‘So there’s nothing to stop you coming home and getting sorted out,’ said Dad.
‘But I have a cat,’ I lied.
‘You can get another one,’ he said.
‘But I have a boyfriend,’ I protested.
‘You can get another one of those too,’ said Dad.
Easy for him to say.
‘Put me back onto Margaret and I’ll see you tomorrow,’ said Dad.
‘You will in your arse,’ I muttered.
And that seemed to be that. Luckily I had taken a couple of Valium. Otherwise I might have been very upset indeed.
Margaret was sitting beside me. In fact, she seemed to be constantly by my side, once I thought about it.
After she finished talking to Dad, I decided to put a stop to all the nonsense. It was time for me to grab back control of the reins of my life. Because this wasn’t funny, it wasn’t entertaining, it wasn’t diverting. It was unpleasant, and above all it was unnecessary.
‘Margaret,’ I said briskly, ‘there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, but please go away and take your husband with you. This is all a big, huge, terrible mistake.’
‘I don’t think it is,’ she said. ‘Brigit says…’
‘Never mind what Brigit says,’ I interrupted. ‘I’m actually worried about Brigit because she’s gone so weird. She used to be fun once.’
Margaret looked doubtful, then she said, ‘But you do seem to take an awful lot of drugs.’
‘It might seem an awful lot to you,’ I explained gently. ‘But you’re a lickarse, so any amount would seem like lots.’
It was true that Margaret was a lickarse. I had four sisters, two older and two younger and Margaret was the only well-behaved one of the lot. My mother used to run her eye along us all and sadly say, ‘Well, one out of five ain’t bad.’
‘I’m not a lickarse,’ she complained. ‘I’m just ordinary.’
‘Yes, Rachel.’ Paul had stepped forward to defend Margaret. ‘She’s not a lickarse. Just because she’s not a, a… junkie who can’t get a job and whose husband leaves her… Unlike some,’ he finished darkly.
I spotted the flaw in his argument.
‘My husband hasn’t left me,’ I protested in my defence.
‘That’s because you haven’t got one,’ said Paul.
Paul was obviously referring to my eldest sister, Claire, who managed to get ditched by her husband on the same day that she gave birth to their first child.
‘And I have a job,’ I reminded him.
‘Not any more, you don’t.’ He smirked.
I hated him.
And he hated me. I didn’t take it personally. He hated my entire family. He had a hard job deciding which one of Margaret’s sisters he hated the most. And well he might, there was stiff competition among us for the position of black sheep. There was Claire, thirty-one, the deserted wife. Me, twenty-seven, allegedly a junkie. Anna, twenty-four, who’d never had a proper job, and who sometimes sold hash to make ends meet. And there was Helen, twenty, and frankly, I wouldn’t know where to begin.
We all hated Paul as much as he hated us.
Even Mum, although she wouldn’t admit to it. She liked to pretend that she liked everyone, in the hope that it might help her jump the queue into Heaven.
Paul was such a pompous know-all. He wore the same kind of jumpers as Dad did and bought his first house when he was thirteen or some such ridiculous age by saving up his First Communion money.
‘You’d better get back on the phone to Dad,’ I told Margaret. ‘Because I’m going nowhere.’
‘How right you are,’ agreed Paul nastily.
2
The air hostess tried to squeeze past Paul and me. ‘Can you sit down, please ? You’re blocking the aisle.’
Still Paul and I lingered awkwardly. Margaret, good girl that she was, had already taken her allocated seat by the window.
‘What’s the problem?’ The air hostess looked at our boarding cards, then she looked at the seat numbers.
‘But these are the right seats,’ she said.
That was the problem. The boarding-card numbers had me sitting beside Paul and the thought of being next to him for the entire flight to Dublin revolted me. I wouldn’t be able to let my right thigh relax for a whole seven hours.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sitting beside him.’
I indicated Paul.
‘And I’m not sitting beside her,’ he said.
‘Well, how about you?’ the air hostess asked Margaret. ‘Have you any objections to who you sit beside?’
‘No.’
