The Better Half

by Sarah Harte

  Actually, what I needed was the sort of numbness and false confidence that coke could deliver. I needed to get obliterated.

  Ciara efficiently chopped the powder up with a credit card – her wrist flicking backwards and forwards – as she marshalled it into two neat lines. One line was monster in comparison to the other. ‘You go first,’ she instructed me. ‘The big one is for me simply because I need more.’ She flashed me a druggy smile. ‘Make it quick because I need to get back. This is very bold.’

  Pressing one nostril, I bent down and snorted up the powder, using the thin straw Ciara had given me. There was a risk of infection with notes, she had told me, as if that was the sordid part of the equation. I stopped and started until the line was gone. When it was Ciara’s turn, she vacuumed up the powder with a deft movement, causing the line to disappear in zip time. ‘Okay, better shake a leg,’ she said.

  I stood uncertainly in the middle of the cubicle so that she nudged me towards the door. And then I told her, as if I were reading the news: ‘Frank is having an affair.’

  Ciara gawped at me. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked, her eyes bulging.

  I nodded.

  ‘Oh, Anita,’ she said, drawing her breath through her teeth in a sharp sigh. She reached out and touched my arm.

  My eyes watered.

  ‘God,’ she said, giving me a quick hug. She drew back. ‘I’m so shocked.’

  She must be shocked. It wasn’t like Ciara to dole out the hugs. Like, you could never have accused her of being affectionate.

  She rested her hand on my arm again. Then she turned quickly back towards the loo and ran her finger along the lid – the drama of the moment put to one side. She rubbed her gums with the residue and cut her eyes back to me. ‘I would never have thought that Frank would be unfaithful to you.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  Ciara gave a wince of distaste. ‘Some opportunistic little tramp has got to him.’

  I chewed my lip.

  ‘Does Frank know that you know?’ she asked, swiping some powder from her nose. ‘Because if I was you,’ she said, not waiting for me to reply, ‘I’d consider carefully how I was going to play this.’ The beautiful blue eyes gleamed. ‘This girl may only be a flash in the pan. You don’t want to destroy your marriage and your home for something that may not amount to a hill of beans.’

  She didn’t know about the baby incubating in Little Miss Big Knockers’s homewrecking womb. I couldn’t talk about the baby or I would crack like an egg. So I dredged up a dumb smile.

  ‘Anita, you’re strong. You’ll get through this,’ she said, injecting energy into her voice. It was pretty clear, though, that her numero uno priority was to get back to the show. And I wasn’t strong. Ciara was on drugs. Literally.

  When we got back from the bathroom, the models were sashaying up and down to the sounds of a rhythmic beat that caused my heart to thud. Some local celebrities had joined them on the catwalk. A barrel-chested celebrity chef with a mouth like a sewer stomped down with his trademark scowl. A well-known actor swaggered after him, swigging from a beer bottle with a libidinous grin stretched from ear to ear, then crossed to a constellation of leggy girls, who fluttered around him. He was permanently photographed in the papers with a bevy of good-looking young women in tow.

  ‘Isn’t he a complete ride?’ the young one next to me hissed behind her hand. She was a television presenter with endless legs, big boobs and the boundless confidence of youth. She was on one of the lesser television channels, so not deserving of a front-row seat.

  The actor had clean-cut, chiselled looks. I didn’t think he was gorgeous, though. There was a dull expression in his watery blue eyes. I had seen him interviewed on The Late Late Show and thought he had a bad attitude to women. He was a real wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am merchant, something he boasted about in public.

  For years I had come to these charity lunches and balls and manoeuvred my way up the social ladder – with Frank’s encouragement – but now I could feel a mini rebellion mounting in my brain. Damn Frank and damn the actor. Why should I say something nice about him? Why should I be forced to muster up a false show of enthusiasm? ‘I think he looks like the missing link,’ I said.

  She blinked at me. ‘I didn’t catch that,’ she said, her smile shrinking a little.

  I repeated myself, and her smile melted right off her face. Then I added, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if some scientist scooped him up with a butterfly net and took him to a lab for research purposes.’

