This Charming Man

by Marian Keyes

  … but she also made me feel slightly inadequate.

  He pressed when I didn’t answer. ‘Paddy de Courcy? Half man, half press release? Good-looking, isn’t he?’

  ‘I should be doing more,’ I muttered.

  ‘More what?’ Damien asked.

  ‘Just… more.’

  ‘It’s Uncle Damien! Damien, Damien, Damien!’

  On the far side of a heavy, oak front door, Damien’s four-year-old nephew, Alex, was going wild. ‘Julius, Julius, man!’ Alex called to his seven-year-old brother. ‘Open the door, man. Damien’s here.’

  The door swung open and Alex rushed at Damien and me. He was wearing Superman underpants, blue patent zip-up boots (I was guessing they belonged to his nine-year-old sister, Augustina) and a colander on his head.

  ‘Bike! Motorbike!’ In a way he reminded me of Bingo, he had the same joyous sort of energy. ‘Nnnnnnearrrrrrrnnnn!’

  He tried to dodge past Damien, heading for the outside world, so he could sit on the Kamikaze and pretend to drive it, but Damien used his knees to block the way. ‘There’s no bike tonight, Alex.’

  Taxi instead. So we could get drunk.

  ‘No bike?’ The energy went from Alex as though a plug had been pulled. ‘Why not, man?’

  ‘Just one of those things, man.’ Damien crouched down to Alex’s level. ‘Next time I come, I’ll bring the bike.’

  ‘Promise, man? They got a new baby here. But don’t let him on the bike, just me?’

  ‘Just you. Promise.’

  Christine, tall and elegant and astonishingly svelte for a woman who had given birth only five weeks ago, came to welcome us. ‘Come in, come in. Sorry, I’m just in myself, it’s all a bit…’ She swiped the colander from Alex’s head. ‘I’ve been looking for that.’

  Alex gave a little howl of protest. ‘That’s my lid, man.’

  ‘Richard should be home soon.’ Richard was Christine’s husband. He had one of those mysterious jobs where he spent fourteen hours a day on the phone, making money. Damien and I joked privately that every day he was locked into his office and wasn’t allowed to leave until he’d made another hundred million euro. (‘Ninety-eight… ninety-nine… still ninety-nine… ninety-nine – and a hundred! Well done, off you go home, Richard.’)

  We followed Christine into the enormous Colefax and Fowler kitchen, where a nervous-looking Polish girl was doing something at the microwave.

  ‘This is Marta,’ Christine said. ‘Our new nanny.’

  Marta nodded hello and promptly scarpered.

  ‘And this…’ Christine gazed fondly into a bassinet, in which a tiny pink-skinned baby was asleep. ‘… is Maximillian.’

  (Yes, Christine and Richard had named their four children after emperors. I know it makes them sound like grandiose nutters, but they’re not.)

  Damien and I stared politely at the sleeping child.

  ‘Okay, you can stop admiring him now.’ Christine reached for a corkscrew. ‘Wine?’

  ‘Yes. Can I do anything to help?’

  It was a fake question. No one could ever help Christine. She did everything so much better and faster than everyone else that there was no point. Anyway I didn’t want to help. I was at someone else’s house for my dinner, why would I want to do stuff I’d have to do at home?

  ‘All done,’ Christine said. ‘Did most of it last night. Just a few last-minute fiddly bits.’

  ‘What’s with your trouser suit?’ I asked her. ‘How come you’re looking so clean? You’re not back at work already?’

  ‘God, no. I’m just popping in for a couple of hours a day, just to keep an eye on things.’

  Christine was so clever and accomplished that she no longer did much actualscrubbed-up, green-gowned, hands-on surgery stuff. Instead she was Head of Surgery at Dublin’s most expensive hospital, the first woman to have ever held that post. (Or perhaps she was the youngest ever Head. It was hard to keep track because the Stapletons seemed to be always winning accolades. If, every time one of them got a promotion or won an award, we gave them the celebration they deserved, we’d all end up in the Priory.)

  ‘So where’s Augustina?’ I looked around.