‘Fine,’ she said patiently. ‘Why don’t you go on the inside.’
She said this to Paul.
‘Come out, you,’ she said to Margaret. ‘Then you go in the middle.’
‘And then you,’ she said to me.
‘OK,’ we all said meekly.
A man in the seat in front of us twisted his neck for a good look at the three of us.
He stared at us for a while with a puzzled look on his face. Then he spoke.
‘Do you mind me asking,’ he said. ‘But what age are you?’
Yes, I had agreed to go home to Ireland.
Even though I had had absolutely no intention of doing so, a couple of things changed my mind. First, tall, dark and sexy Luke arrived at the apartment. I was delighted to see him.
‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ I asked, then proudly introduced him to Margaret and Paul.
Luke shook hands politely, but his expression was tight and tense. To put the smile back on his face, I launched into the story of my escapade in Mount Solomon. But he didn’t seem to find it funny. Instead he gripped my arm hard and muttered, ‘I’d like a word with you in private.’
Puzzled, I left Margaret and Paul sitting in the front room and took Luke into my bedroom. From his grim air I didn’t think he was going to clamber all over me and say ‘Quickly, let’s get you out of these wet clothes,’ and expertly remove my garments, like he usually did.
Nevertheless I still wasn’t prepared for what did happen. He indicated that he wasn’t at all amused by my hospital visit. In fact, he sounded disgusted.
‘When did you lose your sense of humour?’ I asked bewildered. ‘You’re as bad as Brigit.’
‘I’m not even going to answer that,’ he hissed.
Then, to my utter horror, he proceeded to tell me our relationship was over. I went cold with shock. He’d ended it with me?
‘But why?’ I asked, as every cell in my body screamed ‘NO!’ ‘Have you met someone else?’
‘Don’t be so stupid,’ he spat.
‘Why then?’ I asked.
‘Because you’re not the person I thought you were,’ he said.
Well, that told me precisely nothing.
He went on to viciously insult me, trying to make out it was my fault. That he had no choice but to end it with me.
‘Oh no.’ I wasn’t going to be manipulated. ‘Break it off with me if you’re determined to, but don’t try and blame me.’
‘God,’ he said angrily, ‘there’s just no getting through to you.’
He stood up and moved towards the door.
Don’t go.
Pausing only to throw a few more nasty comments my way, he slammed out of the apartment. I was devastated. It wasn’t the first time a man had ditched me for no obvious reason, but I hadn’t expected it from Luke Costello. We’d had a relationship for over six months. I had even begun to think it was a good one.
I struggled to deflect waves of shock and grief and pretend to Margaret and Paul that everything was fine. Then in the midst of my stunned, stomach-churning misery, Margaret said ‘Rachel, you’ve got to come home. Dad’s already paid the deposit for you at the Cloisters.’ And I felt like I’d been thown a life-line.
The Cloisters ! The Cloisters was famous.
Hundreds of rock stars had been admitted to the converted monastery in Wicklow (no doub
t tying in some handy tax exiling while they were at it) and stayed the requisite couple of months. Then, before you could say ‘Make mine a fizzy water’, they’d stopped wrecking hotel rooms and driving cars into swimming pools, had a new album out, were on every talk show going, speaking gently and being serene, with their hair cut and neatly combed, while reviewers spoke about a new quality and an extra dimension to their work.
I wouldn’t mind going to the Cloisters. There was no shame attached to that. On the contrary. And you never knew who you might meet.
Being blown out by Luke caused me to rethink my entire life.
Maybe it would be OK to leave New York for a while, I thought carefully. Especially as there seemed to be a move towards a ban on enjoying yourself there. I didn’t have to go for ever, just for a couple of months until I felt better.
What harm could it do now that I had no job and no boyfriend to hold me? It was one thing to lose my job, because I’d always get another one. But to lose a boyfriend… well…
‘What do you think, Rachel?’ Margaret asked anxiously. ‘How about it?’
Naturally, I had to put up a bit of a protest. I couldn’t admit that my life was so worthless that I could walk away from it without a backward glance. I made a show of resisting, but it was mere bravado, empty posturing.
