by Liz Nugent
‘A proper set. I saw it in Clarks’s window, paints in tubes in a big wooden box with all kinds of brushes. All watercolours and inks, not oils. You see? I remember everything you told me about your art stuff – I know you don’t like oils. It’s gorgeous. The box is really old-fashioned-looking, but it’s brand new and there’s loads of things in it. I’m buying it for you on Saturday morning. I really am. I promise. Come round on Saturday, in the afternoon.’
‘Where will you get the money for that?’
‘Never you mind, I’ll have the money.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I will. Do you not believe me, Karen?’
It was easier to play along, but I knew it was never going to happen. Like the time she said we’d go for dinner in Sheries in Abbey Street a few weeks before that, and I’d waited half an hour outside in the cold but she never showed up, and when I rang her about it, she’d said she was busy and we’d go another time.
Despite all this, I loved Annie. She wanted the best for me, wanted me to learn from her mistakes. She warned me off fellas, told me I was too good for the lads round our way and that I should keep myself for someone special. I didn’t always obey her. Nobody could make me laugh like she could, and although her time in the mother and baby home turned down her brightness, the old spark was beginning to re-emerge by the time she vanished into thin air.
‘Promise, you’ll call on Saturday? About three, yeah? I can’t wait to see your face when you open it.’ So I promised, not daring to hope that she’d keep her word but never imagining that I wouldn’t see her again.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring Dessie.’
Her face clouded over. They’d got on well to begin with, though he thought she was a bit wild. He didn’t like how drunk she’d get and, like Da, he didn’t like me spending too much time with her. When I told him about Annie’s pregnancy and her time in St Joseph’s, his attitude to her worsened.
‘She’s one of them slappers?’ he said. ‘Who was the father, or did she even know?’
I was disgusted by his reaction. I ignored him for weeks then and avoided talking to him in work, but he didn’t give up and eventually he won me over again with a bunch of flowers and a written apology. He said that he shouldn’t have called my sister names. But if Dessie, who was basically good and kind, thought that way about Annie, so did everyone else. He was never comfortable in her company after that, and Annie wasn’t stupid.
‘What’s wrong with your fella?’ she said once in the Viking. ‘He’s always in such a hurry to leave.’
‘He just doesn’t like this pub much,’ I said, which was true. The Viking was a rough enough spot, in a semi-derelict part of town. Teenage glue-sniffers hung around the area. Dessie had often given out about the fact that we had to meet her there, but Annie was a creature of habit. ‘It’s full of alcos,’ he said, but I pointed out that could be said about most pubs in Ireland. Annie was clearly a popular character in the bar and was one of the youngest regulars. Late in the night, a sing-song would start and Annie, worse for wear, would sing ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ or ‘I Will Survive’ in a loud voice. Dessie hated that. ‘She’s making a show of herself,’ he’d say, and though sometimes I agreed, she could still carry a tune and had full recall of the lyrics. I wasn’t going to stop her enjoying herself.
When I called to her flat on Saturday, I’d decided not to bring Dessie along. I wasn’t all that surprised when she wasn’t there. That evening I rang her, and the girl who answered the phone in the hall said she’d take a message.
At Ma and Da’s on Sunday, Annie didn’t show up. Lunch after twelve-thirty Mass was the only family ritual we held on to, and Annie still turned up most of the time.
‘Did she ring you, Ma, to say she wasn’t coming?’
‘She did not, the strap,’ said my da, who took her feckless behaviour as a personal insult. I played it down.
‘She might have the flu – the flat was freezing when I saw her on Thursday.’
‘Did she not have the gas fire on?’
‘She did, but you know she always opens the window when she smokes.’
‘She gets the smoking from you,’ my mother said to Da.
‘That’s all she got from me, Pauline, I can tell you.’
I changed the subject, asked Da if he was going to the greyhounds on Thursday.
The next day, Monday, I called round again with Dessie and there was no answer from her flat but I caught another girl on her way out. There were three bedsits in the two-storey house with a shared bathroom. I asked her if she’d seen Annie. ‘Not since Thursday or Friday, now that you mention it. I thought she was away. It’s usually her radio that wakes me.’
