Anybody Out There? (Walsh Family)

by Marian Keyes

  Funnily enough, I wasn’t that keen on butterflies. It was a hard thing to admit because everyone loves butterflies and not liking them is akin to saying you don’t like Michael Palin or dolphins or strawberries. But to me, butterflies were slightly sneaky; all they were were moths in embroidered jackets. And, yes, moths were creepy and their flapping wings made a nasty, papery sound—but at least they were honest; they were brown, they were dull, they were stupid (flying into flames at the drop of a hat). All in all, they hadn’t much going for them but they didn’t pretend to be anything other than who they were.

  And what about that woman and her control-freak husband? Tut tut, indeed. She was well shot of him. And how could I believe a woman who described something as “incorrigibly” beautiful?

  Nevertheless, since I’d started reading these books, I’d been looking everywhere for butterflies or doves or strange cats who hadn’t been around before. I was desperate for any sign that Aidan was still with me, but so far, I’d seen nothing.

  People say it’s the finality of death that they can’t handle. But what was tearing me apart was that I didn’t know where Aidan was. I mean, he had to be somewhere.

  All his opinions and thoughts and memories and hopes and feelings, all the things that were unique to him, that made him a one-off human being—they couldn’t be just gone.

  I understood that his Aidan-ness was no longer contained in his cremated body, but his personality, or spirit, or whatever you want to call it—it couldn’t be just snuffed out. There was too much of him to simply disappear: the way he didn’t like Catcher in the Rye when everyone else in the whole world did; the slightly goofy way he walked because one leg was a tiny bit longer than the other; the way he sang like the Smurfs when he was shaving. He was so vital and full of—yes, life—that he must be somewhere, it was just a question of finding him.

  I still saw him in the street but now I accepted that it wasn’t him. I still read his horoscope. I still spoke to him in my head. I still e-mailed him and rang his cell phone, but I understood I wouldn’t hear back from him. But some days I’d forget he was dead. I mean, literally just for a moment or two, usually when I had come home from work in the evenings; suddenly I’d find that I was waiting for him to come in the door. Or something funny would happen and I’d think, Oh, I must tell Aidan that. And then I’d be overwhelmed with horror—I’d break out in a sweat and black spots would dance before my eyes—the horror that he’d been taken away. Removed from this earth, from this being alive business, and gone to a place where I could never track him down.

  Until now, I’d always thought that the worst thing that could happen to anyone was if someone you loved abruptly disappeared.

  But this was worse. If he’d been imprisoned or kidnapped or even done a runner, I’d have hope that he might eventually come back.

  And my guilt was unendurable. His story had been cut off so brutally and prematurely, while I was still here, still alive and well and working and with everything to play for. His body had taken the full impact of the crash, so I felt that he had died in order for me to live and it was the most appalling feeling. Like I’d cheated him out of the rest of his life, and really, I felt it would have been better if I’d died, too, because I was too ashamed to live my life when he was dead.

  I fantasized a lot about him still being alive. That somewhere, in a parallel universe, he hadn’t died—that the taxi had never crashed into us that day, that our lives had carried on smoothly, and we were blithely living out our allotted forty years or so together, unaware of the lucky escape we’d had, mercifully oblivious to all the pain we were being spared. I went into incredible detail in these fantasies—what we wore, what time we went to work, what we ate for lunch—and at night, when I couldn’t sleep, they kept me company.

  But what about him? How was he feeling? I hated that he had to go through whatever he was going through, on his own, and I knew that he would be doing all he could to get in contact with me. We had lived in each other’s pocket, we had spoken and e-mailed ten times a day, we had spent every second of our spare time together, so that, wherever he was now, he’d be finding the separation terrible, too.

  I would have given my life just to know that he was okay.

  Where are you?

  At the funeral, the priest had said a lot of guff about how Aidan had gone to “a better place,” but that was crap. Such crap that, at the time, I’d wanted to shout it out, but I was too bandaged and sedated and hemmed in by family members to manage to.

  I hadn’t known any dead people before Aidan. The only other ones were my grannies and granddads and you’d expect them to die; they were old, it was right. But Aidan was young and strong and handsome and it was all wrong.

  When my grandparents had died I’d been too young or hadn’t cared enough to wonder if they’d really gone to heaven (or hell—Granny Maguire was definitely a candidate for down below). Now I was being forced to think about an afterlife and the absence of any certainty was terrifying.

  In my teenage years, I’d yearned for a connection with some sort of spiritual being. Not with the Catholic God I’d been brought up with, because that was just way too dull, anyone could have that (if they were Irish). But the vague all-purpose God of dreamcatchers and chakras and fringey skirts had caught my fancy. Especially because you could keep adding to it—Reiki, crystals, guarana; the list, as long as it was “spiritual,” was endless. Coincidences and anything remotely spooky thrilled me—anything that would make my life more exciting really. I taught myself to read tarot cards and I wasn’t bad at it; I liked to believe that that was because I was quite psychic, but looking back, I knew it was just because I’d read the instruction book and learned what the symbols meant and anyway most people only get their cards read because they want a boyfriend.

