Deceptions (7 page)

Emily was right. Her studio should be paint-splashed and haphazard, reeking of turpentine, breath-catching spirits, varnish. Instead, she stood in a white, sterile room that breathed loneliness from every corner. “How can I help you, Mr Sheraton?” She lifted the electric kettle and filled it with water.

“First of all you can tell me what the hell you’re doing bolting off to the arse-end of nowhere when you should be in Dublin creaming off the publicity after your exhibition?”

She tried to hide her annoyance as she switched on the kettle. Her sudden departure so soon after the exhibition had obviously been a subject of gossip and speculation. “I’m not a horse, Mr Sheraton. I don’t bolt. I make decisions. Trabawn is ideally suited to my needs.”

“I’ll say it is. I’ll be lucky if there’s any suspension left on my car after driving down that boreen.” He blew a derisive puff of smoke towards the ceiling. “I heard some of the callers to
Liveline
giving out about your exhibition
.
Crackpots, all of them. You should have stood your ground and fucked the begrudgers. Every fruitcake in the country with a view on anything thinks the rest of us have nothing better to do than listen to their cock-eyed opinions. I still can’t make up my mind if the paintings I bought are erotic or pornographic. But I’m not losing sleep over it.” He deliberated for an instant. “Erotic, I suppose. Pornography leaves nothing to the imagination but – well – I imagine something different every time I look at the damn things.” He chuckled deeply, suggestively. She almost expected him to nudge her and say, “Know what I mean, eh?”

“Mr Sheraton, I assume you’re here for a reason?” She gestured towards a chair and placed two mugs on the table. “Would you like tea or coffee before we begin?”

“Coffee sounds about right. Call me Bill. No sense in formalities. Andrea is interested in commissioning a family portrait.”

“I’m sure Virginia told you I’m not accepting any new commissions at the moment.”

He drew deeply on his cigarillo and continued as if she had not spoken. “Andrea’s been on my back for weeks with this latest notion. And that’s to have a family portrait by Lorraine Cheevers. How soon can you begin?”

“If you want a family portrait I can give you the telephone numbers of excellent artists who’ll be delighted to oblige.”

“Give me a break, Lorraine.” He sighed impatiently. “It’s you she wants and what she wants she gets – or I get hell. Can I ask when you’ll be available?”

“I’ll ring and let you know.”

“That’s not an answer. When are you next in Dublin?”

“I’ve no immediate plans to go there.”

“Is this a hermitage then – or can I assume you’ll venture forth into the real world sooner or later?”

Without replying, she walked to the window. Such a wilderness of weed and briar. Nothing for it but to clear everything out. She would hire a digger, get things moving. He stood beside her, puffing his foul smoke into her fresh air. “I’ll phone you when I’ve made my plans, Bill.”

“Do that. We’ll have lunch together. But, for Christ’s sake, don’t wait too long. Andrea gets what she wants or I get hell.” He handed her his business card and nodded approvingly. “That’s a nice kid I spoke to on the phone. What age is she?”

“Fifteen.”

“Has she settled here?”

“It’s taking time.”

“At least it’s a safe environment. Keys in the car, the front door on the latch, that sort of thing. Dublin’s a cess pit and our kids are swimming in it.”

“All Emily thinks about is returning to live there.”

“Keep her here. She’ll settle eventually.” She sensed him hesitating, choosing his words. “Young people. I don’t understand what the hell they’re on about most of the time – or what they want from life. Our son went badly off the rails for a while but he’s out the other end, thank God.” He shook his head vigorously. “I was running my first travel agency when I was his age. Eighteen years and I could already smell my first million. But Lorcan! Even if luck bit him hard on the arse he wouldn’t recognise it.”

He left the studio and faced the farmhouse where Hobbs was once again making his presence heard. “Some people make a lot of noise but they say nothing. Keep your eyes on the future, Lorraine.” She had expected a bone crushing handshake but his grasp was firm and oddly comforting. “I’ve been on the ropes a few times in my life. Yet I’ve always known when it was time to rise again and face the next round. You will too. Ring me when you get to Dublin and we’ll talk again.”

