by Liz Nugent
‘No, nothing. I’m very ordinary.’ It wasn’t a lie.
We spent the afternoon discussing my future. She assured me that I was unlikely to be asked to do underwear shoots, unless I went international, and only if I chose to do so. I smiled at the thought of that. International.
But there were obstacles. While Yvonne would pay for my classes, there were things I’d have to pay for too. I needed a photo book done by a professional photographer. I needed a range of make-up, hair accessories, hats, scarves, stockings of all colours, shoes of all heights. She advised that I could pick up a lot in second-hand shops, but the photographer would cost a week’s wages. Dessie and me were saving for a house of our own. I was happy enough in the flat above the funeral home in Thomas Street, but Dessie had been saying we’d need a garden for the kids.
I braced myself to tell Dessie when I got home. He thought I’d been to see my da, and I hadn’t exactly put him straight. Dessie and me were a team, and I didn’t usually go off making decisions on my own. I needn’t have worried, though, because when I told him everything, and that I could be getting £50 a day, he was delighted.
‘For wearing clothes? There’s some eejits in this town, eh?’ and he wrapped his arms around me and told me he was proud and lucky to have married such a stunner. ‘And you don’t have to be in your knickers, like?’
Two months later, I’d had my photos taken and done the course on make-up and all that. I’d given up my chewing-gum habit and my job at the dry-cleaner’s. I’d taken up occasional smoking and lost five pounds in weight. My first modelling job was coming up. Da was OK, but Ma was less happy about it.
‘You need to remember where you’re from. That’s what sent Annie wrong, you know. She was always curious. She wanted more than we knew about.’ Her voice down the phone line from Mayo was full of regret.
‘Maybe she’s got it now, Ma,’ I said, keeping Annie in the present tense.
I went to meet Da, who was on his customary bar stool in Scanlon’s. When Ma lived at home with him, he might go to Scanlon’s once or twice a week for a swift one before he came home to his tea, but now that he had nobody for company I was more likely to find him there than in the house. He was delighted. ‘And you’ll be in magazines, you think? I’m proud of you, girlie.’
I set off for the photo shoot. It was for a new brochure for a very expensive hotel in town, the type of place I wouldn’t dare go into. I had to dress up in all these different outfits and have my photograph taken with other girls on plush sofas in the tea room, and then on a bar stool at the bar, with my head back, laughing at this model fella as if what he was saying was hilarious, and then in bed in one of the swish rooms, with my head on the pillow, my hair combed out behind me, and the soft blankets brushing my shoulders. The other models were gas fun, though they were all a bit hoity-toity. The photographer was a fairly grumpy fella, and there was a lot of hanging around so there was plenty of time to chat to the other girls. Everybody smoked. The girls said that cigarettes stopped your appetite and kept you thin. The one male model was gay, they said, which was a shame because the blonde one, Julie, really fancied him, but it turned out that the photographer was his boyfriend.
That day, I came home with £70 in cash, which was just slightly more than I made in a week at the dry-cleaner’s. Dessie was thrilled and said he’d lodge it in the post office the next morning. I told him all about the day and the other girls and the gay male model. ‘A queer?’ He laughed. ‘Well, that’s a relief, I wouldn’t like to think of you hanging out with good-looking normal men!’
Three weeks later, I made £190 on three different assignments. Yvonne said the clients loved my look and that I should prepare myself for the big time. She told me that I was in great demand and that she was turning down clients whose brand was ‘not of sufficient quality’. I thought she was mad. But gradually, over the course of a month, the jobs started coming in and the money was getting bigger. Everything looked great. Dessie and I would soon have a deposit for a house.
And then the brochure for the hotel was published and I was amazed by it. It looked like a glossy magazine you might find in the hairdresser’s. I really thought for the first time that I looked beautiful, though I knew that I hadn’t got there without make-up artists and hairdressers and fashion stylists. I couldn’t wait to show Dessie when he got home. I left it on the table just in front of the door where the bills and letters usually stacked up. I thought it would be a lovely surprise for him. I sat in the kitchen, waiting for his reaction. I heard the door click and heard him stop at the table, and then he called out, ‘Karen?’
