‘I never knew a bad person to come from a good household,’ Mammy says.
‘That’s soft talk.’ Daddy’s always giving out to Mammy about soft, sentimental talk.
‘Says the man talking nonsense about banshees.’
There are still no clues as to Pamela’s disappearance. She left no diary, no letters, ‘no nothing’, says Maureen when she’s up to see Mammy. Mammy tells me to stay put in my room until she’s gone home or the sight of me might set her wailing. Why was it Pamela taken and no one else’s daughter?
Some of the girls at school are saying that Pamela might have done away with herself in a secret place, for some unknown reason. There might have been trouble at home, sinister and mysterious in nature. It comes to light that Pamela had no close friends with whom she could confide, but the circumstances of the vanishing don’t add up to suicide.
Evelyn wants to study fine art at the Institute of Art and Design, a prestigious institution where art is taken very seriously. It’s the best programme in the country, according to Evelyn, and it’s the only programme she’s applied to. She has an interview at the college before our final exams, and I accompany her on the journey up to Dublin. She clips open her big portfolio case and withdraws her art for me to have a look at. I haven’t seen the art before as she’s been uncharacteristically shy about it. She’s been toiling away in her bedroom for two whole years, she says. ‘What do you think?’ The truth will never suffice. Evelyn’s art is both eccentric and mediocre. She’s drawn a crude self-portrait that’s off-centre: eyes set too far to the left, and nose too high on the face, almost emerging from the forehead. There are pencil sketches of people with no faces at all, their bodies all out of proportion. Another canvas features a cat wearing a suit and holding a pocket watch.
‘I don’t know how you come up with this stuff,’ I say in reference to the cat in the suit, and she takes it in the best way possible, beaming from ear to ear. But I don’t think there’s any merit in what I’ve been shown, and I’ve a sinking feeling the administration at the art college will reach the same conclusion. The last piece is a painting of Maeve done in watercolours. It’s so strikingly accurate that I’m quite startled: Maeve’s big grey eyes tilting at the outer corners, her translucent skin, the unusual floating quality of her thin bistre hair like a trick of the light, the shoulders hunched and the head drawn down like a tortoise mid-retreat. ‘That’s exactly Maeve. That’s exactly what she looks like.’ The only difficulty is that Maeve doesn’t resemble an artist’s muse. She’s odd-looking. To the stranger’s eye, the painting could be deemed to be totally unrealistic. Still, there’s nothing to be done but admire the portrait, for Evelyn’s sake. ‘You’re some trickster, doing all this work without any of us knowing.’
‘There’s more where that came from. Stacks and stacks of paintings and drawings going back forever.’ She returns the papers and canvases to the portfolio case.
‘Have you had any hassle at home? About wanting to go to the art college.’
‘They couldn’t give two hoots. I said to Dad that I was looking to do art and he said the house could do with a lick of Dulux.’
‘You’re lucky. I’m being pestered with aptitude tests and career coaches and all sorts.’ I sit back in my seat and watch the landscape wash past me. After all our big talk, I might be moving up to Dublin on my own. I can hardly contemplate it. I’m anxious because I remember Mammy telling me about her old school friend Hillary Bowman. She said they were as thick as thieves. The two of them were mad into the acting. Hillary Bowman moved to New York and married a stockbroker and herself and Mammy lost touch. After twenty years, Hillary called the house phone unexpectedly, and Mammy was so tongue-tied she could hardly string a sentence together. They’d nothing at all in common to talk about, and she never heard from her again after that. Mammy got into a fit of befriending local women as a consequence, but there was none could compare to Hillary Bowman.
I sit and wait in a nearby café as Evelyn goes to meet with the interview panel. She joins me after forty-five minutes, sliding onto the wooden chair and clattering the portfolio next to a radiator.
‘Well. How was it?’
‘Sure, it’s impossible to know.’
‘What did they ask you?’
‘About my influences, where I see myself going as an artist, that sort of stuff. I didn’t get much of a reaction, but I think that’s how it’s supposed to go. I’ll find out in a few weeks whether I’ve got in or not.’
‘Try not to think about it too much.’ It’s important in life to know the right things to say at the right times.
‘I’m not in the least bit concerned about it. It’s done now. I’m going to leave the portfolio here and head off.’
