Twisted River

by Siobhan MacDonald

  “We should go to New York. The four of us. On holiday. In the October school holidays.”

  She looked at him. She was deadly serious.

  Mannix guffawed with laughter.

  “Jesus, Kate, I have to hand it to you. You take the biscuit. Here we are slaving away to get ourselves back on track, you’re always harping on about it, for feck sake, and now you want us to take off for New York! How the hell are we going to afford that? What planet are you on, my darling artist?”

  Kate’s expression changed to one of hurt. Like he had suddenly slapped her when they’d been building bridges. Immediately, he regretted his impulsive outburst. His big bloody mouth.

  “I have an idea . . . a plan . . .” she said in a little girl voice, making him feel worse.

  “You do . . . ?” He tried to look conciliatory.

  “As I was saying, before you jumped down my throat—I think it would do Fergus a world of good to have something to look forward to right now. Something good to focus on. King Kong is his favorite movie in the world, right? The Empire State—his favorite building? Hence, New York. It’d be one in the eye for Frankie Flynn, at least—the only place that little delinquent is headed is a young offenders’ institute!”

  “Of course, but . . .”

  “I know, Mannix—the money. There’s the accommodation for a start. That’s where this comes in.”

  She looked back to the PC screen. “It’s a home-exchange site,” she explained. “The people who own this particular apartment are looking for an exchange home in the Clare or Limerick area at the end of October.”

  Mannix raised his eyebrows, careful this time to bite his tongue. He’d been to the States plenty of times, California with Spike in their twenties, Cincinnati visiting relatives, with work in Texas, and latterly, only five, six months ago, in Boston on a training course with his latest job. But he found it pretty damned hard to fathom that someone with a luxury apartment in Manhattan would want an exchange home in Limerick.

  “Just one question, Kate. Why?” He tried not to sound too skeptical.

  Putting down the wineglass, she pulled in closer to the desk again and cupped the mouse.

  “It says here . . . just a minute . . . I know I saw it somewhere . . . yes, here it is . . . Hazel Harvey.” Kate looked at Mannix. “She’s the owner, she’s a native of Limerick, so she says here in the owner profile. Born and reared on O’Callaghan Strand just over the bridge!”

  “Oh, I see . . .” Well, that might explain it, all right. “Mmmm . . .”

  “Okay, I know,” said Kate, anticipating his next remarks. “So, that’s only one part of it. What about the rest? The flights? The spending money?”

  “Exactly,” said Mannix, wondering what she’d pull out of the hat next.

  “Well, don’t be mad at me . . .” The little girl voice again. “I’ve been saving. Not much. Just a little every week—in the credit union. For Fergus, you see—for private speech and language therapy, and there are other therapies I’ve heard of for kids like him. There’s a place in Galway. Anyway, that’s all by the by now. I really think we need to do something now. Something today. Our little boy’s self-esteem is going to be in tatters if we don’t do something soon . . . and short of getting Frankie Flynn with a baseball bat . . . Anyhow, the long and short of it is I have the money for flights and sightseeing. I vote we spend it now.”

  A wave of affection washed over Mannix. He’d always admired Kate’s resourcefulness, her coping skills, especially in times of crisis. And, God knows, she’d needed that over the last few years. She looked at him now, earnest faced, waiting for a response.

  His response seemed obvious. She’d conjured up a holiday out of nowhere. He’d never even known about the nest egg. And this wasn’t any old holiday. This was the holiday of a lifetime.

  “Well?”

  She was waiting.

  “I can only imagine the look on Ferg’s face . . .” A ripple of excitement fluttered in his belly. Something warm. Something good.

  “You’re up for it?” A slow smile was beginning to spread across her face. Her face was a mixture of mischief, excitement, and happiness colliding into one.

  “You betcha!” he answered, leaning over and kissing her full on the mouth.

  It wasn’t the way he anticipated closing the evening. Not by a long chalk. He’d anticipated screaming, disbelief, disgust—and worse. But one thing was for sure—it was clear that he couldn’t tell her now. The timing was all wrong.

