Authors: Liz Nugent
‘So you’re the one.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, he should have moved out years ago, but his mum is very vulnerable at the moment.’
I thought we’d got off on the wrong foot. ‘Hi, I’m Karen.’
‘Helen. I was his first girlfriend.’ She seemed pushy and mean, and barged past me into the sitting room. She took a look around.
‘I knew his granny you know, who owned this cottage? She was a right battleaxe.’
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Have you moved in already?’
I was embarrassed. I was trying to be polite, but I realized I sounded as if I owned the place.
‘Oh no, I’m just helping Laurence – but the kettle’s just boiled.’
‘Grand so.’ She dumped her boxes in front of the TV and sat in Laurence’s armchair.
I made an effort to be mannerly. ‘So, about his mum? I know they had an argument, but I don’t know what it was about.’
Helen’s eyes narrowed. ‘He didn’t tell you? Me neither, but I’m assuming it’s because he moved out. His mother is insane, but I really think he should still talk to her at least. He could pick up the phone. I’m around there every other day. Laurence pays me to keep an eye on her, but she isn’t eating and barely sleeping. She is refusing to talk to Malcolm. You’ve heard about Malcolm? The psychiatrist? He says she’ll have to be sectioned if something doesn’t change soon.’
‘Oh God, I had no idea she was that bad.’
‘She’s sleeping in his bed, for Christ’s sake. Laurence really needs to go and see her. He won’t listen to me. Yeah, she’s mad as a brush, but he’s being unfair to her. She just keeps crying and saying that he’s all she has. A visit even once a week shouldn’t be too much.’
‘He was upset too, about the argument, really upset.’
‘And you have no idea what it was about?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘It could have been about you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah, him choosing you over her. You should tell him to go visit her.’
‘Nobody is making him
choose
. I will tell him to visit.’
She leaned back in the armchair. ‘So how long have you been going out with Lar?’
‘A few months.’
‘Yeah? How did you meet him?’
Her questions were rude and nosy, but I wasn’t going to pretend. ‘My dad used to sign on in his office.’
Helen smirked. ‘Lydia’s not going to like that.’
‘Lydia?’
‘His mum. She’s a pathological snob.’
‘She’s not going to like that I’m separated from my husband either.’
‘Fuck’s sake! Really? No wonder they had a row.’
Helen hung around for a bit longer, waiting for Laurence to arrive. We chatted cordially enough, but I could tell she didn’t like me very much. Eventually, she had to go.
‘No harm to you, you seem all right and you’re pretty and all, but it’s never going to work, you and Laurence. You come from different worlds.’
‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’
‘I’ve known him a lot longer than you.’
‘He loves me.’
‘Touché. But it’s not enough. Good luck.’ She swanned out the door, brazenly swiping a bottle of wine off the table as she left. ‘He owes me.’
I was deeply unsettled. When Laurence came home, I quizzed him about Helen and what she had said.
‘Ignore her. She’s jealous. You and I? We were thrown together in the most bizarre circumstances, but we were the good to come out of it. We can’t let others interfere.’
I didn’t think that Da signing on in his office was so bizarre, but I was comforted by his words. ‘What took you so long at the hardware shop?’
‘I tried to walk there, but I got so tired, I had to get the bus and I had to wait ages. I’m so tired and hungry all the time. I’m trying to stop eating. I don’t understand why I suddenly crave food all the time, like I used to.’ He flopped down on to the sofa and put his feet up, turning the television on.
I hadn’t commented on it, but Laurence had been looking increasingly bloated over the last few weeks. I was sure it was just a phase, something that would correct itself when he resolved this row with his mother. He hadn’t been his usual attentive self. He seemed moody and depressed.
‘Maybe Helen is right and you should go see her.’
‘Who?’
‘You know who. Your mum.’
Sometimes when Laurence didn’t want to discuss something, his eyes sort of blanked, as if he was shutting down.
‘No.’
‘Look, I already know she’s not going to approve of me. Helen told me as much. But if she’s really suffering, you should make the effort, Lar. She
is
your mother.’
‘No.’
‘Laurence –’
‘Just shut up about her, will you?’
That was the first time Laurence had ever raised his voice and snapped at me. He reminded me of Dessie in that moment. Bullying me into submission. I hadn’t expected Laurence to be like that. I wondered for the first time if I’d made a terrible mistake. Of course he apologized later, and was extra kind to me – exactly like Dessie. But I had convinced myself that Laurence was better than that. I needed him to prove me right, but I was helpless as I watched him slide further and further into himself.