‘How would you like it,’ I demanded of Margaret, ‘if I marched into your life and said “Come on now, Mags, say goodbye to Paul, your friends, your flat, your job and your life. You’re going three thousand miles away to a madhouse, even though there’s nothing wrong with you”? Well, how would you like that?’
Margaret was nearly in tears. ‘Oh, Rachel, I’m sorry. But it’s not a madhouse and…’
I couldn’t keep it up for long because I hated upsetting Margaret. Even though she was weird and saved money and hadn’t had sex until she got married, I was still very fond of her. So by the time I got round to saying ‘Margaret, how can your conscience let you do this to me? How can you sleep at night?’ my capitulation was complete.
When I said ‘OK, I’ll go,’ relieved looks shot between Brigit, Margaret and Paul, which annoyed me because they were acting as if I was some kind of incapacitated half-wit.
Once I had a good think about it, a rehabilitation place seemed like a good idea. A great idea.
I hadn’t had a holiday in ages. I could do with a rest, some peace and serenity. Somewhere to hide and lick my Luke-shaped wounds.
The words of Patrick Kavanagh’s Advent floated around in my head, We have tested and tasted too much, lover, through a chink too wide, there comes in no wonder.
I’d read loads about the Cloisters and it sounded wonderful. I had visions of spending a lot of time sitting around wrapped in a big towel. Of steam rooms, saunas, massage, seaweed treatment, algae, that kind of thing. I’d eat lots of fruit, I vowed, nothing but fruit and vegetables. And I’d drink gallons of water, at least eight glasses of water a day. To flush me out, to cleanse me.
It would be good to go for a month or so without a drink and without doing drugs.
A whole month, I thought, clenched by sudden fear. Then the calming effect of the Valium soothed me. Anyway, they probably had wine with the meals in the evenings. Or maybe people like me, the ones that didn’t have serious problems, would be allowed out to walk down to the local pub.
I would stay in a simple converted monk’s cell. Slate floors, whitewashed walls, a narrow wooden bed, the faraway sound of Gregorian chant floating on the evening air. And, of course, they’d have a gym. Everyone knows that exercise is the best cure for alcoholics and the like. I’d have a stomach like a plank when I came out. Two hundred sit-ups a day. It would be great to have time to spend on myself. So when I returned to New York, I’d look fabulous and Luke would be on his knees begging me to take him back.
There was bound to be some kind of therapy, as well. Therapy therapy, I mean, not just cellulite therapy. The lie-down-on-the-couch-and-tell-me-about-your-father kind. Which I’d be quite happy to go along with. Not to actually do, of course. But it would be very interesting to see the real drug addicts, the thin ones with the anoraks and the lank hair, nurturing themselves as five-year-olds. I would emerge cleansed, whole, renewed, reborn. Everyone who was currently pissed-off with me wouldn’t be pissed-off anymore. The old me would have gone, the new me ready to start all over again.
‘Will she, er, be going, you know, cold turkey?’ Margaret tentatively asked Brigit, as we prepared for the snow-lined drive to JFK.
‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’ I laughed. ‘You’re all overreacting wildly. Cold turkey, my foot. You only get that with heroin.’
‘And you’re not on heroin, then?’ asked Margaret.
I rolled my eyes at her in exasperation.
‘Well, how am I supposed to know?’ she shouted.
‘I’ve got to go to the loo first,’ I said.
‘I’ll come with you,’ offered Margaret.
‘No, you won’t.’ I broke into a run.
I reached it just before she did and slammed the door in her face.
‘Get lost,’ I shouted from behind the locked bathroom door. ‘Or I’ll start shooting up just to annoy you.’
As the plane took off from JFK, I settled back in my seat and I was surprised to find that I felt intense relief. I had the strange feeling that I was being airlifted to safety. I was suddenly very glad to be leaving New York. Life hadn’t been easy lately. So little room to manoeuvre.
