The Truth Club (17 page)

‘You can let me out at the corner,’ I say. ‘I can get a bus home
from the quays.’

‘What was that phone call about?’

‘Do the brakes in this car actually work?’ I have to ask. We’re going quite fast now, and this car may well be held together with
Blu-Tack.

‘Don’t you ever answer a question, Sally Adams?’ He looks at
me with gentle reproach.

‘Don’t you ever listen?’ I glower.

‘Wow, your scowl looked just like Henry’s then.’ Nathaniel
smiles. ‘I’m a very good listener, actually. For seven whole years I
did almost nothing else.’

I might as well accept it: I have no idea what’s going on, except
that I am apparently going to have dinner with this man. So I
might as well try to find out something about him. ‘Who did you
listen to?’ I enquire.

‘People talking about how sad they were, and how lost and
frightened and hopeless they felt…’ He smiles at me cheerfully. ‘It
was like being a bank manager.’

I don’t say anything.

‘Actually, I was a social worker. I wanted to be a really good social worker.’

‘And were you?’ I’m getting used to the clanking sounds now.
The car seems to be talking to us. It’s probably telling us we should have got a bus.

‘No, I think I was a fake social worker – a good fake social worker.’ He is peering at street signs. ‘Have you ever felt like a fake, Sally? Like you’re getting away with stuff, but at any moment everybody will see through you?’

I gulp.

‘Thought so,’ he laughs. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have the most adorable frown? Your nose even crinkles.’

I decide not to feel flattered. ‘Are you still a social worker?’

‘No. I left when I realised I was just as fucked up as most of my
clients – more, in some ways, because I was pretending not to be fucked up. It’s a kind of deal: I pretended to be sorted so that my
clients could think they were talking to someone wise. People like
that idea.’

The sun is blazing through the open roof and my hair is
blowing in every direction. It will look like a haystack when I get
out of the car.

‘And I did offer them a lot of excellent practical suggestions about dealing with life – most of which I naturally don’t follow myself,’ Nathaniel continues, almost absent-mindedly. He is
leaning over the steering-wheel as though looking for a turn-off.

‘So… you’re not wise.’ I can’t help being curious about him. He
really is one of the oddest men I’ve ever met.

‘No, not more than most, but I know how to look it. I know what to say and how to nod my head. I know how to look really
calm and talk about the importance of seeing the bigger picture.
That’s what lots of people need to be reminded of – that there’s a
bigger picture.’ There is now a slight smell of petrol in the car.
‘And I got to know some useful theories and techniques. So, if I’m
going to be fair to myself, I think I did help some people. I got
some nice thank-you cards, anyway. But when Ziggy – that’s my
wife – started having her affair, I was a shambles. I couldn’t listen
to anyone. She and I were meant to be for ever and ever, and all that sort of thing… You know the story.’

The car jerks onto a main road. Where on earth are we going?

‘There’s a smell of petrol.’

‘I know.’ Nathaniel sighs. ‘It’s something to do with some tube
or something. I had the garage look at it; they didn’t seem too worried.’

I think of Diarmuid. He would know the name of the tube, and
he would have got it fixed – although there is no way he would
be driving a car like this to start with. This all seems very juvenile
and
messy.
I should demand that Nathaniel stop the car now. We
appear to be heading for Howth, which is some distance from the
city centre. Are we really going to a Chinese restaurant? I think of the can of deodorant in my handbag.

‘So was that call from your husband, telling you he’d found
h
imself a transvestite too?’ Nathaniel enquires, glancing at me.

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ I exclaim. ‘Diarmuid isn’t like that.’

‘Or your lover? Was it your lover saying he’d decided to emigrate to Costa Rica and be a go-go dancer?’

‘Of course not,’ I snap. ‘I don’t have a lover. And, if I did, he
wouldn’t be that sort of person.’

‘So you’ve thought about what sort of person he might be?’ His
eyes twinkle.

‘No, of course I haven’t. I’m
married.’

‘Yes, I know, but you aren’t living with… Diarmuid, isn’t it?’
I stiffen.

‘How do you know that?’

‘Greta told me. Apparently news of your sudden departure
from your marriage has been buzzing around the interior-
decoration world… Would you like some chocolate? I think it’s in
that side pocket.’

‘I don’t want any chocolate at the moment, thank you.’

‘
Well, I do.’

I sigh, delve into a mass of papers and sweet wrappers and take out a fistful of street maps. One of them is of Manhattan. Beneath
them is a very soft lump of chocolate, which is leaking out of the s
ilver paper. Some of it gets onto my fingers.

‘Do you have a tissue?’ I look at Nathaniel frostily.

‘No, I don’t think I do… You used up the last one, remember?’
I remember all too clearly – the big, helpless tears after hearing
about DeeDee. The disbelief.

