Anybody Out There?

  He smiled. “And it’s good to see you. Why don’t you call me sometime? We could do something.”

  “We could investigate conspiracy theories.”

  “Conspiracy theories?” he asked.

  “Yes, don’t tell me you’re not interested anymore!”

  “Oh, sure, I am, it’s just—”

  “Got any good new ones?”

  “Um, yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, tell me!”

  “Okay. Um, like, haven’t you noticed how many people are dying by skiing into trees? One of the Kennedys, Sonny of Sonny and Cher—lotsa people. So what I’m asking is, is it a conspiracy? Is someone interfering with the direction-ness of their skis? And instead of ‘tonight he sleeps with the fishes,’ the new Mafia catchphrase could be ‘tonight he skis with the trees.’”

  “‘Tonight he skis with the trees,’” I repeated. “You’re lovely. You’re absolutely hysterical.”

  “Or maybe we could just catch a movie,” he said.

  97

  Which one of you stole my Multiple Orgasm?” Mum opened her bedroom door and shrieked down the hotel corridor. “Claire, Helen, give me my Multiple Orgasm!”

  A middle-aged couple, wearing practical sightseeing clothes, was just leaving their bedroom. Mum saw them and, without missing a beat, did her “polite greeting”—a strange chin-raising gesture—and said, “Lovely morning.”

  They looked scandalized and hurried toward the lifts; as soon as they’d disappeared around the corner, Mum yelled, “You let me have nothing!”

  “Calm down,” I said from inside the room.

  “Calm down? My daughter’s getting married today even if it isn’t in a church and one of you five bitches has stolen my Multiple Orgasm. It’s like the time you stole all my combs”—this was an often-repeated resentment—“and I was going to mass because it was a holy day of obligation and I had to comb my hair with a fork. Reduced to combing my hair with a fork! What’s your father doing in the bathroom, he’s been in there for days. Go down to Claire’s room and see did she steal my lipstick.”

  Claire and family and Maggie and family were also staying in the Gramercy Lodge. Everyone was on the same floor.

  “Go on,” Mum urged. “Get me a lipstick.”

  Out in the corridor, JJ was kicking a fire extinguisher. He was wearing a wide-brimmed yellow hat, what Helen might call a “lady hat”—part of Maggie’s wedding ensemble, I deduced. I watched his spirited assault on the fire extinguisher and wondered about what Leisl had said; why was JJ so important to me? Why would he become “more important”? Then it hit me: maybe Leisl hadn’t been talking about JJ at all. She’d said “a blond-haired little boy in a hat” and “the initial J”; little Jack fitted that description just as much as JJ did. Maybe Aidan—through Leisl—had been trying to tell me about him? A shiver shot down my spine and I was suddenly covered in goose bumps.

  So had Leisl really been channeling Aidan? I didn’t know. And I supposed I would never know. And what did it matter now anyway?

  “What have you done with my good hat?” Maggie had rushed out onto the corridor; she was wearing a sober navy suit. “Give it to me and stop kicking that thing.”

  From Maggie’s room came the sound of baby Holly singing her head off.

  Then Claire appeared. “This place is a kip,” she said. “Mum said it was lovely.”

  “The radiators don’t work,” Maggie said.

  “And nor does the lift.”

  “It’s handy, Mum said.”

  “But handy for what? Kate, don’t kick that, it might explode.”

  Claire and Kate, her twelve-year-old daughter, were wearing very similar clothes: knicker-skimmingly short skirts, tottery high heels, and a lot of glitter.

  By contrast, Claire’s six-year-old daughter, Francesca, wore old-fashioned buckle shoes and a puff-sleeved smock, trimmed with broderie anglaise. She was like a china doll.

  “You’re gorgeous,” I told her.

  “Thank you,” she said. “They tried to make me wear all that shiny stuff but this is my look.”

  “Has anyone an iron?” Maggie asked. “I need to iron Garv’s shirt.”

  “Give it to me,” Claire said. “Adam will do it.”

  “He’s more like an indentured houseboy than a man!” Helen’s voice shouted from a nearby bedroom. “How can you respect him, even if he does have a larger-than-average mickey?”

