This Charming Man

by Marian Keyes

  Nick had taken her home, dressed her in a cotton nightdress and put her to bed.

  When she’d come to that time, she didn’t have words to describe her horror. The front of her body was patterned with astonishing bruises. Bumps and cuts had become a feature of her life; emerging into reality after a bout always involved taking an inventory of her injuries. But that had been the worst ever. One of her teeth felt wobbly and for some reason that horrified her utterly.

  Worse than her physical damage was the scalding guilt about what she’d put Daisy and Verity and Nick through. It made her want to – quite literally – cut her own throat, and she’d sworn to Nick – and to herself – that she’d never drink again.

  But she’d remembered none of what had taken place, and because she couldn’t remember, she became able to pretend that it hadn’t really happened. She’d sealed it away in a vault in her head where she put things she was far, far too ashamed to think about.

  And now it had happened again. The same, only worse because this time she’d been in hospital. With broken bones.

  And Grace was here.

  ‘She’s out of control. She needs residential help.’ Nick was still standing by the bedroom door, neither in nor out of the room.

  Marnie stared, plunged into mute terror. It was the first time he’d made such a suggestion. Was he serious? Or was he just trying to frighten her?

  ‘You mean…?’ Grace, always so sure, looked uncertain. Scared even.

  ‘Rehab, treatment,’ Nick said. ‘Whatever you want to call it.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit…?’ Grace jumped in.

  ‘A bit what?’

  ‘… drastic?’

  ‘Grace, she’s an alcoholic!’

  Marnie was relieved to see Grace flinch; obviously she wasn’t buying any of this.

  Nick turned to Marnie. ‘Face it, you’re an alcoholic.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said anxiously. ‘I’ll stop, I’ll –’

  ‘There’s a place in Wiltshire,’ he said. ‘It looks nice. They let kids visit at weekends, so the girls would get to see you.’

  Christ, he was… he was serious!

  ‘Nick, please, wait.’ The words tumbled from her mouth in a scramble. ‘Give me another chance –’

  ‘Yes, Nick, calm down,’ Grace said. ‘Let’s not go mad here. She’s had two bad experiences –’

  ‘Two!’ Nick put his hand to his forehead. ‘For crying out loud, Grace. Two hundred, more like! Not all as bad as this one, yes, I admit. But the gaps are getting shorter and the injuries are getting worse. That’s what they warned me to expect. I told you all of this.’

  Confused, Marnie watched the interplay between Grace and Nick. ‘Who’s “they”?’ she asked in creeping fear.

  ‘The alcohol counsellor,’ Grace said.

  ‘What alcohol counsellor?’ Marnie’s lips had gone numb. ‘How come you know and I don’t?’

  Grace sounded surprised. ‘Because Nick rings me about you…’

  Does he?

  ‘He has done, over the past couple of months.’

  Marnie was stunned. ‘Grace…? You’re talking to Nick behind my back?’

  Grace stared. She looked shocked. ‘I’m not doing anything behind your back! The first thing I did after he rang me was ring you and shop him.’

  Did she?

  ‘We were on the phone for ages, you and me. Don’t you remember?’ Grace sounded panicky.

  No. And it wasn’t the first time she’d found a blank where there should be a memory.

  ‘I thought you were drunk. I asked you at the time,’ Grace said anxiously. ‘You said you weren’t.’

  ‘I wasn’t! I remember it all.’ Then Marnie understood something. ‘So that’s why you’ve been calling me so often, all concern?’

  ‘I’ve been so worried.’

  ‘Why? I’ve always been a drinker. How many times have I told you that the only time the world seemed normal was when I’d had two drinks?’

  She could see Grace struggle. She could see Grace asking herself what right she had to begrudge Marnie those two drinks.

  ‘Look, I can stop,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I can go for weeks without a drink.’

  But Grace turned away from her and looked at Nick. ‘Can she? Can she go for weeks without a drink?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He sounded reluctant. ‘Although there have been times when she says she hasn’t had a drink and I can smell it on her breath. I’ve found bottles of vodka in her handbag–’

  Grace looked shocked. ‘Have you?’ she demanded of Marnie. ‘You never said –’

  ‘Once! One time! Because they’d run out of carriers in the off-licence.’ She stared into Grace’s eyes. ‘I can stop for weeks at a time. I do stop.’

