The Real Liddy James

by Anne-Marie Casey

  When she finally drove away, she tuned the radio to an eighties classics channel and turned it up loud to keep herself awake. She swigged cola from a can and sang along to songs that Matty and Cal, who both jerked awake too, had never heard before, like “The Way It Is,” “Walking on Sunshine,” or “Born to Run” (at this one Matty glanced sideways to see his mother acting out some intense lyric involving heroes on a last drive somewhere).

  They headed along the coast to Dún Laoghaire, through the stage-set prettiness of Dalkey, and along the Sorrento Road, with its breathtaking views over Killiney Bay. The hazy sunshine glittered on the sea, the music played, and because of the daze she was in, the journey took on the quality of a dream. Liddy allowed herself to soar with a series of rising chords and felt that she was in the opening scene of a movie. Yes, an inspirational movie for the female audience about how a highly paid divorce attorney at the height of her professional powers might respond to the disintegration of that life by returning to the place of her birth to find herself or possibly spend quality time with things that matter (like the fractious six-year-old child who keeps a photo of Lucia under his pillow, or the morose teenager who has said little since being expelled from summer camp, apart from announcing in sarcastic tones how many more strangers have logged on to YouTube to watch the video of his mother’s breakdown live on national television) with a reassuring conclusion of familial reconciliation, self-empowerment, and perfect hair.

  Liddy was speculating on which film star might do her justice in this role when Matty moved his attention from iPod to iPhone.

  “Thirty-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-five hits so far!” he shouted as they drove through Shankill.

  “Oh, stop going on about it,” said Liddy. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Have you actually seen it?” said Matty. “It’s mortifying for me.”

  “Good word. Have you managed to read a book recently?”

  “No. That’s what Dad said when you were lying in bed.”

  “What else did Dad say when I was lying in bed?”

  “He didn’t talk much because he was crying.”

  Matty spoke defiantly, but he had clearly been rattled by the scene. Liddy noticed the mustache on his upper lip, which grew darker by the day. She felt a primal pulse of intense love for him.

  “Your dad’s a good man,” she said, more than a little rattled herself. She knew then that self-dramatization would be no use to her whatsoever, and, anyway, Liddy did not believe in Hollywood endings. She was well aware that the fantasy lives of women are not the same as the real lives of women, and too often involve surrender or subjugation or sadomasochism. Which was why she always preferred to watch action films, films where male heroes are trapped in space, or are captured by pirates, or have to cut their arms off with penknives to survive.

  She switched off the radio as she turned toward Wicklow.

  As a small child, Liddy had driven this road many times with her parents, and while it had been resurfaced and widened, the route remained the same. Once they had visited the Powerscourt Waterfall in Enniskerry, where they had parked next to a ramshackle caravan with a picture and a slogan painted on its side: HEAVEN WASN’T BIG ENOUGH, SO GOD CREATED IRELAND. Liddy’s father had been delighted with this and repeated it many times, frequently when they were back in Silver Lake and he got a little drunk and maudlin late at night. Back then she had found it embarrassing and mawkish, but this day, as she drove slowly through Kilmacanogue and onto the winding road toward Roundwood, with the moors and fens stretching into infinity on either side and the green Sugar Loaf mountain rising behind her, she saw its beauty and she understood. In the rearview mirror she caught sight of Cal, his cheek squished against the glass of the window, entranced by the real-life animals he saw roaming the unmanicured fields around him. She smiled. She had never thought of the countryside as her thing, but as she stared into the wide horizon, she felt the freedom in the space here. She understood why city people reminded themselves of the earth by lovingly reclaiming small, secret gardens in the wells between tenement blocks, or nurturing their window boxes and tiny pots of herbs on windowsills, despite the showers of black soot that frequently rained down upon them.

  She thought fondly of her fig tree in Carroll Gardens.