  Outside the Quaker hall everyone was milling about, looking their shiny best; clear-skinned 12-steppers, elderly, red-faced Irish people, mostly aunts and uncles, and big-haired Real Men, so many they looked like they’d been bussed in from Central Casting. Through the throng I spotted Angelo, all in black. I’d known he was going to be there; he and Rachel had become quite pally since the terrible day I’d showed up at his apartment. I gave him a polite smile—not unlike Mum’s chin-raising gesture—and positioned myself ever more in the thick of my sisters and nieces. I didn’t want to talk to him. I wouldn’t know what to say.

  “I’m opening a book on how late they’re going to be.” Helen was circulating and gathering money.

  “Rachel won’t be late,” Mum said. “She doesn’t believe in it. She says it’s disrespectful. Put me down for right on time.”

  “That’ll be ten dollars.”

  “Ten! Oh, cripes, here’s Mr. and Mrs. Luke! Marjorie! Brian!” Mum grabbed Dad by the sleeve and sailed forward to greet them. “Lovely day for it!”

  They’d met a few times in the past but they didn’t know one another well. Mum had never seen any point in getting to know the Costellos until their son had done the “decent thing” by her daughter. Wreathed in bright, brittle smiles, both sets of parents circled one another warily—like dogs sniffing one anothers’ bums—trying to ascertain who had the most double glazing.

  Someone called out in alarm, “Don’t tell me this is the happy couple!” Everyone turned to see a champagne-colored vintage car heading our way. “It is! It is the happy couple. Right on time!”

  “What? Already?” startled voices asked. “Come on, better get in.” A ministampede ensued as everyone stormed the door and crowded, with unseemly haste, into seats. The hall was festooned with spring flowers—daffodils, yellow roses, tulips, hyacinths—and their scent filled the air.

  Moments later, Luke marched up the aisle to the front of the hall. His collar-skimming hair was glossy and neat, and although he was wearing a suit, his trousers seemed tighter than necessary.

  “Do you think he gets them taken in specially?” Mum whispered. “Or does he just buy them that way?”

  “Dunno.”

  She gave me a sharp look. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  This was the first wedding I’d been at since Aidan had died. I’d never admitted it but I’d been dreading this. However, now that it was happening, it seemed to be okay.

  Up the aisle came Dad and Rachel. Rachel was wearing a pale yellow sheath dress—it sounds horrible but it was simple and stylish—and carrying a small posy of flowers. A thousand camera flashes lit her way.

  “Your father’s tie is fecking crooked,” Mum hissed at me.

  Dad delivered Rachel to Luke, then shoved his way into our row and the service began: someone read a poem about loyalty, someone else sang a song about forgiveness, then the freelance minister spoke about how he’d first met Rachel and Luke and how suited they were to each other.

  “For the vows,” the minister said, “Rachel and Luke have written their own.”

  “They would.” Mum elbowed me to share the joke, but I was remembering my own vows. “For richer, for poorer, for better or worse, in sickness and in health.” I thought I was going to choke when I remembered “All the days of our lives.” It felt like a hand around my throat. I miss you, I thought. Aidan Maddox, I miss you so much. But I wouldn’t have forgone my time with you. The pain is worth it.

  I pawed around in my little handbag for a tissue; Helen pressed one into my hand. My
eyes filled with tears and I mouthed, “Thanks.” “’S’okay,” she mouthed back, her own eyes brimming over.

  Up on the little dais, Luke and Rachel held hands and Rachel said, “I am responsible for my own happiness, but I surrender it to you; it is my gift to you.”

  “Before I met you,” Luke said, “been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.”

  “…as we strive for self-actualization, together we will be more than our respective parts…”

  “…all that glitters is gold and you are my stairway to heaven…”

  “…I pledge to you my loyalty, my trust, my faith, and no passive-aggressive acting-out…”

  “…if there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now…”

  Dad’s forehead was furrowed. He was baffled. “Is it not all a bit…what’s that word you say?”

  “Feathery Strokery,” Jacqui whispered loudly from the row behind us.

  “That’s right, Feathery Strokery.” Then he realized it was Jacqui who’d spoken, and mortified, he stared at the floor. He still wasn’t over the Scrabble e-mail.