  After that, she angled her narrow back to me and ignored me.

  The Round Room in the Mansion House had no natural light but they’d combated its cave-like quality with thousands of fairy lights twisted around white frosted trees. Pink muslin was draped everywhere. An oversized champagne glass decorated each table.

  ‘It looks like Barbie controlled the decoration,’ I said to Ciara, who shushed me and told me for the fiftieth time that she had had absolutely no part in it.

  ‘Oh, I hope people don’t think I had something to do with it,’ she whispered, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip.

  The room was a sea of fake tits and hair extensions and uninhabited-seeming frozen faces. The MC was a well-known drag queen. ‘Aren’t you all looking lovely, ladies?’ she said, at the start of the lunch, her towering red wig swaying. ‘I’d say there isn’t a bottle of fake-tan left on any shelf in Dublin.’

  Although I laughed loudly the remark went down like a lead balloon – no wonder, when half the room looked like they’d been dipped in Fanta. The mandarin-orange woman at the opposite side of the table from me – a bony blonde who was married to a well-known publican – actually glowed.

  I didn’t listen to a word of the speech. But it must have been a real tear-jerker because there were socialites and ‘ladies who lunched’ sniffing over their crème brûlée. The meal was over. All the desserts lay untouched as the waiting staff began to clear away the debris. ‘The street children of India could do with some of this left-over food,’ I said loudly, attracting a couple of vicious looks. I didn’t give a rattling damn what anyone thought of me today – which felt strangely liberating, I thought, downing some more wine.

  The auction was starting now.

  ‘This is the ultimate charity fashion extravaganza in aid of a very worthy cause,’ the MC was saying. She flung out her hand, her sequined turquoise dress riding up an enviably toned thigh.

  ‘Great pair of old legs on her all the same,’ I said, to my friend Maureen.

  ‘Sacred Heart, I think she’s a he,’ confided Maureen, behind her hand, looking enjoyably scandalized.

  Except when it came to financial matters, when she turned into a human calculator, Maureen could be a bit of a slow-poke.

  ‘Come on, ladieeees, dig deep for the street children of India.’

  ‘The bids aren’t nearly as high this year,’ Maureen whispered. ‘There was a bidding war last year for a case of Château Latour. It’s definitely a sign of the economic slowdown. It’s harder to get money out of people.’

  Maureen was a placid, pear-shaped woman run to flesh – far better upholstered than any of our friends – with pineapple yellow hair in ringlets that no one over the age of seven should have worn. She was the grande dame of our group and I had parachuted her into our circle. Or, more like, Maureen had insinuated her way into our gang although it was mean to think like that. Older than us, she was more of an add-on really, and how welcome she was I didn’t really know. Not very, was my guess.

  She had been foisted on me by Frank, who knew her ex. Donal was a property developer who had left her for an Irish glamour model young enough to be her granddaughter. The model was a photogenic and publicity-ravenous girl with bouncy hair and dimples who was in the papers every second day wearing little more than a smile and hot pants. More often than not she was cocked up next to Dylan’s girlfriend Biba. They were to be seen draped over
car bonnets or on bicycles in bikinis or clinging to beaming, foolish-looking male politicians launching initiatives and drives.

  It couldn’t have been easy for Maureen, staring down the barrel of her mid-fifties – with heavy upper arms and a fondness for lurid eye makeup – to compete with the lineless golden youth of her successor. I was in Maureen’s gang now, I thought, feeling my shoulders sag.

  The MC minced across the stage, her hips oscillating. ‘We’re talking about dinner here cooked for ten in your home by some of this world famous chef’s team.’

  ‘Last year that would have sparked a bidding frenzy,’ Maureen said.

  She was right. I’d noticed reticence in the bidding at the last ball I’d gone to. Before, property developers like Frank would have leapt to their feet and beaten their chests, like atavistic stone-age men, yelling their crazily inflated bids in a way that whipped up the audience into an orgasmic frenzy. Two years previously Frank had bid against another developer for some prize – a golfing lesson with a pro, I thought, I couldn’t remember now for sure. They had yelled out bid after bid, buoyed up by the whooping and hollering of the crowd. In the end when Frank won – or lost, depending on your perspective – I was surprised he hadn’t scooped me up Tarzan-style and swung out of there on a vine, yodelling.

