by Amy Mason
Ida ran over and hugged her legs.
“Isn’t she divine?” asked Peter.
He was next to Bridie, wearing her best mink coat, with soft pink blusher on his cheeks. He didn’t look scary now, he looked fantastic. Even Alice seemed to think so, and toddled up and touched the fur. Peter leant down to kiss her forehead and she didn’t cry, which was almost unheard of with strangers.
“My dear princesses. What pretty little things you are. Sorry we took such a long time, we had important business as you can see. And now, as it’s four –” he pointed at Bridie, “we can have a drink. Because four is an alright time to have a drink on Christmas Day. But never, ever before.”
Ida knew that he thought Bridie hadn’t drunk that day, which made her realise that he wasn’t as clever and magical as she had first imagined. There was a bottle of whisky in the back of the loo and Bridie would have drunk that when she’d been having a bath. Ida couldn’t tell Peter the truth. Everything was far too lovely to ruin.
He lay his briefcase on the sofa and opened it with a click. Inside were two parcels wrapped in sparkling gold paper with a purple feather stuck to each one.
“Here you go, darlings.”
Ida held Alice back with her arm as she opened both parcels. Alice would rip them and Ida needed to keep the paper – it was beautiful.
Inside each package was a scarf, one purple and one silvery, and a pile of enormous jewels, including the nicest clip-on earrings Ida had ever seen.
“Treasure,” said Peter winking. He whispered to Ida, “You can have the pick darling. Not sure your sister is that bothered. And I’ll show you how to make yourself a sari with the scarf, like a real Indian princess.”
Bridie asked Peter about what London was like now, about Soho and the theatres. Ida didn’t know why she asked, she always cried if people talked about London.
Peter tried to change the subject and her ma finished another bottle of wine, and then Ida knew she was really drunk because she started singing Irish songs and talking in an Irish accent, even though she’d been born in King’s Cross.
‘You’re never a real person,’ Ida’s da used to say to Bridie, ‘you’re always pretending to be someone else, even when you’re rat-arsed.’ And he was right, Ida supposed.
Then Bridie started sobbing while Peter hugged her. “No one understands why I didn’t want to move down here. How much I hate it here. No one except you.”
But Peter changed the subject and poured more wine and soon they had drunk two bottles each, the amount Ida found made adults the most fun. It was getting late but there’d been no mention of bed and Ida had the feeling she wouldn’t have to stay still and be quiet to be allowed to stay up. They were having a party, a real grown-up party with candles and music, and Ida was part of it, not at the side of it or in another room like at most grown-up parties.
Bridie got her records out for the first time in ages and they all sang along, Peter giving the girls turns at dancing on his feet, him holding their hands. And then it was Cher and they all sat on the sofa and watched Bridie dance, and sing in a deep voice while throwing freesias onto their laps, and they all believed that she was a gypsy, and that she’d been born in a travelling show and Ida was in love with her mother and in love with Peter and everything was wonderful.
Then she bowed and sat down and Peter sang a funny song called ‘Jellied Eels’, but in a really serious voice which made it funnier and Ida thought she might pee herself laughing.
“Your turn, Princess Ida,” he said and reached for her hand. She tried to pretend she was drunk like the grown-ups and that she didn’t care about anything.
“Now for one of my old favourites,” she said in a pretend cockney accent and everyone clapped. She sang ‘Oom Pa Pa’, and danced round the sitting room, taking each of them in turn and making them spin round the room with her while she flapped her skirt around like she was Nancy. They were all breathless by the end but they stood and shouted ‘encore’ and she sung a few verses of ‘I’d Do Anything’, then curtsied and caught some imaginary bouquets.
“God, you’re your mother’s daughter,” said Peter as she joined him on the sofa. Ida grinned.
Bridie was singing again now, another of her favourites, ‘One For My Baby’, originally sung – as Ida was always being told – by her namesake, the olden-days actress Ida Lupino. Normally Ida would have been delighted, Bridie had sung it to her when she was really small, but she was slurring the words and looked like she might fall over.