That was the first time I felt a bit worried. Annie wouldn’t have gone away without telling me. Besides, where would she have gone?
‘With some fella?’ Dessie suggested, but clammed up again when I gave him a sharp look.
We’d usually be in touch twice or three times a week, but on Wednesday I still hadn’t heard from her. I called to Ma’s, but she hadn’t heard from her either.
‘Did she say anything to you about going away?’
‘Not a thing. It’s weird.’
I was still there when Da got home from the bakery.
‘She’s probably off on the piss somewhere. She’ll turn up.’
‘She’s never disappeared for so long before. It’s been nearly a week.’
‘When last did you see her?’
‘Last Thursday. She told me to call round on Saturday. She promised me she’d be there.’ I didn’t tell him about the painting set. There was no point.
‘She promised, did she?’ he said sarcastically.
On Friday when we still couldn’t contact her, we all knew something was wrong. Da and me went to her flat together while Ma rang round her friends and some of the girls she used to work with. At Annie’s flat, one of the other tenants said she hadn’t been there all week. We called the landlord from the phone in the hall and he came round, a large sweating man with a big nose, complaining about being disturbed after 6 p.m. He let us into her bedsit with his enormous set of keys. Everything was as neat as a pin as usual, but all the clothes I knew she had were still in the wardrobe, except her grey herringbone coat, the woollen sleeveless dress Ma had bought her for her birthday and the knee-high purple boots. I didn’t want to go rifling through all her stuff, but a quick glance told me she hadn’t gone on a trip. Her long holdall bag was still under the dresser. A single mug sat in the sink with a spot of mould in the bottom of it.
‘She’d never have left that there, Da, if she knew she was going away. Maybe for a few hours, but that’s got to have been there for days.’
The landlord said, ‘Her rent is due next week you know. I won’t be left out of pocket.’
‘Would ya shut up!’ said my da, and inside I cheered because he was standing up for Annie and it was a very long time since I’d heard him do that. The landlord told us to leave, and said that if he didn’t get his rent the next week, he’d be putting Annie’s stuff in a bag on the doorstep.
When we got home with our news, Ma was worried sick. None of Annie’s friends had seen her in over a week, and said she hadn’t turned up for two cleaning jobs in the city centre. That alone would not have rung alarm bells, but my timid mother had bravely gone into the Viking after dark. The regulars there all knew Annie, but they said she hadn’t been in for over a week.
‘Do you think she got herself knocked up again and went back to St Joseph’s?’ said Da, a tone of concern creeping into his voice.
‘She’d never go back there, Da, not in a million years. I know she wouldn’t.’ Ma agreed with me. ‘And even if she was pregnant, why would she go anywhere without her clothes, or a bag?’
‘I’m ringing the guards,’ said Da on Friday the 21st of November 1980.
3
Laurence
I heard him say it quite clearly.
‘The weekend of the 14th of
November? Let me think … hold on now … let me see – ah, yes, I was here with my wife. Why do you ask, Garda?’
‘The whole weekend? You didn’t leave the house?’
‘Yes, well, I got home from work on the Friday about six o’clock and didn’t go out again.’
It was a lie.
‘And was it just you and your wife here? Nobody else?’
‘My son was out that Friday. But I think he was home before midnight. What is this about?’
‘Well, sir, it’s just that … a car was seen visiting the home of the missing woman over recent months, sir … Like yours, sir … the old Jaguar.’
The guard’s tone was nervous, subservient. Too many ‘sir’s. It was clear he had drawn the short straw when sent to question my dad. Or Judge Fitzsimons, as he was more recently known.
‘And may I have your name?’ my father asked, and although I couldn’t see him, I could hear the air of superiority in his voice, coupled with a strange tremor that was new. The kitchen door behind me was only slightly ajar, and I strained to hear what followed on the doorstep.
‘Mooney, sir. I’m sorry to be having to ask, like –’
‘And what exactly is your rank, Mooney?’ He lingered on the ‘oo’ in Mooney.