He smiles at me. ‘Lick it off.’

I obey reluctantly. ‘It’s virtually liquid,’ I mumble, pointing at the molten chocolate. I have placed it on the dashboard on top of
an old ice-cream wrapper.

‘I suppose we’ll just have to leave it there for a while. It’s getting cooler.’

It doesn’t seem to be getting any cooler to me. I feel that at any
moment we may combust.

‘My separation from Diarmuid is only temporary,’ I mumble.
‘We just had some things we needed to sort out.’

‘And now you have?’

We’re careering along a coastal road. The sea looks flat and calm. ‘Yes… I mean, sort of. It’s… it’s complicated.’

He doesn’t say anything.

‘Someone died. That’s what the phone call was about. A great-
aunt I never knew died in Rio de Janeiro. She was called DeeDee.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’ He reaches out and touches my arm. My skin absorbs his touch thirstily. Is it possible to have lonely skin?

‘I almost wondered if I should go to Rio and try to find her, but
of course now I don’t need to.’ I fiddle with a button on my pink blouse. ‘I feel I should have met her. That’s why I was crying. It
was silly.’

‘No, it wasn’t silly,’ Nathaniel says. ‘It was important – it
is
important.’ The words feel like a caress.

‘She wasn’t a good person,’ I say slowly. ‘She just left everyone
– disappeared one day, without even telling anyone where she was
going.’

‘And sometimes you’d like to do that too?’ He throws me a bright, piercing glance.

‘Of course not!’ I cry indignantly. ‘How can you say that?’

‘I think most people feel that way sometimes. To be honest, I
think everyone has a bit of DeeDee in them.’

For some reason I think of the countless times I returned to our
rambling old house in the hills outside San Francisco wondering
if my mother would be there or if her wardrobe would be empty,
her toothbrush gone. I even imagined the house without the smell
of the light, flowery perfume she always wore.

‘But some people
stay.’ It comes out as a whisper, almost a sigh. ‘They stay even though they wanted to go.’

He says nothing, just waits.

‘My mother stayed.’ Why am I telling this to a stranger? ‘She
had an affair when we were living in California. She really loved
him. She’s never been the same since. She used to be so bright and
happy, but now something’s gone from her; she keeps herself busy
and cheerful, but she’s hardened inside.’ I stare out the window.
‘Even her mugs are all the same colour.’

We drive on in silence. Diarmuid would have asked why I
mentioned the mugs – he would have wanted to get to the bottom
of it, found out why it seemed important; and I would have had
to tell him it was just something I said without thinking, a
sideways sentence, not one you could understand from standing directly in front of it. But I wouldn’t have said that, because I would have had to explain that too. And those were – are – the moments in which I feel lonely even though Diarmuid is there.

We haven’t talked for minutes. ‘Why do you keep a map of Manhattan in your car?’ I ask eventually.

‘Because I miss it. Jesus, I thought it was closer than this.’

‘
Manhattan?’

‘Yes, Sally. I thought Manhattan was just down the road…’ He
looks at me with tender impatience. ‘No, of course not. The Chinese restaurant. I think it’s quite possible that it’s receding. Maybe we’ll be travelling towards it for the rest of our lives.’

For a weird, stupid moment I think that wouldn’t be such a bad thing – travelling along the coastline in this bumpy old car, talking about anything at all.

‘Do you miss California?’ We are stopped at traffic lights again. Dublin traffic has multiplied in recent years.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I mean, I did. I missed it ferociously.’ The heat must be loosening me, making me say the first thing that comes
into my head. ‘When we got back to Dublin, it seemed to rain for
years. I couldn’t believe how much it rained.’ I prod the
chocolate; it does seem to be solidifying slightly. ‘I missed the
hummingbirds and the brown hills and the freedom. I missed the
Wild West.’

He looks at me.

‘It still has frontier-type people who aren’t… you know… so set
in their ways. And I suppose I missed the angels, too.’

‘
The
angels?’

‘Yes. I used to believe in them, but then I stopped. It seemed
silly. Astrid – my best friend in California – believed in them. She
had pictures of them all over her bedroom. I didn’t know anyone
in Dublin like that.’

‘I believe in angels,’ Nathaniel says. ‘I mean, I like the idea of
believing in angels. I don’t see why I shouldn’t, if I want to. After
all, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’ He is peering
down side roads, muttering under his breath.

‘What do you miss about Manhattan?’

‘I miss the person I thought I was going to be there,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘I was going to be someone happily married,
maybe with kids, a successful social worker. I wasn’t going to be
the kind of person who spent his life looking for a Chinese restaurant.’

‘Why do you exaggerate so much?’ I can’t help smiling.

‘I enjoy it. Tell me more about DeeDee.’