This Charming Man

by Marian Keyes

  ‘Well, why do you want to see her?’ I just couldn’t see the appeal.

  ‘I’m not that bothered,’ Damien said.

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  ‘No. Really.’

  ‘In that case, go with my blessing.’

  So Marnie and I flew to London and the first thing I did was a trawlof the house, where I found bottles of vodka in all kinds of hidey-holes. ‘Pour them away,’ Marnie said. ‘Get rid of them.’

  Like I was going to suggest we drank them.

  On New Year’s Eve we spent the afternoon with Daisy and Verity. We tried our best, but Christ… Daisy’s glow had disappeared; from day one she’d been a charming, beautiful child and now she was flat and plain and sullen. As for poor Verity, she was a ball of twitches and tics. They kept asking – kept asking – why they didn’t live with Marnie any longer and when they’d be coming home. ‘Soon,’ Marnie kept promising. ‘Soon.’

  When Nick came for them, they both cried violently and I thought my head would explode.

  But their tears were like nothing compared to Marnie’s. She convulsed so long and hard that I actually wondered if I should try to get medical help.

  ‘All I ever wanted was to be a mother.’ The words were wrenched from her. ‘How did I let this happen? My children have been taken away from me and it’s all my fault.’

  ‘You just have to stop drinking,’ I said. ‘Then you’ll get them back.’

  ‘I know, I know, Grace, oh God, I know and I just can’t understand why I keep… I’ll tell you the most awful thing, Grace. All I want right now is a drink.’

  ‘Well, you’re not getting one,’ I said grimly. ‘Have a sausage roll and get through it.’

  As the clock hit midnight on New Year’s Eve, Marnie had finally stopped crying and was two weeks sober.

  ‘New year, new start,’ I said, as we clinked our glasses of Appletise. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’

  ‘I know.’

  The following day as I climbed into the taxi taking me to the airport, she said quietly, ‘It really is going to be okay.’ She gave me a smile of such sweetness that it shifted me back into a mindset where I wasn’t climbing the walls with worry the whole time. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be normal. It was lovely. All I had to worry about now was my aunt dying of lung cancer. And someone with a big enough grudge against me to burn out my car. And my boyfriend’s ex-wife sniffing around. Glorious!

  But an hour later, after I’d checked in, I decided to give Marnie a quick call and she didn’t pick up; and I knew, standing in Terminal 1, with crowds of post-festive people pushing and shoving all around me, that she had started drinking again.

  I turned around – yes, dramatic as it sounds – and went right back to her.

  I was so angry I could hardly see. ‘What the fuck are you at? You’ve thrown it all away!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace.’ Tears poured down her face in a torrent. ‘Being away from the girls… the pain is awful…’

  ‘Whose fault is that? You’re just a selfish bitch and you could stop if you tried hard enough.’

  My jaw clenched with purpose, I hit the phones and rang sixteen treatment centres – who would have thought it was such a growth industry? – and to my amazement many of them were booked out. ‘Busy time of year,’ one bloke laughed ruefully. ‘Peak season.’ Like we were talking about a holiday in the Maldives.

  Maybe it should have been a comfort to know that I wasn’t alone, but actually it was a shock to discover there were so many other selfish bitches in the world. Even if there had been availability in any of the rehab places, not one of them would take Marnie unless she admitted she was an alcoholic – and she wouldn’t. For someone so seemingly fragile, she could be as adamant as bejaysus.

  ‘Grace, I’m going through a bad patch. I can’t stop right now. I need it to get me through this but this will pass –’

  ‘How will it pass?’

  ‘Nick and the girls will come back, everything will be okay and then I won’t need to drink so much.’

  ‘But Nick and the girls won’t come back.’ I was almost in tears with frustration. ‘They left because of your drinking. Why would they come back when you’re still drinking?’

  ‘I’ll get stronger, and when I’m stronger, I’ll stop. The pain won’t be so bad. And I’ll drink less.’

  But I’d learnt a thing or two from my conversations with the treatment centres. ‘Things will only get worse. You’re an alcoholic, that’s what happens.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m just unhappy.’

  My yawning terror was that she had nothing left to lose; everything was gone; why would she stop?

  I got a flight home later that evening. I had to, I was rostered to work the following day.

  ‘But I’ll be back at the weekend,’ I warned Marnie.

  ‘It’s Thursday already.’

  So it was. I’d sort of lost track of the days because of the Christmas break. ‘Okay,’ I said with grim cheeriness, ‘in that case I’ll be back tomorrow night. And,’ I continued, surprising myself because I hadn’t planned this, ‘I’ll be here every weekend for the foreseeable future.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked.

  ‘To keep you off the fucking sauce. Why else?’

  But the following night – last Friday – when I’d arrived to find her passed out in the kitchen, stinking of urine and as slight as a child in my arms as I moved her upstairs to bed, for the first time – Christ, the fear – I understood the realreason I’d decided to visit every weekend: I didn’t want to leave her alone for too long because I was afraid that she might die. Anything could happen: she might tumble down the stairs and break her neck; her body might just give up from so much alcohol and so little nourishment – and she’d always been a candidate for suicide.

  I tried talking sense to her, but all weekend she held tight to her mantra: she would stop when things were better. It sent me wild with frustration. But as I left her on Monday morning, I saw something different in her: fear. What did she have to be afraid of, I wondered. She was grand, she was the one drinking her head off, having a great time.

  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.’