  ‘The goodie bags aren’t up to much,’ Maeve remarked, in the put-upon voice that had become her speciality. She was seated on my right. It was the downturned mouth that marred her otherwise pretty face. She was just back from shopping in New York. ‘Doing my bit to keep the American economy afloat,’ she had said earlier, throwing back her lustrous black locks. Maeve had her hair blow dried every day. ‘Ultan tells me that my credit-card limit is not a target I have to reach every month,’ she added, with a glassy laugh.

  Maeve did a lot to prop up the economy of many countries. She roamed the world shopping, and never seemed to tire of ferrying home even more stuff. She was forever trekking to New York with empty suitcases. Shopping was one of the few topics that could bring a smile to her face. Otherwise it was one moan after another. You could fly her to the moon and she’d say she found it a bit boring. At some level Maeve was profoundly dissatisfied with life and she wasn’t going to hold back on sharing that fact. Often her moaning was very funny. Sometimes it was plain obnoxious and spoilt.

  ‘Plus the entertainment is some singer off You’re A Star,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Last year they flew in a band from Rome. And there was an aerial act. Remember those girls swinging from the ceiling on trapezes?’ She scowled. ‘And we got lobster ravioli. This year it’s a slab of grey beef. Or mushroom risotto for vegetarians.’

  ‘It’s for a good cause, I suppose,’ Maureen chipped in. Maureen was decent like that.

  Maeve gave her a little smile. ‘Of course. I was just saying,’ she said, her dark blue eyes glinting.

  Maureen would be requiring a food-taster in the future, I thought, watching Maeve give an angry little jerk of her head.

  The Queen Bee, the patron of the charity and a doyenne of charity fundraising, was on the stage now thanking everyone. A teak-coloured fleshy woman with good legs, she was dressed in billowing peach chiffon. Her husband had made his fortune about thirty years previously, which meant that by Dublin standards she was old money. The waters parted for her wherever she went.

  ‘… and, of course, a warm and sincere thank you to Mahaffy jewellers from myself and all the committee. Without your continued sponsorship all this would not be possible.’

  ‘She’s got very old,’ Maeve hissed, behind her hand. ‘Her neck looks terrible.’

  A narrow-shouldered girl stepped forward to give the doyenne a bouquet. Someone proposed a toast to her. The audience stood up with their glasses, their heads all turned towards the stage. A chorus rang out throughout the room.

  ‘To oblivion and beyond,’ I called out too loudly, clinking my glass against another woman’s, causing champagne to spill over the edge of the flute onto the tablecloth. She eyed me warily.

  We’d floated up the road from the Mansion House to the Shelbourne on a river of champagne, dodging the rain with huge umbrellas over our heads. We were a motley crew, tottering along on high heels in our bright outfits, fairly pissed, our bit done for the street children of India. The bar – No. 27 – was in the shape of a right angle. It fronted onto the park – the tops of the trees were visible over the sea of heads milling about. A series of giant bold paintings depicting park scenes decorated the walls. Staff in starched uniforms fought to serve the scrum that was three deep at the black stone bar. The crescendo of sound floated up towards the ceiling.

  There were suits. There were tuxedos and evening dress, a good crowd from the charity lunch. There were also acres of brown flesh and partially exposed breasts on display. The majority of people looked dressy. Old fellas were trying to crack onto younger women with their tits hanging out or the other way around, I thought, sipping my drink and watching a girl with blonde curly hair and a huge arse press herself against a guy in a pinstripe suit.

  ‘You’re looking at the last days of the Roman Empire,’ a swaying man with bloodshot eyes and a Guinness moustache had remarked to us earlier. ‘A chill wind is blowing, and we’re all just about to realize it.’

  When he had gone, Shannon said, ‘He’s that telecoms guy. It’s kind of scary when you hear talk like that from a big gun like him. I remember he made megabucks when he floated his company.’