Ida stared at the poster she loved, the one for her ma’s play, and tried to copy the pose of the girl in the drawing, flicking out her hair and parting her lips.
“A bit of practice and you’ll be there,” Peter whispered into her ear and Ida could feel her face go red.
“Nothing to be ashamed of, dear, I spent my childhood wanting to be Bette Davis. And look – it worked!”
He leant down over Ida, making a manic, smiling face, as he pretended to strangle her. The sleeves of his mink coat tickled her cheeks and she laughed and laughed and begged him to stop, though really she hoped that he would go on forever.
Chapter nine
~ 1999 ~
The plan was to be ruthless, but by the time Tom got back from the tip Alice and Ida were sitting in the half dark on Bridie’s threadbare bedroom carpet, surrounded by piles of paper, jewellery and faded photos. They’d found a couple of cine-films too, but neither of them were sure how to work the projector.
Ida had begun the sorting-out by moving things meaninglessly from pile to pile, convinced that Alice would take the lead, but so far Alice was doing much the same thing. In fact, Ida soon realised it was she, and not Alice, who was becoming frustrated with their lack of progress. She was beginning to wonder, as she frequently had when they were children, whether Alice was slightly slow or something.
“Shall I put the kettle on?” Tom asked. “And a light?”
“There’s no bulb in the centre one. She hated centre lights. Thought they were naff. But tea would be good,” said Alice.
“She was a mad old cow,” said Ida, “look at all this stuff. You know, I think we need to be clearer about what we’re keeping and what we’re chucking. We can’t keep all of this. Where would we put it?”
“There are so many photos. I didn’t think she kept them all. Who knew she was so sentimental.” Alice was smoothing down the edges of an ancient picture of Ida’s old room.
“That can go for a start,” said Ida, snatching it from Alice. She wanted to say that her mother had been too lazy to throw anything away, but managed to stop herself.
“People can be funny creatures,” Tom said, walking into the room, sitting on the floor and touching Alice’s bony knee. “When my granddad was about to die he told me he’d always loved me and gave me some poems he’d written. They were terrible, of course. But this is from a man who didn’t cry at his own wife’s funeral.”
Ida didn’t say anything but shuffled some bills. She had managed to resist looking at the photographs her sister kept trying to show her. Now Alice was passing some to Tom.
“Look at Ida here. She’d cut all her hair off. You must have been what, fourteen?”
“Thanks Al.”
“What? It doesn’t look that different to how it does now.”
“But I was so spotty.”
“God, weren’t we all. What about this one then,” Alice said, flicking through a blue album with red wine stains on the front. She held it out to Tom.
“Ida at her First Communion in her white dress. And look at Mum in the background – she looks so bloody glamorous in her patent sling backs. She always did. Oh Ida, look, you’re holding a Bible, how sweet.”
“Fuck off Alice.”
Tom laughed, examining the photos closely. “You do look sweet. You’re still like kids you two, arguing.”
Ida clam
bered to her feet and stretched her arms towards the ceiling, her fingertips brushing the plaster.
“Well, I’m going to put the kettle on. I can cook too if you like. Tom, why don’t you help Alice? Not that we’re getting anywhere. What the fuck are we meant to do with all of it?”
“I’ll stop in a bit too, to be honest,” said Alice, “we’ve got to see the funeral director tomorrow and need to plan for that. You need to choose your reading. I’ve done a shortlist…”
“Old Testament please.”
“Okay, fine. Well, I’ve done the basics. I’ll leave as much as possible to them, put it on my credit card and pay it off when the house is sold. I can’t bear it, any of it, and goodness knows what she actually would have wanted. I only know what she didn’t want.”
“She was good at what she didn’t want,” Ida said.
“She certainly was,” said Alice.
