Her loving expression remained on me and I noticed she’d missed a patch just below her ear. For some reason this squeezed me with hopeless tenderness.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Thank God,’ she sighed. I was afraid you might go… a bit mad for yourself.’
‘What news from home?’ I was keen to change the subject.
‘Well, you heard about us being broken into, did you?’
‘No! What happened?’
Moving her orange face even closer to mine, Mum told the story. Apparently, one morning as Dad was going downstairs to make Mum’s cup of tea, he met an unfamiliar youth climbing the stairs. ‘Morning,’ Dad said, because an unfamiliar youth climbing the stairs was, in itself, nothing unusual. With five daughters, the chances of this sort of encounter of a morning were high. But then Dad noticed that the youth had two of his golf trophies under his arm. And that the microwave was by the front door. And so was the telly. ‘What are you doing with my golf trophies?’ Dad had asked uncertainly.
‘Ah fuck!’ the youth had said moodily, bouncing the trophies on to the ground, bolting down the stairs and out into the wide, blue yonder. It was then that Dad saw the key still in the front door – left there when Helen had come home the previous night. The youth was no swain of one of his daughter’s, but an opportunistic, early-morning burglar.
‘It was the mercy of God that your father got up,’ Mum said. ‘Or else the bed would have been stolen out from under us. And another night Anna came home scuttered, put some beans on the ring, then fell asleep.’
‘I was still there when that happened.’
‘Oh, were you? We could all have been burnt in our beds. Mind you,’ she said ruminatively, ‘I suppose we could count ourselves lucky to still have beds to be burnt in, the way things were going… Now tell me,’ abruptly Mum changed the subject and dropped her voice to a hiss. ‘Is my face a bit much?’
‘No, Mum, you’re gorgeous.’
‘Only it’s fake, you see. I was putting it on and nothing was happening and I put some more on, a good handful, and when I looked in the mirror this morning this is what I was greeted with.’
‘But you know the colour doesn’t come up immediately, Mum, we keep telling you, you have to wait.’
‘I know, but I’m always afraid that I haven’t put on enough. Anyway, I think it’s marvellous to have a bit of a colour, but Helen has been at me, making fun.’ She paused, swallowed, then made herself continue. ‘She’s been calling me Outspan Head. Kept telling the air hostesses, “Outspan Head can’t work her earphones, Outspan Head wants another blanket.” She even told the man at immigration that that was my real name, not the name on my passport, and it wasn’t funny, they can’t take a joke, those men.’
‘Maybe Helen’s jealous.’
‘Jealous!’ Suddenly it all made sense to Mum. ‘Sure of course she is! That’s what’s up with her. But you’re OK yourself? And you’re coming home soon?’
Then Dad made the same sort of enquiries about my general well-being, though of course, being a man and worse still being an Irish man, he did it more obliquely and without eye contact. ‘You’re looking… healthy.’
‘I’m fine, Dad.’
‘You’ve been… eating properly and all that?’
‘Yes, Dad, I’m fine and you’re not to worry about what you told me about seeing Garv.’
‘It was his cousin?’
‘Ah no, it wasn’t. But don’t worry, it’s still OK. Right, I’ll go on home. I’m sure you’re all knackered, I’ll see you tomorrow.’
From the clamour of disagreement that ensued, this was clearly the wrong thing to say.
‘But it’s gone midnight in Ireland,’ I protested. ‘What about your jet lag?’
‘The best way to deal with jet lag is to try and stay awake, then go to sleep at the normal time,’ Mum said knowledgeably. I looked at her in wonder. Since when had she become such an expert traveller? ‘That’s what Nuala Freeman said.’
‘Oh well, if Nuala Freeman said it, it must be true,’ Helen said bitterly. And I had to agree with her; Nuala Freeman sounded like a right pain in the bum.
‘And we have to have our dinner,’ Mum said. ‘How can we go to bed before we have our dinner?’ They are creatures of routine, my parents.
‘Is it too late to go to Disneyland today?’ Dad asked.
‘It’s half-four, you old fool,’ Helen said.
‘But it stays open till midnight,’ Mum supplied. ‘Nuala Freeman said.’