  The iPhone beeped and told her she had reached her destination, a tiny shop called O’Toole’s that nestled beside an enormous rusty red barn that was the spectator stand for the local Gaelic football club. Then, as Sebastian had said, she looked for a small blue sign saying PLEASE USE FOOT DIP PROVIDED and turned down the rutted road beside it. The car wove through a patchwork of stone walls and fields until she rounded a corner and the landscape changed to woodland and water. From there Liddy crawled along in sputtering second gear until she reached a small waterfall trickling down a bank into a gully; then she saw the tall, black wrought-iron gates with the name STACKALLAN DEMESNE carved into one of the stone pillars beside them. She drove through, clattering over the cattle grid, and headed up the driveway.

  Sebastian’s gate lodge was built of stone and slate and sat on a small but perfect plot of land beside the lake. When Liddy pulled up outside, she knew from its unadorned exterior, masculine metal shutters, and the rickety wooden jetty that it was not designed for children or visitors, and that Sebastian most often stayed there on his own. The couple of photos he had sent her had shown only two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a small, dust-covered television straight out of The Flintstones. Although the living area was flooded with light from the windows and skylights, and looked large enough for the boys to run up and down, the galley kitchen was tiny, with an aged stove and no dining table. A wooden sign with lettering burned into it was propped up by the locked garage; the house was simply called THE GATE LODGE, with no indication of any mythical powers or imaginative space within.

  She got out of the stale air of the rental car, her clothes reeking of pine air freshener and cheap upholstery shampoo, and stood in the cool breeze that came off the water. She stretched her arms above her head and then stopped, quite still, to watch a young deer that had come up from the road and was picking its way through the hazelnut trees, stretching its neck forward to sniff the leaves that carpeted an unkempt flowerbed. Without making a sound, Liddy turned and reached her hand back, tapping ever so gently on the car window. Matty looked up and nudged Cal. They all stared in absolute quiet until a large crow rose squawking from the hedgerow. The startled deer leapt down the driveway that continued through the ancient wood toward the big house, whose chimneys could distantly be seen above the trees.

  Liddy looked around. A row of dark brown gnarly rosebushes lined the flower bed, each with a single brave bloom upon it. She walked over and smelled every single one. She knelt down on the ground and took a handful of earth in her hands and then let it fall through her fingers. She listened to the rhythmic lapping of the water, the insistent song of the lake tide. She felt the absence of the cacophony of noises that had become the sound track to her life. She became aware that the absence of these sounds was a presence; it was peace.

  Liddy understood why Sebastian would never have given this place up.

  She pulled open the passenger door to be greeted by an ear-splitting yelp from Matty.

  “My phone’s not working!”

  He ran out of the car and clambered up onto a rock, waving the phone in the air.

  “Yes, the owner told me the reception can be patchy,” said Liddy, reaching back to help Cal out, and feeling nothing but relief that they could no longer witness her ongoing excoriation on the worldwide web. “There’s a landline for emergencies.”

  “What good is that?” said Matty in horror. He finally took notice of his surroundings.

  “What the . . . ! There’s nothing here. This is worse than I thought. What am I gonna do all day? Watch the freaking grass grow?”

  Liddy walked away and started pulling ba
gs out of the trunk and left them on the gravel.

  “Why did we come here?”

  As Liddy did not have an answer to that question beyond So I could get a grip, she turned to Cal in her best camp counselor tone.

  “Shall we explore?”

  “Where’s the pool?” Cal said, for he too enjoyed his five-star childhood.

  Liddy explained that there wasn’t one and they would swim in the lake, to which Cal shouted, “Yuk!” and looked like he might cry. Matty came over, hugged him, and turned to Liddy.

  “I get why you want to punish me for what I did at camp, Mom. I know it wouldn’t be enough to take away all my electronic devices and ground me, and that’s why I’m with you in this shithole for the summer. But how could you do it to Cal?”

  At this, Cal did cry, so in the spirit of picking your battles, Liddy ignored Matty and chased after a tiny white feather that the breeze had lifted and blown toward her face.