Ida hadn’t attempted to cook a proper meal for years and was almost enjoying rooting through the cupboards and examining the cans. There were all kinds of vegetables in the fridge and above the sink was a spice rack filled with things Ida had never heard of. When they were children they’d lived off spaghetti hoops on toast and fish finger sandwiches and she wondered how on earth Alice had learned to cook.
There were chicken drumsticks in the freezer and Ida guessed she couldn’t go too wrong with some meat and some veg and lots and lots of wine.
Tom came through the kitchen door with a shopping bag full of rubbish. “Shit, there’s some amazing stuff up there, the original script for the film, signed by Anna DeCosta. Your mum’s written ‘bullshit’ on the front in felt tip but I think that kind of adds to its charm.”
Ida felt suddenly cold. “That’s mine. She sent it to me after the premiere.”
“Really? Cool. God, it’s got to be worth something.”
“I’m not going to sell it. I do have some nice things you know.”
“Of course not, no, of course you wouldn’t sell it.”
“Do you think Alice will let us have some wine tonight? A glass or two? It’s normal to have wine with dinner, that’s not me being an alchie.”
“I think she actually might, you know. She’s feeling worn out. I’ll talk to her. I worry about her. She’s so controlled about everything. And she’s funny about food. Don’t tell her I said anything,” he started to whisper, “but a glass of wine might do her good. Is that chicken? She bought that for Bridie. You do know Alice is vegan?”
“Of course she is,” said Ida. “Of course she’s a bloody vegan.”
They sat and ate in front of the TV, drinking red wine that Tom had gone out to buy. Ida was trying to drink hers slowly, aware that her access to alcohol for the rest of the week depended on her conduct this evening. Although things could have been awkward, Ida found it hard to feel uncomfortable when everything was so clean and warm and there was food in the cupboard. Alice was picking at her vegetables while Tom looked at Teletext to see what was on. “I normally watch Barry Norman. But, I don’t know, there might be something on it about your mum,” he said.
“I don’t mind, do you mind Al?”
“I don’t mind about much, this wine’s gone straight to my head.”
He turned over. It was some balding director Ida didn’t recognise talking about an action film. Ida went to her room and added some whisky to her wine.
She came back to see a face she knew on screen and stood still in the doorway.
“Look at her Ida. Fuck, look at her face, she’s not even old!” said Alice, turning round. “At least Ma never got round to plastic surgery. That’s one horror we managed to avoid.”
“Anna DeCosta. You know her real name is Anna Furkin, right? No wonder she changed it,” Tom said.
It took a few seconds to work it out, but yes, it was her, Anna DeCosta, puffed up and shiny like a deranged Barbie.
“Apparently she’s touring in some show at the moment. I’m amazed she can stand up,” said Alice.
“Yeah, that’s not just surgery, she’s been in rehab like, ten times or something. My mate David says she offered to suck him off for two hundred quid on the set of Night Terrors.”
“Tom! Ida, you used to love her, didn’t you? You had posters of her on your wall.”
Ida tipped back her glass and finished her whisky-and-wine in one big gulp. She wiped her mouth with her hand. “Actually, on the night of the premiere, I shagged her, so there.”
Alice rolled her eyes.
“Right Ida, you shagged her. You’re always so dramatic, and you talk such shit. You’re exactly like Ma that way.”
Tom was looking up at her, wide eyed and serious. “Really?” he asked.
“Pretty much,” she smiled.
“Shhhh, I can’t hear,” said Alice.
Ida sat down.
“She was a real class act, everyone said so. So beautiful and glamorous. And of course I was a fan of her work before I was asked to play the part. She told me I’d done the role justice, well, that was all I cared about.”
“What a load of crap, turn it off.” Alice started to cry.
Chapter ten
~1983 ~
When the man came round with his trolley Bridie ordered two glasses of Chablis, paying with the torn ten-pound note Ida had frantically helped her search for earlier.
