Anybody Out There? by Marian Keyes
After hoovering frenzy, Detta went back to kitchen, put kettle on, made tea, and sat smoking and staring into space. God, hope tomorrow’s going to be bit more exciting.
And an e-mail from Mum.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Organized crime
Dear Anna,
We’re in a bad way. Helen no longer cares about our “domestic” issue (i.e., the dog poo). She is too caught up in her new job. She is “lording” it over us because she is associating with known criminals. If I’d thought, after all we sacrificed for your education, that this is how my youngest daughter would end up, I’d never have sent any of you to school at all. Sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child. She says the one she’s surveilling, the wife of the “crime lord,” has lovely clothes for an elderly person. Could that be true? And that her house is really clean? And that she does her cleaning herself. Could that really be the case or is Helen just trying to “upset” me?
I tried using her camera but it is a “digital” one and neither myself nor your father could figure it out. How are we to catch the old woman in the act? She was back again on Monday, up to her old tricks. If you are talking to Helen, would you try persuading her to help out. I know you are “bereaved,” but she might listen to you.
Your loving mother,
Mum
45
The flash of red caught me by surprise. Blood. My period. The first one since the accident.
I’d barely noticed it not happening every month; I hadn’t worried because in the recesses of my mind, I’d known it was because of the shock and terribleness. I hadn’t, for one second, suspected I might be pregnant, but now, with an uprush of grief, I thought: I’ll never have your baby.
We shouldn’t have waited. We should have gone for it straightaway. But how were we to know?
We’d even talked about it. One morning shortly after we’d got married, I was getting dressed and Aidan was lying in bed, bare-chested, his hands behind his head. “Anna,” he said, “something weird’s happening.”
“What? Aliens landing on next door’s roof?”
“No, listen. Since I was three years old, the Boston Red Sox have been the love of my life. Now they’re not anymore. Now it’s you, obviously. I still care about them; I guess I still love them, but I’m not in love with them anymore.” All this was delivered in bed, in a somber, soul-searching, ceiling-staring kind of way. “In all that time I never wanted to have kids. Now I do. With you. I’d like a miniature version of you.”
“And I’d like a miniature version of you. But, Aidan, lest we forget, I have a mad family; a rogue insane gene could pop its head up at any time.”
“Good, good, should be fun. And we’ve got Dogly to think about. Dogly needs a kid around the place.” He sat up on his elbow and announced, “I’m serious.”
“About Dogly?”
“No, about us having a baby. As soon as possible. What do you think?”
I thought I’d love it. “But not just yet. Soon. Soonish. Like, in a couple of years. When we’ve someplace proper to live.”
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: This can’t go on
Dear Anna,
I hope you are keeping well. I don’t know if it will make you feel better or worse to know that things are very bad for us here, too. There was more dog number twos parked at our gate this morning. It is like living under siege. Luckily your father didn’t stand in it this time, but the milkman did and he was extremely annoyed and our “relationship” with him is awkward enough since that time we all “cut out dairy” because of that stupid diet Helen put us on that lasted five minutes until she realized that ice cream is dairy. It was hard enough to persuade him to come back that time.
Your loving mother,
Mum
46
All week, I was on tenterhooks waiting for the Mitch bloke to call with Neris Hemming’s number, but the days passed and I heard nothing. So I made a plan: if he hadn’t rung by Sunday I’d go back to that place. That made me feel less panicky and powerless. Then I’d remember that it was the Fourth of July weekend, what if he’d gone away? And I’d feel panicky and powerless all over again.
It had been a bad week at work. I’d been ferociously narky, and although my dislocated knee was officially better, I’d become very clumsy, as though one side of my body were heavier than the other. I kept bumping into things; I’d knocked a cup of coffee into Lauryn’s desk drawer and I’d made a whiteboard topple over at a briefing session and caught Franklin in the goolies. I’d only grazed them, but he still made a terrible song and dance about it.
But these accidents were nothing compared to the Eye Eye Captain disaster: because I’d cried all over the Femme address label and made it too blurry to be read, their package had been returned to us by the couriers on Tuesday afternoon, and we’d missed the print slot. Lauryn was still thin-lipped with fury. Every morning when I got out of the elevator, I’d barely set one shoe on the carpet before she shrieked down the corridor, “Do you know how high the circulation of Femme is! Do you know how many women READ it?”
Then Franklin would join in, yelling, “Without his cojones, a man is nothing!”
On Friday evening, when I walked into my local newsagent’s to get supplies for my evening of crying, I finally realized why I’d been so narky: I was roasting. The little shop was like an oven.
“It’s so hot!” I said to the man.
I wasn’t expecting a reply because I didn’t think he spoke English, but he said, “Hot! Yes! For many days a heat wave!”