  I can’t believe a drug addict owns a hotel,” Mum said. “Even if it is a small one.” She gazed around the beautifully decorated room, at all the ribbons and flowers. “Would you look at the way Narky Joey keeps staring over at Jacqui?”

  Everyone snapped their heads around. Joey was at a table crammed with Real Men. (One of the tables, there were actually three in all, each housing eight Real Men. Several second-tier Real Men and possibly even some third tier.) Undeniably, he was staring at Jacqui, who was at the “Single People and Gobshites” table.

  “Mind you,” Mum admitted reluctantly, “she’s looking very well for an unmarried woman who’s nearly eight months pregnant.”

  Seated among our peculiar cousins, including the oddball priest who was visiting from Nigeria, Jacqui positively glowed. Most pregnant women I knew got eczema and varicose veins; Jacqui looked better than she ever had before.

  “Cripes!” Mum yelped as something hit her in the chest. A yellow hat. Maggie’s.

  Claire’s son, Luka, and JJ were playing Frisbee with it.

  “Best thing for it,” Mum said. “It’s rotten. She looks more like the mother of the bride than I do. And I am the mother of the bride.” She twirled the hat back to Luka, then looked down at her plate. “What the hell are these yokes? Oh, these must be the famed sugar-snap peas. Well, I won’t be touching them.” She shoved them onto her side plate. “Look,” she said. “Joey’s still staring at her.”

  “At her bazoomas.” This from twelve-year-old Kate.

  Mum looked at her sourly. “You’re your mother’s daughter and no mistake. Go back to the children’s table. Go on! Your poor auntie Margaret is over there trying to control the lot of you.”

  “I’m going to tell her what you said about her hat.”

  “Don’t bother your barney. I’ll tell her myself.”

  Kate sloped off.

  “That put that little madam in her place,” Mum said, with grim satisfaction.

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked.

  “Powdering his nose.”

  “Again? What’s up with him?”

  “His stomach is sick. He’s nervous about his speech.”

  “He’s got food poisoning!” Helen declared. “Hasn’t he?”

  “No, he has not!”

  “Yes, he has.”

  “No, he has not!”

  “Yes, he has.”

  “Anna, there’s some man, over there, who keeps sneaking looks at you,” Claire said.

  “The one who looks like he’s out of the Red Hot Chili Peppers?” Mum said. “I’ve noticed him, too.”

  “How do you know about the Red Hot Chili Peppers?” several voices asked.

  “I don’t know.” Mum looked confused. In fact, she looked quite upset.

  “Givvus a look,” Helen said. “The one in black? With the long hair?” She drawled, “He looks like a bad, bad man.”

  “Funny, that,” I said. “Because he’s a very good one.”

  How’s everyone here?” Gaz asked. “Any headaches? Sinus problems?”

  “Go away,” Mum said.

  Rachel had warned Gaz not to acupuncture anyone and he had said he wouldn’t unless it was an emergency. But despite his best efforts to drum them up, no emergencies had happened.

  “Go on, be off, yourself and your needles! Don’t be badgering people. The dancing is about to start.”

  “Okay, Mammy Walsh.” Forlornly, Gaz wandered off, with his pouch of accoutrements, almost tripping over a posse of little girls who had been liberated from the children’s table.

  Francesca collared me. “Auntie Anna, I’ll dance with you because your husband died and you’ve no one to dance with.” She took my hand. “And Kate will dance with Jacqui because she’s having a baby and she doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Um, thank you.”

  “Hold on,” Mum said. “I’m coming for a bop, too.”

  “Don’t say ‘bop’!” Helen said, in anguish. “That’s a terrible word, you sound like Tony Blair.”

  “Dad?” I asked. “Will you dance?”

  Carefully he shook his head, his face as white as the tablecloth.

  “Maybe we should get him a doctor,” I said quietly. “Food poisoning can be dangerous.”

  “He’s not poisoned, it’s just nerves! Hit the floor.”