‘Yeah?’
He appeared around the kitchen door. His face was red with fury. I was astonished, thinking there must have been a row at work, but he held up the brochure and threw it with force into my lap. ‘You never told me that they photographed you in bed.’
‘What? I’m sure I did –’
‘You did not. Do you think I want people looking at pictures of my wife in bed?’
‘I don’t … what do you mean? But sure, I’m covered up by the quilt.’
He was being completely ridiculous. The photo had me covered up to my armpits in the bedclothes. My eyes were closed and my hair was splayed out over the pillow in a perfect circle around my head. I had one arm raised, bent at the elbow, hand facing palm outwards. My shoulders were covered in a white linen and lace nightdress. The area about two inches below my neck and my exposed lower arm were bare. There was nothing sexy about it whatsoever.
‘For Christ’s sake, Karen, did you not think? There you are, in a bed, in a hotel room?’
I had no idea what he was talking about.
‘Like a prostitute.’
I was so utterly shocked. ‘I don’t believe –’
‘What do you think it’s been like for me, with people whispering about Annie all the time, goading me?’
‘What people?’
‘They might not say it to your face. You don’t have to listen to their sly jokes.’ He was shouting now.
I had never realized. Nobody had even mentioned Annie in the last few years, so I assumed it was old news. I had never thought how Annie’s reputation affected Dessie.
‘What do they say?’
‘I wouldn’t repeat it. Disgusting stuff. About you. I landed one fella in hospital over it. I was nearly fired.’
‘Oh God.’
‘You see, that’s why I’m saying, look, you just can’t do stuff like this.’ He stabbed the page of the brochure so violently that it tore. I started to cry and he realized that he had rattled me. He took me in his arms then and rubbed my back. ‘I’m just trying to protect you, love.’
That was the first time I felt a stab of resentment towards Annie. Whatever had happened to her, her behaviour had ripple effects that were still causing upset and grief nearly five years later. Of course, I still loved her, but I wanted her in the room so that I could yell at her.
I told Yvonne the following week that she had to be more selective about my assignments.
‘Darling, what are you talking about? That shoot was really tame, if not demure. It’s early days now, don’t throw it all away out of prudishness.’
‘I’m not a prude.’
She was steely. ‘If you want to continue in this career, you have to be reasonable. I have invested in you already. Do not let me down.’
‘You don’t understand.’
‘Then why don’t you explain it to me?’
My voice choked and I tried to stem the tears.
‘What is it?’
‘You’re going to be so furious with me. I’m so sorry.’
‘What have you done?’ Yvonne was alarmed.
‘When you asked me about my lifestyle …’ I told her everything, about Annie, her drugs, her ‘clients’ and her disappearance, about Dessie, about how it had destroyed my parents’ relationship.
Yvonne sank into her armchair. ‘Oh my God, I remember that case. My son was working on i
t.’ Her eyes dropped to the desk.
‘Your son?’
‘Yes, he was a detective, James Mooney – you must have met him.’ She took a photo out of her wallet. I had only ever seen him in uniform, but I remembered Mooney well. He was O’Toole’s sidekick. He always seemed vaguely embarrassed by O’Toole.
‘Yes.’
‘They never found her body, did they?’
‘Well, there’s no proof that she’s actually dead.’
‘I thought they had a suspect?’
‘What?’
She got flustered then. ‘Oh, don’t mind me, I’m probably thinking of another case he was on.’
‘You think they had a suspect? For her murder?’
‘Well, yes, the odd time he’d talk about cases, but honestly, they all get jumbled in my mind and I get them confused.’
Yvonne was not the type of person to get confused about anything. She was incredibly sharp. Her son had told her something about Annie’s case, something that had been withheld from us, Annie’s family.