  I’d knocked off the tarot cards some years back, but I’d never stopped believing in a vague “something.” If I didn’t get what I wanted—a job, a bus, a pair of jeans in the right size—I used to say that “it wasn’t meant to be,” as if there was a God, some sort of benign puppet master, with a story line for us all. One who cared about what we wore.

  But now that my back was to the wall, now that it really mattered, I found I didn’t know what I believed. I didn’t believe Aidan was in heaven. I didn’t believe in heaven at all. I didn’t even believe in God. I didn’t not believe in God either. There was nothing to cling on to.

  I got ready for work, I rang his cell phone like I did every morning, then in sudden frustration shrieked to the empty air, “Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?”

  31

  To: Magiciansgirl1@yahoo.com

  From: Thewalshes1@eircom.net

  Subject: Number twos!

  Dear Anna,

  I hope you are keeping well. Listen, it’s gone to hell here altogether, with the old woman and her dog. Since we came back from the Algarve there hadn’t been sign nor sound of her and would you blame us for thinking we had “shaken” her. But by the looks of things she was just “regrouping.” She was back with a vengeance this morning. She came early and made her dog do a “number two.” Your father stood in it on his way out to buy the paper and as you know he is not a man who is easily stirred to action but this has stirred him. He says we are going to “get to the bottom” of this. This will involve Helen and her “skills.” Luckily, she is very annoyed too and says she will do it for free. She says it’s one thing to have dog wee at your front gate but dog poo is a different matter entirely. Your loving mother,

  Mum

  P.S. What could it be about? As you know, I am not a woman who has enemies. Could it be Helen’s fault?

  P.P.S. We had the postholiday blues anyway, especially since your father’s sunburn became infected, and because of this dog business, we are now very “low.” Don’t take this up the “wrong” way but I hope you haven’t got “closure” yet because there would be little enough point in you coming home, we can hardly cheer ourselves up, never mind t
he likes of you.

  And an e-mail had come from Helen.

  To: Magiciansgirl1@yahoo.com

  From: Lucky_Star_PI@yahoo.ie

  Subject: Burned parent

  Mum and Dad back from Algarve. Dad badly sunburned. Looks like Singing Detective. Vay vay funny.

  32

  My shooting electricity pains woke me up at their usual time—about 5 A.M. Automatically, I popped a couple of painkillers, then lay very still, squeezed my eyes shut, and pretended that I was in bed and Aidan was lying beside me. All I have to do is stretch out my hand and I’ll be able to touch you. You’ll be all warm and sleepy and semitumescent and you’ll wrap your arms and legs around me without fully waking up. My fantasy was so detailed and convincing that I could smell him and almost believed I could hear him breathing. So when I opened my eyes and saw that I wasn’t in bed and the place where Aidan should be was just empty air, a howl escaped me. I sounded like an animal. Curling into myself, I clutched Dogly to my stomach and tried to rock the pain away. When that didn’t work, I turned on the telly. Dallas. Two episodes back-to-back. Who knew?

  It ended just after seven. Late enough to get ready for work. I tried not to get there before eight most mornings, but some days I just couldn’t bear lying awake in the apartment and was at my desk by six-thirty.

  Staying busy, working hard, trying to stack up the days, that was the key.

  Occasionally I could even lose myself in work, I could go into another place where imagination took over and I stopped being me. For a while.

  Having said that, it wasn’t all fun and games: there were The Lunches. Even before Aidan had died, I’d dreaded The Lunches. Taking beauty editors out to fancy restaurants was a regular part of my job, I had to do two or three a week and it had always been tricky because of the competitive undereating issue. Sometimes the journalists brought a colleague, so there were even more of us to not eat the one dessert we’d ordered between us. It was like a prizefight: Who would throw the first punch? Who would eat the first forkful? We’d circle one another warily, but as I was the hostess, protocol dictated that it was my job. However, I had to go very easy because if you ate too much, they’d disrespect you.

  For the first month of my return I’d been spared The Lunches—not out of any compassion but because my scar was so bad, Ariella didn’t want me out and about. However, thanks to vitamin-E capsules and a heavy-duty concealer, it was now a lot more discreet, so lunches were back on the menu.

  The only way I coped was by bringing Brooke with me, at least whenever she was available. She was an absolute bloody godsend, she was. Her incredible talent for graciously putting people at ease managed to obscure my jerky, marionette-like attempts at playing the hostess. She’d dazzle the journo with details of her superglam life, without ever sounding like she was boasting, and I’d try to smile and force clods of food down my reluctant throat. Sometimes—and it happened a bit too often for my liking—I’d forget to eat the first forkful of dessert; the chocolate-cream pie, or whatever we’d ordered, would sit throbbing in the center of the table and eventually Brooke would say, “Well, I don’t know about you girls, but I’m just going to have to try this delicious-looking thing,” thereby letting loose the forks of war.

  I forced myself to have a shower, then picked up the phone to ring Aidan’s cell phone and that’s when it happened. I was curled on the chair, preparing for the balm of his voice—but instead of his message, there was a funny beeping noise. Had I called the wrong number? Already I had a presentiment of doom; my hands were shaking so much I could hardly hit the buttons. Holding my breath, praying for everything to be okay, I waited for his voice but all I got was the funny beeping noise again: his cell phone had been cut off.