Many days? What did he mean? “What…when did this heat wave start?”
“Hah?”
“When, what day, did it start being hot?”
“Thursday.”
“Thursday?” That wasn’t so bad.
“Tuesday.”
“Tuesday?” Said in high alarm.
“Sunday.”
“It wasn’t Sunday.”
“Some other day. I don’t know the name.”
Disturbed, I slowly made my way home with my bag of sweets. This heat-wave business was not good. I’d been so locked inside myself that although I’d noticed it, I hadn’t noticed it enough.
A worry was worming at me: during the week, while I’d been going about my business, wearing the wrong clothes for very hot weather, had I been…smelly?
After my regulation-issue three hours’ sleep, I woke on Saturday morning with sweat trickling into my hair. Feck. So it was true: we were in the thick of a heat wave and it was summer. Panic seized me.
I don’t want it to be summer. Summer is too far away from when you died.
I’d thought I’d wanted enough time to pass so I could think of him without the pain killing me, but now that it was July I wanted it to be February forever.
Time was the great healer, people said. But I didn’t want to heal, because if I did I’d be abandoning him.
Flattened by the sweltering heat, I was too hot to move. The air conditioner needed to be set up, but it was a huge big yoke, the size of a telly. Last autumn, Aidan had put it away on a high shelf in the living room.
The horror washed over me. You’re not here to take it down.
Those odd little gaps where I’d forget, for a split second, that he had died were such a mistake, because then I’d have to remember all over again. The shock always hit with the same force.
When would this get easier? Would it ever get easier? I’d been thinking about other people who’d had horror visited upon them—holocaust survivors, rape victims, people who’d lost entire families. Often they go on to live what looked like normal lives. At some stage they must have stopped feeling like everything was a living nightmare.
Oppressed as I was by heat and grief, the seconds inched by and eventually I said to him, The grief doesn’t seem to be killing me but the heat might. So I ma
Ornesto would have to help me get it down. I knew he was home because for the last ten minutes he’d been singing “Diamonds Are Forever” at the top of his lungs.
He opened the door in gold lamé shorts and flowery Birkenstocks.
“You look lovely,” I said.
“Come in,” he invited. “Let’s sing a song.”
I shook my head. “I need a man.”
Ornesto opened his eyes wide. “Well, where are we going to find one of them, honey?”
“You’ll have to do.”
“I dunno,” he said doubtfully. “What does this ‘man’ have to do?”
“Lift my air conditioner down from a high shelf and carry it over to the window.”
“You know what? Let’s get Bubba from upstairs to help us.”
“Bubba?”
“Or something. He’s a big guy. With bad clothes. He won’t care if he sweats all over them. C’mon.” Ornesto led the way upstairs and knocked on number ten’s door.
A deep voice called suspiciously, “Who is it?”
Ornesto and I looked at each other and got an unexpected fit of the giggles. “Anna,” I called, in a strangled voice. “Anna from number six.” I nudged Ornesto.
“And Ornesto from number eight.”
“Whaddaya want? To invite me to a garden party?” Pronounced “gooah-d’n paw-dee.” New York humor, see. That gave us the excuse to laugh.
“No, sir,” I said. “I was wondering if you could help me move my air conditioner.”
The door moved back and a saggy fiftysomething man in his vest stood there. “You need a bit of muscle?”
“Er, yes.”
“Long time since a woman said that to me. Lemme get my keys.”
The three of us trooped down the stairs and into my apartment, where I pointed out the AC high up on the shelf.
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Bubba said.
“I’ll help,” Ornesto promised.
“Sure you will, son.” But he said it nicely.
Bubba climbed up on the chair, which Ornesto made a big show of holding steady. He also provided a stream of encouraging stuff, like “You got it. Yip, yeah…nearly, that’s iiiit, just a bit further…”
Then the AC was down and was hefted over to the window, plugged in, and—like a miracle—mercifully cold air was blowing into the apartment. The gratitude!
I thanked the man effusively and asked, “Would you like a beer, sir?”
“Eugene.” He stuck out his hand.
“Anna.”
“A beer would be appreciated.”
Luckily I had one. One. Literally. God knows how long it had been there.
As Eugene leaned against the kitchen counter and sucked down his possibly out-of-date beer, he asked, “What happened to the guy who lived here? He move out or something?”
A stricken hiatus followed. Ornesto and I looked at each other.
“No,” I said. “He was my husband.”
I paused. I couldn’t bring myself to say the D-word: it was taboo. Everyone sympathized on my “tragedy” or my “sad loss,” but no one would say “death,” which often filled me with a terrible compulsion to say loudly, “Actually Aidan died. He’s dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, DEAD. There now! It’s only a word—nothing to be frightened of!”