  ‘At her Sanskrit lesson?’ Damien asked.

  ‘Haha. Mandarin, actually.’

  It took me a moment to realize that Christine was serious.

  ‘We don’t make her go,’ Christine said, as I tried to hide my astonishment – well, actually distress, if I’m to be honest. ‘She asked to go to lessons.’

  Too weird. What nine-year-old would ask to learn Mandarin?

  ‘And we keep an eye on her,’ Christine said.

  ‘On her work-life balance?’ Damien suggested.

  ‘If your tongue could get any further into your cheek…’ Christine said. ‘Anyway, cheers.’ She held up her glass. ‘It’s lovely to see you both.’

  An expectant little moment followed and Damien and I assumed our ‘Yes, we’d be honoured to be Maximillian’s spiritual guardians should you and Richard die, which of course you won’t’ faces, but Augustina scuppered the moment by walking into the kitchen and saying coolly, ‘Hello, Uncle Damien, hello, Auntie Grace.’

  With no great show of enthusiasm, she kissed us both. She was tall for nine and very pretty. She sniffed the air with her dainty nose and sighed. ‘Moroccan for dinner again.’

  ‘How was today’s lesson?’ Christine asked. ‘What did you learn?’

  ‘May I check something?’ Augustina asked Christine. ‘You can’t speak Mandarin, can you? So what’s to be gained by my telling you what I learnt? You wouldn’t understand a word of it.’

  Little bitch, I thought. No wonder I don’t want children. You give them everything and they thank you by growing up to despise you.

  Augustina turned her attention back to me. ‘I’ve a surprise for you two.’

  ‘Oh? What is it?’

  She furrowed her brow as if she couldn’t quite comprehend our idiocy. ‘A s-u-r-p-r-i-s-e,’ she spelt out. ‘You’re not supposed to know what it is. You’ll find out later.’

  ‘Hello,’ a voice said quietly. It was Richard, home from making his daily hundred million euro. Grey-suited, grey-haired and grey with exhaustion.

  He managed a few moments of perfunctory conversation with Damien. ‘That was a good piece you did on Belarus,’ he said. ‘So how’s everyone at the Press? Mick Brennan still editor?’

  All the Stapleton menfolk – brothers, brothers-in-law and Mr Stapleton senior – seem to do this whenever they meet Damien. They praise one of his recent articles, then they ask if Mick Brennan is still the editor of the Press.

  Maybe I’m oversensitive on Damien’s behalf but I always feel they’re implying that Damien had failed in some sort of way by not ousting Mick Brennan from his editorship, and assuming power himself.

  Damien is only thirty-six and I’ve no doubt that he will edit a national newspaper some day, but in this family of overachieving clever-clogs, expectations are abnormally high.

  ‘Dinner,’ Christine declared. ‘Everyone sit at the table.’

  She produced a shank of lamb, fragrant with cumin, and a platter of steaming couscous.

  ‘Not couscous,’ Julius wailed. ‘I hate couscous.’ He stabbed the back of his hand with his fork.

  ‘Just eat it, man.’ Alex was now wearing a sieve, the handle to the back of his head, so it looked like a baseball hat. ‘Make it easy on yourself.’

  The food was delicious but I almost forgot to compliment Christine on it because it was just sort of accepted that everything she did, she did with excellence. The conversation, however, did not match the quality of the food.

  Richard ate quickly and silently, then muttered something about the Hawaiian stockmarket and left the room.

  ‘Dessert?’ Christine stood up and began clearing plates.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Augustina has made chocolate brownies for you.’

  ‘Don’t tell them!’ Augustina exploded. ‘That’s the surp
rise. I want to tell them!’

  ‘So tell them.’

  ‘Damien and Grace, I’ve made chocolate brownies in your honour. But you may not like them.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll love them,’ I said.

  ‘Grace.’ She closed her eyes in a gesture she’d obviously learnt from Christine. ‘There’s no need to humour me. If you would let me finish…’

  Jesus Christ! I waved my hand in a please-go-on gesture.