‘Please, Yvonne, you have to tell me, if you know something? If James knows something?’
‘I … can’t.’
I was frantic now and almost hysterical. ‘You think she’s dead! You have to tell me. You have to. She’s my sister. I’ll go to the garda station and find James myself.’
‘You can’t. He died in a car accident two years ago.’ She reached for a file and raised it in front of her face, but I could see her hands were trembling a little. The wind was taken out of my sails. I sank back into my seat, ashamed.
‘Oh no, Yvonne, I am so sorry, how awful! I thought he was really good, and decent. He treated us with respect.’
She lowered the file and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘Thank you for saying so. He was my only child. I miss him every day.’
‘I felt like he was the only one who cared about Annie. The rest of them didn’t help. They didn’t even look that hard. They wrote her off.’
‘James didn’t.’
She stood up and turned her back to me for a moment. I thought she was going to tell me to leave, but then she grabbed her bag and her coat.
‘Let’s go for a drink.’
We went to a hotel off Grafton Street. ‘I don’t do pubs,’ she said. On the way, she chatted about the new fashion lines, her doubts about shoulder pads – ‘too masculine’ – her belief that cheesecloth was ‘over’. I said nothing. In the hotel, we sat in armchairs in a wide lobby and she ordered us gin and tonics. I leaned forward in anticipation, but she downed half her drink and placed the ashtray between us. She gave me a cigarette and I took it.
‘I don’t have a name for you. But I can tell you what James told me.’
‘Please, everything.’
‘There was a suspect, somebody well known and respectable.’
‘Who?’
‘That’s what I’m saying – I don’t know. James never told me.’
‘Suspected of … killing her?’
‘Well … that’s what James thought, but he couldn’t get his boss to take him seriously – that buffoon, what was his name?’
‘O’Toole?’
‘Yes. O’Toole didn’t believe James, but James thought the man was definitely worth investigating. He might have been a senior guard or a politician or something like that. His car was unusual – a vintage Jaguar, I remember that. It had been seen outside your sister’s flat. James went to question him in the early days of the investigation, but the man was very defensive and pulled rank on him. James went back with O’Toole to see him, but they only got talking to his son, a young boy, who provided an alibi, but James didn’t believe him. I can’t recall … There was something about a hat, a trilby hat. I’m sorry, I just don’t remember the details. I know the investigation stopped very quickly after a few weeks. I don’t know why. James moved on to another case, and he never mentioned that one again. It was strange because normally he would be quite dogged. O’Toole was lazy. James wasn’t the type to give up.’
I racked my brains to remember exactly what had been said during the search. There had been mention of the car, but no suspect was ever mentioned. Not to me.
‘Do you know if he, the suspect, was a … if he used prostitutes?’
‘I think that’s what stumped James. He talked to some street girls that worked the same area as your sister, but they didn’t know him and she hadn’t done street work for months before she disappeared. I don’t know why James was so convinced about that man. He accepted that they had no evidence.’
‘Do you remember any more details? Where he lived or worked?’
‘I’m sorry, Karen. James only told me that much because he was so frustrated with the O’Toole fellow. He would never have been deliberately indiscreet. But, Karen …’ she took my hand in hers and grasped it, ‘he was convinced that Annie was dead.’
I had been in denial for so long, but I knew she was right.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry about James.’
She exhaled a long plume of smoke. ‘We can’t let these tragedies stop us living. We’ll never forget our loved ones, but they would want us to be happy, darling. Your career is beginning. Let’s keep this to ourselves. Tell Dessie to be a man. You have to be allowed to move on. With or without him.’
I was shocked by her words. None of this was Dessie’s fault. It was this man, this suspect that James had identified, who had caused all the anguish and fear. I was going to find him, with or without the guards.
10
Lydia
The time after Andrew’s death when I was forcibly removed to a psychiatric institution was not the first time I had been taken from my home against my will. I spent nearly a year in an aunt’s house directly after my ninth birthday. It was because Daddy didn’t want me in Avalon after the accident.
