Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes
“Of course you will.”
“I don’t even want to,” she said. “And that’s never happened before. I’ve always been desperate for a boyfriend. But now I just couldn’t be arsed. They always start out nice, so how do you know they’re fuckers? I mean look at Buzz. At the beginning he sent me so many flowers, I could have opened a shop! How could I have guessed that he’d turn out to be the greatest prick of all time.”
“But—”
“I’m going to get a dog instead. I saw these really really cute ones called Labradoodles, they’re a cross between Labradors and poodles and, Anna, they’re the cutest things. They’re small like poodles, but shaggy, and they’ve got Labrador faces. They’re the perfect town dog, everyone’s getting one.”
“Don’t get a dog,” I said. “It’s only one step away from getting forty cats. Don’t lose faith. Please.”
“Too late. I have. Buzz let me down too often. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust a man again.” Putting on an overearnest tone, she said, “He damaged me.” She started to laugh. “Listen to me! I sound like Rachel. Ah, fuck it. Let’s cheer ourselves up. When I’ve finished my cig, let’s get ice cream.”
“Okay.”
She never ceased to amaze me. If I could have only a hundredth of her bounce-back ability, I’d be a very different person.
We stayed in the park until the heat of the sun faded, then went back to my place, ordered in Thai food, watched Moonstruck, and quoted most of the lines.
It was like old times.
In a way.
37
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Job!
So like I said, two burly bozos came into office and one says: Are you Helen Walsh?
Me: Too right I am!
(Anna, at this point, must tell you I will be reporting many conversations. They may not be word-for-word but let me make this clear—I am parrot-phrasing, but NOT EXAGGERATING.)
Bozo Number One: A certain gentleman of our acquaintance would like a word. We have instructions to bring you to him. Get in the car.
Me (laughing head off): I’m not getting in a car with two men I’ve never met before—try me again on Saturday night when I’ve had sixteen drinks—and I’m certainly not getting in a car with Austrian blinds. (Remember, I told you there were awful pink ruched yokes on back windows.)
Bozo Number One throws wad of money on table, proper neatly counted bundle with paper band holding it together, like they do in the bank, and says: Now will you get in the car?
Me: How much is there?
Him (rolling eyes, because you should be able to tell from thickness of it): One K.
Me: One K? Do you mean a thousand euro?
Him: Yeah.
Ding fucking dong! Counted it and really was a grand there.
Him: Now will you get in the car?
Me: Depends. Where are we going?
Him: We’re going to see Mr. Big.
Me (excited): Mr. Big?! From Sex and the City?
Him (wearily): That bleedin’ show has caused trouble for local crime lords around the world. The name Mr. Big is meant to inspire dread and terror and instead everyone thinks of this well-dressed debonair man—
Me (interrupting): Who does phone sex. And owns a vineyard in Napa.
Bozo Number Two (opening mouth for first time): He’s selling it.
Me and Bozo Number One turn to stare.
Bozo Number Two: He’s selling the vineyard and moving back to Manhattan, and buying a place with Carrie.
Looked like he might start clubbing me if I disagreed, so agreed. Anyway, he’s right.
Bozo Number One: We’ve tried out a couple of new names. For a while we tried Mr. Huge, but it never really caught on. And Mr. Ginormous only lasted a day. So we’re back to Mr. Big but we have to go through the bleedin’ Sex and the City scenario every time we get a new job. Get in the car.
Me: Not until you tell me exactly where we’re going. And just because I’m small don’t think you can push me around. I can do tae kwon do. [Well, been for one lesson with Mum.]
Him: Oh, do you? Where do you go? Wicklow Street? I teach there, funny I haven’t seen you there before. Anyway, we’re going to a pool hall in Gardiner Street, where the most powerful man in Dublin crime wants to talk to you.
Well, who could resist an invitation like that?
I stopped reading. Was this for real? It sounded just like Helen’s short-lived screenplay. Well, actually, far better. I e-mailed her.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Lies?
Helen, this e-mail you’ve sent me? Is it real? Did any of it actually happen?
She replied immediately.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Not lies!
True as God. All of it.
Okay, I thought—still not entirely convinced—and carried on reading.
Sat in front of car beside Bozo Number One. Bozo Number Two had to go in back with shame of Austrian blinds.
Me: Bozo Number One, do you have a name?
Bozo Number One: Colin.
Me: Does Bozo Number Two have a name?
Him: No. Bozo will do.
Me: Whose idea was the Austrian blinds?
Him: Mrs. Big.
Me: There’s a Mrs. Big?
Him (hesitating): There mightn’t be anymore. That’s why the boss wants to see you.
And I’m thinking, Ah bollocks. Thought this might be start of whole new career, instead just looked like sitting in more wet hedges. Only difference is that wet hedges will belong to drug runners and pimps, and that doesn’t make it any more exciting. Wet hedge is wet hedge.