Máirtín Mullarkey kept his word. The following week he rang Lorraine and invited her to a barbecue on Sunday afternoon. As soon as they arrived at his bungalow, Emily disappeared with the goth twins, whose appearance suggested they had ventured forth from the confines of a vampire’s bridal suite. Apart from a brief dash to the patio for sausages, burgers and baked potatoes, Lorraine did not see the young people again until it was time to return home. Coloured lights had been hung around the garden where friends and neighbours gathered. Some of the people were local but Lorraine heard other accents, an Australian twang, the deep, melodic cadences of an African voice and the heavily accented English of a young Italian couple who had set up a holistic health centre in the village. She heard, also, a London accent, the inflection so reminiscent of Virginia that for an instant she thought her cousin was sitting on a deck chair, her face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat. During her childhood summers a visitor from Dublin was a stranger in Trabawn. Now, only two decades later, Lorraine was simply another unremarkable face in a multicultural gathering.

She sat beside Sophie, a Sudanese woman married to an Irish farmer. They had met in Sudan, she told Lorraine, when he was engaged on an agricultural project and she was working as a nurse in a local hospital. They had moved to Ireland sixteen years ago.

“A big adjustment?” Lorraine asked.

“At first, yes. Now, not so bad. I ignore what I don’t want to hear and draw strength from those who are close to me. And you?”

“I don’t know why I’m here.” She made the admission frankly. “I came to escape from a marriage that was no longer working. At the time it seemed a good idea. Now I’m not so sure.”

“The house where you live, it’s lonely, yes? A woman on her own, now that, I know, is definitely not a good idea.” Sophie’s laugh rolled across the garden. “You must come to dinner soon. I have many handsome friends who would love to meet you.”

“Dinner, yes. But no friends, handsome or otherwise.” She smiled, spread her hands as if to brush away an unwelcome idea. “I’m not ready for anything like that, Sophie.”

“How do you know? Stuck down in that lane.” She touched Lorraine’s hair, smiled. “Don’t let the fire die, girl.”

The fire is well and truly quenched, Lorraine thought, preparing for bed that night. She stood naked before the mirror and stared at her reflection. Outwardly there was nothing to suggest she had become a dried up prune. It should show on her face but, apart from the dullness in her eyes, she looked refreshingly healthy. Her hair, still tossed from a late-night walk along the beach, glowed red under the bedroom light and her skin was tanned from the sea breeze. Divorce proceedings had to begin. If she was to move on with her life she must make decisions instead of living in limbo-land. But she was unable to comprehend the reality of no longer being a wife. Would it be like losing an arm or a leg? Would she be limbless and free, suffer phantom sensations, imagining Adrian beside her in the morning when she awoke, hearing his key in the door, his music on the stereo, his body above her and she below him, sinking into the familiar rhythm of passion? And memories, what happened to them when they no longer had a structure to keep them intact? Did they, like love, dry up and die?

As Máirtín had predicted, Emily was making friends: a boy with bleached hair called Ian, Sophie’s son, Ibrahim, and a willowy young person called Fran, whose gender still remained a mystery to Lorraine. Máirtín’s goth twins completed the group. They cycled down Stile Lane and descended on her house to devour great quantities of popcorn, toasted cheese sandwiches and pizzas. They were noisy, untidy and unfailingly polite to Lorraine. Their tolerance for loud music would, she suspected, leave them with significant hearing loss by the time they were twenty.

“Can I ask you a fabulously fantastic favour?” Emily asked one evening after her new friends had departed. “It’s to do with my birthday.”

“Ask away.”

“Will you and Daddy make up?” She spoke too quickly, nervously curling her fist against her chin, but her tone was so determined that it stalled Lorraine’s instinctive rebuttal. “I know you’re not going back to him but I want the three of us to have a meal together, the way we always did on the night of my birthday.”

“Emily, please don’t ask me to do that –”

“Please …
please!
Can’t we be a family again? Just for one night? He wants to come to Trabawn and stay in O’Callaghan’s Hotel. If he books a meal in the restaurant will you come with us?”

“I don’t need this discussion, Emily. It’s not as if I’ve prevented you from seeing your father as often as you wish, but you’ve made no effort to stay in touch with him. Except for that one time –”

“It’ll be different if he comes here.” Emily flushed deeply. Her mouth puckered. “Just one night, that’s all I want for my birthday and you can’t even give me that.”

