Our Little Cruelties

by Liz Nugent

  Grace sidled up to me at the bar of the Radisson on Friday night, elbowed me. ‘Would you get me a margarita, Will? I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Sure, any particular tequila?’

  She grinned and pointed to a table outside on the patio smoking deck. I dutifully ordered the drinks and followed her, curious as to what she had to say. She’d already given my new film, Brazen Souls, a great write-up and interviewed the three leads.

  ‘It’s about your brother.’ I assumed she meant Luke.

  Mary Cullen, who I had employed and trained, had made a feature film, The Star Maiden, with Luke in a major role. I laughed when I heard it first. Luke had no experience and the chances of his actually showing up for the job were so bad I was sure they’d never get the necessary insurance to cast him. But I’d heard from people in the know that not only was the film good, but that he was great in it. He was playing a psychopathic husband opposite an A-list actress. The film had gone down well at international film festivals and was gaining traction. It was getting its Irish premiere here in Galway.

  My film, Brazen Souls, was about marathon running, and I was sure it was going to capture the zeitgeist of modern-day fitness fanatics. Gyms were opening up at the same rate that pubs were closing down and college students seemed to be spending more time working out than drinking. The millennial Instagram generation. Brazen Souls was released on the festival circuit around the same time as The Star Maiden and was getting the same kind of attention.

  There was an Oscar buzz about both films. I’d been around the block long enough to know this meant nothing, except perhaps a bigger release on more screens. Mary and Luke were less experienced than I was, and overexcited at the prospect. I sat back and waited for their bubble to burst. The Irish media made much of the fact that the two Drumm brothers were in fierce competition with each other while the third, Brian, was managing the careers of most of Ireland’s young talent. My daughter, Daisy, was at the forefront of Brian’s stable of performers, musicians and activists.

  Luke and I were not in competition. We still spoke to each other and met up from time to time, mostly at film industry functions. He had sent me a screener of his film and invited me to various showings, but I made excuses not to watch it. I know he was desperate for me to see it and to say something positive about it, or at least his performance in it, but I guess sibling rivalry never goes away. Luke had been a star when Susan and I were struggling to get the money together to feed Daisy. He had not helped me then. Why should I congratulate him now? I suppose it was a positive development that his mental health was stable at the moment. The stories about him in the papers now were usually optimistic. I tried to be glad for him. I tried to ignore that he and Mary seemed to be a committed couple.

  ‘What has he done now?’ I said to Grace wearily, worried that he might have slipped back into a bad emotional state.

  ‘Do you trust him with your daughter?’

  ‘What? He barely has anything to do with her.’

  ‘Isn’t he managing her?’

  ‘Oh, you mean Brian?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Brian had more or less taken control of Daisy. I knew she was vulnerable, but I had to accept she was now a twenty-three-year-old adult making her own choices. Luke said she’d come back around to me again, but I hadn’t seen her in seven months and Susan only saw her occasionally. Susan seemed to want to let things lie. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t as furious with Brian as I was. Brian and I had not spoken in months either.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Okay, now I know this is delicate, because it’s family, but I was in Paris a few weeks ago doing a story about how the Irish music scene has failed to penetrate the European market apart from the obvious people like U2, and your brother Luke back in the day, and one of the people I interviewed was in a class that Brian taught, oh, it must be … over twenty years ago. And you know –’

  ‘Sorry, but what has this got to do with anything? How did Brian’s name even come up? It’s not like he’s famous.’

  ‘This woman was a fan of Luke’s when she was in school. I said I knew you and Luke. She told me that Brian brought all the students to Luke’s gig in some arena …’

  ‘Right?’

  Grace exhaled smoke that floated innocently out over Lough Atalia, and as she spoke, I watched the hairs on the back of my arm stand up.

  ‘And … well, look, it might be nothing, but … she said Brian was fired from the school for having an improper relationship with a student in her class. The girl was fifteen and he would have been twenty-five, so not a huge age gap in adult terms, but still illegal, and she was a child, and I just wondered if this was something you were aware of, or something you should be aware of? Especially now your daughter is … you know … living with him. Don’t worry, I won’t be writing this up, but if someone from the Mail were to get hold of this story, well, there’s nothing I could do …’ Grace was a freelancer. She wrote for nearly all the dailies, but that wasn’t what concerned me.

  ‘You see, normally, Brian came to us with all the dirt on Luke –’

  ‘He what?’

  ‘Oh, Will, where do you think we got all the stories on Luke? For years, Brian sold stories about him. His childhood, his freak-outs, psychiatric committals … and he’d give us a name of some friend or neighbour who would verify the story with a little prompting. But I just wanted to give you a heads-up, you know, because I can’t guarantee this will stay out of the papers, you understand?’

  I don’t remember the rest of what she said. In my mind’s eye, I saw all the times Brian had hugged Daisy, from when she was small until quite recently when she no longer hugged me or Susan. He was always physically affectionate with her. When they watched TV, her legs would be up on his lap. She’d never done that with me. I thought of all the times I had come home to find Brian ‘playing’ with Daisy when she was a child. He told me about her first bra. Could he possibly …?