  ‘And then you disappear!’ Nick said. ‘You don’t come home for days –’

  ‘Not “days”!’ Marnie cried. ‘Nick, you make it sound like… Grace, don’t listen to him. It hasn’t ever been even two days! Twenty-four hours at the most.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours is a long time,’ Nick said. ‘Especially when you’re a little girl.’

  ‘Oh go on, make me feel guilty! As if I’m not feeling awful already!’

  Suddenly Marnie’s eyes were spilling tears. Nick clicked his tongue impatiently and announced that he was going to work but, to Marnie’s relief, Grace crumbled into sympathy.

  ‘Marnie, please, this is way too serious. You fall. You hurt yourself. You could get raped. You’re lucky you haven’t been done for drunk-driving. You’re lucky you haven’t killed someone.’

  ‘I know, I know, I know.’ Tears poured down her face, their salt stinging her cuts. ‘But you don’t know what it’s like to be me.’

  She saw pity flare in Grace’s eyes and that made her feel worse.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I’m always sad,’ she wept, all of a sudden feeling the full weight of her constant burden. ‘When I drink it takes the sadness away. It’s the only thing that does.’

  ‘But it only makes things worse,’ Grace said helplessly. ‘Surely you’re sadder now than before you drank?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll stop. It’ll be hard but I’ll stop.’

  ‘You don’t have to stop completely. Just don’t go mental on it. Are you still on anti-depressants?’

  ‘They don’t help.’

  ‘Could you get a higher dose?’

  ‘I’ll ask. I think I’m on the highest, but I’ll ask. I’m begging you, Grace, don’t let him send me to rehab.’

  ‘Okay.’ Grace moved a little closer and in a quiet voice asked, ‘What about this Rico bloke?’

  ‘Rico?’ She wiped her face with her hand. ‘He’s just a friend.’

  ‘Is there something going on with the two of you?’

  A flash of bodies, naked limbs, Rico on top of her, his rough breathing in her ear.

  It didn’t happen.

  ‘No, no, he’s just very kind to me.’

  ‘But you drink with him?’

  ‘You make it sound… like tramps drinking meths. We go for a drink sometimes.’

  Grace got into bed beside her. To forestall any further interrogation, Marnie put on the television. Trisha was on; today’s theme was ‘I Hate my Daughter’s Boyfriend.’

  ‘Will I change to something else?’

  She didn’t expect Grace and her right-on sensibilities to go for Trisha, but Grace was transfixed. ‘Leave it on, leave it on.’

  There was shouting, swearing and accusations of jealousy and infidelity.

  ‘I despise myself for watching this sort of crap,’ Grace said. ‘But I can’t help it. It’s too big to fight.’

  Now you know how I feel.

  When it ended, Grace suddenly asked, ‘Marnie, have you ever heard of a man called Lemmy O’Malley?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or Eric Zouche?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Grace jumped from the bed, full of vigour. ‘Right, you’ve to start getting back to norma
l. Get dressed, just for a couple of hours. Which one’s your wardrobe?’

  ‘That one.’

  Grace opened it. ‘You have so many clothes. And shoes!’ The wardrobe floor was covered in boots and shoes. ‘Those riding boots!’ Grace bent down to take a closer look.

  No, wait. Stay away from them.

  ‘Funny, aren’t they?’ Grace was half inside the wardrobe and her voice was muffled. ‘So stiff, the leather almost looks plastic.’

  ‘Because I never broke them in –’

  ‘God, you’re a right swot, with boot guards still in them to keep them standing straight –’

  Don’t touch them. Leave them alone.

  ‘Grace, don’t –’

  But Grace was sticking her hand down into the boot and her face was changing and her hand was emerging with something and she was looking at Marnie with an expression she had never seen before, and in a calm little voice, sounding so unlike Grace, she asked, ‘Now why would you keep a bottle of vodka in a riding boot?’

  ‘Grace, I… don’t!’