  “Hopefully, we’ll hear back soon,” she mumbled in between kisses. “I put up all the best photos I could find of this house. And views of the river outside. It may not be the Hudson . . .” She laughed then as her hands crept underneath his T-shirt.

  “Come on . . . bed . . . now.” Mannix grinned.

  The way things were going he could be in for a double whammy. Kate seemed elated by her scheming. Relieved that she had hatched a plan for Fergie’s plight. She slipped her hand in his as they made their way down the stairs. He wouldn’t squander this opportunity.

  He was right. Kate wanted to make love. To feel him inside her again. As she wrapped her legs around him he couldn’t help but feel dishonest, that he’d stolen her affection. Either way he was enjoying it, stolen or otherwise. But he wasn’t a fool. Mannix O’Brien knew he was playing on borrowed time.

  • • •

  “Guys, I have something to tell you.” Kate was fit to burst.

  She must have phoned him at least five times today to keep him abreast of developments. And he made sure this time his phone was not on silent. Even Mannix, who liked to move fast once he’d made a decision, was surprised at how quickly and easily everything was falling into place. Twenty-four hours had not yet passed since Kate sent out her request, but the folks with the fancy Manhattan apartment were looking forward to coming to Limerick. They loved the look of the house overlooking the falls at Clancy Strand. They were a professional couple and their kids were roughly the same ages as Izzy and Fergus.

  Fergus and Izzy looked up from their late-night pizza. Fergus looked mildly curious and Izzy bored and disinterested. According to Kate, she’d hardly spoken a word all day.

  The anticipation was written all over Kate’s face. “I’m telling you now, because it’s only a few months and you’ve got to start saving your pocket money.”

  The kids got precious little pocket money, but Mannix knew that this would all be part of the fun.

  “Yeah?” Slight interest from Izzy now.

  “You, Fergus, and Dad and I are going on a special holiday during the October school holidays this year.”

  That certainly grabbed Fergus’s attention.

  “On holiday? Where?” he asked, separating two slices of pizza stuck together with strands of cheese glue.

  “We’re off to the Big Apple!”

  Fergus’s jaw dropped, as did one of the pizza slices.

  “New York?” came Izzy’s high-pitched query. “You’re joking us—New York? The New York?”

  “Yes, Izzy, the New York.”

  Mannix reveled in his wife’s delight at imparting such momentous news to the kids. He reveled further at Izzy’s incredulity and glee.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, I don’t believe it, oh my God . . .” she kept repeating.

  Fergus was speechless.

  “Well, Soldier, what do you think?” asked Mannix.

  “Absolute class. Awesome.” Fergus looked stunned. “This is just the best day ever. Thank you, Mum. Thank you, Dad.” He was grinning broadly now. Mannix’s soul felt warm.

  Pizza in hand, Fergus rushed at the two of them, hugging them tightly. He was not given to easy displays of affection. Mannix thought if he or Kate had had any misgivings about spending her nest egg, they were mightily dispelled now.

  “So, my little soldier, when you go in to s
chool tomorrow, you can tell everyone in your class how you are going to be on top of the Empire State Building in the October holidays.”

  “You bet,” said Fergus, pushing his glasses back up his nose with a cheesy hand.

  “Frankie Flynn included,” Kate added, giving Fergus a knowing look.

  “Dunno ’bout that, Mum . . .” Fergus looked dubious.

  “Why ever not?” asked Kate.

  “Frankie didn’t come to school today.”

  “Oh . . . is that right?” said Kate.

  “Yeah, they said he was in hospital all night. His arm’s all banjaxed. Someone attacked him last night. Nobody knows when he’ll be back.”

  Fergus picked off the onion from the last slice of pizza and then looked at his mother as he grinned. “So you see, Mum, it’s been the very best day ever.”

  Hazel

  RIVERSIDE DRIVE, MANHATTAN

  EARLY SEPTEMBER

  Hazel winced at her reflection in the mirror. It hurt like hell when she touched there above the cheekbone. With her finger, she patted, searching gently at the back of her head. Where was it again?