  Was it normal for a man in his late forties never to have had a long-term relationship with an adult woman? Had he been grooming Daisy? Was he in a relationship with her? And hadn’t Daisy broken up with her girlfriend shortly after moving into Brian’s house? Had something been going on since her teens?

  I sat through the screening of our film, made a speech on autopilot. I tried in vain to get a taxi driver to take me back to Dublin after the film, but it would be a five-hour round trip and they all refused. I’d had quite a bit to drink. I had a sleepless night in my hotel and, early next morning, I threw my suitcase into the back of the car and broke all the speed limits getting back to Dublin. I parked outside Brian’s house – Luke’s house – and watched and waited. After an hour, Daisy approached the gate on foot along with two other androgynous-looking types her own age.

  ‘Daisy?’ I called out to her.

  ‘Dad!’ She seemed surprised, but not annoyed to see me there. ‘What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Galway?’

  I needed to stay calm. I was glad to hear that she was keeping up with my movements though.

  ‘I’m going out to your mum’s for lunch. I thought you might like to join us. It’s been a while.’

  She gave her pals the key to let themselves in and hung her head in the car window.

  ‘I’m glad to see you but, y’know –’ she pointed at her friends who were going in through the basement door – ‘I have plans with these guys.’

  ‘We never see you, Daisy.’

  She sighed. ‘I miss you, I really do, but you have to accept my life choices and that I’m happy here with Brian. He takes care of me. He doesn’t judge me.’

  ‘We’d take care of you too, Daisy. Please, come with me now. We miss you too.’

  She bristled.

  ‘So I should just cancel my plans right now because you say so? That’s the problem, Dad. Brian would never expect me to do that.’

  I had to grip the steering wheel and keep smiling at her.

  ‘
What about lunch tomorrow?’

  ‘Okay. Is Brian invited too?’

  ‘Let’s take it one step at a time, okay, sweetie?’

  ‘Dad! For God’s sake! I am not your sweetie. I’m a grown woman.’

  ‘Right. Sorry, sorry. But please come to lunch tomorrow?’

  ‘In your place or in Mum’s?’

  I knew this was a gender challenge. I always let Susan do the cooking for family meals. Daisy said I was a typical example of the patriarchy.

  ‘Come to mine. I’ll cook. I’ll even wash up.’

  She eyed me suspiciously. ‘What are you going to cook?’

  ‘A roast chicken dinner.’ It was Daisy’s favourite.

  ‘Okay. What time?’

  ‘Twelve thirty. Just you. No Brian.’

  ‘Fine.’ She rolled her eyes but agreed as if she was doing me a reluctant favour. She walked away towards the door.

  Maybe I was wrong. Daisy was ‘woke’, as they say; there was no way she would allow herself to be taken advantage of by her uncle. She seemed to be comfortable in her skin, and though she was clearly overweight, the strained and pained look had gone from her face. Brian had sent us emails telling us about all the counselling he had arranged for her. We were so angry that we hadn’t replied. Daisy’s friends were obviously free to come and go; it all looked innocent. But what had happened at the school in Paris? What had Grace said about Luke doing a concert in Paris at the time Brian was teaching? I needed to talk to him.

  Luke was thrilled with the advance reviews of his film, particularly the ones that singled out his performance as Oscar-worthy. But he had shied away from doing any press junkets, didn’t attend any of the film festivals if he didn’t have to. He was determined to stay out of the limelight and Mary was protecting him from that end of things as best she could.

  I called him.

  ‘Luke.’

  ‘Hey, Will, are you in Galway? Did you see my film? Mary said she saw you …’

  ‘I’m not ringing about that. Can I come over and see you?’

  ‘Well, sure, but what’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.’

  ‘Sounds serious. Are you in trouble?’ And then his voice rose. ‘Am I?’

  I was so tired of Luke always thinking the world revolved around him.

  ‘No, it’s – look, I’ll be there in twenty minutes, okay?’

  ‘Okay, but I’ve moved.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I moved into Mary’s house two weeks ago. I meant to tell you.’

  I sighed. ‘Fine. What’s the address?’

  An apartment overlooking Dun Laoghaire harbour as it turned out. Well furnished, nicely decorated. But definitely a woman’s apartment. There was no trace of Luke there, except for Luke himself.

  He looked smart, his salt-and-pepper hair only slightly receding at the forehead whereas my bald patch was creeping towards my ears. His manner and movements were calm. Three years of mental stability was a record for him. It couldn’t last. I almost felt sorry for Mary though I had never forgiven her for wrecking my relationship with Daisy. Daisy always saw me differently after that weekend at the Cannes Film Festival all those years ago, and I’d been stupid enough to let Brian take my place as her father figure. I should have tried harder.

  ‘Luke, when you were touring in Paris years ago, I mean, like twenty years ago, when Brian was living there –’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Were you stable then? Do you remember that time?’

  He looked offended. ‘Yes, I was, William.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, it’s just that … look, a journalist has told me some weird stuff about Brian, and I wondered if you’d remember anything?’