  Grace had thrust her hand into the matching boot and drew out a second bottle of vodka, this one empty. She turned that same strange face to Marnie, a radiance of shock and understanding, then whipped back to the wardrobe, launching into a frenzy of excavation.

  ‘Grace, no!’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  Half in, half out of bed, Marnie could only watch the horror unfold. Grace was scrabbling with her hands, snatching wildly at shoe boxes, boots and handbags, flinging them out onto the bedroom carpet, upending them so that bottles clinked and scattered as they tumbled from their hiding places.

  This isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening.

  When Grace was finished, she lined them up boldly on the dressing table, banging each one down hard. Nine in all – full bottles, half bottles, quarter bottles. Marnie found it hard to believe there were so many, she’d known there were one or two in there, stashed temporarily until she got an opportunity to dispose of them – but nine? All were vodka bottles and all were empty except for the first one.

  Grace was breathing heavily and gazing at Marnie, as if she’d never seen her before in her life.

  ‘Have you been drinking since you got home from hospital?’

  ‘No, I swear it!’

  She was telling the truth. She had wanted to drink – especially after she’d discovered that Grace was coming – but she wouldn’t have been able to keep it down. She knew her body well enough to expect that any alcohol would kick-start an orgy of vomiting that could go on for days.

  Then Marnie saw new knowledge being visited upon Grace – she actually saw the change in Grace’s eyes as it happened – and Grace lurched from the bedroom, full of dread and purpose.

  Marnie realized where she was headed for. ‘No, Grace, please!’ She hurried from her bed, ignoring the electric blue pain that crackled through her ribs – this time she had to stop her – and followed Grace into Daisy’s pink bedroom.

  But Grace had already found one. She brandished the empty bottle at her. ‘In your daughter’s wardrobe. Nice, Marnie!’

  ‘She wouldn’t have found it.’

  ‘It didn’t take me very long.’

  Then Grace went into Verity’s room and found three empties under the bed.

  ‘Don’t tell Nick,’ Marnie begged. ‘Please.’

  ‘How can you ask me that?’ Grace said. ‘How can you be so selfish?’

  The sound of retching echoed through the house. Again and again and again. Marnie rattled the knob. ‘Please, Grace, let me in.’ But Grace kept the bathroom door locked and didn’t reply.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ Grace said weakly. She seemed devastated. Marnie had never before seen her so reduced. ‘You were able to stop the last time you came to Dublin. When you were on antibiotics.’

  She hadn’t been on antibiotics, but now really wasn’t the time.

  ‘You didn’t have anything to drink the whole weekend,’ Grace said. Then she lunged at Marnie because it had obviously just dawned on her that Marnie could have been drinking in secret all that time. ‘Or did you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I swear to you!’

  ‘You swear to me?’ Grace’s laugh sounded bitter. ‘Yes, now I’m really reassured.’

  ‘I’m not lying, Grace. It’s the truth. I can stop whenever I want.’

  ‘“I can stop whenever I want,”’ Grace parroted angrily. ‘You know what you sound like?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An alcoholic.’

  ‘But…’

  The truth was that she hadn’t had anything to drink in Dublin – because, inexplicable as it was, it was easier to have no drinks than to have two. It was why she’d pretended to be on antibiotics. Over the previous year – maybe longer – she’d come to know that once she had even one drink, she was overtaken by a raging need to drink to incapacity, to drink enough so she could leave her body, so she could leave her life, so she could abandon everything with glorious freedom and roar towards oblivion. She couldn’t predict what would happen if she started drinking, she could end up anywhere, doing anything, and she couldn’t take that risk while she was away from home.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything,’ Marnie said. She couldn’t bear this – Grace was angry with her. Worse, Grace was disappointed. ‘I’m sorry I’ve kept you in the dark.’

  ‘This isn’t about me! It’s about you being… an… alcoholic.’ Grace swallowed hard on the word.

  ‘Not an alcoholic, just a –’

  ‘Marnie!’ Grace opened and closed her mouth like a fish and pointed towards the bottles on the dressing table. ‘Look at them, please look at them.’