  “Ouch . . .” She’d found it. That hurt like hell too. The size of a conker, they would say at home in Ireland. Only this was not a glossy-coated chestnut but a bulbous contusion above the base of her skull. She hadn’t been able to sleep on her back—even if she’d felt like sleeping.

  She had wondered about going to the emergency room at Weill Cornell but this would be the second time in as many months. She didn’t need the attention—or the incident reports. And anyway, some of those guys played squash with Oscar.

  It was 6:15 A.M., still quiet, as she hovered over the twin sinks in their en suite bathroom. Oscar always allowed her these few quiet moments to herself. The penchant for the double sink had always mystified her. After all, who really wanted to perform their morning ablutions side by side, one shaving, another gargling, or spitting toothpaste into the adjacent drain? Maybe in the first flush of a relationship or a marriage. Neither of which applied to Hazel and Oscar.

  Leaning over the marble bowl, she edged closer to the mirror. Blood bursts flecked her eye white, and the eyelid had swollen a mix of red and purple. The whole of her left eye socket was swollen, giving it a reptilian quality. Raising her fringe, she saw how the jagged gash his ring had made was crusting over. The fringe hid that, at least.

  Brushing her teeth was agony, her jaw still aching and bruised from where she’d hit the wall. She opened her mouth as wide as she could and moved her jaw from side to side. It felt stiff. Even her neck felt sore as she bent to spit the spearmint saliva from her mouth. As she straightened up, a shadow fell across the room.

  “Oscar.”

  She wasn’t sure if she’d mouthed it or said it. His tall, wiry frame filled the doorway. The way things had been left, she wasn’t sure if he was still mad.

  “Hazel . . .” He looked at her face, shaking his head. “Let me hug you, my poor, poor Hazel.”

  She had her answer. He wasn’t mad anymore. As she stood immobile, Oscar moved behind her, circled her waist, and dropped his head into the crook of her neck—a gesture of submission. Her nostrils filled with the smell of him, the musk of his gray-white hair, his slept-in T-shirt, and the faint odor of stale coffee.

  “What has become of us?” he asked of their reflections in the mirror.

  “Don’t,” she whispered, worried at the emotion that threatened to well up.

  “Please, Oscar, don’t.” She bit her lip.

  Releasing her, he took a step back.

  “You’re not going in today, Hazel? Are you? Tell me you’re not going in.” There was an edge to his voice.

  But she had to do this. No matter what he said. She just had to.

  “I must,” she said quietly, examining her palette of eye shadow. Should she accentuate the purple or mask it?

  “You can’t go into a classroom looking like . . . like . . .” He faltered.

  Funny that underneath it all, Oscar was conservative, cared what people thought. Something to do with his Anglo-Saxon heritage, perhaps?

  “And you think I’m going to look so very different to the students I try to teach, do you?” she ventured—more bravely now. Taking the job at the Impact School, she knew she was heading for a challenging environment. But sometimes she just felt like an extra on the set of a war movie.

  “I really don’t get why you’re being this stubborn, Hazel.” His voice was firm, in control again.

  She was beginning to wonder herself. She’d always thought of her stubbornness as a virtue, but it was looking increasingly likely it could as easily be her undoing. Hazel was always loath to admit defeat. She wanted to make things work. To turn things around. But she didn’t want to argue again, to push him again. What Oscar wanted was for her to get a publishing job like she’d had before, to work in Manhattan and not trek off into “that ghetto” every day.

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  His arms still circled her, his breath hot against her neck. There was a tenderness now but underneath she sensed that lurking anger. She was trapped.

  “Mom . . . my cell—have you seen it?”

  Elliot shuffled into the bedroom, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Hazel heaved an inward sigh of relief. Oscar was careful never to argue in front of the kids. Defeated now, he let her go and swung around to ruffle his son’s pale blond hair, blocking Hazel from Elliot’s view—as if he couldn’t stomach his child seeing her like this.

  “Good morning, sleepy head!” He mussed up Elliot’s pageboy hair. But that didn’t distract Elliot.

