Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (32 page)

T    hat night I got an e-mail from Helen.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Tediarseity
Another break in routine! Detta had lunch in restaurant with
"the girls": three other women, all about same age as her, maybe also married to crime lords?
Chanel handbags, really war-crime quilted ones with gold chain handles. Rotten. Again had to
hang around in street like homeless person, watching through window, and this time someone
tried to buy methadone from me. No sign of Racey O'Grady, though. Just to be sure, went in on
pretense of using loo (mind you, not pretense, in this job, you make wees every chance you get)
and the four of them were sitting in cloud of gagzo perfume, scuttered drunk, and cackling about
husbands. On way in, one of them--sunken-eyed, dark-haired, nails like Freddie Kruger's--
screeched: He couldn't find his arse in the dark.
On way out, another one, face like satsuma (squat, orange, pores big as manholes) was
saying: So I said to him, you're welcome to ride me, but I'm going to sleep!
Banshee shrieks of laughing, but not from Detta. Not smoking, but only 'cos illegal. She
looked like she would if could.
Smiling absently and sort of staring into space. Took couple of pics on mobile, in case they're
of any interest to Harry Big--but how could they be? This is so fucking boring, but I'll tell you
something, Anna, am getting paid bloody fortune.
Then one from Mum.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Latest update
There is none. No blasted update. Helen is spending all her time in Mr. Big's hedge. We are still
being scourged with the dog poo, twice this week. I am going to Knock on Saturday, it's been a
while since I did a pilgrimage, and I feel I need one because I am upset by so much "venom"
being directed on me. I will dedicate the Sorrowful mystery to you, Anna, that our good Lord
will bring you peace and acceptance over your circumstances.
Your loving mother,
Mum
P.S. Has Jacqui said the Bon Von Jodi line yet?
P.P.S. Will you tell Rachel that if she wants to wear cream, then she should wear cream. It's
her wedding. It's just that I think that cream always looks a bit "dirty" on a wedding dress. But
that's just "me."

"Hey, Anna." Some man had left me a message. "It's Kevin. I'm in town on business."
It was Aidan's brother. My heart sank.
Poor Kevin, I was fond of him, but I just couldn't face him. I didn't even know him that well.
What would we say to each other? "I'm sorry your brother died." "Thanks, well, I'm sorry your
husband died"?
It was hard enough speaking to Mrs. Maddox on the phone every weekend, never mind spending
an entire night in the company of Kevin.
"I'm here until the weekend and I'm staying at the W," he went on. "We could maybe get some
dinner or something. Give me a call."
I looked helplessly at the answering machine. Sorry, Aidan, I know he's your brother, but I'm just
going to have to be rude and ignore him.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Update
Colin drove me in Austrian-blinds mobile for meet with Harry Big today.
Told Harry: I've been trailing Detta for weeks and she hasn't seen Racey O'Grady at all.
Him: So?
Me: So, I want to put a tap on her phones, I'll need your help with her mobile, and I need
copies of her mobile bills.
Him (uncomfortable): It doesn't seem right. It's an invasion of her privacy.
Me (thinking, what a gobshite): You're paying me to trail her, day in day out and report every
time she lights a cigarette--
Him (all alert now): What? She's smoking again?
Me: Smoking? She never stops.
Him: But she said she has. She has to for her blood pressure. How much is she smoking?
Me: At least twenty a day. She buys twenty after mass every morning, but she might have
more stashed in the house.
Him (going into visible slump): You see, she's lying to me. But leave her phones alone. Keep
on watching her.
Jesus, Anna, the boredom is killing me.
I had a sudden thought...
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Colin

Helen, what does Colin look like?
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Colin
Big, burly, dark-haired, sexy. Not bad. Like him best when he puts gun in waistband of his jeans.
View of sexy stomach and space to slip hand in. And down, of course...
You see, that was the difference between Helen and me. I'd just be afraid that with his gun stuck
in his waistband, he might accidentally shoot himself in the flute.
Your next question will be, Do I fancy him? Yes. But sometimes he talks about giving up crime
and going straight and then I think he's gobshite. Sexy beast or deluded gobshite? Can't decide.
57
R     achel, you have to go to the beach," I said. "Because if you don't get your fix of sunlight,
you might get depressed and `go pure mental on the drugs again,' as Helen so sensitively puts it."
"Yes, but...," Rachel sounded helpless.
"And I can't go because of my scar," I said, brooking no argument.
"I'm so sorry," Rachel said guiltily.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's fine."
And it was. I wanted to go to the spiritualist-church place. Very quickly, it had become part of
my Sunday routine. I liked the people who went; they were very kind, and to them, I wasn't
Anna with her Catastrophe--well, maybe I was--but they'd all had catastrophes, too. I was no
different.
But I told no one--especially not Rachel or Jacqui; they wouldn't understand. They might even
try to stop me. Luckily, Rachel was off my case because the hot weather was continuing and
Jacqui worked such irregular hours that I was often in the clear with her as well. As for Leon and
Dana, they only ever wanted to see me in the evenings when we could go somewhere fancy for
dinner.
A     ll the gang was there, sitting in a line on the benches in the corridor.

