stylist offers.
‘What?’ Karen looks surprised. ‘Jamie?’
‘Why not?’ the stylist says. ‘She’s tall enough, and Asian girls are so on trend this season.’
I wait for Karen to say, No, not Jamie. If anyone is going to be a model it should be Emma, but she shrugs, and lies down on a striped sunlounger, pouting at the camera.
‘Come on,’ I say to Maggie. ‘Let’s go.’
‘So,’ Maggie says as the door to the swimming pool slams behind us and we go to find the others, ‘do you think Jamie would want to be a model?’
‘Jamie?’
‘You heard what the stylist said.’
‘I doubt it. I mean, being a model is a bit desperate, isn’t it? You’d want to really love yourself, like.’
‘Jesus, I thought you’d be totally against it, as a feminist. Isn’t it just more patriarchal bullshit?’
‘All right, all right.’ Maggie holds her hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘Calm, girl.’ There’s a pause, and she has the same expression on her face Hannah does when she’s about to ask you a personal question. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Totally fine.’
*
‘You can’t park there.’ A sunburnt man in a high-vis jacket, shorts, socks and sandals barks at us as Maggie pulls her car up as near to the entrance to the GAA pitch as she possibly can. ‘That’s reserved.’
We look at Ali, but she stays quiet. She hasn’t said much since we left her house.
‘Hey.’ I nudge her, then tilt my head at the man. ‘He says we can’t park here.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ She shakes herself out of her daze, reaching into her handbag and pulling out a neon-pink piece of cardboard. ‘My dad gave me this?’ She hands it to him, and his eyes narrow as he looks over it.
‘And who exactly is your dad?’ he asks.
‘James Hennessy?’ Ali mumbles, and he splutters an apology, waving us through.
The pitch is nestled in a valley, surrounded by sloping hills on three sides, the grass yellow and parched. I don’t understand how in a country that gets as much rain as this one does, we can be having a drought, have you ever heard the like of it? the old people keep saying to each other as they pay for their groceries in Spar, their Calvita cheese, cooked ham and white sliced pan in their hands, ignoring the queue of customers behind them, talking too long to the bored shop girl who just wants them to leave so she can go back to reading her magazine. We walk past a group of sixth years from St Michael’s, all wearing the blue-and-yellow Ballinatoom jersey with ‘Hennessy’s Pharmacies’ stitched on the front in red, nudging each other as I pass.
We climb halfway up the hill on the left and settle in front of the clubhouse. A soft cashmere blanket from Avoca is pulled out of Ali’s wicker carrier basket. (Be careful, I could imagine Mam saying if that was ours. Don’t get any stains on it. It’s for good use.) ‘One for you, one for me,’ she says as she hands me a bottle of factor-fifty suncream, keeping the SPF6 oil.
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