  Because I hadn’t paid the bill.

  Until now I’d thought his phone had remained operational as some act of cosmic kindness. But it was simply because he’d paid for his line rental in advance. And now it had been disconnected because I hadn’t paid the bill.

  With the exception of the rent on the apartment, I hadn’t paid any bills. Leon and I were meant to talk about my financial situation but Leon hadn’t been able to stop crying long enough for us to do it.

  In a breathless panic, I tried Aidan’s office number but someone else—someone who wasn’t him, naturally—answered, “Andrew Russell’s phone.” I hung up. Fuck.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I felt so dizzy that I thought I might faint. “Now how am I meant to get in touch with you?” I asked the room.

  I’d depended on that twice-daily chat, on the twice-daily sound of his voice. Obviously, he hadn’t chatted back to me. But it had helped. It had made me half believe that we were still in regular contact.

  The urge to talk to him was suddenly so huge that my body couldn’t contain it. In the space of a second I was drenched in sweat and I had to run to the bathroom to vomit.

  Ten, maybe fifteen minutes passed, with me resting my head against the cool porcelain, still too light-headed to get up.

  I needed to talk to him. I would have given everything I possessed, I would have been prepared to die myself, just to talk to him for five minutes.

  33

  I had a second shower, got dressed—in a swirly patterned Pucci dress and jacket from Goodwill—and was so late for work that I called and told Lauryn that I would go straight to my ten-o’clock appointment.

  I was sourcing promo items for You Glow Girl! (A highlighter. Nothing more to be said about it. A “soft” launch, i.e., not too much money to spend on it.) With the limited funds available, I was thinking of buying the beauty editors lamps (thereby cleverly picking up on the “glow” theme).

  My ten o’clock was with a wholesaler on West Forty-first Street who imported unusual lamps; ones that looked like halos—you clip them onto your mirror and your reflection looks like a saint; wings that go behind your couch, so you look like an angel—if you can position yourself correctly, or red neon ones that say Select Bar, if you wished you lived in Williamsburg.

  The cab dropped me on the wrong side of the street, and as I was waiting to cross over, I saw a man I knew and automatically nodded hello. Then I realized that I couldn’t remember where I knew him from and was afraid I’d Recognized a Famous Person. Rachel had once done that: stopped Susan Sarandon on the street and interrogated her as to where she’d seen her before. Did they go to the same gym? Was she a “friend of Bill’s”? Had she seen her at the dermatologist? Then, very faintly, Rachel said, “Thelma and Louise,” and backed away, mortified.

  But the mystery man was stopping to talk to me.

  “Hey, little girl,” he said. “How’re you doing?”

  “Good.” I nodded desperately.

  “You’re Rachel’s sister? I’m Angelo. We met one morning in Jenni’s.”

  How could I have forgotten him? He was so unusual-looking, with his gaunt, drawn face, dark deep-set eyes, long hair, and Red Hot Chili Pepper–style magnetism.

  “Things any better?” he asked.

  “No. I feel very bad. Especially today.”

  “You wanna go for coffee?”

  “I can’t. I have a meeting.”

  “Take my number. Call me if you ever want to talk.”

  “Thank you, but I’m not an addict.”

  “That’s okay. I won’t hold it against you.”

  He scribbled something on a torn piece of paper. Limply I accepted it and said, “My name is Anna.”

  “Anna,” he repeated. “You take care. Great clothes, by the way.”

  “Bye,” I said, and let the scrap of paper fall into the bottom of my bag.

  I went to my meeting but I was off form, I couldn’t manage to care enough to play hardball on terms with Mr. Fancy Lights, and I left without having agreed on anything.

  Back out on the street, I was strolling along, scanning the traffic for a cab, when a guy handed me a leaflet. Normally, I stick them straight in the first bin I see because, in this neck of the woods, they’r
e always flyers for “designer” sales to catch the tourists. But something made me look at this one.

  * * *

  PSYCHIC REALM

  Discover your future.

  Receive answers from the other side.

  From a medium with the true gift of the second sight.

  Call Morna

  * * *

  At the bottom was a phone number and suddenly I was seized with excitement close to frenzy. Receive answers from the other side. I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, causing a mini pileup. “Asshole,” someone said. “Tourist” (a much worse insult), said someone else.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Sorry, sorry.” I moved out of the flow of bodies into the shelter of a doorway, pulled my cell phone out of my bag, and, with fingers that trembled with hope, rang the number. A woman answered.

  “Is that Morna?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to have a reading.”

  “Can you come now? I have a free appointment.”

  “Sure! Yes! Absolutely!” Who cared about work!

  Morna directed me to an apartment two streets away.

  As I went up in the jerky elevator, my blood pounded so hard, I found myself wondering what it would feel like to have a heart attack.

  To be given a flyer on Forty-first Street that didn’t advertise a “designer” sale—what were the chances of that? And to be able to get an appointment with Morna immediately? Surely this was meant to have happened?

  For a moment I let myself think my greatest hope: Aidan, what if she gets through to you? What if we actually make contact? What if I get to speak to you?