Nicholas saw me. "Cool! Here's Miss Annie." Today his T-shirt said FREE KATIE. Mitch was
slouched back against the wall and he shifted forward to get a look at me.
"Hey, peanut." He stretched out his leg to touch me with his foot. "How was your week?"
"Oh, you know," I said. "How was yours?"
"'Bout the same."
We took our places in the circle of chairs, the cello groaning started up, and several people got
messages, but nothing for me.
Then Leisl slowly said, "Anna...I'm seeing the little blond boy again. I'm getting the initial J."
"Because his name is JJ."
"He really wants to talk to you."
"But he's alive! He can talk to me anytime he wants!"
Afterward I cornered Leisl. "Why would I be getting messages from my nephew who's still
alive? Or my horrible granny? And not from Aidan?"
"I can't answer that, Anna." Her eyes, underneath her frizzy fringe, were so kind.
"There isn't some sort of waiting period after someone has died before they start being
channeled, is there?"
"Not that I know of," she said.
"Have you tried EVP?" Barb growled. "Electronic voice phenomenon?"
"What's that?"
"Recording the voices of the dead."
"If this is a joke..."
"Not a joke!" All the others knew about EVP. A flurry of voices said, "That's a good idea, Anna.
You should try it."
Defensively, I asked, "How do you do it?"
"Just on a regular tape recorder," Barb said. "Use a new tape. Set it to record, leave the room,
come back one hour later, and pick up your messages!"

"You need a quiet room," Leisl said.
"Hard to find in New York City," Nicholas said.
"And a positive, cheerful, loving attitude." Leisl again.
"That's hard, too."
"It's got to be done after sunset on the night of a full moon," Mackenzie said.
"Preferably during a thunderstorm," said Nicholas. "Because of the gravitational effect."
"Nicholas, I'm really in no mood for any of your bonkers beliefs."
"No." Several voices insisted, "It's not one of his bonkers beliefs!"
"What's a bonkers belief?" I heard Carmela ask.
"There's actually a scientific basis for this," Nicholas said. "The dead live in etheric wavelengths
which operate at much higher frequencies than ours. So we can hear them on tape when we can't
hear them talking directly to us."
I asked, "Have you done it?"
"Oh, sure."
"And your dad spoke to you."
"Oh, sure. It was kinda hard to hear him, though. You might have to speed the tape up or down a
lot when you're listening back."
"Yeah, sometimes they speak really fast," Barb said. "And sometimes they speak sloooow.
You've got to listen real careful."
"I'll e-mail you all the instructions," Nicholas said.
I asked Mitch, "Have you tried it?"
"No, but only because I spoke to Trish via Neris Hemming."
"When's the next full moon?" Mackenzie asked.
"Just missed it," Nicholas said.
"Aw, too bad!" was the general consensus. "But there's another in less than four weeks. You can
do it then."

"Okay. Thanks. See you all next week."
I started walking away, wondering if Mitch would follow.
He caught me up before I reached the lift. "Hey, Anna, do you have to be someplace now?"
"No."
"Wanna do something?"
"Like what?" I was interested to see what he came up with.
"How about MoMa?"
Why not? I'd lived in New York for three years and I'd never been there.
B    eing with Mitch had many of the advantages of being alone--like not having to keep
smiling in case he felt uncomfortable with my real face--but without the actual aloneness.
Speedily, we moved from painting to painting and we barely spoke. At times we were even in
different rooms, but were linked by an invisible thread.
When we'd seen everything, Mitch checked his watch.
"Look at that!" He sounded pleased and almost smiled. "That took two hours. The day is nearly
done. Have a good week, Anna. See you next Sunday."
A    nna, pick up the phone. I know you're in there. I'm outside and I need to talk to you."
It was Jacqui. I grabbed the phone. "What's up?"
"Let me in."
I buzzed the door and heard her pounding up the stairs. Seconds later she burst in, a tangle of
limbs, her face distraught.
"Has someone died?" That was always my worry now.
That stopped her in her tracks. "Um, no." Her face changed. "No, this is just...ordinary...stuff."

