You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here

by Frances Macken

  ‘He didn’t cancel on me. He got the part in the biopic film. He’s to play a fella called Wiley Stevens.’

  ‘Wiley Stevens. I’ve never even heard of him.’

  ‘He was a folk singer in the seventies.’ She lights a cigarette from the box on the nightstand and places it between her dry lips. ‘His girlfriend stabbed him in the neck with a broken beer bottle for sleeping with groupies.’ She takes a long and joyless drag off the cigarette. ‘We always said we wouldn’t hold one another back. We had that agreement.’

  ‘Sure, that mightn’t go ahead at all. Don’t you know what he’s like.’

  ‘He’s sold the bike. That means he’s all set.’ She sniffs. ‘You’re certain you won’t come?’

  ‘I won’t. As you said yourself, it’s better if I do my own thing.’

  There’s a long silence. She’s smoking hard now and contemplating. ‘I’m sorry, alright. Is that what you want to me to say?’ I turn my face and run my tongue along my teeth. ‘Don’t be like that. God. It’s like you hate me or something.’

  ‘What’s so special about him?’

  The little nostrils are flaring in and out and there’s smoke wafting out of them. ‘He loves me. He’d do anything for me. Anything I ask of him and he’d do it.’ I’d say she’s only saying it in order to believe it.

  ‘Will you go with him to the filming?’ I have my hands on my hips and I’m standing over the bed like a matron.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d be a distraction.’

  ‘Is that what he told you. He’s a bastard.’ There’s a mystifying relationship if ever there was one. ‘Would you not go on your own over to London? Haven’t you plenty for doing with The Psychopath’s Overcoat? Casting and scheduling and all of that business.’

  She takes off the sunglasses and throws them carelessly on the cluttered nightstand. ‘I’ll tell you something if you promise to tell no one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s no producer for The Psychopath’s Overcoat. I made it up.’

  ‘You lied.’ What else has she lied about? The cocaine and the rooftop pool party? The hundred new friends and the ‘Caution to the Wind’ love song?

  ‘People were expecting big things from me. I was expecting big things from myself. I got carried away.’ I titter, and she glares at me. ‘I said it to make myself feel better. I said it because I wanted to believe it. I’m no good at coping with disappointment.’ She hoicks herself up in the bed and I can hear joints clicking beneath the duvet. ‘Everyone thinks I’ve it easy. But no one knows what it’s like to be me. No one understands what it’s like for me at all. I’ve anxiety, you know.’

  ‘Is that what you call it.’

  ‘I get terrible headaches. Doctor Fitz said it was stress but I think it’s more serious. I’d say I’ll have to go in for tests.’

  ‘Well, you’d better not go to London, so. If you think it’s serious. You’d better stay at home and keep your sunglasses on you and stay in bed.’

  She scowls. ‘It’s not just headaches. It’s shakes as well.’ She presses her thin forearms down hard over the duvet. They’re thinner than I ever remember. ‘I could be seriously ill and you don’t even care,’ she says accusingly.

  ‘Would you don’t be so ridiculous. You must get out of that bed and get moving. Come on. Get up.’ God, she’s exhausting. It’s like she’s trying to suck me up with a straw until there’s nothing left.

  ‘I’m not getting up,’ she snaps. I’m annoyed now, and I reach out and take a hold of her elbow and pull hard in an effort to heave her out of bed. We’re laughing at one another, and raging with one another, and I feel like screaming because she’s so outrageous. ‘Leave it, Katie. I’m staying where I am. I mean it now,’ she protests, yanking her arm away and rubbing it.

  ‘Get out of that bed before you die in it. This is pure stupid behaviour.’ Have the lies only worked to steal her confidence? That’s one of the dangers of telling lies.

  ‘I’ll get up when I’m ready to get up.’

  ‘You’re not going to London at all, are you. You’ve no suitcase out or anything. There’s not one sign of you going to London.’ There are invisible ropes tying her into the bed. Invisible chains connecting her to Peadar, and Glenbruff too. Are the ropes and chains real, or are they imaginary? Isn’t it peculiar how some people never break free of the invisible ropes and chains.

  ‘I don’t want to go by myself. And I’m sick. I wouldn’t be able for it.’

  ‘What’s this all about? You were always so ambitious. What’s happened you?’ The girl who galvanised the manic ambition is seeming spent and fatigued. The girl who was always taking me places and giving me ideas is in decline. What’ll become of her, with the white fire extinguishing inside her? Was Flora and Phenomena only a swansong?

  ‘What’s happened me? As if you’ve ever done anything worth talking about. When will you realise that you haven’t an ounce of brilliance inside of you, and no matter how much time you spend trying to absorb it from me by osmosis, it’s never going to happen. It’s never going to happen for you, Katie, so just give up.’ She takes up the sunglasses and hurriedly props them back on herself.

  I have a cold, hard lump in my throat that I can’t swallow down. It’s like my voice box has turned to glass and I can hardly get words out. ‘That isn’t the way friends are supposed to speak to one another.’

  ‘Jesus,’ she rails. ‘Are you thick or something. We aren’t friends. We’re different people. We’ve nothing in common.’

  I make for the door. ‘That’s it. I can’t cope with you. I’m finished with you. Good luck.’

  She summons a great roar from inside of herself. ‘Fuck off, so. Get out. I don’t want you here anyway. I never asked for you to come up here annoying me. Get out.’

  I hurry down the stairs with tears falling from my eyes. I can hear her howling with sorrow above in the bed because Peadar doesn’t love her, and because I’m leaving her again, and because the dream she so often spoke about was only a sham. Perhaps she only ever did and said things to seem cool.