Before Helen could round up a lynch mob for Nuala Freeman, I quickly told Dad that it was a two-hour drive to Disneyland and that we’d be better off going another day. I suggested that they unpack and spend some time by the pool, then we’d go out for an early dinner.
‘What about you?’ I asked Helen and Anna. Surely they’d want to go out, get pissed and look for surf gods? But they decided to come – they had to eat and Dad was paying.
‘And what about Emily?’ Mum asked. ‘I told Mrs Emily I’d look in on her and make sure she’s eating properly and looking after herself.’
‘Emily’s very busy,’ I said, but Mum had got that look.
‘All right,’ I caved in. ‘But I’d better bring her car home in case she needs it. I’ll tell her to expect us all later.’
‘Then you’ll be right back?’
Yes.’
I whizzed home, warned a knackered-looking Emily that they’d be calling in to her for a quick drink before dinner, then returned to the Ocean View, where we whiled away a not-unpleasant couple of hours, unpacking and bickering.
At six o’clock, we walked the six blocks from the hotel to Emily’s. Even though this was Santa Monica, where people were occasionally spotted getting from A to Β without vehicular assistance, the sight of five people walking on their hind legs caused almost as much of a stir as it must have done when the prehistoric tree-dwellers first came down to terra firma and decided to give it a go. Cars kept slowing down to stare at us, like we had two heads each. ‘What’s up with them?’ Mum tisked, as yet another car beeped us. ‘Helen, what have you been doing?’
‘Nothing!’ She didn’t sound innocent, so I relaxed. It’s when she sounds innocent that you really have to worry.
When we got to Emily’s street, Helen noticed the surveillance-equipment shop at the end of it and made us all go in, where she quizzed the man up and down about what the stuff was for.
‘Mostly domestic use,’ he said. ‘We got hidden cameras and tiny microphones if you suspect that your husband is having an affair and want to tape his… like… activities.’
The jokey way the man said it meant he thought it was out of the question that a husband of Helen’s would ever have an affair and need to be taped, but a pall suddenly settled on our little group and everyone avoided meeting my eyes.
‘And I supply quite a few private detectives.’
‘Private detectives!’ Helen’s already glowing face lit up even further. ‘I wouldn’t mind being a private detective.’
‘Right, we’ll be off so!’ Dad said, fear in his voice. I don’t think he could take another career change from Helen just yet.
Back on the street, as we passed Mike and Charmaine’s, Mike stood up and had a good, decidedly unspiritual gawk at us through his window. Then, as Helen and Anna filed up Emily’s short path, the dirty, torn sheet that passed for a curtain in the Goatee Boys’ front window twitched. Convulsively.
Emily, God love her, was still labouring away at Chip the Dog, and she was exhausted.
‘Hello Mrs Walsh. Gosh, you’ve a great colour.’
Mum hesitated, then preened. ‘I take the sun well.’
We all filed into the front room, where Justin and Desiree were sitting; they’d come by to help Emily with some of the doggier parts of her screenplay.
‘How’s Desiree’s anorexia?’ I asked, sucking in my face to indicate great thinness.
‘Way better,’ Justin said hap
pily, then added, ‘since she started on Prozac’
Right. For a minute there I thought normality had come to pay a visit. Clearly I was wrong.
Wine was uncorked and introductions were effected.
‘What do you do?’ Dad asked Justin. Dad could only relax with people once he knew what job they did. He was at his happiest in the company of local-government officials.
‘I’m an actor, but –’
‘That’s right!’ Mum said appraisingly. ‘I’ve seen you.’
‘You have?’ Clearly this had never happened to Justin before.
‘I have. In Space Hogs, wasn’t it? They sent you down to that planet and the scaly plant thing ate you.’
‘Er, yes. Yes!’ Justin’s dinner-plate face lit up. ‘That was me.’
‘You gave an excellent performance, but to be honest I thought it was idiotic beaming you and the other space corporal down like that. Wouldn’t anyone with an ounce of sense know that you wouldn’t last five minutes with that scaly plant thing?’
‘Yes! Totally right! But the way it works is…’
As Justin explained the whole expendable-fat-guy thing to Mum, I was surprised to see Mike and Charmaine had arrived. They claimed they were coming to see how Emily was getting on with her desmudged house, but if I didn’t know better I’d think they’d just come in out of nosiness.