  ‘What I’m trying to tell you,’ Augustina sounded like she was trying very hard to be patient, ‘is that you may not like them because the chocolate I’ve used is 85 per cent cocoa solids. It’s not to everyone’s taste.’

  ‘I like dark chocolate.’

  ‘But you probably think 70 per cent cocoa solids is a big deal. This is Fairtrade 85 per cent.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Damien said. ‘Ethical and delicious.’

  Augustina flicked her eyes back and forth from Damien to me, as if trying to decide if we were worthy. Finally she said, ‘Very well.’

  Christine had finished clearing the dinner debris and was clattering out dessert bowls. ‘Richard,’ she called. ‘Richard! Come back in here.’

  ‘He’s on the phone. He’s shouting,’ Julius said.

  ‘Tell him to get in here. I need him here for this.’

  Julius thundered off and reappeared shortly. ‘I don’t think he’s coming. Someone in Waikiki has fucked up.’

  ‘Oh man.’ Alex shook his head sorrowfully and his sieve fell off. ‘Someone will have to sit on the fucked-up step.’

  Christine couldn’t decide whether to chastise Alex or insist that Richard get in here pronto. ‘Oh never mind!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

  She took a deep breath and I found myself sitting up straighter and already preparing my gracious smile of acceptance.

  ‘Grace and Damien, as you know I’ve had a new baby.’ She nodded at the bassinet. ‘And he’ll need godparents. And we thought Brian and Sybilla would be the best people. They’re already Augustina’s godparents, and you don’t know this yet but Sybilla is expecting again, so Maximillian will be close in age to his new cousin.’

  My gracious acceptance smile had frozen. Events had veered off in an unexpected direction. Damien and I weren’t going to be asked. It was to be Brian and Sybilla. Again.

  My 85 per cent cocoa-solids brownie had appeared in front of me and automatically – the way I do whenever I see any kind of food – I put a piece in my mouth.

  ‘I’m sure you don’t mind,’ Christine was saying. ‘I’m sure it’s a relief. It’s just not your thing, is it? The church, renouncing Satan and all his works. And you don’t want kids of your own. But I just wanted to have a quiet word with you both before you heard that we’d asked Brian and Sybilla. It just seemed polite.’

  The lump of brownie sat on my tongue, I couldn’t get any further with it. It’s not that I’d wanted to be Maximillian’s godmother, it made no difference whatsoever to me. But, unexpectedly, I had a huge upsurge of rage on behalf of Damien. Four children, four siblings, there should be four godparents.

  Damien was great with children and far better with these kids than Richard, their own bloody father.

  Augustina was watching me. ‘You’re not eating your brownie.’

  ‘… No.’

  She was pleased. ‘Too bitter?’

  ‘Too bitter.’

  Monday morning and it was a red-handbag day: impatience.

  ‘Get back.’ Jacinta waved her arms at us. ‘You’re flocking me.’

  It was our weekly meeting to discuss upcoming ideas. All of Features – with the exception of Casey Kaplan, whose whereabouts were unknown – were clustered around Jacinta’s desk.

  ‘Back,’ she repeated. ‘I can’t breathe. Grace. Ideas. And I want good ones.’

  ‘… Right.’ Without nicotine I was slower, sleepier and the synapses in my head fired with less of a snap. Even after a full week I hadn’t bounced back. ‘How about domestic violence?’

  ‘What?’ Her screech was so shrill that heads turned as far away as Sport. ‘You needn’t think that just because you got Antonia Allen to admit she takes it up the bum that you can write your own remit!’ (Over the weekend, my story on Antonia Allen got syndicated around the world, bringing in much-appreciated revenue for the Spokesman. It was the only interview where Antonia referenced ‘My Gay Jain Pain.’ (Not my words.) Big Daddy was very pleased. He’d vacillated between lowering the tone and going for the splash and in the end had followed the money.

  No one made any comment on my breast cancer story. Because it hadn’t been published. A surprise avalanche in an Argentinian ski resort meant my story got killed. Mrs Singer and her tragedy would never see the light of day because the report was no longer current. That’s how it is with journalism, it moves fast, too fast to let yourself get attached. One of the first things you learn is to get used to it. But I’d never learnt.)

