Our Little Cruelties

by Liz Nugent

  But now, nearly ten years later, I was back home, trying to get Luke’s career out of the gutter. God knows I needed my percentage, but he continued to lurch from crisis to crisis. I ignored Will’s philandering and tried to stay in Susan’s life in whatever capacity she would have me. I used Daisy – I got to see Susan a lot because of Daisy.

  Daisy and I were close. She was a great kid, full of beans and mischief. She told me things she wouldn’t tell her parents. Silly, innocent things but I kept her confidence because she was possibly my daughter and I enjoyed having a piece of her that neither of them did. She was the image of Susan. I could see nothing of Will in her. Nor of me. There were no clues. I thought long and hard about getting a DNA test – it would be easy to take a strand of her hair from a comb – but then I thought, what if she’s not my daughter? Would that change the way I felt about her, or about Susan? As long as I didn’t know for sure, we three were bonded in my head.

  In 2004, Luke met a girl, a middle-class rich girl who was pretty and funny and smart. She was way too young for him, but I thought it was all good publicity. I leaked the story to the tabloids myself, as I had leaked lots of stories since Luke had stopped me making money out of his autobiography. The British tabloids paid good money for those stories. And if journalists suddenly had the contact names of the people who had attended a Halloween party in 1983 when Luke pulled his Jesus stigmata stunt, and if those people ‘spoke’ to the press as ‘sources’, nobody could link those stories back to me.

  I know it made Luke paranoid every time those stories came out and he wondered if he could trust anyone from his past. I felt guilty about it because I had already gotten him to sign over his house to me when he wasn’t right in the head, but I had to take out a small mortgage on it for living expenses and the mortgage needed to be paid. Luke’s music was getting less airplay these days and his public appearance fees were paltry. My ‘official’ 25 per cent as his agent/manager and accountant didn’t amount to much and I had to make money somewhere. The tabloids were the obvious route.

  But this girl, Kate, was a good influence on him. Luke cleaned up his act, stayed away from the usual narcotics, cut back on his drinking, which was clearly his biggest problem, and behaved normally, taking his meds. He told me he was doing it for her.

  ‘Luke,’ I said, because I’m not a complete bastard, ‘why don’t you do it for you?’

  ‘She’s worth it, I’m not,’ he said and it was the saddest thing I ever heard. He adored her. He declared himself to be in love. I’d never heard him talk about a girl like that before and I was glad for him, though I knew he was investing his emotional well-being in their relationship and that wasn’t altogether healthy.

  When I learned from Will himself that he had already had an affair with Kate, I couldn’t contain my anger. First, I was furious on Kate’s behalf. She was just a kid being taken advantage of by an older married man. Then on Susan’s behalf. He was cheating on her again. But mostly I was incandescent that he could do to Luke what he’d done to me, and steal the love of his life. When Luke told me Kate was pregnant, I knew it was the right time to act. It was me who engineered the dinner party that broke up Will’s marriage. He had never deserved Susan in the first place and she needed to finally see it. Kate meant little to me and I was sorry for the way things turned out because I think maybe she did love Luke, but Susan was more important. When Kate and Will excused themselves from the table at the same time, it was me who sent Susan after Will on some pretext, knowing she would overhear something that would crush her.

  I had some idea that Susan might turn to me for comfort. There was no way she could accept Kate as a member of the family knowing that Will had slept with her. I hoped it would be the nail in the coffin of their marriage and I was right. I felt completely vindicated.

  But then Susan turned on me because I had known about it and hadn’t told her. It was completely unreasonable of her and I hoped in time she would accept my story that I didn’t want to hurt her. I did, however, want to hurt Will. Ironically, when she threw Will out, he came to live in my spare room until he got a place to rent.