Dad was very pleased that Mike worked in health insurance – which I hadn’t known. I’d always thought he’d have some airy-fairy, touchy-feely form of employment. Then Emily brought Mike over to meet Mum.
‘This,’ Emily said dramatically, ‘is Mammy Walsh. And this –’ She turned to Mike, but Mum interrupted and with her most charming smile said to him, ‘Oh, I know who you are.’
‘You do?’
‘You’ve so many famous friends,’ Mum complimented Emily, then turned back to Mike. ‘You write those travel books, don’t you? And didn’t you have your own TV series for a while? What’s that your name is?’
‘Mike Harte,’ Mike said politely.
‘No, no, it isn’t. It begins with a “W”. Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue – what is it?’
‘Mike Harte,’ Mike repeated, just as politely.
‘No! I have it – it’s Bryson, Bill Bryson, isn’t it?’
‘No, Mammy Walsh, it’s not.’
‘Are you… are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure.’
An uncertain silence followed, and Mum became a strange purplish colour. I could only assume she was blushing beneath the tan. ‘Sorry, you look very like him.’
‘Hey, that’s OK,’ Mike said, extremely nicely.
‘I have news!’ Emily attempted a very clumsy diversion. ‘Lara phoned!’ Automatically I winced, certain that the mere mention of Lara’s name would bestow Mum with psychic knowledge that I’d slept with her. ‘Doves, the movie Lara’s been working on, is having its first screening tomorrow night and you’re all invited!’
Naturally enough, this caused considerable excitement and semi-papered over the Bill Bryson faux pas.
‘Will there be famous people there?’ Helen wanted to know.
‘Maybe, but do you know who will be there?’ Emily screeched, still on her hostess-with-the-mostest kick. ‘Shay Delaney! You remember Shay Delaney, Mammy Walsh, don’t you?’
‘Indeed I do.’ Mum was quickly recovering her aplomb. ‘And a lovely boy he was, too. I’ll be delighted to see him again.’
I swallowed it away, pushed it down. I wasn’t going to feel it, whatever it was that wanted to be felt. I’d enough to cope with.
In no time, Mum was back on top, and even though it was Emily’s house, she was the one who was filling people’s glasses, checking they were OK, acting in every sense the Irish matriarch. The Mickriarch. But when she tried to refill Charmaine’s wine glass, Charmaine protested, ‘I’ve already had one.’
‘Have another,’ Mum pressed her, the way Irish mammies do. ‘A bird never flew on one wing.’
Charmaine tilted her head to one side and repeated slowly, ‘A bird never flew on one wing. But that’s beautiful. Such wisdom.’
Was she being sarcastic? I wondered. But there wasn’t one bit of badness in her.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I gotta tell Mike that.’
‘That one’s all sweetness and light,’ Mum said mistrustfully, watching Charmaine’s slender back and swinging braids.
‘She’s a very spiritual person,’ I said.
Oh, she’s a Catholic?’ Mum perked up.
‘No, she said she was a spiritual person,’ corrected Helen, who’d been following the entire exchange.
After that, Mum had clearly become of great interest to Mike and Charmaine, because they kept watching her. When Anna began to droop with jet lag and Mum chivvied her, ‘Snap out of it, you’re like a tree over a blessed well, there,’ Mike elbowed Charmaine and, with a look of wonder, they mouthed at each other, ‘A tree over a blessed well!’
A short, intense conversation ensued, then Charmaine gave Mike a little push and said, ‘You ask her.’
‘No, you ask her,’ Mike said back.
Their heads were together again and they had another little mutter, then Mike was touching Mum on the shoulder. ‘We gotta go, tonight’s our meditation night.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘But it was a great pleasure to meet you, Mammy Walsh, and we were wondering if, while you’re here in LA, you’d like to join us for one of our fable-telling evenings.’
Of course, she was thrilled. Just delighted. But she had to pretend that she wasn’t – that’s the way it’s done in her world. ‘I’ll be very busy while I’m here, I’m going to a film premeer tomorrow night and my husband wants me to accompany him on Thursday.’ She was doing a good job of sounding important and gracious until she added, ‘To Disneyland.’