  “Holy cow! Mom! What happened?” Elliot was perfectly awake now, eyes darting from Hazel to Oscar, looking for an explanation. Oscar opened his mouth to make an excuse but Hazel was there before him.

  “A drunk on the subway,” she said quickly, just the way she’d rehearsed. “That’s all, Elliot. Looks worse than it feels.” She chanced a smile through the lies. A shooting pain seared down her jaw.

  Elliot looked at his dad.

  “Thought you said the subway was safe. That Bloomberg used to take it every day when he was mayor.”

  “The subway is safe, son. But I can’t guarantee it one hundred percent. It’s certainly safer now than when I was a kid.”

  Elliot’s face dropped. His father had told him something that appeared to be untrue. Poor Elliot. He idolized his father and Hazel was always reluctant to say anything to fracture that childhood faith.

  “Whoa, Mom!! Look at you. What the hell happened?” Jess had joined them now, showered and uniformed, and, for once, interested in someone other than herself.

  “Mom was attacked by some drunk on the subway,” Elliot chipped in.

  “For real?” Jess assessed the situation. “What did the cops have to say about it?” She flicked her hair. Jess’s reaction to the assault seemed detached. Hazel could feel hurt but she knew that Jess was a slow burner. Sympathy would come later.

  “No need for the police. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Jess. It won’t happen again.” Hazel had made this promise before, but this time she really meant it. Oscar was fiddling with his electric razor, avoiding her gaze.

  “Jeez, Mom, you seem fairly chilled about all of this,” said Jess.

  “Enough, Jess,” said Oscar. “Go see if Celine has put a pancake mix in the fridge and get started on breakfast. We have this under control.”

  Hazel wasn’t chilled. She was in shock. It had been the sheer surprise of it. The force of the blow had stunned her, the depth of anger had left her reeling.

  “Go on, then, guys . . .” Oscar shooed the kids out of the bedroom.

  He turned to Hazel. “Celine still does that, right? Leave a pancake mix in the fridge?”

  “Yeah, she still does that,” Hazel answered mechanically.

&n
bsp; Celine was their part-time nanny who came in afternoons for the children after school.

  “You’re determined to go in, then?”

  “Please, Oscar . . .” She looked at him, almost pleading.

  “Okay, then, Hazel, have it your way, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  • • •

  Riding down the elevator, Hazel tried to avoid looking at her reflection by following the paths of the spidery white veins in the marble floor tiles. As residents from lower floors joined the car, she took out her cell and pretended to read.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Harvey, how you doin’ today?”

  Sidney Du Bois, the doorman, was upbeat as always. Hazel had long since given up on trying to get him to call her by her first name. He too liked to be addressed as plain Du Bois.

  “Fine, thank you, Du Bois.” She turned her head to the side as if to admire the flower arrangement on the stand. Just four more strides to the door.

  “The children just about missed the school bus this morning, Mrs. Harvey. But I shouted at the driver to wait.”

  “Thank you, Du Bois.” She looked at him now.

  What could she do? It would have been rude not to.

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Harvey,” he said slowly, his expression hardly changing.

  Du Bois—efficient, polite, and unfailingly discreet. By far the best doorman on the Upper West Side. She exited the air-conditioned lobby and stepped out onto the sidewalk, into the growing heat of the September morning.

  She almost wished the season would change in that ridiculously schizophrenic way that summer could become winter overnight in this part of the world. She felt vulnerable in her light cotton blouse and linen pants. She’d have much preferred to hide under layers of coats and hoods, but there were probably weeks of hot, steaming, sticky weather left to go.

  As she turned the corner at West Seventy-fifth Street and made her way the few blocks toward the Seventy-second Street subway station, she passed an assortment of smartly dressed office workers, joggers on their way to Riverside Park, and clusters of old ladies harnessed to poodlish-looking dogs on their way to the dog run. She found it hard to imagine herself old and retired in Manhattan, much less in a procession of elderly ladies looking after their pooches. It was convivial, healthy, and had a lot to commend it, but she just couldn’t picture herself in that situation.