‘I’m a detective, sir.’
‘I see. Not a detective sergeant or a detective inspector, then?’
I knew that tone. Dad could be rude or dismissive with strangers and he could fly off the handle. He intimidated me sometimes. I’m not sure that he meant to. He just did.
At the other end of the table, my mother was looking at me quizzically.
‘Is that your fifth potato, Laurence? Go on, quick, while your father isn’t looking.’
I hadn’t been counting.
My mother got up, muttering about the draught. She closed the door behind me and turned on the radio and began to hum along tunelessly to the song playing. I said nothing, but now I couldn’t hear what was being discussed at the front door.
My father had just deliberately lied to the guards. I admit I was taken aback by his lie. He was being asked about his movements almost two weeks earlier. I remembered that Friday night very clearly indeed because I was having my own adventure. I had also lied about my whereabouts. I had told my parents that I was going to the cinema with school friends, when actually I was losing my virginity to Helen d’Arcy, who lived in Foxrock Park, just twenty minutes away.
I had not intended to have sex with Helen on our first real date. I did not find her physically attractive. She had very nice silky blonde hair, but her frame was both wide and too thin. Her face, which was unnaturally big, sat on top of a scrawny neck. My own skin was flawless in comparison, perhaps because it was stretched.
I went to Helen’s house simply because she invited me. I did not get many invitations.
She had caught up with me as I was returning from school a few weeks earlier. It was raining, as usual. School was awful. I had only started in St Martin’s Institute for Boys the previous January because of Bloody Paddy Carey. I tried very hard not to let my parents know how much I was bullied in my new school. There was a particular group of four or five boys, all brawn and no brain. They did not often attack me physically after the first month, but my books were stolen or defaced with disgusting slogans, and my lunch was taken and replaced with items too revolting to mention.
Helen’s school was one of the fee-paying ones a little closer to town, but she lived near our school. I had overheard stories about her from other boys in my class. I felt a kinship because the bullies in my class seemed to have as much contempt for her as they did for me.
I heard her before I saw her. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked. I turned. Her green uniform skirt, made of some hairy fabric, was worn to baldness in places and the hem had come down on one side. I could see the inside of her collar was threadbare at the neck.
‘Laurence. Fitzsimons.’
‘Ah yeah, I’ve heard of you. Why do they call you the Hippo? You look normal to me.’
I warmed to her immediately. ‘I am normal. They just don’t like me.’
‘Well, who gives a fuck what they like? Do you live on Brennanstown Road? I’ve seen you around.’
I lived in Avalon, a large detached house with a well-kept garden at the end of the road, but I wasn’t sure if I should tell her. She didn’t seem to mind whether I responded to her questions or not. We ambled companionably onwards. When we passed Trisha’s Café, she suggested that I buy her a Coke. I hesitated.
‘OK then, I’ll buy you one,’ she said as she pushed the glass door open. It would have been rude not to follow her. Unfortunately, the bullies were already there, sitting near the counter.
‘Oink, oink!’ one of them shouted in our direction.
‘Fucking eejits,’ said Helen, ‘ignore them.’
We very rarely had bad language in Avalon, but now, in the same five minutes, I’d heard fuck and fucking. From a girl. I used bad language too sometimes, but never out loud.
Helen strolled coolly to the counter and returned with two Cokes.
I shoved two 10p pieces towards her to pay for them.
‘You don’t have to. Just because I paid, it doesn’t mean you have to ask me out.’
Ask her out?
‘I want to pay. It’s fair.’
‘Fine,’ she said. There was a lull in conversation as we sucked our Cokes through thin straws. And then she said, ‘You’d be quite good-looking if you weren’t fat.’
It was not news to me that I was fat. My mother said it was puppy fat and that I’d shed it soon enough, but I was seventeen. My father said I ate too much. My scales said fifteen stone. I hadn’t always been big, but over the last year, since I’d moved schools, my eating habits had gone completely out of control. The more nervous and miserable I was, the hungrier I felt. I love food, and mostly the fattening stuff. But this was the first time that a non-parent had said I was fat without a look of disgust.