‘We can work around your schedule.’
‘How about Thursday night, when you get back from Disney-land?’ Charmaine suggested.
‘I can’t promise,’ Mum said solemnly, ‘but I’ll do my best.’
‘We’ll look forward to it.’
37
‘So what does today hold?’ Emily was in her pyjamas, drinking Jolt and smoking the first of that day’s sixty cigarettes.
‘Chauffeuring them round Beverly Hills with the “map” of the stars’ houses, then on to the Chinese Theatre to see the stars’ handprints set in concrete.’
Emily cringed at the naffness. ‘For the first time, the idea of Chip the Dog doesn’t seem so bad. It just goes to show, there’s always some poor bastard worse off than yourself.’ She gave a feeble smile, but she was so exhausted the skin beneath her eyes looked bruised.
‘I wish I could help you,’ I said fervently.
She shook her head. ‘It reminds me of cramming for exams – no one can really do it except me. And I can’t complain, I’m getting well paid for it.’ But she looked so woebegone, my heart went out to her. ‘It’s the shame that I can’t take. I’m cringing with every word of the schmaltzy crap I’m having to write. That’s what’s really depressing me. And the conference calls don’t help.’ She gave the phone a vicious glare – Larry Savage kept ringing, looking for progress reports and making her have conference calls with him and Chandler while they forcibly suggested cuts and additions. ‘If they’d just let me get on with it, it mightn’t be so bad. But every time I finally manage to sew up a scene, they make me change it, so I feel like I’m getting nowhere.’
‘Do you think you’ll be able to come tonight?’
‘Ah, yeah. I’ll need a break.’ She suddenly remembered something. ‘Look, sorry about telling you about Shay Delaney like that. I sort of panicked with the Bill Bryson thing and couldn’t stop talking.’
‘It’s OK, no biggie,’ I said quickly, keen not to dwell on it. ‘Who else’ll be there?’
‘Do you mean Troy?’
I winced. ‘S’pose.’
‘He’ll be there. How do you feel about him now?’
‘Oh, you
know,’ I said airily, ‘mortified, embarrassed.’
‘Do you still want to sleep with him?’
‘Are you insane? Last man on earth and all that.’
‘That’s great. You’re not so messed up that you’ve become a rejection addict.’
‘And what’s that, oh pop-psychology one?’
‘You know – the more he pushes you away, the more you want him.’
‘God, that’d be worse, no doubt about it. As it is, I just feel really stupid.’
‘You’re not the first woman to have been taken in by a man and you won’t be the last, so go easy on yourself. All that’s wrong with you is that you’re out of practice,’ she added with a smile. ‘Soon you’ll have been duped by tons of men, and Troy will fade into nothing!’
‘Speaking of being duped, how’s Lou?’
‘Clever, I’ll give him that. Playing at being Mister Perfect. But I’m several steps ahead of him.’ Coolly she blew out a plume of smoke.
Down at the Ocean View, they’d all been awake since four a.m. and were looking for kicks. Spirits were high as we set off beneath a cloudless blue sky for Beverly Hills and purchased a ‘map’ of the stars’ houses. Everyone knew the maps were, at best, inaccurate and out of date, but who was I to ruin anyone’s excitement?
First stop was Julia Roberts’ house, where we spent a good twenty minutes parked on a well-kempt deserted road, trying to see through solid metal gates.
‘She’ll have to come out some time,’ was Dad’s reasoning. ‘To buy a paper or get a pint of milk or something.’
‘You haven’t a clue,’ Helen scorned. ‘She has people to do that. She probably even has people to read the paper and drink the milk for her.’
We resumed our silent vigil.
‘This is really boring,’ Helen said. ‘Although it’s good practice for when I set up my private-detective agency. A lot of that will be surveillance work.’
‘You’re not becoming a private detective,’ Mum said tightly. ‘You’ve got Marie Fitzsimon’s wedding on Monday week and you’ll send her down the aisle looking like a princess, or you’ll have me to deal with.’
‘Don’t you need qualifications to be a private detective?’ Anna said.