  Dan Cassidy is pulled up in the driveway with a suitcase tied to the top of his car and a trailer loaded up with odd bits of furniture. It looks as though he’s moving back in. Alma is resting on the driver door and talking to him through the rolled-down window. Daddy says Dan is under investigation for evading tax and he’ll likely end up in prison before too long. It strikes me for the first time the way Dan resembles Peadar, and carries on in a not dissimilar fashion.

  I keep on walking, and light up a cigarette for myself. I’ll give up the cigarettes in due course, but not yet. Not until I’ve set sail. Not until I prove myself to myself, and not Evelyn Cassidy. Already it’s seeming that there’s more room for me in the world.

  The sky is streaked with otherworldly greys and greens, and small birds bounce across the road like wound-up teeth on feet. I come upon Mickey Cassidy standing still in a ditch and looking out over the fields. There are glaring blue and white lights above the quarry and the sounds of men shouting. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘There’s someone in there,’ he says, pointing across. ‘Inside in the quarry.’

  ‘How do you mean, there’s someone in there?’

  ‘Human remains,’ he says, and his face is as white as a skull against the enveloping darkness.

  The season is beginning to turn. Leaves are drying and curling and dropping from the trees. Mammy’s old friend Hillary has returned to Glenbruff to research her family tree and the good room is full of laughter. You can hear the peals all over the house.

  Hillary Bowman has a resonant voice that rings like crystal. She has black hair and blue eyes and wears blue mascara. She has silver hoops in her ears and an artsy printed scarf floats around her neck. She works as a theatre manager, which is the sort of job that doesn’t really exist in Ireland. ‘Honey. It’s so good to meet you,’ she says, smiling up at me. ‘You look
so like your mom. Isn’t that something?’ She’s gone full Yank since she left Glenbruff. ‘Home for the summer, huh?’

  ‘Yeah. I don’t think I’ll be sticking around for too long more. I’ve big plans.’

  Hillary blinks. ‘What sort of plans, sweetie?’ she says, still smiling.

  I inhale hard, and come right out with it. ‘I’m mad to work in films, Hillary. I’m going to spend the next few weeks making phone calls and sending emails and I won’t stop until I get work. I’m very determined.’ I’m bursting to be me in a big way. Like never before. I’ll go mad if I can’t be myself and do the things I’ve always wanted.

  ‘Wow.’ Hillary laughs politely. She turns to Mammy. ‘My brother-in-law works in the industry. Jeff. He’s a producer and director. We hardly ever see the guy.’

  I don’t hesitate. ‘Does he need any help? All I want is a start.’

  Hillary Bowman touches the printed scarf with her fingertips. ‘Um, I could ask him, I guess.’

  Mammy’s eyes are wide and hopeful. ‘Will you do that? Could you ask him today?’

  ‘I guess so.’ Hillary thinks for a moment. ‘You know, we have a basement conversion we’re not using right now. You’re welcome to stay if you’d like to come to New York. Why don’t I go ahead and talk to Jeff. See if we can figure something out.’

  Hillary comes to the house the day after and says I’m to touch base with Jeff. He could really use some help. His assistant skipped out to take another job and he needs someone right away. Someone smart. Someone with a good eye. Someone who can start next week.

  It has me thinking that maybe I’m good enough on my own. Maybe I was always good enough on my own. And maybe the hard road is the easy road after all.

  Daddy’s giving me a lift to the train station. He’s humming contentedly as we spin through the town. He knows I won’t be in a hurry back. He knows I’m going to make a real go of things in New York. Mammy has money kept aside from cleaning the church, and she’s paid for the flight, and Mammy and Daddy together have given me a few bob to keep me going.

  Once I’m on the train, settled into my seat and looking out over the fields and meadows, I feel the return of the white ball of fire, the burning in the heart and the lightness in the limbs, and I know for certain it’s the dream I want more than anything. The dream was always insatiable. It was always bigger than Evelyn. It was there to begin with, and I used attribute it to Evelyn, but I know now that it was there all along.

  But she’ll always be the voice in my head and the flames at my feet. She’ll always be the ghost in the cottage and the burned-out nightclub, the whisper in the canopy of trees that chills the spine and excites the brain.

  Suddenly, the reflection of a face in the glass.

  Heart-shaped with intelligent eyes.

  The flicker of a phantom passenger.

  ‌Acknowledgements

  My deepest gratitude goes to my husband Seán for his eternal optimism and unwavering belief in me. Thank you for helping to create an atmosphere in which I could write freely and happily.

  My parents Matt and Noreen have encouraged me always and inspired my love of storytelling. Thank you both from the bottom of my heart.

  Dorothea, your infectious determination has been invaluable. You made a big difference.

  Marianne, you are a force to be reckoned with, and I’m truly grateful to have you as my agent.

  Thanks to Alison for your keen editorial insight early on, and to Gerard for your generous legal support.

  A final word of appreciation goes to Juliet and the team at Oneworld Publications who took a chance on me and my strange book. It means so much.

  Frances Macken is from Claremorris, Co. Mayo. She completed a BA in Film and Television Production at the National Film School, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Oxford and is the author of several short stories. You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here is her debut novel. She lives in Dublin with her husband and daughter.

  A Oneworld Book

  First published in Great Britain, United States of America, Ireland & Australia by Oneworld Publications, 2020

  This eBook edition published 2020

  Copyright © Frances Macken, 2020

  The moral right of Frances Macken to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved

  Copyright under Berne Convention

  A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78607-765-3 (Hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-78607-766-0 (Trade paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-78607-767-7 (eBook)

  Typesetting and eBook by Tetragon, London

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Oneworld Publications

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