‘Your hair’s nice,’ I said, to return the compliment. She looked very pleased.
‘I love food too, I probably eat more than you,’ she said. Helen obviously had no idea just how much food I could put away.
‘If you could give me about three stone, we’d both be perfect.’
Helen and I met a few times in the weeks after. We took it in turns to buy the Cokes. Then one day Helen said, ‘Do you want to come to my house tomorrow night?’
‘For what?’
‘To visit me? To kick off the weekend?’ she said, as if it was completely normal to be invited to girls’ houses. ‘My mum has made this amazing cake that’s going to get thrown out if it’s not eaten.’
We had only known each other a few weeks, but already she knew which buttons to push. An arrangement was made for after school, an address written down on the inside cover of my jotter.
At home that evening, I tried to be casual and breezy. ‘I won’t be in for dinner tomorrow, I’m going to the cinema with some of the lads,’ I lied, as casually as I could. I focused on my copybook with fierce concentration. My dad perked up: he was delighted.
‘Well, isn’t that great now, great altogether. Going out with pals, eh? What are you going to see? There’s a new Star Wars one, isn’t there?’
We had been to see Star Wars together as a family. Dad and I had enjoyed it, but Mum had put her hands over her ears during the explosions, jumping at every clash of a light sabre. After that, she swore she was never going to the cinema again.
‘Herbie Goes Bananas,’ I said confidently, trying to ignore the crimson creep from my collar.
‘I see,’ said my father, slightly deflated and puzzled. ‘Well, that’ll be good, won’t it, going out with friends?’ He looked meaningfully at my mother, pleased no doubt that I finally had friends, but she was concentrating on cutting me a slice of cheesecake. I tried to nudge her hand a little to make the slice bigger, and she did so with a sigh and shake of her head.
‘I’ll take that one,’ s
aid my dad. ‘Give the boy a smaller bit.’ Nothing got past him.
‘Just be home by midnight.’
‘Midnight?! But we don’t even know who these people –’
‘No more about it, Lydia.’ Dad closed the subject.
Midnight. Janey Mackers, I was amazed. I’d never had a curfew before. I hadn’t needed one, but midnight seemed generous. Thanks, Dad. But now I had to go through with the date with Helen. I was pretty sure it was an actual date. In less than twenty-four hours. I was partly looking forward to it and partly terrified.
Preparing for a first date was tricky. I knew this from the cover of Jackie magazine in the newsagent’s. There were ten steps to it, apparently. I could guess two of them: fresh breath and flowers.
After some thought, I decided that, while there might be ten steps for a girl, there could only be two for a boy. I was on top of the fresh breath. After we left Trisha’s, I had bought myself a new toothbrush and some Euthymol toothpaste, even though it practically took the mouth off me. I figured that if it was that painful, it must be more effective.
Flowers. It was November. There were, however, some nice pink and white carnations blooming in my father’s greenhouse that I raided late that night while my parents watched the Nine O’Clock News. I wrapped the stalks in some tinfoil and put them gently on top of my schoolbooks in my satchel.
On that fateful Friday, my father gave me £2 after breakfast and told me to enjoy myself. Money was a huge issue in our house at that time. Dad’s accountant, Bloody Paddy Carey (it was the only bad language I ever heard my father use), had absconded with our money a year previously. Dad was furious about it. We weren’t allowed to tell anyone. The accountant had been a close friend, or so my father thought. Carey had several high-profile clients who had been badly burned, and the story had been all over the media. So far, my father’s name had not been mentioned publicly. He was extremely stressed about this; he was mortified that Bloody Paddy Carey had made a fool of him, and that he might not be able to keep my mother in the style to which she was accustomed. We had had a full year of shouting and slamming doors, and endless talk of tightening our belts. So to get £2 out of my dad without even having to ask was most unexpected. I thought that maybe I could buy shop flowers now, but since I already had some, it would be a waste. I wasn’t sure what I should spend the money on.