Lying in Wait (3 page)

When I called to her flat on Saturday, I’d decided not to bring Dessie along. I wasn’t all that surprised when she wasn’t there. That evening I rang her, and the girl who answered the phone in the hall said she’d take a message.

At Ma and Da’s on Sunday, Annie didn’t show up. Lunch after twelve-thirty Mass was the only family ritual we held on to, and Annie still turned up most of the time.

‘Did she ring you, Ma, to say she wasn’t coming?’

‘She did not, the strap,’ said my da, who took her feckless behaviour as a personal insult. I played it down.

‘She might have the flu – the flat was freezing when I saw her on Thursday.’

‘Did she not have the gas fire on?’

‘She did, but you know she always opens the window when she smokes.’

‘She gets the smoking from you,’ my mother said to Da.

‘That’s all she got from me, Pauline, I can tell you.’

I changed the subject, asked Da if he was going to the greyhounds on Thursday.

The next day, Monday, I called round again with Dessie and there was no answer from her flat but I caught another girl on her way out. There were three bedsits in the two-storey house with a shared bathroom. I asked her if she’d seen Annie. ‘Not since Thursday or Friday, now that you mention it. I thought she was away. It’s usually her radio that wakes me.’

That was the first time I felt a bit worried. Annie wouldn’t have gone away without telling me. Besides, where would she have gone?

‘With some fella?’ Dessie suggested, but clammed up again when I gave him a sharp look.

We’d usually be in touch twice or three times a week, but on Wednesday I still hadn’t heard from her. I called to Ma’s, but she hadn’t heard from her either.

‘Did she say anything to you about going away?’

‘Not a thing. It’s weird.’

I was still there when Da got home from the bakery.

‘She’s probably off on the piss somewhere. She’ll turn up.’

‘She’s never disappeared for so long before. It’s been nearly a week.’

‘When last did you see her?’

‘Last Thursday. She told me to call round on Saturday. She promised me she’d be there.’ I didn’t tell him about the painting set. There was no point.

‘She promised, did she?’ he said sarcastically.

On Friday when we still couldn’t contact her, we all knew something was wrong. Da and me went to her flat together while Ma rang round her friends and some of the girls she
used to work with. At Annie’s flat, one of the other tenants said she hadn’t been there all week. We called the landlord from the phone in the hall and he came round, a large sweating man with a big nose, complaining about being disturbed after 6 p.m. He let us into her bedsit with his enormous set of keys. Everything was as neat as a pin as usual, but all the clothes I knew she had were still in the wardrobe, except her grey herringbone coat, the woollen sleeveless dress Ma had bought her for her birthday and the knee-high purple boots. I didn’t want to go rifling through all her stuff, but a quick glance told me she hadn’t gone on a trip. Her long holdall bag was still under the dresser. A single mug sat in the sink with a spot of mould in the bottom of it.

‘She’d never have left that there, Da, if she knew she was going away. Maybe for a few hours, but that’s got to have been there for days.’

The landlord said, ‘Her rent is due next week you know. I won’t be left out of pocket.’

‘Would ya shut up!’ said my da, and inside I cheered because he was standing up for Annie and it was a very long time since I’d heard him do that. The landlord told us to leave, and said that if he didn’t get his rent the next week, he’d be putting Annie’s stuff in a bag on the doorstep.

When we got home with our news, Ma was worried sick. None of Annie’s friends had seen her in over a week, and said she hadn’t turned up for two cleaning jobs in the city centre. That alone would not have rung alarm bells, but my timid mother had bravely gone into the Viking after dark. The regulars there all knew Annie, but they said she hadn’t been in for over a week.

‘Do you think she got herself knocked up again and went back to St Joseph’s?’ said Da, a tone of concern creeping into his voice.

‘She’d
never go back there, Da, not in a million years. I know she wouldn’t.’ Ma agreed with me. ‘And even if she was pregnant, why would she go anywhere without her clothes, or a bag?’

‘I’m ringing the guards,’ said Da on Friday the 21st of November 1980.

I
heard him say it quite clearly.