‘You’re going to leave your portfolio. After all the work you put into it.’
‘I only needed it for the interview. Come on and we’ll go for a few drinks.’
‘We’ll miss the train.’
She fiddles with the plastic carnation in the small vase on the table, and then peers out the window at passers-by. Two young fellas lope along on the street with portfolio cases slung over their shoulders and Evelyn watches them with her lips pressed together. The boys are likely to be competing for a college place too. Her place, probably.
‘I’m bored. Let’s go,’ she says suddenly, rising to her feet and scraping the wooden chair away from herself. The art portfolio remains propped up next to the radiator. I’m relieved that the ugly drawings and paintings won’t be accompanying us, like evil spirits traipsing along in our midst. I’m relieved to abandon the uncanny painting of Maeve. It has the feel of bad juju emanating from it.
Evelyn wants to inspect the pubs close to the college and have a drink in each one. It’s a Thursday afternoon, and there are art students with unruly hair, wearing shirts and overalls covered with flecks of paint, standing about and chatting animatedly. Some wear angular glasses, some smoke hand-rolled cigarettes. Their shoes are scruffy, with dried tidemarks of dirty water, but their accessories are expensive and copious. ‘These are my kind of people,’ she breathes, leaning on the counter as I order two beers. ‘I can’t wait to come back here when college starts.’
‘Hopefully it will all work out,’ I say, feeling deceitful.
‘Peadar says he might come to Dublin too. He might be up after us after a few weeks.’ I can feel my heart sinking. That wasn’t a part of the plan at all. There isn’t room for Peadar in the dream.
As the afternoon turns to early evening, Evelyn takes a phone call from the owner of the café, who says he has located the portfolio against the radiator, with Evelyn’s phone number on a sticker on the front. She tells him he can keep the pieces and put them up in his café or sell them if he wants to. We do end up missing the train, and we stay out all night until the station reopens in the morning. We sit with our backs against the cold exterior wall, eating cheeseburgers, and I watch out for creeps as Evelyn dozes for short stretches. As long as we get a story out of it, it’s worth doing. I’m feeling buzzed and contented resting against the cold wall, until the thought strikes me: I wonder why it was Maeve that Evelyn painted, and not me.
We’re celebrating after finishing our school exams. Evelyn has us trampling after her through the woods. ‘Would you ever come on, Katie,’ she calls, rolling her body over the top of a vertical cliff riddled with tree roots. ‘You’re awful fucking slow.’ Aidan and Peadar have gone up ahead of us with carrier bags of beer. Clouds of midges are papping my face and cluttering my sight, and the strap of the camera is raising a welt on my neck. Maeve’s made an easy job of the climb, already peering over the edge.
The front door of the cottage is forced inward and bulging with damp. Great sheets of paisley wallpaper have rolled off the walls, a surge of mud has reached the foot of the stairs and there’s a wide, gaping hole in the roof as though an almighty boulder has been dropped through it. Someone has gathered five musty armchairs in a circle beneath the gaping hole. ‘Ta-da,�
�� says Evelyn, sweeping her hand before us. ‘Secret IRA hideout. I told ye.’
‘How’d you know about this place?’ asks Peadar, impressed. He runs his fingers through his heavy fringe.
‘Dad told me about it when I was young. It belonged to his uncle. We’ll be watching the stars soon,’ she says proudly. We sink into the damp, stinking chairs. As the minutes roll by, the starry sky emerges in its fullness, and we can see thousands of white stars from our unusual vantage point. ‘Isn’t this unreal,’ she says, clinking her beer bottle against all of ours before regaling us with the story of her great uncle Timothy, who beat two Black and Tans unconscious with a yard brush. It’s Evelyn who’s brought all of this about. I could never think to do something like this without her. She has a way of being magical and unexpected. What would I be doing with myself if I didn’t have Evelyn for a best friend.
Even Aidan has some amusement out of the evening. ‘You’ve some gift for storytelling,’ he says, chuckling lightly and taking a sip of his beer. It’s good for him to be having a drink and taking his mind off things. I catch myself looking at him, to see if guilt can manifest in a person’s face, to see if you can read it in a person, but there isn’t the least hint of malevolence.