  ‘It’s not as bad as it seems. Please let me explain. They’ve been in there for ages. Please, Grace, listen to me –’

  Suddenly Grace said, ‘Right, that’s it! You’re going to AA.’

  … What? Alcoholics Anonymous? No, she wasn’t.

  ‘I’m going to ring them. Right now. Where’s your phone book?’

  ‘We haven’t got one.’

  In a very soft voice, Grace said, ‘Do not fuck with me any more than you already have.’

  ‘In the cupboard in the hall.’

  Grace left the bedroom and when she came back, she said, ‘There’s a meeting at one o’clock in a community centre in Wimbledon. Get dressed.’

  ‘Grace, this is mad,’ Marnie begged. ‘I’ll stop, I swear to you I’ll stop, don’t make me go to AA, things aren’t that bad, I just have to make the decision to stop, look, I’m making it, I’ve made it, it’s done!’

  She could see that Grace was wavering.

  ‘And I can’t go like this.’ She indicated her cuts and bandages.

  Grace’s face was a picture of hesitancy – then she said with distressing certainty, ‘They won’t care. They’re probably used to it.’

  ‘What if someone from work sees me?’

  ‘Maybe they already know what’s wrong with you. In fact, I bet they do. They’d probably be glad you’re doing something about your drinking problem.’

  Drinking problem.

  While Grace watched, she got dressed. With every movement, she winced with exaggerated pain – but she wasn’t faking her shaking hands. She couldn’t button her jeans. This was new.

  She cast an involuntary glance at the wardrobe, repository of at least one bottle that Grace hadn’t found. A mouthful, maybe two, might settle her. But even if Grace left her alone for three seconds, she couldn’t chance it today. Apart from the likelihood of vomiting, if she got found out, she’d be packed off to rehab by dinner time.

  Grace drove. Marnie let her get snarled up in the one-way system in the hope that they’d waste so much time driving around in circles, they’d miss the meeting. But she’d forgotten – how could she have, considering she’d lived with it her entire life? – how capable Grace was.

  ‘This is the street,’ Grace said, driving slowly, peering at a
low building. ‘And… that’s the place.’

  Marnie wasn’t concerned: they’d never get parking.

  ‘Are they coming out?’ Grace asked. She rolled down the window and mouthed at the occupants of a car: Leaving? Nods and smiles and thumbs up, and Grace was sliding into the space.

  How could it have happened?

  Don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it.

  ‘Out,’ Grace ordered.

  Marnie unclicked her seat belt and slid to the ground. Her legs felt like they belonged to someone else; this was the first time she’d walked since she’d woken up in hospital and it felt like an entirely new activity. Actually… ‘Grace, I think I might faint.’

  ‘Breathe,’ Grace urged. ‘And lean on me if you need to.’

  ‘No, really… I feel really –’

  ‘Marnie, you’re going to this AA meeting. I don’t care if you keel over and die.’

  Marnie didn’t think her heart could get any heavier, but when she realized that this was the same place as the last time, she could hardly move because of the weight of dread dragging her down.

  In the room, there were eighteen, maybe twenty chairs in a circle. People were chatting and laughing and tea and biscuits were set out on a table.

  As Grace led her to the top table, Marnie could see she was unsure, almost nervous.

  ‘This is Marnie.’ Grace presented her to some woman who looked like she was in charge. ‘It’s her first meeting.’

  Actually it wasn’t her first meeting, it was her second, but she wasn’t telling Grace that because then she really would think she was an alcoholic. She cast a furtive glance around, hoping that the Jules woman wasn’t there, the one she’d seen that time at the cinema. If she showed up and said hello, her cover was blown.

  The people – the alcoholics – were very friendly; she remembered that from the other time. They didn’t embarrass her by mentioning her injuries and they kept giving her warm, welcoming smiles. Dying for her to be in the gang with them.

  ‘Cup of tea?’

  Marnie accepted. The heat would be nice; she was so cold. But to her shock – and to Grace’s evident horror – her hands couldn’t hold the cup. The hot liquid trembled and slopped over, scalding her fingers. The man who’d given her the cup retrieved it without fuss and placed it on the counter.