  I never thought of the fallout for Daisy. I regret that. I took her to Euro Disney for the weekend on Will’s guilt-dollar and distracted her with Paris, but she was smart enough to know that something was up at home. I was present when Will and Susan told her they were separating but that they still loved her. They asked me to be there, and I watched her little face crumple in confusion and hugged her while sobs racked her small body. I wish I’d thought it through.

  A week later, Kate miscarried her baby and maybe the trauma of that made her think about what she was doing with Luke and the implications for Will’s marriage. Luke knew Will and Susan had split up, but he didn’t know why. I’m sure Kate knew. After the miscarriage, she ended her relationship with Luke, leaving him broken-hearted and vulnerable to another breakdown, which was exactly what happened. When Will moved out, Luke moved back in so that I could keep a suicide watch on him. I needed to get him functioning and available for work. I couldn’t be there 24/7 but if I had to go out, I rang home constantly to check he was okay. He went to a dark place in his head. I had to force him to take his meds, but he stayed in his room, hardly ate, hardly spoke, rarely showered.

  Mum, who knew nothing of the story behind Will and Susan’s break-up, declared that she had never liked Susan, that she had always thought of her as white trash and that it was cruel to deprive poor Daisy of her father. God knows what tale Will told her. When I told Mum that Luke was having a breakdown after Kate’s miscarriage and abandonment of him, she said it was typically selfish of Luke to think only of himself and that he should be there to support Will in his time of crisis. I bit my tongue until I felt blood on my lips.

  35

  2011

  Money was tight. The agency was working on a shoestring. There was only one full-scale film made in Ireland that year and two of my clients had only small parts in it. Mum hadn’t been well, and even though she was in demand for stage work, chest infections kept her at home.

  Luke was back in residential care and although music royalties were coming in, he wasn’t making any additional money. His income was eaten up by medical bills. I now had thirty-two clients, mostly actors. I had three in a soap opera and two others in TV dramas, but most weren’t working, or working on profit-share theatre shows which never made a profit. They called me constantly asking about auditions, but I couldn’t get them seen for parts that weren’t there.

  Will had started churning out cheaply made documentaries using archive material that he could sell internationally or as inflight entertainment.

  So, financially, things were terrible. But my love life had taken an upswing. Somewhere in the last few years, I had given up fantasizing about the life Susan and I could have had together. She had been single since she and Will split up seven years previously. I had made no secret of the fact that I was there for her, but she had never once given me any indication she was interested. I still saw her regularly when I took Daisy out. In the beginning, I grilled Daisy about Susan’s love life. Children answer questions far more honestly than adults if you put them the right way. ‘Did Mummy tell you if she had a good time last Thursday when she went out in her pretty dress?’

  ‘Yes, but her friend Sarah came home with her and got sick on the sofa. Mummy was really cross with her.’

  Now that Daisy was seventeen, she was barely speaking to her estranged parents and seemed to be permanently plugged into social media. I reckoned it was her age. At first, she brought home a black boyfriend. I don’t think she liked him much but was using him to provoke a reaction from her parents, which was more racist than any thing either of them would do. They said nothing but were extra nice to the boy, which ensured Daisy dropped him fairly quickly. Having failed to get much attention that way, she declared herself bisexual and started dating a girl in her class.

  But she still allowed me into her life. Not every corner
of it, obviously; she refused to discuss her girlfriend, for example, a bad influence who treated Daisy like crap, according to Will and Susan who rarely agreed on anything. As her uncle (or possibly her father), it suited me to look at all this behaviour objectively. She complained about her parents all the time to me.

  But she liked being treated like an adult when I took her out to dinner to a pizza place or to a film premiere or to see a play. She was a cheap date, thank God. She had strong opinions about plays. She hated most of them, but she came along all the same. I was flattered that she still wanted to spend time with me until the day she said, ‘Don’t you get lonely, Brian?’ – she had dropped the ‘uncle’ – ‘No girlfriend, no kids? It makes me feel sad.’ That was my wake-up call. A seventeen-year-old thought I was pathetic.