Evelyn has a good one about Maeve. When Maeve was small, Evelyn says, she was a friend of the crows. Tom taught her to make the habit of leaving a crust of bread or a piece of raw meat out in the yard. Up to ten crows used to come into the yard at a time, and Maeve would venture out with an offering of one kind or another. She kept it up for a few weeks, and the crows began to leave things in the yard for her: a raffia bow, a half crown coin, a bent nail. Maeve nods excitedly as Evelyn tells the story. ‘It’s true,’ Maeve says, perking up, confident now. ‘They’re clever that way. They bring presents to keep you generous. I’ve all the bits and pieces in a tin box. They’re keepsakes.’ Maeve likes to be drawn into the conversation; it doesn’t happen too often when we’re with the two lads.
‘That’s gas. I’d love to see them,’ I say, bemused.
‘Did you keep on feeding the crows?’ enquires Aidan.
‘I didn’t. I left it a few days and they came onto the window sill in the kitchen and started hammering on the glass with their beaks. Mam got afraid of them so I had to stop.’
‘Jesus,’ says Peadar disinterestedly. I can tell by his tone that he thinks it’s a dry, daft story, and Maeve clamps her mouth shut after that. Evelyn makes a face at Peadar, raises her eyebrows meaningfully, and they announce that they’re going around the back exploring. They’re gone a while. On their return, Peadar is holding a lit cigarette and drawing off it before passing it over to Evelyn.
‘When did you start smoking?’ I say, gawping at her.
‘I’ve been smoking for years,’ she says. The cigarette suits her, like a new hairstyle or a set of earrings. The blue smoke curls up around her face.
‘You have not.’
‘I have, I said. You don’t know everything I do be up to.’
Peadar has a flashlight with him, and we walk from room to room. The paint on the walls is chalky and leaves a residue on our hands. There’s a scalloped orange fungus attached to a stack of books, a gigantic tree root shifting the floor tiles in the kitchen, and the windows are laden with silt. Tsch. I tug on a cupboard door, revealing enamelled bowls and plates stacked carefully for their next use. Tsch. The cutlery on the countertop is crusted arsenic green. The clock in the hallway is stopped at half past three and the glass dome holds droplets within it. The curtains are paper-like and full of jagged holes. Tsch. I want Evelyn to see me getting good use out of the camera. I had to get a special book out of the library to learn how to use it, and I’ve only just got the hang of it.
‘Would you say there are any guns left lying around the place?’ asks Aidan, meandering about in the hallway. Evelyn opens her mouth to reply, when all of an instant we hear loud clomping strides across the wooden landing above.
‘What’s that?’ Maeve cries, clutching her palms to her face. Peadar’s flashlight whirls in the darkness, picking out our whitened faces. He spins the beam to the top of the stairs, where Mickey Cassidy’s hobbling from one soft wooden step to the next, clutching the loose banister for support. He’s wearing a sleeveless vest and checked skate shorts, and his white-blond hair is sticking out all over his head. His red wet mouth is contorted with gross amusement, the force of his laughter like a possession.
‘This is a nice comfortable spot ye have here,’ he gurgles, his shoulders shaking with giddy mirth.
‘You fuckin’ tosspot, Mickey,’ rails Peadar. ‘We should tie you to the banisters and leave you for a week.’
‘I gave ye a good scare,’ Mickey says, jubilant. ‘Didn’t I give ye a good scare?’
‘You did, Mickey. I thought I was going to die with the fright,’ admits Maeve.
‘How did you follow us?’ asks Aidan. ‘How’d you get upstairs?’
‘Is there a rope in the place?’ Peadar’s neck is turning hard and red. ‘I’ll soon tie him up.’
‘Give him the torch and let him off.’
I can sense the fury emanating from Evelyn, the air charging about her. Her face gains a serenity that masks the rage beneath, the faintest of smiles appearing and crinkling the corners of her mouth. ‘Go home, Mickey. Go home now or I swear to God.’ It must be hard-going for Evelyn having Mickey for a brother. At least Robert has a semblance of sense.
‘Take your time,’ Aidan advises as Mickey makes for the bulging door. ‘Don’t fall.’ Peadar fires an empty beer bottle at Mickey’s ankle and misses, and we hear Mickey blathering away to himself out in the woods and then nothing.