  ‘I was thinking,’ I continued speaking as though Jacinta hadn’t just shrieked at me, ‘that over six weeks we could profile six different women from diverse backgrounds. We could do a campaign.’

  ‘What in the name of fuck has brought this on?’

  ‘It’s a realproble – ’

  ‘Is there a report?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even a report to hang it on! No one cares about domestic violence! It’s Dee Rossini, isn’t it? You’ve fallen under her spell.’

  ‘I have not.’

  Actually I might have. My profile on her, which I’d spent all of Friday afternoon lovingly crafting, had been luminescent; and on Saturday, when I’d been in Boots, I’d looked for the funny light-brown nail varnish but hadn’t found it. Yesterday, I’d even rung to enquire about Elena. (Dee had said tersely that she was ‘safe.’)

  ‘One in five Irish women will experience domestic violence at some stage in their lives,’ I said. So Dee had told me.

  ‘I don’t care,’ Jacinta said. ‘I don’t care if every single one of them experiences it – ’

  ‘ – us,’ I interrupted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Every single one of us, not them. It’s us, Jacinta.’

  ‘It’s not fucking us! I don’t experience it, you don’t experience it, Joanne doesn’t experience it, do you Joanne? Lorraine, Tara and Clare, none of them experiences it! You ARE under Dee Rossini’s spell. But we’re not doing it!’

  ‘Grand,’ I muttered, dying, oh dying for a cigarette. A whole pack of twenty, one after the other after the other. The longing was so great that I got the I-wish-I-could-cry pain in my sinuses, a tight band of contained tears pushing out against my facebones. I didn’t listen to the others presenting their ideas and my hearing only returned when I heard Jacinta say, ‘We’re profiling Alicia Thornton.’

  ‘Who?’ Maybe there were two Alicia Thorntons.

  ‘Paddy de Courcy’s fiancée.’

  ‘But… why?’

  ‘Because Big Daddy says so.’

  ‘But who is she?’ I asked. ‘What’s interesting about her?’

  ‘She’s the woman “who won Quicksilver’s heart”,’ Jacinta said.

  ‘But she’s dull and… she’s just an obedient political spouse. How’re you going to get two thousand words out of that?’

  ‘You’d better change your attitude pretty quick because you’re doing the interview.’

  ‘No!’ I took a moment to compose myself. ‘No way.’

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘I mean no, I don’t want to do it.’ I pointed to TC. ‘Send him. Or Lorraine. Send Casey.’

  ‘You’re doing it.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What do you mean, can’t?’

  ‘Jacinta.’ I’d no choice but to come clean. ‘I know… knew… Paddy de Courcy. In another life. My integrity is compromised. I’m the wrong person.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re doing it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because
she asked for you. Specifically for you. If you won’t do it, she’s taking it to another paper. You have to do it.’

  She tried to twist away from under his grasp but he was so much stronger.

  ‘I don’t want to do this.’ Her pyjama bottoms were yanked down to her knees, her thighs goosepimpling at the air, and he was shoving his way up into her despite her dry resistance. It hurt. Short brutal thrusts, each one accompanied by a grunt.

  ‘Please – ‘

  ‘Shut. Up.’ Ground out between clenched teeth.

  Instantly she stopped struggling and let him batter his way in, the rim of the sink digging painfully into her back.

  The grunts got louder, the thrusts became more like stabs, then he was shuddering and groaning. He went slack, draping his body over hers, so that her face was buried in his chest. She could barely breathe. But she didn’t complain. She waited for him to do whatever he needed. After some time had passed, he pulled himself out and smiled tenderly at her. ‘Let’s get you back to bed,’ he said.

  Marnie

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying.

  On the in breath, ‘I’m.’ On the out breath, ‘Dying.’

  That was the wrong mantra. It should be: On the in breath, ‘All.’ On the out breath, ‘Is well.’ All is well. All is well. All is well. All is well. All is well. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dying. I’m dyingI’m dyingI’m dyingI’mdyingI’mdyingI’mdyingI’mdying.