Pulled up outside dingy pool hall with war-crime orange lighting. Colin led me down the back to booth with orange stuffing coming out of seat. Why can’t crime lords hang out in nice places, like Ice Bar in Four Seasons?
Small neat man sitting in booth, pulling at foam seat stuffing—last thing he was was big. Neatly trimmed bristly mustache.
He looked up, said: Helen Walsh? Sit down. Would you like a drink?
Me: What are you drinking?
Him: Milk.
Me: Cack. I’ll have a grasshopper.
Don’t even like grasshoppers, hate crème de menthe, as bad as drinking toothpaste, just wanted to be awkward.
Him: Kenneth, get my friend here a grasshopper.
Kenneth (the barman): A glass of what?
Mr. Big: A glass of nothing. A GRASShopper. Right, Miss Walsh, down to business. Anything that’s said here goes no further, I’m telling you this in total confidence. Right?
Me: Mmmm.
Because minute I got home was going to tell Mum and now telling you.
Me (indicating Colin): What about him?
Mr. Big: Colin’s all right. Me and Colin have no secrets. Right, the thing is…
Next thing, he dipped his head, put hand in front of eyes, like he was going to cry. I flashed excited look at Colin, who looked concerned.
Colin: Boss, are you okay…would you prefer to do this another time?
Mr. Big (sniffing loudly, “pulling himself together”): No, no, I’m all right. Miss Walsh, I want you to know that I’m fond of my wife, Detta. But lately she’s being very—how can I put it?—distant, and a little vulture whispered in my ear that she might be spending a bit too much time with Racey O’Grady.
I was finding it hard to concentrate because over my shoulder could hear bar staff in panic…a grasshopper…what the fuck’s that?…maybe it’s one of those new beers…look down in the cellars, will you Jason…?
Me (calling): Lookit, it’s fine, I’ll just have a Diet Coke.
Me (turning back to Mr. Big): Sorry, you were saying. Speedy McGreevy.
Him (frowning): Speedy McGreevy? Speedy McGreevy has nothing to do with this. Or does he? (Narrows eyes.) What do
Me: No one. You said it.
Him: I didn’t say Speedy McGreevy, I said Racey O’Grady. Speedy McGreevy’s on the run in Argentina.
Me: My mistake. Carry on.
Him: Racey and meself have jogged along nicely together for the last few years. He has his department and I have mine. One of my lines of work is offering protection.
For moment thought he meant bodyguarding, then realized he meant extortion. Strangely, felt a little puky.
Him: Just so you know the kind of man you’re dealing with here, Miss Walsh, let me tell you, I’m not some doozy who arrives at the gate of a site, with a couple of lads with iron bars, looking to talk to the foreman. I’m a sophisticated businessman. I have contacts in the planning department, with property lawyers, with banks. I’m connected. I know well in advance what’s happening, so the deal is all tied up before the first brick is laid. But twice in the last six weeks, I’ve met with contractors to conclude our usual business and they say they’re already covered. Now this is very interesting to me, Miss Walsh, because very few people even know these schemes are going ahead. Most of them haven’t even got planning approval yet.
Me: How do you know it’s not a leak in the planning office? Or at the contractors?
Him: Because it would need to be several leaks from several sources. Anyway, all the individuals involved have been…(meaningful hesitation)…interviewed. They came back clean.
Me: And you think Racey is the one muscling in on your…er…patch? Why him?
Him: Because they effing told me it was.
Me: So what do you think is going on?
Him: A less paranoid man than me might think Detta is picking my brains, taking her findings to Racey, and the pair of them are creaming me.
Me: And if she is?
Him: None of your concern. All I want you to do is bring me proof of her and Racey together. I can’t tail her and she knows all the lads and the cars. That’s why I’m going against a lot of advice and bringing in an outsider.
Me: How did you hear of me?
Thinking I must be legend in Dublin private investigating.
Him: Yellow pages.
Me (disappointed): Oh, right.
Him: Now the thing about Detta is, she has class.
Thought of Austrian blinds in car. Don’t think so.
Him: Detta comes from Dublin crime aristocracy. Her father, Chinner Skinner?
Said it like I should have heard of him.
Him: Chinner was the man who opened Ireland’s doors to heroin. We all owe him a debt of gratitude. What I’m saying is, Detta’s no fool. Have you a gun?
Surprised he said it out like that. Aren’t they meant to say, “You carryin’?” And call it shooter, not gun.
Me: No gun.
Him: We’ll get you one.
I’m thinking, don’t know about this…
Him (insistent): My treat.
Me (thinking better to just play along for while): Okay.