  I had not lived like a monk. There had been a lot of one-night stands and a few short-term flings, but nobody lasted more than eight months. Women my own age were mostly desperate to have children, and although some of them were genuinely great, I could not take on any financial burden, no matter how much I liked the girl. Some of the women expected me to pay for dinner every time we went out. I tried to date women who were good earners or ones who had rich ex-husbands and good maintenance payments, but most of them weren’t interested in me.

  After Daisy’s declaration that I was ‘sad’, I realized that maybe I did need to find a life partner. Growing up, our family dynamic had been strange. Mum and Will were close, Dad and Luke were close, but I was neither close nor distant with either of my parents. I thought that was healthy, but now I wondered if maybe there was something wrong with all of us and our relationships with women. I thought about my two brothers, who weren’t exactly successful at dating either, though Will had his chance and blew it. Was I lonely? I didn’t even have a cat. I went back through my lists of ex-girlfriends and looked them up on Facebook. So many had photos of children and husbands, but then there was Gillian, who advertised her status as single.

  I had gone out with her for a few months over a decade previously. She dumped me as I recall, but only because she was moving to Galway for a job. According to the posts I could see, she was certainly back in Dublin. She looked great, if anything better than she had a decade earlier, though I guess she wasn’t going to post unflattering photographs of herself. I sent her a Friend Request and instantly got accepted. Now I was able to see all her info. She was a fully qualified lawyer working for a big company. Back in the day, she had worked for the Inland Revenue. From the photos, she lived in a decent-looking house in Goatstown, though it wasn’t clear if she was renting or was a homeowner. She had a puppy (more likely to be a homeowner, landlords don’t like pets), and watched a lot of reality TV. She went on many ‘girls’ nights out’ and had been a bridesmaid several times in previous years, but never a bride.

  I sent her a direct message asking how she was doing and we began a flirtatious conversation that went on for some time until I suggested meeting for coffee. There was a brief pause before she agreed. We swapped phone numbers. I was slightly miffed by the pause. What was her hesitation? We had always gotten on.

  When we met the following week in a café near her office, we slipped back into familiar ways, joking with each other, talking in cockney accents and backing up each other’s opinions by vehemently disagreeing while nodding. I’d forgotten how much fun she was. As expected, she wasn’t as stunning as she was in the photos, but she looked well and seemed happy. At the end of our coffee date, which had turned into lunch (I paid), she suggested a drink later in the week. I was in.

  After drinks we went back to her house, which I discovered she owned – worth quite a bit, nicely furnished – and she led me to her bedroom. She had clearly learned more than me in that area in the previous decade. I invited her for dinner to my place a few days later. She was impressed by the house. I didn’t say how I’d come to own it and let her believe that I’d earned it. She was slightly less impressed by my cooking. Well, I hadn’t done any cooking, but I’d been to Marks & Spencer and bought some pasta ready meals in a three-for-two offer. I laughed and suggested she could teach me to cook. She said I hadn’t changed, but I wasn’t sure she meant it in a nice way.

  After a further few dates and outings she told me I was cheap, when I had to remind her that it was her turn to pay. I am not cheap, but I have always been careful with money and don’t see the point in squandering it. That date ended badly and we parted company. At the weekend, I went to collect Daisy from hockey and drop her home. Susan made me coffee and, after some conversation, I asked her if she thought I was mean.

  ‘God, yes!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You make Ebenezer Scrooge look good, Brian. You are a skinflint.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous! I don’t splash money around like Will, but he loves flashing the cash. He thinks it makes him look like the big man.’

  ‘Yeah? Well in terms of generosity, you look like the small man. Who finally called you on it?’

  ‘That’s all very well coming from you. You haven’t had to work in years.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I slaved in that bookstore while Will was getting his career off the ground. I went back after Daisy was born. I worked my ass off to get my degree and then my master’s, and now I’m a social activist. Sure, I don’t earn a lot and Will still supports me to some degree out of guilt, but if he stopped tomorrow, I would manage perfectly well. How dare you suggest I don’t work?’