‘What’s wrong with him anyway?’ spits Peadar. ‘What’s he diagnosed with?’ Evelyn looks humiliated, looks to the ground, and Peadar fumes, his shoulders rising and falling with the heavy breathing. Aidan hands him a beer and he wrenches the cap off it with his teeth. We all flinch. ‘Fuckin’ special. That’s what he is.’
‘Does that not hurt your teeth?’ I blurt.
‘Your teeth get used to it. It makes them stronger.’
‘That’s bullshit,’ mutters Aidan.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said that’s bullshit.’
Peadar puts his hand in his shirt pocket, paws around and pulls it out again. ‘I’ve something for you, fella. I found something you’d be very interested to see.’ He opens his hand to reveal a writhing collection of worms and woodlice. ‘Behold. The remains of Pamela Cooney.’ He lets out a strong, cruel laugh that comes from deep inside him.
Aidan smacks the underneath of Peadar’s palm and the worms and woodlice go flying. ‘Fuck you, Peadar. Fuck you anyway,’ he cries, choking back emotion, and my heart fills up with pity and love for him.
We have a big job to convince Aidan to come to the Saint Ambrose Debs’ Ball. Evelyn and Peadar and Maeve gather around him and squeeze him about the shoulders. ‘Don’t mind people being nasty. All that talk is dying down,’ Evelyn says.
‘It won’t be the same without you,’ Maeve says.
‘Everyone’s got a date already. Who’d want to go with me?’ Aidan says, his blond head hung low, his shoulders narrow with dejection. I’m emotionally wounded myself to see him in such a way.
‘I would,’ I say, my pulse quickening. ‘I’d go with you.’ There’s a moment’s pause as Aidan lifts his eyes to me.
‘I’ll go, so,’ he says with a grateful expression. Evelyn and Peadar cheer loudly, and Maeve smiles with her teeth clamped together.
I’m wearing a lavender satin dress one of my cousins had for being a bridesmaid, and I’m pleased enough with how I’ve dolled myself up. Evelyn’s steady hand has applied my make-up, and we’ve copied a hairstyle from a magazine: a crown of twists embedded with crystal pins. It’s been sprayed with a full tin of Mammy’s hairspray, and Evelyn is certain that no amount of dancing will disturb it.
Aidan lands down in a silver Toyota, looking gallant in a rented tuxe
do. Terry bought the car off Desmond Duignan, who’s gone to California for the summer, and Peadar and Aidan have the use of it whenever they want. ‘You scrub up well,’ he says to me, rolling down the window, the flicker of admiration on his face.
‘Thanks,’ I say shyly, slipping into the passenger seat, and hoping the fake tan will disguise the red flush creeping up my chest and neck.
He takes a deep breath and holds on to it as we enter into the ballroom. The sensation of my arm in his is electrifying. I’m aching to know if this is the commencement of a relationship, the cusp of something momentous. I’m aching for Aidan to know my heart, and for me to know his.
Several people come towards us as we make our entrance. Fellas from the football team and their girlfriends. ‘Good man, Aidan,’ one of them says, giving a light punch. ‘When are you coming back to the team?’
‘I’ll be back one of the days soon.’
Myself and Aidan are gazing across the bedazzled crowd in search of Evelyn, Peadar and Maeve, when Kenneth Geraghty comes bounding over towards us. Kenneth has a gap in his front teeth and a widow’s peak, and he always smells of decaying bananas. His father owns Geraghty’s Newsagent’s, where they sell overripe bananas for half price. ‘We thought you might unearth Pamela Cooney for the Debs’ Ball,’ jeers Kenneth.
Aidan rears up at him. ‘I’ll kill you.’
Evelyn stumbles into the fray wearing a red bustier and flared floor-length skirt from a boutique in Galway. ‘Don’t engage with him, Aidan. He’s only messing with you. He’s only rising you. Don’t give him the satisfaction,’ she calls out as an alcopop slips from her hand onto the tiles, the fizzing liquid shooting out in a spray against the mahogany panelling.
Aidan is full of agitation, his face straining, his eyes watering with emotion. Peadar wrestles him clear of Kenneth, straightens his jacket and tie for him. ‘Keep it together, man. Keep it together. What am I always telling you? Kicking off will only make things worse.’ Aidan clenches his jaw, and forces Peadar away from him.
You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here Page 7