“Keep the change,” she said, and Ida had to clasp her hands together to stop herself reaching out for it. She tried not to think about how they would pay for a cab to the hotel when they got off the train – it would all be alright, it was normally all alright.
The women sitting next to them shared a brief wide-eyed look; shocked either at her mother’s large tip, at Ida’s age, or perhaps because it wasn’t yet lunchtime. Next to these neat-haired women Bridie looked mad, her long hair piled up with two black chopsticks sticking out of it, her shakily draw-in eyebrows over her gaunt cheeks, and long thin fingers moving manically as she spoke.
“I mean what can you learn anyway at that crappy prim school, buried up to your ears in bloody geography books? I can teach you the important stuff.”
“Yes,” said Ida quietly. The film company had sent first-class tickets and she was trying hard to fit in, stretching her legs out slowly, attempting elegance and reserve, staring out of the window with a serious expression.
“Why are you speaking like that? Like you’ve got something up your bottom?” asked Bridie.
Ida didn’t reply but took a swig of her warm wine and tried hard not to retch. Her mother was still talking but she blocked out her words, noticing instead the regular sounds of the train and the colours of the blurred and drizzly world outside. She thought about the high shoes she had for later, and the red, strappy dress that showed off her boobs. She was secretly hopeful that she’d be spotted by someone important, someone who’d notice her ‘je ne sais quoi.’
For years she’d been practicing this night, the conversations she’d have with people, and how she’d pose for the pictures. And Anna DeCosta! Before Ida had left Greenlands she’d told nearly everyone in the class she would get them her autograph. Ida couldn’t understand why Bridie wasn’t more excited about it all, surely this was what she’d been waiting for – recognition, money, glamour, even fame. Instead she seemed bored, as if she’d been going to film premieres on first-class trains every week for the last ten years. She had in her mind, Ida supposed, all those days spent in bed in their dirty, cold house, pretending desperately she was lying in some glamorous hotel.
The windows went black as they entered a tunnel, the noise of the train becoming louder and more highly pitched as Ida’s reflection appeared in the window. She vowed silently to the image of her own lips that she would always be excited and grateful about good things, noticing with alarm her crowded bottom teeth, slight moustache and acne-covered chin.
When they got to Waterloo Brid
ie marched so quickly through the station that Ida had to run to keep up. She knew her mother, and the marching was a sure sign she didn’t want to be questioned or hassled about the next stage of their journey. Just before the exit a short elderly man wearing a pink turban appeared. He was holding a sign saying ‘Bridie Adair and daughter’.
“I’ve been told to look out for you. Are you Ms Adair?” he asked.
“I am indeed, and this gangly thing is my daughter, believe it or not.”
The man smiled nervously while Bridie guffawed.
The car had tinted windows and Ida couldn’t believe it. She was being driven by an actual driver, in a car with blacked-out windows, like she was a film star. She tried to look straight ahead and ignore her mother, to pretend she was Anna DeCosta and that she travelled like this every day. As they drove over Waterloo Bridge she noticed some people stop and stare and it took all the strength she could muster not to wind down the window and wave. New starlet, Ida Irons, arrives for the premiere of her latest film.
Bridie sighed and turned away from the window. “The thing is, it’s the English I hate, any other race I absolutely adore. Where are you from originally?” Bridie asked the driver.
Ida closed her eyes.
“Ummm, well, Ealing,” the man laughed, even more nervously than before and Bridie appeared not to hear his answer.
“Oh God yes, the English with their tracksuits and their fat arses and their bloody vol-au-vents.”
Surely they’re French, Ida thought, but she knew better than to speak.
“Where are you from? Originally?” the man asked.
“Ireland,” she said, as if he was stupid for asking. “Well, I’d Irish parents. People know how to live there. It’s not all pot-pourri, en-suites, Bruce Forsyth… and bloody dogs in prams.”
The man didn’t make a sound and kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. Ida didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.