“If it means so much to you, then that’s what we’ll do. But I don’t want him in the house. Do you understand?”

Her daughter nodded. “Do you think you’ll ever get back together again? Not now but maybe in a year’s time – two years’?”

“Darling, that kind of talk gets us nowhere. Your father and I have made our decisions. Nothing’s going to change. But time will make things easier, you’ll see. After all, we did one wonderful thing together. We had you. You’ll always keep us in touch.”

Noble words, she thought, after Emily had gone to bed. She took a bottle of wine from the fridge and fiercely twisted the corkscrew in the bottle.

Her daughter had one last favour to ask. Could she bring Ibrahim O’Doherty to the restaurant? She blushed, tried to look casual when Lorraine agreed.

On the evening of Emily’s birthday Lorraine colected Ibrahim from Sophie’s house and drove to O’Callaghan’s restaurant, where Adrian was waiting for them. Emily approached him cautiously. He held out his arms. She ran forward with a muffled sob and sank against him. His eyes were moist when he looked towards Lorraine. Stiffly, refusing to hold his gaze, she walked to the table that had been reserved for them.

Emily sat close to her father throughout the meal. Ibrahim sat opposite her. He was respectful to Adrian, was charming to Lorraine and fastened his black flirtatious eyes on Emily. He was the lightning rod upon whom they directed their attention. The waitress, whose name-tag spelled “Angie”, took Adrian’s camera and ordered them to smile, to look happy, to share Emily’s excitement.
Click
,
click
,
click
, smiling, always smiling.

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Brahms Ward
8 p.m.

I’ve had a hectic day, Killian. Don’t pay attention if I snooze off after a while. I met my script editor this morning. Remember Roz O’Hara? Jangling bracelets, chain smoker, pink highlights? It was a terse meeting, to say the least. Not that I blame her for being annoyed. Despite a hefty advance, she’s yet to read a single page of my promised draft. She reminded me that I’d other responsibilities besides family ones but she relented before I left and asked how you are.

“While there’s life there’s hope.” She sounded apologetic, a woman who abhors clichés – but your deep sleep has left people bereft of meaningful comment. I’ve promised her the rough outline two weeks from now but Roz O’Hara can jangle her bracelets all she likes. I’m a dry stone, no blood. All I want to do is write about you. Perhaps it will help, writing it down, a cathartic cleansing. Perhaps not. Either way it passes the night when sleep is impossible.

You must remember
Nowhere Lodge
? Your favourite programme? My path to fame? Of course you remember. What a dab hand you were at making suggestions, my trusty barometer, bringing me on-the-spot reviews from school friends, thumbs down or up – I could always rely on you for an honest opinion. Fairy tales with an edge, that’s what I write.

I never realised the vein I was opening when I cut into the teenage psyche. I knew the issues, the language of the street: ganga, shit, weed, barbs, downers, rock, wash, Charlie, disco burgers, doves, junk, skag, horse. You brought Lorcan Sheraton to meet me. Can you remember that weekend? You were twelve years old and ready to make your own decisions. I knew that when you introduced me as your
real
father. Such pride in your voice. It was the only recognition that mattered. Your mother was not pleased but that’s another story, another era.

She’s lost weight since the accident. These days she seldom visits her office and her diary only has one entry. But she’s also needed at home. Duncan’s being a bit of a problem. Sibling rivalry. Not that I’m an expert on the subject but, apparently, it can be quite an issue in families. We’re working out a rota for visitors. Your friends want to be involved, Lorcan in particular, also Marianne. She rang last night and sent you her love. She’s still working on the film. Remember? Street people, drug culture? For a while I thought the two of you might … but what does that matter now?

We’re going to bring you back to us, Killian. Music, words, massage, prayers, whatever it takes. Your mother has faith, such sublime faith. Jesus walks beside her. Her eyes glow when she speaks his name. I envy her, Killian. If only I could believe so fervently that prayer triggers the attention of a benign Christ with inexhaustible energy, an ear to the ground and eyes that see everything.