It was just two years after Mummy had caused a scandal by running off with a plumber. She wanted to take us with her, but Daddy forbade it. He said he should never have married beneath him and that he would never get over the humiliation that Michelle, my mother, put him through.
Eventually, we all got used to her not being there. For the first year, I cried myself to sleep every night, wishing and hoping she would come home. Diana called me a baby and said that Mummy didn’t love us, but it wasn’t true. Mummy did love me once. I remember the feeling.
Mummy was very beautiful. I recall her quite well, even though all the photographs were destroyed. When I look in the mirror now I can still see traces of her, despite the fact that I am much older than she was the last time I saw her. She died sometime in the 1960s, alone and abroad apparently. I got a card from her on my wedding day, but I did not get to keep it. Daddy threw it in the fireplace. My twin sister, Diana, looked totally different from Mummy and me. Where I was fair, she was dark; my eyes were blue, hers were brown. My brow was high and she had no chin. She wasn’t pretty, but while she had not inherited Mummy’s looks, she had Daddy’s breeding. She was more refined than I. I remember Daddy saying that it was impossible to teach me any manners.
I clung to Diana after Mummy left, and I adored her with all my heart. We belonged to each other. But I valued our twin-ship more than she. It was annoying, to be frank, the way that she tried to go off and do things on her own and how she wanted to dress differently from me. She loved me, of course she did – one has to love one’s sister, especially if one is a twin – but as we got older there were times when I began to think that she did not like me. She would look at me sometimes with disgust if I forgot to chew with my mouth closed or if I licked my knife by accident. She rubbished my favourite books and said she preferred the classics. If I ever did something to upset her, she could go whole days without speaking to me. She said that she couldn’t wait until we grew up so that she could have her own house; I did not like to imagine a house without her in it, and cried at the thought. But I always forgave her quickly.
I wonder, if she had lived, would we be friends now?<
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For a while after Mummy left, Daddy withdrew into himself and spent long periods locked in the library, drinking brandy. Then he would emerge, drunk. He mostly ignored me because I reminded him of his wife. But he would take Diana on to his knee, telling her stories, giving her sweets and tickling her, giving her all the attention that used to be divided equally between the three of us. I was left to the care of our nanny and housekeeper, Hannah, who smelled of mothballs and snuff. Gradually, he began to love me again, although I could sense his suspicion that I would somehow betray him, and I suppose I did, though I spent the rest of my life making it up to him.
It was 1941, and Diana and I were to have a ninth birthday party, the first party since Mummy’s departure. We were terribly excited. We hadn’t even been to a party in the intervening years, I assumed because Daddy had forbidden it. All fifteen girls from our class had been invited, and Daddy had ordered us new dresses and ribbons for our hair. He had pulled string to get extra coupons. It was May, an unusually hot one, and trestle tables had been set up outside in the garden, laden with dainty sandwiches, jellies and trifles all covered with netting to keep the bees away. Bottles of cold ginger ale stood at the end in ice buckets. Bunting was strung between the apple trees. Daddy had decided the mourning period for my mother was over, and this was the first outward sign that he intended to re-engage with the world. He had invited his sister, our Aunt Hilary, and some friends too, a couple who laughed at everything he said and wore matching tank tops. The lady gave us a shilling each and professed how generous she was for the next hour. At the time appointed for the guests’ arrival, Diana and I were kneeling up on the chaise in the drawing room, our faces pressed to the window to see who would be first to arrive. Amy Malone came first and we knocked her over with our enthusiasm, leading her out to the garden, showing off the pond and the luncheon spread and the bunting and the large rocking horse that Daddy had presented us with that morning. We took turns and played for a while until it dawned on me that nobody else had knocked on our door. Where were they all? Daddy and the couple were talking at the far end of the garden as we ran in and out of the house to make sure that Hannah was listening out for the knocks on the door.