‘The weekend of the 14th of November? Let me think … hold on now … let me see – ah, yes, I was here with my wife. Why do you ask, Garda?’

‘The whole weekend? You didn’t leave the house?’

‘Yes, well, I got home from work on the Friday about six o’clock and didn’t go out again.’

It was a lie.

‘And was it just you and your wife here? Nobody else?’

‘My son was out that Friday. But I think he was home before midnight. What is this about?’

‘Well, sir, it’s just that … a car was seen visiting the home of the missing woman over recent months, sir … Like yours, sir … the old Jaguar.’

The guard’s tone was nervous, subservient. Too many ‘sir’s. It was clear he had drawn the short straw when sent to question my dad. Or Judge Fitzsimons, as he was more recently known.

‘And may I have your name?’ my father asked, and although I couldn’t see him, I could hear the air of superiority in his voice, coupled with a strange tremor that was new. The kitchen door behind me was only slightly ajar, and I strained to hear what followed on the doorstep.

‘Mooney, sir. I’m sorry to be having to ask, like –’

‘And what exactly is your rank,
Mooney
?’ He lingered on the ‘oo’ in Mooney.

‘I’m a detective, sir.’

‘I see. Not a detective sergeant or a detective inspector, then?’

I knew that tone. Dad could be rude or dismissive with strangers and he could fly off the handle. He intimidated me sometimes. I’m not sure that he meant to. He just did.

At the other end of the table, my mother was looking at me quizzically.

‘Is that your fifth potato, Laurence? Go on, quick, while your father isn’t looking.’

I hadn’t been counting.

My mother got up, muttering about the draught. She closed the door behind me and turned on the radio and began to hum along tunelessly to the song playing. I said nothing, but now I couldn’t hear what was being discussed at the front door.

My father had just deliberately lied to the guards. I admit I was taken aback by his lie. He was being asked about his movements almost two weeks earlier. I remembered that Friday night very clearly indeed because I was having my own adventure. I had also lied about my whereabouts. I had told my parents that I was going to the cinema with school friends, when actually I was losing my virginity to Helen d’Arcy, who lived in Foxrock Park, just twenty minutes away.

I had not intended to have sex with Helen on our first real date. I did not find her physically attractive. She had very nice silky blonde hair, but her frame was both wide and too thin. Her face, which was unnaturally big, sat on top of a scrawny neck. My own skin was flawless in comparison, perhaps because it was stretched.

I went to Helen’s house simply because she invited me. I did not get many invitations.

She had caught up with me as I was returning from school a few weeks earlier. It was raining, as usual. School was awful. I had only started in St Martin’s Institute for Boys the previous January because of Bloody Paddy Carey. I tried very hard not to let my parents know how much I was bullied in my new school. There was a particular group of four or five boys, all brawn and no brain. They did not often attack me physically after the first month, but my books were stolen or defaced with disgusting slogans, and my lunch was taken and replaced with items too revolting to mention.

Helen’s school was one of the fee-paying ones a little closer to town, but she lived near our school. I had overheard stories about her from other boys in my class. I felt a kinship because the bullies in my class seemed to have as much contempt for her as they did for me.

I heard her before I saw her. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked. I turned. Her green uniform skirt, made of some hairy fabric, was worn to baldness in places and the hem had come down on one side. I could see the inside of her collar was threadbare at the neck.

‘Laurence. Fitzsimons.’

‘Ah yeah, I’ve heard of you. Why do they call you the Hippo? You look normal to me.’

I warmed to her immediately. ‘I
am
normal. They just don’t like me.’

‘Well, who gives a fuck what they like? Do you live on Brennanstown Road? I’ve seen you around.’

I lived in Avalon, a large detached house with a well-kept garden at the end of the road, but I wasn’t sure if I should tell her. She didn’t seem to mind whether I responded to her questions or not. We ambled companionably onwards. When we passed Trisha’s Café, she suggested that I buy her a Coke. I hesitated.

‘OK then, I’ll buy
you
one,’ she said as she pushed the glass door open. It would have been rude not to follow her. Unfortunately, the bullies were already there, sitting near the counter.

‘Oink, oink!’ one of them shouted in our direction.