Suddenly she resented me. Whatever was going on, it was huge for her and I'd reduced it to
something shallow because my husband had died and no one could top that.
"Sorry, Jacqui, sorry, come and sit--"
"No, I'm sorry, scaring you like that--"
"All right, we're both sorry, so tell me what's up."
She sat on the couch, leaning forward, her forearms on her thighs, her knees neatly together. She
looked exactly like the Pixar lamp. If she'd started bunny-hopping around the room, even her
mother would have been hard-pressed to tell them apart.
She stared into the middle distance, locked into silence for quite some time.
Eventually she spoke. One word. "Joey."
Well, at least now I could tell Mum.
"Or as I call him," she said, "Narky Joey." She sighed heavily. "I was over in his apartment just
now."
"What were you doing?!"
"Playing Scrabble."
Sunday-afternoon Scrabble playing! I felt a slight sting at my exclusion. But who could blame
them? They were blue in the face from inviting me and getting turned down.
"I wasn't even looking at him, but out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly thought he looked
like...looked like..." She paused, took a shuddery, tearful breath, and burst out, "Jon Bon Jovi!"
In shame, she buried her face in her hands.
"You're okay," I said gently. "Carry on. Jon Bon Jovi."
"I know what it means," she said. "I've seen it happen with other women. One minute they say
they think he looks a bit like Jon Bon Jovi, that they'd never noticed it before, the next thing they
fancy him. And I don't want to fancy him, I think he's a fool. And not even nice, you know?
Narky."
"You don't have to fancy him. Just decide not to."
"Is it that simple?"
"Yes!"

Well, maybe.
M      um?"
"Which one of you is that?"
"Anna."
A gasp. "Any news on Jacqui and Joey?"
"Yes, actually! That's why I'm ringing."
"Go on! Tell us!"
"She thinks he looks like Jon Bon Jovi."
"That's it, then. Game over."
"Not at all. Jacqui is made of sterner stuff."
"He gives love a bad name."
"I suppose he does."
"It's a song," she hissed. "A Real Men song. By Guns and Leopards, or whatever they're called. I
was making a joke."
"Sorry," I said. "Sorry."
"Did she get that dog yet? That Labradoodle dandy?"
"No." Buying a nuclear warhead would be easier, she'd said. And how did Mum know about the
dog?
"Just as well, the poor creature wouldn't be getting much attention from her now that she fancies
Joey."
"She doesn't."
"She does, she just doesn't know it yet."
58

A     couple of nights later, by accident--but an accident that was obviously meant to happen,
especially since I spent more and more time watching the spiritual channel--I saw Neris
Hemming on telly! This wasn't just a televising of one of her shows, it was a profile, a half-hour
special. On cable, but so what?
Probably in her late thirties, with shoulder-length bubble curls and wearing a blue pinafore dress,
she was curled in an armchair, talking to an invisible interviewer.
"I was always able to see and hear `other' people," she said in a soft voice. "I always had friends
that no one else could see. And I knew that stuff was going to happen before it did, you know?
My mom used to get so mad with me."
"But something happened to change your mom's mind," the invisible interviewer prompted.
"Can you tell us about it?"
Neris closed her eyes in order to remember. "It was an ordinary morning. I'd just gotten out of
the shower and was drying myself off with my towel when...it's kinda hard to describe, but
everything went sort of misty and I wasn't in my bathroom anymore. I was in a different place. I
was in the open air, on a highway. I could see and feel the hot tar under my feet. About thirty feet
away from me, a huge truck was on fire and the heat was intense. I could smell gasoline, and
something else, something really bad. Lots of cars were on fire, too, and the worst bit was that
bodies were scattered on the highway. I didn't know what kind of shape they were in. It was
horrible. And suddenly I was back in my bathroom again, still holding my towel.
"I didn't know what was happening to me. I thought I was losing my mind. I was so scared. I
called up my mom and told her what I'd experienced and she was real worried."
"She didn't believe you?"
"No way! She thought I was cracking up. She wanted to get me to the hospital. I didn't go to
work that day. I felt sick to my stomach and went back to bed. Later, that evening, I turned on the
TV. CNN had a report on a horrible accident that had just happened on the interstate and it was
totally what I'd seen. A big truck carrying chemicals had exploded, other cars had caught on fire,
a bunch of people were dead...I couldn't believe it. I really did wonder if I'd gone crazy."
"But you hadn't?"
Neris shook her head. "No. Next thing the phone rings. It was my mom, and she said, `Neris,
we've got to talk.'"
I knew all of this, I'd read it in her books, but it was fascinating to hear it from her own mouth.
I also knew what happened next. Her mom decided to stop telling her she was a nut job and
instead started booking gigs for her. All her family worked for her now. Her dad was her driver,