  Maeve tossed her head. ‘Yeah, but he lost it all again. He’s smashed. Never mind him. Sour grapes if ever I heard them. You’d get sick of these harbingers of doom trying to talk the economy down and ruin it for everyone.’ She twirled her champagne flute towards the light and hooted with laughter. ‘Sure what economic slow-down?’ she said, flashing a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  Maeve was a publican’s daughter from County Galway and had an almost sexual relationship with money. Stories of the very wealthy made her want to climax there and then. She’d stick her head forward, a post-coital flush spreading across her chest and neck, her pink tongue jutting between her wet lips, all agog. Maeve’s husband made serious cash but sometimes I thought that if Maeve reckoned he could net a bit extra from minding mice at a crossroads she’d have been all in favour.

  We had a table in the corner. Ciara, who had been to the loo again, was now at the bar fending off advances from a large bald man in a navy blazer with gold buttons. He was old enough to be her father and salivating over her. She had introduced him as someone from ‘the George sailing club’, which was why she hadn’t told him to go whistle. Will’s family were head, neck and tail of the sailing club. The man was talking to her tits. I felt like going over there and setting him straight on a few facts of life. Do you seriously think that someone like Ciara would go for you of her own free will, even if she wasn’t married and you were a free agent, which you’re clearly not with the big married head on you? Ciara wouldn’t pee on you if you were on fire.

  Men were always desirable in their own eyes. They could have body odour and a belly like a stretched balloon tipping towards their toes, and they still thought that all women were dying to get on down with them. I’d seen it at parties, men in their fifties with wide arses doing air guitar and clutching at their crotch. And no matter how follicly challenged, overweight, pigeon-chested or downright ugly they were, they never shied away from the task of running an inventory of women’s faults.

  It was getting late. The summer light had gone dusky. A procession of women had stopped to chat. We were all getting drunk, our faces flushed from the oceans of alcohol that were pumping through our charitable veins.

  Ciara was tossing her head skittishly, talking too rapidly in staccato bursts. We had made regular trips to the loo, gliding past the rows of women rearranging their hair and makeup. Ciara’s eyes had glittered, her crooked finger beckoning me into a cubicle towards a temporary nirvana.

  Not a
word from Frank, not even a text. A loud voice in my head told me to go home, but I was still hanging in, powered by vodka, Moët et Chandon and long lines of white powder, seeking to postpone the moment of reckoning, the avalanche of pain that I knew was waiting. My heart was pounding from the coke. Thump, thump, thump. I had no idea how much I’d done. It felt like we’d been out for days.

  ‘There’s a very convivial feel in here,’ Maureen said, slugging back another glass of wine. She was slumped in her chair. She had removed her coffee-coloured jacket to reveal a lace camisole that emphasized the pendulous slope of her boobs. There was a sheen on her forehead and she was sweating faintly through her foundation. Her fuchsia lipstick had bled outside the lines of her mouth.

  Compared to me she looked good, I thought, catching sight of my face in a mirror. ‘That’s one way of putting it, Maureen,’ I said, looking around the room.

  Actually, people were locked out of their heads. Go home, Anita, I thought, watching a television presenter stick his tongue into the ear of a woman with a carmine mouth. His hair was insanely bouffant. I watched the woman giggle and pretend to swat him away.

  ‘That’s not his wife,’ Maureen said, glaring at them as he breathed into the woman’s hair. She was very down on infidelity – understandable in the circumstances. I was now very much on Team Maureen when it came to men playing away.

  ‘You think?’ I said, as the woman gave the long, low, hot laugh recognized the world over as a mating call.

  ‘I do,’ Maureen said. Maureen was irony-proof. ‘I bet you he wears a ring that he’s taken off.’

  Frank wore a ring. ‘I wouldn’t say a ring would turn her off or put a stop to his gallop,’ I said bitterly. Frank was a hypocrite. Frank was the husband I had comforted because his mother didn’t get the last rites in time. Apparently this was a big deal, according to his so-called religious beliefs. This had come from the same man who had tried to inveigle his knocked-up twenty-something girlfriend into having an abortion.