  “What’s this, Cal?” she said to distract him.

  “Look!” he said, pointing up ahead where a pile of tiny white feathers was strewn across the gravel as if two fairies had had a pillow fight. He ran ahead to investigate as Liddy looked for the rusty bucket Sebastian had described, under which the key was always left. She heard Matty’s heavy footfall crunching toward Cal. She heard Matty start to laugh.

  “What’s funny?” asked Liddy, immediately worried.

  “There’s some bald bird running around here.”

  Oh, no, thought Liddy, but it was too late. Cal screamed; she hurried over to him and he leapt into her arms. Matty was peering at a young seagull’s half-chewed carcass, the brown and red guts spilling out like worms. He picked up a stick and prodded it.

  “A cat got it, I hope. Or else it’s some other wild beast.”

  “Stop it!” shouted Liddy as Cal screamed again.

  “What a good idea this was!” said Matty in his best camp counselor tone. “Isn’t nature great?”

  “I wanna leave!” cried Cal.

  “So do I,” said Matty.

  “We are not leaving. I need a break.”

  The boys stared at her resentfully.

  Liddy exhaled wearily. She could not deny it was an inauspicious start to their great adventure. “I need a break from my job, from the city, from the stress. From everything apart from you two.”

  “Huh,” muttered Matty. “Hashtag first-world problems.”

  She stared over the lake to the horizon and contemplated running into the water and swimming away. She did not. She looked at him. “And while a lovely vacation in your ancestral homeland is certainly not a punishment, you, son, do need some time to reflect on your behavior and change it! Inside. Now!”

  He looked back at her, his nose wrinkled as if sniffing the piousness with which he reeked. “You ever thought about anger management, Mom?”

  Liddy stuck the rough, rusting key into the lock, pushed her right shoulder against it, and fell into the house, Cal on top of her.

  “Epic fail,” sneered Matty.

  Liddy pushed herself up, relieved to discover that the floor tiles were clean. She retrieved Sebastian’s instructions, which she had slipped into a handy plastic cover, from her pocket. Matty stepped over her and headed for the small bedroom at the far end of the living room.

  There was a pause, and then the inevitable slam!

  “This is fun,” said Liddy bravely. She leaned down to Cal, wiped his eyes, and kissed him on the forehead. Then she gave him a packet of pretzels she had stuffed into her bag on the plane, and they made their way hand in hand through the galley kitchen, into an adjoining utility room behind. After following a complicated series of instructions typed on the sheet taped to the door (Sebastian had helpfully scribbled Do not touch this or you will blow yourself up on a Post-it note and stuck it on a red button at her feet), she switched the heating on, causing an alarming rattle from the boiler. Then she returned to the living area and unpacked. This did not take long, as she had only brought essentials: a few clothes, walking boots, freshly laundered white sheets, white towels—two bottles of red wine with twist-off tops wrapped within them—and the clothbound notebook Rose had given her, which she had grabbed as she headed out the apartment door.

  She had also packed something called a “hitachi wand,” apparently of vital importance to solitary ladies, which Lloyd had sent her in a gift-wrapped box after she had told him she would sell him her apartment when she came back from Ireland. He had tucked a handwritten note inside it with the message “Hope you’re not missing me too much.” Liddy walked into the master bedroom, pleasingly bare with faded blue wallpaper, empty shelves, a large double bed, and nothing else, and stuffed the wand under a pillow. She decided to lie down. The bedroom reminded her of her own apartment. She wondered if Sebastian had been waiting for a life to fill this place too. She closed her eyes—

  —only to judder awake five minutes later to find Cal staring into her face. He was holding the half-finished packet of pretzels above his head and they showered over him onto her bed. Liddy stopped herself from snapping at him in protest but had absolutely no idea what to do about this. Disciplining him had always been someone else’s job.