  I was forced to back down then and told her about Gillian. Susan thought my ready-meal dinners were hilarious, and my keeping account of who paid for what on each date outrageous.

  ‘How is it outrageous?’ I asked her. ‘Isn’t equality what you want?’

  ‘Damn it, Brian, there’s a difference between equality and accountancy. When you take Daisy out, for example, you take her to the theatre because you get free tickets. Or you take her to a film premiere because you’re on the guest list. You don’t actually spend any money on her.’

  ‘That’s completely unfair. I took her to Pizza Slice a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Yes, but you said that was her birthday present, you didn’t buy her an additional gift, and for Christmas you gave her some CDs of musicians you represent who she has no interest in. You might have noticed that she listens to everything on her iPod? You gave her CDs that you got for free.’

  ‘But I thought if she liked them, she could spread the word in school, make these young guys popular.’

  ‘What? You’re making it worse! So, you were using her for promotion instead of spending money on something she might actually want?’

  This conversation was going badly astray.

  ‘I bought her an amazing rocking horse.’

  Susan was exasperated. ‘That was for her sixth birthday. Eleven years ago! And it wasn’t even new. You got it second-hand somewhere because there were crayon marks under the saddle.’ Well, she had me there. I had bought it in a junk shop for £20.

  ‘Brian, I say this as a friend, okay? If you want to keep a girlfriend, you have to go into it with an open wallet and an open heart. You have money. We know you do. There might not be a lot coming in, but you got that amazing house for half-nothing and you don’t spend a cent. What are you saving it for? I don’t understand.’

  ‘But I think she earns more than me.’

  ‘So what? You must have thousands stashed away. Try spending some of it. You’ll enjoy it. Seriously, take the girl to Madrid for the weekend. Surprise her. And don’t bring any more women to your mother’s Sunday lunches pretending it’s a date. I cringe for them every time.’

  ‘I’ve only done that a few times.’

  ‘Yeah, well that’s not a date.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Honestly? I’ve been hoping to have this conversation with you since I met you. Back in the bookshop days, you used to tell me how much you’d spent on coffee compared to me, and when it was your turn to buy lunch, you’d bring in sandwiches.’
/>   ‘I thought it was nice to spend some time in St Stephen’s Green.’

  ‘Not in fucking February.’

  ‘Those weren’t dates.’

  ‘Weren’t they?’

  I faltered. ‘Did you think they were dates?’

  ‘I … I don’t know. I was never sure. You never made a move.’

  ‘Are you saying that if I’d paid for lunch, you might have chosen me over Will? That’s a bit mercenary, isn’t it?’

  Her hackles rose, along with her voice. ‘You know what, maybe it is, but it would have made you far more attractive. Will was earning no money then either. He still made me feel special. He might order a pizza to his flat, but he’d have bought an expensive bottle of wine. Something to show he valued me.’

  ‘And look how that turned out.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  We were shouting at each other now. I couldn’t believe what she was telling me. I stormed out of the house and slammed the door.

  A few days later, I texted Susan.

  I’m sorry I got it so wrong. Would you like to come to Madrid next weekend?

  Five minutes later she replied.

  Yes, I would. Tell nobody.

  That weekend cost me €2,000. Best money I ever spent.

  36

  2008

  I got a call from the Abbey Theatre, asking if Mum would audition for a new play. I had taken over the management of her career too, in tandem with Luke’s. I had convinced her to fire her agent. Why should she make money out of Mum when I could get it? I had the contacts and I had a private relationship with some journalists who gave my clients publicity in exchange for insider stories. Some of Mum’s friends had dumped their agents for me too. I was now officially an artists’ agent, representing just twelve singers and actors, but I was making a living and I had finally been able to give up teaching.