‘Fucking eejits,’ said Helen, ‘ignore them.’

We very rarely had bad language in Avalon, but now, in the same five minutes, I’d heard
fuck
and
fucking.
From a girl. I used bad language too sometimes, but never out loud.

Helen strolled coolly to the counter and returned with two Cokes.

I shoved two 10p pieces towards her to pay for them.

‘You don’t have to. Just because I paid, it doesn’t mean you have to ask me out.’

Ask her out?

‘I want to pay. It’s fair.’

‘Fine,’ she said. There was a lull in conversation as we sucked our Cokes through thin straws. And then she said, ‘You’d be quite good-looking if you weren’t fat.’

It was not news to me that I was fat. My mother said it was puppy fat and that I’d shed it soon enough, but I was seventeen. My father said I ate too much. My scales said fifteen stone. I hadn’t always been big, but over the last year, since I’d moved schools, my eating habits had gone completely out of control. The more nervous and miserable I was, the hungrier I felt. I love food, and mostly the fattening stuff. But this was the first time that a non-parent had said I was fat without a look of disgust.

‘Your hair’s nice,’ I said, to return the compliment. She looked very pleased.

‘I love food too, I probably eat more than you,’ she said. Helen obviously had no idea just how much food I could put away.

‘If you could give me about three stone, we’d both be perfect.’

Helen and I met a few times in the weeks after. We took it in turns to buy the Cokes. Then one day Helen said, ‘Do you want to come to my house tomorrow night?’

‘For what?’

‘To visit me? To kick off the weekend?’ she said, as if it was completely normal to be invited to girls’ houses. ‘My mum has made this amazing cake that’s going to get thrown out if it’s not eaten.’

We had only known each other a few weeks, but already she knew which buttons to push. An arrangement was made for after school, an address written down on the inside cover of my jotter.

At home that evening, I tried to be casual and breezy. ‘I won’t be in for dinner tomorrow, I’m going to the cinema with some of the lads,’ I lied, as casually as I could. I focused on my copybook with fierce concentration. My dad perked up: he was delighted.

‘Well, isn’t that great now, great altogether. Going out with pals, eh? What are you going to see? There’s a new
Star Wars
one, isn’t there?’

We had been to see
Star Wars
together as a family. Dad and I had enjoyed it, but Mum had put her hands over her ears during the explosions, jumping at every clash of a light sabre. After that, she swore she was never going to the cinema again.

‘
Herbie Goes Bananas
,’ I said confidently, trying to ignore the crimson creep from my collar.

‘I see,’ said my father, slightly deflated and puzzled. ‘Well, that’ll be good, won’t it, going out with friends?’ He looked meaningfully at my mother, pleased no doubt that I finally
had friends, but she was concentrating on cutting me a slice of cheesecake. I tried to nudge her hand a little to make the slice bigger, and she did so with a sigh and shake of her head.

‘I’ll take that one,’ said my dad. ‘Give the boy a smaller bit.’ Nothing got past him.

‘Just be home by midnight.’

‘Midnight?! But we don’t even know who these people –’

‘No more about it, Lydia.’ Dad closed the subject.

Midnight. Janey Mackers, I was amazed. I’d never had a curfew before. I hadn’t needed one, but midnight seemed generous. Thanks, Dad. But now I had to go through with the date with Helen. I was pretty sure it was an actual date. In less than twenty-four hours. I was partly looking forward to it and partly terrified.

Preparing for a first date was tricky. I knew this from the cover of
Jackie
magazine in the newsagent’s. There were ten steps to it, apparently. I could guess two of them: fresh breath and flowers.

After some thought, I decided that, while there might be ten steps for a girl, there could only be two for a boy. I was on top of the fresh breath. After we left Trisha’s, I had bought myself a new toothbrush and some Euthymol toothpaste, even though it practically took the mouth off me. I figured that if it was that painful, it must be more effective.

Flowers. It was November. There were, however, some nice pink and white carnations blooming in my father’s greenhouse that I raided late that night while my parents watched the
Nine O’Clock News
. I wrapped the stalks in some tinfoil and put them gently on top of my schoolbooks in my satchel.