I was skint, I owed money to nearly everyone. I laughed to myself because for a minute there I really did sound like a drug addict. I didn’t owe that kind of money, but I was up to the limit of both my credit cards and I’d had to borrow from every single one of my friends.
Work in the hotel where I was an assistant manager had become harder and harder to do. There were times when I walked through the revolving doors to start my shift and found myself wanting to scream. Eric, my boss, had been very bad tempered and difficult. I had been sick a lot and late a lot. Which made Eric more unpleasant. Which, naturally, made me take more time off sick. Until my life had shrivelled down to two emotions. Despair when I was at work, guilt when I wasn’t.
As the plane cut through the clouds over Long Island, I thought fiercely ‘I could be at work now. I’m not and I’m glad.’
I closed my eyes and unwelcome thoughts of Luke came barging in. The initial pain of rejection had shifted slightly to make room for the pain of missing him. He and I had practically been living together and I felt his absence like an ache. I shouldn’t have started thinking about him and what he had said because it made me feel a bit hysterical. I became seized by an almost uncontrollable compulsion to find him that very minute, tell him how wrong he was and beg him to take me back. To get such an uncontrollable compulsion on an airborne plane at the start of a seven-hour flight was a foolish thing to do. So I fought back the urge to pull the communication cord. Luckily the air hostess was on her way round with the drinks and I accepted a vodka and orange with the same gratitude that a drowning girl might accept a rope.
‘Stop it,’ I muttered as Margaret and Paul stared at me with white, anxious faces. ‘I’m upset. Anyway, since when wasn’t I allowed to have a drink?’
‘Just don’t overdo it,’ said Margaret. ‘Promise me?’
Mum took the news that I was a drug addict very badly. My youngest sister, Helen, had been watching daytime television with her when Dad broke the news. Apparently after he had got off the phone from Brigit, he ran into the sitting-room and, all of a dither, blurted out ‘That daughter of yours is a drug addict.’
All Mum said was ‘Hmmm?’ and continued watching Ricki Lake and the big-haired trailer-park trash.
‘But I know that,’ she added. ‘What are you getting your knickers in a knot about?’
‘No,’ said Dad, annoyed. ‘This isn’t a joke. I’m not talking about Anna. It’s Rachel!’
And apparently a funny expression appeared on Mum’s face and she kind of lurched
to her feet. Then, with Dad and Helen watching her – Dad nervously, Helen gleefully – she felt her way blindly into the kitchen and put her head on the kitchen table and started to cry.
‘A drug addict,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t bear it.’
Dad put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
‘Anna maybe,’ she wailed. ‘Anna certainly. But not Rachel. It’s bad enough having one, Jack, but two of them. I don’t know what they do with the bloody tinfoil. I really don’t! Anna goes through it like wildfire and when I ask her what she does with it, you can’t get a straight answer out of the child.’
‘She uses it to wrap the hash into little parcels when she’s selling it,’ supplied Helen helpfully.
‘Mary, shut up about the tinfoil a minute,’ said Dad, as he tried to formulate a plan for my rehabilitation.
Then his head snapped back to Helen. ‘She does what?’ he said, aghast.
Meanwhile, Mum was furious.
‘Oh “shut up about it” is it?’ she demanded of Dad. ‘It’s all very well for you to say shut up about the tinfoil. You’re not the one who has to roast a turkey and goes to the press to get a sheet of tinfoil to cover the fecker with and finds there’s nothing there only a roll of cardboard. It’s not your turkey that ends up as dry as the Sahara.’
‘Mary, please, for the love of God…’
‘If she only told me she’d used it, it wouldn’t be so bad. If she left the cardboard roll out I might remember to get more the next time I went to Quinnsworth…’
‘Try and remember the name of the place that that fellow went in to,’ he said.
‘What fellow?’
‘You know, the alcoholic, the one who embezzled all that money, he was married to that sister of the one you go on the retreats with, you know him.’
‘Patsy Madden, is that who you’re talking about?’ asked Mum.
‘That’s the lad!’ Dad was delighted. ‘Well, find out where he went to, to get help for the jar.’