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  It was then she realized that she had not thought about food, for the feeding of Cal was also someone else’s job. Over the past weeks, in fact, it had become her habit to eat less and less. The diet app on her Jawbone had confirmed her recent weight loss, although she had stopped telling it the truth, as on the day she had recorded dinner as three spiced pear martinis, a plate of edamame, and a Snickers bar, it had reported that she had a disorder. Her cheekbones were hollow and there was a reverse triangular-shaped gap between her thighs.

  (In fact, before the funny turn, Sydney had assumed she was taking a secret admirer on a romantic desert island break and had asked her if she was getting “bikini ready.”)

  “Okay,” she replied, walking to the kitchen and opening the two cupboards and the refrigerator that hissed. But they contained only something in a jar called marmite and another called swarfega, both of which looked similarly disgusting. She would have to drive back past the foot dip sign and hunt for a restaurant.

  “Put on your shoes,” she said to Cal, and he stood up, bits of pretzel crunching beneath his feet, kicking the shards across the floor as he walked. Almost physically appalled by the mess, she retrieved what was almost certainly a vacuum cleaner from the utility room. She plugged it into the electric socket and switched it on with a flourish. Nothing happened. She picked up the plastic nozzle and moved it around a bit. Nothing. She ineffectually stabbed at a couple of buttons on the handle and then gave up. Liddy had worked her whole life so she would never have to fix a domestic appliance. She did not intend to start now.

  She piled the boys back into the car and headed to Roundwood, stopping at the small supermarket to buy milk, coffee, tea, bread, butter, canned tuna, and cereal. Then she found a pub with an outdoor garden where they sat at a wooden table in the sunshine and ate chicken strips and fries and ice cream.

  “I like it here,” she said, looking around.

  “Yeah, it’s okay,” said Matty unexpectedly. “What d’you think, short stack?” he continued, turning to Cal.

  Cal took an enormous scoop of ice cream and grinned. Liddy relaxed. On the table behind them a couple of seagulls, greedy for food, turned their black eyes on the abandoned plates of the previous diners and swooped down to grab half-eaten fish cakes.

  “Hey, Mom,” said Matty. “Is Dad coming to visit?”

  “I invited him, but he can’t because of the baby,” said Liddy quickly. It was too late. Cal was looking at her over the top of his sundae with the same expression she had seen at his birthday party before he had asked her where his dad was.

  Oh, no, she thought, not now.

  Matty saw her desp
eration and started laughing. This made her angry.

  “Why did you take that stuff from Josh’s bag if you didn’t know what it was?” she said. She instantly regretted it, but it was too late to stop, so she continued. “Why did you give it to those other boys in the summer camp?”

  “It’s none of your business,” he fired back. “I made a mistake, okay? You ever made one of those, Mom? Remember?”

  And he raised his finger very slowly and pointed at Cal.

  “Don’t ever say that again!” she said, exploding.

  He laughed again, cruelly this time, and imitated the contorted shape of her furious face. Then the biggest and boldest bird came to a precarious halt on the bench beside them and, before Liddy could protect Cal’s food, grabbed an enormous beakful of chicken strip. Cal’s mouth fell open in outrage and fear and he began to wail.

  “Bet you wish a cat had murdered that one,” said Matty, and Cal wailed louder. Liddy scooped him up, although he struggled and beat his fists against her back, and hauled him to the car. Matty trailed behind, shuffling and occasionally kicking the curb for no apparent reason. Liddy worried people might stare, but in fact no one did. She was unremarkable, just another exhausted forty-something mother dealing with her exhausted and recalcitrant children. As she closed the car doors, she caught sight of herself in the side mirror; there, staring back at her, was a frazzled woman in dirty sweatpants.

  Once in the driver’s seat, she switched on the phone app to navigate back to the house. But it did not register the tiny roads and dead-end junctions and instead sent her in a circuitous route that, even in her wooziness, she could tell was wrong. There came a moment where she rounded a narrow corner and saw the house nestling in the distance. She headed onward but the device kept insisting “You have taken the wrong direction. Stop and turn back.”