On that fateful Friday, my father gave me £2 after breakfast and told me to enjoy myself. Money was a huge issue in our
house at that time. Dad’s accountant, Bloody Paddy Carey (it was the only bad language I ever heard my father use), had absconded with our money a year previously. Dad was furious about it. We weren’t allowed to tell anyone. The accountant had been a close friend, or so my father thought. Carey had several high-profile clients who had been badly burned, and the story had been all over the media. So far, my father’s name had not been mentioned publicly. He was extremely stressed about this; he was mortified that Bloody Paddy Carey had made a fool of him, and that he might not be able to keep my mother in the style to which she was accustomed. We had had a full year of shouting and slamming doors, and endless talk of tightening our belts. So to get £2 out of my dad without even having to ask was most unexpected. I thought that maybe I could buy shop flowers now, but since I already had some, it would be a waste. I wasn’t sure what I should spend the money on.

By the time the final bell rang in school, I was almost sick with anticipation. Even the idea of an alternative to the usual Friday night ritual – homework, dinner, watch
Bonanza
and
The Dukes of Hazzard
on television by myself, then the
Nine O’Clock News
and a chat show with Mum, a snack and then bed – was exhilarating. Dad usually went for dinner and drinks with colleagues on a Friday. Mum didn’t like socializing and was always at home. But this morning, Dad had made rather a big deal of the fact that, since I was going out, he would spend the evening at home with my mother. The significance of this only became clear much later, after the policeman’s knock on the door. For me, at the time, it meant that I could not back out of my arrangement with Helen. It would require too much explanation, and I couldn’t bear to see my father’s disappointment.

At last I stood on the doorstep of Helen’s home. It was in
a housing estate with a communal green area in front of the houses. I wondered what it would be like to have neighbours that you probably saw every day, coming and going. The wooden gate swung listlessly on one hinge, the white paint flaking off it. My father would never have allowed Avalon to fall into disrepair; anything broken or damaged was fixed or replaced immediately, regardless of our changed circumstances. Appearances were important to him. Helen’s family were slovenly, I decided. They did not have a long driveway and land like we had, but a short front garden and a gravelled area for a car. There was no car.

I got quite a surprise when she answered the door. We had both just got out of school, but Helen had found the time to change her clothes, curl her hair (her straight, silky hair was the one thing I really did like about her) and apply make-up. The lipstick was a dark purple and had stained her teeth. Her black leather-look jeans were not tight enough on her bony legs to achieve what I assume was the desired effect (Sandy in
Grease
). Helen looked like a proper grown-up. I was immediately at a disadvantage. In my tight school blazer, I was still, painfully, a schoolboy.

‘S-sorry,’ I stammered. ‘I didn’t have time to change …’

But Helen was delighted to see me. ‘Come in!’ Her welcome was effusive. Had she worried that I wouldn’t come?

The house reeked of cigarette smoke and was overwhelmingly floral. Rugs, curtains, upholstery, table mats, carpets, cushions and wallpaper. I could have been in the Botanic Gardens. And there were scribbled words everywhere, on walls and mirrors. There were sheaves of paper and books of every size and description on every surface.

‘Oh yeah, my mam’s a poet,’ said Helen by way of explanation. ‘She’s out for the night and my little brothers are staying with Auntie Grace, so we’ve the place to ourselves.’

This information was given casually, but meaningfully. There was now nobody who could stop whatever it was that was going to happen. Judging by Helen’s demeanour, at the very least
kissing
was definitely going to happen.

‘Is your dad at work?’ I asked, not without a little hope.

‘My dad? I haven’t seen him in years.’

I wondered when The Kissing would begin.

‘We can have dinner now – there’s pizzas I can just throw in the oven. They’re only small. How many do you want?’ She produced a bag of frozen discs from the freezer. I wanted four. No, five.

‘Two, please,’ I said. I was aware that my appetite was a source of great amusement to some, and I had not forgotten the promise of her mother’s cake, though I was slightly concerned there was no sign of it.

‘Have three,’ said Helen, ‘they’re only small.’