Anna, as you know, I don’t believe in fear, just an invention by men so they get all the money and good jobs, but if did believe in fear, this is time when would have felt it.
Me: But why would I need a gun?
Him: Because someone might shoot you.
Me: Like who?
Him: Like my wife. Like her bleedin’ boyfriend Racey O’Grady. Like her boyfriend’s mother—she’s the one to watch out for, Tessie O’Grady, misses nothing.
Colin (speaking unexpectedly): A legend in Dublin crime.
Mr. Big (frowning): If I need your help…
Then Mr. “Big” stood up. Even smaller than I’d expected. Very short legs.
Mr. Big: I’ve a meeting now. Colin here will drop stuff round to you later. The gun, more money, photos of Detta, Racey, all that. Just one more thing, Miss Walsh. If you fuck this up, I’ll be annoyed. And the last time someone annoyed me—when was it, Colin? Last Friday?—I crucified him on that pool table.
Me: You personally? Or one of your assistants?
Him: Me personally. I’d never ask my staff to do something I wouldn’t be prepared to do myself.
Me: But that’s exactly what happened in that film, Ordinary Decent Criminal. Couldn’t you have used your imagination and crucified him to something else? The bar counter, for example. Just to put your personal mark on it, as it were. No one likes a copycat.
He was looking at me funny, and like I say, Anna, it’s good job I don’t believe in fear because if did, I’d have been cacking myself.
And on that compelling note, it ended. Frantically I keyed down to see if there was any more, but there wasn’t. Feck. I’d enjoyed it hugely. No matter how much she insisted every word of it was true, I knew it was wildly exaggerated. But she was so funny and fearless and full of life that a little of it had rubbed off on me.
38
I checked my watch again. Only four minutes since the last time I’d checked. How could that be? It felt like at least fifteen minutes.
I was pacing, actually pacing with nervy excitement, waiting for it to be time to leave for the spiritualist-church place, for their Sunday service. It was taking every ounce of my restraint not to tell everyone—Rachel, Jacqui, Teenie, Dana. Only the fear that they’d have me institutionalized kept me quiet.
Back and forth I went from the living room to the bedroom, bargaining with a God I no longer believed in. If Aidan shows up and speaks to me today, I’ll…I’ll…what? I’ll believe in You again. You can’t say fairer than that.
See, I told Aidan. See what I’ve promised. See the lengths I’m willing to go to. So you better show up.
I left home miles too early and got the subway to Forty-second and Seventh and walked across town, passing Seventh, Eighth, Ninth Avenue, my stomach churning with anxiety.
The closer I got to the Hudson, the more bleak and warehousy and seagully the landscape became. This part of town was a world away from Fifth Avenue. The buildings were lower and more cramped, crouching on the sidewalk like they were afraid they were going to be hit. It was always colder here and the air was different, sharper.
The farther west I walked, the more my anxiety burgeoned; there couldn’t be a church here. What should I do? I asked Aidan. Keep walking? I felt even worse when I found the building—it certainly didn’t look like a church. It looked like a converted warehouse. Not terribly converted either. I had made some dreadful mistake.
But in the lobby, a sign on the wall listed THE CHURCH OF SPIRITUALIST COMMUNICATION as being on the fifth floor.
It did exist.
A couple of people passed by me on their way to the elevator, and full of sudden happiness, I ran and squeezed in with them. They were three other women about the same age as me and they looked very normal: one had a bag that I’d have sworn was a Marc Jacobs, then I noticed that another had her nails painted with—I almost gasped—Candy Grrrl Chick-chickachicka (pale yellow). Of all the brands in all the world? What were the chances? I took this as a Sign.
“What floor?” Marc Jacobs bag asked me. She was nearest to the button panel.
“Fifth,” I said.
“Same as us.” She smiled.
I smiled back.
Obviously talking to the dead on a Sunday afternoon was more commonplace than I had realized.
I followed the trio out of the elevator, down a bare-floored corridor, and into a room, full of several other women. Everyone started saying hi to one another and an exotically attired creature approached me. She had long dark hair, bare shoulders, a long fringey skirt (I had a moment of teenage flashback), and tons of filigree-style gold jewelry, around her neck, around her waist, up her wrists and arms and fingers.
“Hi,” she said. “Belly dancing?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re here to learn to belly dance?”
It was only then that I noticed that the other women in the room were also wearing long bell-infested skirts, little belly tops, and spangledy slippers and that my thr
“No, I’m here for the Church of Spiritualist Communication.”
Now that was a conversation stopper if ever I encountered one. The entire room became one discordant jangle as everyone whipped around to look at me.
“Not here,” the chief lady said. “Probably down the hall.”
Under the gaze of the filigreed girls, I retreated. Out in the corridor, I checked the number on the door. It was 506; the talking-to-dead-people were in room 514.