But I never said anything; it wasn’t their fault. We get no lessons in dealing with death, even though it happens to everyone, even though it’s the only thing in life we can depend on.
I took a deep breath and flung the D-word into the middle of the floor. “He died.”
“Aw, I’m so sorry, kid,” Eugene said. “My wife died, too. I’ve been a widower for nearly five years.”
Oh my God. I’d never thought of it like that before. “I’m a widow.” I started to laugh.
Strange as it may seem, it was the first time I’d used that word to describe myself. The image I had of “widows” was of ancient, gnarled crones wearing black mantillas. The only thing I had in common with them was the black mantilla, except that mine was pink.
I laughed and laughed until tears ran down my face. But it was the wrong sort of laughter and the boys were clearly aghast.
Eugene gathered me to him, then Ornesto put his arms around the two of us, a strange, well-meaning group hug. “It gets better, you know,” Eugene promised me. “It really does get better.”
47
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Job!
Ashamed to tell you, Anna. Trailing Detta Big, most boring job of all bloody time! You could set watch by routine. Every morning, ten to ten, she leaves house to walk to ten o’clock mass. Every shagging morning. Can’t believe it—she’s from crime dynasty, up to her neck in extortion and God knows what else and she goes to mass every morning. Then goes to newsagent, buys twenty Benson & Hedges and assorted other stuff. Sometimes bag of cola cubes, sometimes new Hello!, once bag of rubber bands. Then she goes home, puts kettle on, makes tea, and sits in front of telly, smoking and staring into space.
One morning after mass, she went to newsagent’s AND chemist, where she bought corn plasters. Thought excitement would kill me.
One afternoon, she went out in Beemer and I was praying she was meeting Racey O’Grady. But only going to the chiropodist, obviously she has trouble with corns, then home, kettle, tea, smoking, staring into space.
Another afternoon, went for walk on pier. Fast walker, despite corns. When she got to end, sat on bench, smoked cigarette, stared into space, then came back. Nothing sinister. Just getting exercise. Although some might consider that sinister.
Looks like she’d be good at cards, like she’d fleece you. Loads of feathery lines around her mouth, from all the fags. Spends fair amount of time renewing lip liner. Fond of the sun, she’s got that leathery look. But don’t get me wrong. Attractive woman, considering her age and all.
Only have to surveil her in daytime. Harry works nine-to-five, Monday to Friday. Says no point in being crime lord if you can’t work own hours. Neighbors think he’s in rag trade. So although boredom is war crime, at least got evenings and weekends to myself.
Piss. How are you getting on? Have cheery thought for you—at least Aidan didn’t leave you for other woman. Far rather someone died than did dirty on me. Mind you, if someone did dirty on me, would kill them, so result would be same.
From anyone else, this would sound unspeakably callous. But this was Helen. This counted as heartfelt sympathy.
48
Still no word from Mitch by Sunday morning and I bowed to the inevitable and got ready to go to the spiritualist-church place. Once again I got there miles too early and waited while across the hall the South Pacific lads did their stuff.
Like the previous week, Nicholas was the first to arrive. Today his T-shirt said DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR. “You came back! This is the best!”
I was so touched that I hadn’t the heart to tell him that the second I got the number from Mitch, I was off.
“Does Mitch come every week?” I asked.
“Most weeks. All of us come most weeks.”
As I had him on his own, I had to satisfy my curiosity. “Tell me, why does Mackenzie come? Who is she trying to contact?”
“She’s looking for a lost will, that would leave this, like huge inheritance to her side of the family. Time is running out. She’s down to her last ten million dollars.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Which bit?”
“All of it, I suppose.”
“Believe. Try it. It’s fun.” He grinned. “Look at me, I believe in the craziest stuff and I have a really fun time.”
“Like what?”
“Just about everything. Acupressure, aromatherapy, ali
“Um…reincarnation?”
“Check.”
“JFK was killed by the CIA?”
“Check.”
“That the pyramids were built by people from outer space?”
“Check.”
Eagerly he watched me, almost bursting out of his skin with the desire to say “Check!” again, when down the corridor came Leisl. She lit up like Times Square when she saw me. “Anna! I’m so happy you came back.” She gathered me into her bad perm. “I really hope you’ll get a better message this week.”
Steffi, the young frumpy girl, was next and she smiled shyly and said she was glad to see me, as did Carmela, one of the older elastic-waist ladies, then dazzling Mackenzie. Even Undead Fred expressed pleasure at my presence.
I felt a huge rush of warmth and gratitude to them…but where was Mitch?
Down the corridor they came: Pomady Juan; groovy old Barb; a few more elastic waists—everyone was here except Mitch.
The room was set up and the candles were flickering and we were all taking our places in the circle of chairs and there was still no sign. I was wondering whether I should ask Nicholas if he had a number for Mitch when the door opened.