  ‘Oh, that? Yeah, I remember. It was weird all right, but he denied everything.’

  ‘You knew?’ I was incredulous.

  ‘Yes, but who am I to judge? Maybe he was just experimenting. We were really young, Will. Is some tabloid trying to expose that? It’s pathetic!’

  I was alarmed by Luke’s casual attitude. ‘He wasn’t as young as the girl.’

  ‘What girl?’

  ‘The schoolgirl!’

  ‘What?’

  Our conversation was at cross purposes. It took another ten minutes to ascertain that Luke thought our brother Brian had been in a gay relationship with a restaurant owner.

  ‘Look, I’m not a hundred per cent certain, but it looked that way to me. Brian was living with him in his swanky apartment in a pretty salubrious part of town and he couldn’t have afforded that on a dishwasher’s salary.’

  ‘A dishwasher? I thought he was a teacher.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t remember the details, but he switched jobs the week I was there. The guy he was living with owned the restaurant. I had dinner there. I think Brian was actually fired from the teaching job.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t remem–’

  ‘Luke, think! This is important. Why did he get fired from the teaching job?’

  ‘I don’t know. Honestly. It was something to do with a student.’

  ‘Had he interfered with her? This student?’

  ‘What? God, no! At least, I don’t know. He never told me. I thought he’d hit a kid. You know how he used to have such a temper. But he refused to tell me what it was about. He came on the road with me after that. Remember? He was doing my merch.’

  ‘Right. With plenty of access to teenage girls.’

  ‘What are you saying? That’s not cool, Will.’

  ‘What’s not cool, Luke, is that Brian has been selling your stories to the tabloids for years. Remember all the times you said you couldn’t trust anyone? It’s Brian you shouldn’t have trusted. He made money out of you, not just by being your agent but by selling your history.’

  Luke stood up suddenly. ‘No! He wouldn’t, he couldn’t. We know he’s always been tight with money, but he wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘To be honest, I don’t give a shit about that right now – I need to know if he is or was in a relationship with my daughter. The whole gay thing sounds like a smokescreen to me. He’s into young girls and I’m fucking terrified that Daisy is one of them.’

  Luke started pacing the room, his hands on his head. ‘Oh my God. That arsehole!’

  ‘Calm the fuck down!’ I barked at him. ‘Try to remember all the details of what Brian was at in Paris, the name of the school, the name of the restaurant and its owner. There’s a chance this could all be wrong.’

  ‘But he sold the stories on me? Definitely?’

  ‘Yes, Luke, this is all about you.’

  I drove out to Susan’s then. It was after five when I arrived, and she answered the door in her dressing gown, looking shattered. I was momentarily taken aback.

  ‘Are you sick?’ I asked as I followed her into the kitchen. She hesitated before answering.

  ‘Menopause. I feel like I’ve been run over by a train. Everything hurts.’

  ‘Sounds more like flu to me.’

  She stopped and glared at me.

  ‘Yes, Will, because you’d be an expert on the menopause.’ She hadn’t lost her sarcasm.

  ‘I’m here to talk about Daisy.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No, it can’t. She’s coming to my apartment for lunch tomorrow and I’d like you to be there. We have to confront her.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘God, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m worried she might be in some kind of weird relationship with Brian.’

  Susan sat up from her reclined position on the sofa and pushed a greasy strand of hair behind one ear.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘They’re too close. They always have been. The way he is with her. You’ve seen it yourself. They hug each other. Why would he have encouraged her to live with him? It’s weird, isn’t it? Like Michael Jackson weird?’

  ‘God almighty, what goes on in your head? D
o you just dream up fantasy scenarios to satisfy your jealousy? I’m as pissed off as you are that he has Daisy under his thumb but throwing accusations like that is just disgusting and dangerous.’

  I was surprised she was so dismissive. But she hadn’t heard the full story.

  ‘He got fired from that school in Paris for inappropriate behaviour with a fifteen-year-old girl. It’s all about to come out. A journalist told me.’

  ‘Nothing happened there, that girl got obsessed with him. He never touched her. But he punched the headmaster in the face when he was questioned about it. That’s why he was fired.’

  ‘What? How do you know?’

  ‘I went to Paris with Brian a few years ago. We met up with an old friend of his, Conrad, the gay guy who owned the restaurant. They talked about the whole thing.’

  I thought I was misunderstanding something.

  ‘You … what? Why did you go to Paris with Brian?’

  She pulled at her hair again. Something she always did when she was uncomfortable.

  ‘I was at a loose end. So was he. We just decided to go.’

  ‘And why didn’t I hear about this?’

  ‘Because it was none of your business.’

  ‘Oh my God, he’s been grooming you to get to Daisy!’

  ‘No, he wasn’t! Why are you so determined that your brother is some kind of paedophile?’

  ‘Because he’s always been way too friendly with her. At the time, I thought he was a great godfather but, oh Jesus, he took her swimming every week, don’t you remember? When we weren’t getting on, she’d have sleepovers in his house. Doesn’t that strike you as weird? Why would an adult man want to spend time with a little kid, or a teenager?’