  We merged forces with Jacqui and Kate, all of us holding hands. Helen joined us, then Claire, then Maggie and baby Holly, then Rachel. We were a girl circle, our party dresses swinging, everyone happy and smiling and laughing and beautiful. Someone handed me baby Holly and we twirled together, my sisters’ hands helping to spin me. Swirling, whirling past their radiant faces, I remembered something I hadn’t known I’d forgotten: Aidan wasn’t the only person I loved; I loved other people, too. I loved my sisters, I loved my mother, I loved my dad, I loved my nieces, I loved my nephews, I loved Jacqui. At that moment I loved everybody.

  Later, the music abruptly changed from Kylie to Led Zeppelin and the Real Men thundered onto the dance floor. There were an awful lot of them and suddenly great swaths of hair were whipping around in a blur and air guitars were being played with verve. Eventually a circle cleared around Shake; they were giving the master space to do his thing. Shake played and played, sinking to his knees, leaning right back, his head almost on the floor, his face a picture of ecstasy as he twiddled his fingers on his crotch.

  “Doesn’t it look like he’s…at…himself?” Mum murmured.

  “Hmm?”

  “Playing with himself. You know.”

  “You’re obsessed,” Helen said. “You’re worse than the rest of us put together.”

  98

  Neris Hemming here.”

  “Hello, it’s Anna Walsh. I’m calling for my reading.” I was curious. Curious but not hopeful.

  Okay, maybe a bit hopeful.

  Silence whistled on the line. Was she going to tell me to shag off again? More builders?

  Then she spoke. “Anna, I’m getting…I’m picking up…yes, I’ve got a man here with me. A young man. Someone who was taken before his time.”

  Well, top marks for not trying to fob me off with a dead grandparent, but when I’d originally made the booking, I’d told the reservations person that my husband had died. Who was to say that she hadn’t passed that information to Neris?

  “You loved him very much, didn’t you, honey?”

  Why else would I be trying to contact him? But my eyes welled up.

  “Didn’t you, honey?” she repeated, when I remained silent.

  “Yes,” I choked, ashamed of crying when I was being so crudely manipulated.

  “He’s telling me he loved you very much, too.”

  “Okay.”

  “He was your husband, right?”

  “Yes.” Damn. I shouldn’t have told her.

  “And he passed on after
an…illness?”

  “An accident.”

  “Yes, an accident, in which he became very ill, which caused him to pass on.” Said firmly.

  “How do I know it’s really him?”

  “Because he says so.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “He’s remembering a vacation you took by the ocean?”

  I thought of our time in Mexico. But who hasn’t had a vacation by the ocean with their husband? Even if it’s just in a trailer in Tramore.

  “I’m getting a picture of a blue, blue sea, a blue sky, barely a cloud in it, a white beach. Trees. Probably palm trees. Fresh fish, a little rum.” She chuckled. “Sounds about right?”

  “Yes.” I mean, what was the point? Tequila, rum, they were both holiday drinks.

  “And, oh! He’s interrupting me. He has a message for you.”

  “Hit me.”

  “He says, don’t mourn him any longer. He’s gone to a better place. He didn’t want to leave you, but he had to, and now that he’s where he is, he is happy there. And even though you can’t see him, he’s always around you, he’s always with you.”

  “Okay,” I said dully.

  “Have you any questions?”

  I decided to test her. “Yes, actually. There was something he wanted to tell me. What was it?”

  “Don’t mourn him any longer, he is gone to a better place…”

  “No, it was something he wanted to tell me before he died.”

  “That was what he wanted to tell you.” Her voice was “don’t fuck with me” steely.

  “How could he have wanted to tell me, before he died, that he was gone to a better place?”

  “He had a premonition.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Hey, if you don’t like—”

  “—you’re not talking to him at all. You’re just saying stuff that could apply to anyone.”

  She blurted out, “He used to make you breakfast.” She sounded—what? Surprised?

  I was surprised, too—because it was true! I’d once remarked that I loved porridge and Aidan had asked, “Is porridge the same as oatmeal?” I’d said, “I think it is,” and the following morning I found him standing at our barely used stove, stirring something in a saucepan. “Porridge,” he’d said. “Or oatmeal, if you prefer. Because you can’t eat at the lunches with those scary beauty ladies in case they judge you. So have something now.”