My
mother. I tried to get back to work, get back to loving Karen, get back to being normal, but I couldn’t get my mother out of my head. As a nine-year-old, she had killed her twin sister, and yet she had been able to compartmentalize that, to put the fact to one side and carry on as if it had never happened. Maybe it was a genuine accident, but if there had been no intention, why had she never talked about it? And now that I knew she had been involved in Annie’s death, I felt like I had been living with some kind of version of my mother. I knew her better than anyone. And yet I hadn’t a clue who she was or what she might be capable of. She could turn on the flip of a coin from an emotional wreck to a sort of robot – clinical, callous and detached. Malcolm, of course, had always wanted to see the best in her, so he was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt about Diana, but he didn’t know anything about Annie Doyle.
I questioned every conversation I’d ever had with her about Annie’s body and why my father may have killed her. I analysed all the ways she had manipulated me, and recalled how she had spoken to my father in the few months prior to his death. She had been the strong one. He had gone to pieces. They were complicit in Annie’s murder, and I knew that if it had been a straightforward accident, there would have been no need to cover it up. I couldn’t guess what had driven her or them to kill a vulnerable young girl, but I couldn’t stop my mind from imagining all the possible scenarios and seeing Karen in Annie’s place. It tormented me. My mother was as monstrous as my father, perhaps worse because she had been
so well able to lie and pretend for so long. I tried to get my head around it. My sweet, frail, vulnerable mother had killed one if not two people. It explained her neuroses, her snobbery, her fear of leaving the house. And it terrified me. Because if my parents were capable of murder, was I?
Karen was bewildered by my change of mood. Things had been so good between us, and she didn’t deserve the way I had snapped at her. If only bloody Helen hadn’t tried to interfere. I could see the trust fade from Karen’s eyes. I attempted desperately to repair the damage, and we tried to get back to normal, but I found it hard to control my moods, and after years of being relatively stable I found it hard to control my weight too. I was permanently starving. I tried to exercise to counter the increased food intake, but I was exhausted by the slightest exertion. Karen said I was depressed. She didn’t mention my ballooning stomach, but I caught her looks of surprise and dismay when I took off my shirt. I felt that old shame again, and when we made love it was different from before, until I began to avoid it for fear of further increasing my shame.
For a month, Karen put up with it all. She put up with my bad temper and my dark moods and my increasing girth, but she stopped talking about us as a couple, and I knew I was losing her. On some level, I was relieved. I didn’t deserve her, because of what my family had done to hers. I couldn’t be sure that I wouldn’t one day really hurt her. But I also knew that if she left me, I would be bereft.
Three weeks before Christmas we had endured another evening of awkward silences. I had more or less abandoned any interest in decorating the cottage. Dried-out paintbrushes stood in stiffened paint pots, and wallpaper hung half-ripped from one wall. Without saying anything, she began to collect the few items she had left around the
cottage, her toothbrush, a few T-shirts, some make-up in the bathroom. She put them into a bag, leaving the gifts I had given her behind. I should have expected it. We hadn’t had sex in weeks, and apart from going to work I had barely left the house. Maybe my mother’s neurosis was hereditary.
‘You’re leaving me.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘I thought you loved me.’
‘I do, you have no idea how much.’
‘So what has changed?’
‘I …’ How could I begin to explain?
‘Here’s the thing, Lar. I don’t care whether your mother likes me or not. It’s what you think that’s important to me. I don’t ever have to see her, but you do. Unless you go and make peace with her, it’s over between us. You can have her
and
me in your life. It’s not an either/or situation. Go and see her.’
‘You don’t understand what you’re asking. It isn’t about you.’
‘Of course it’s about me. Don’t treat me like a fool. Go and see her. Tell her we’re together, but that you will continue to see her once a week. Tell her she never has to meet me, but don’t cut her off. For both your sakes. She’s not going to be around for ever. She’s on her own. You always said she had nobody else. You can make room for both of us. You don’t have to choose.’
Karen is the kindest person I have ever met. Even though she had no idea why, she knew my mother despised her, and yet she was willing to share me with her, because she couldn’t bear to see me suffering or to hear of my mother’s suffering. I couldn’t refuse the ultimatum, and so that afternoon I arranged to go and see my mother. It was six weeks since we had spoken, the longest time I had been apart from her in my entire life.
I
knew he would come back eventually. He had to. Laurence and I are bonded. I gave birth to him, and therefore he is mine.
I ate very little during the six weeks of his absence, knowing that Helen would be reporting everything back to him. I was genuinely distraught, especially when our estrangement went on so long, but I knew he was paying Helen to watch me, so it was not as if he had stopped caring. He loved me really.
I cursed Malcolm’s stupidity and indiscretion. The Hippocratic oath clearly meant nothing to him. I would never have told Laurence or Andrew about Diana. There was never any need for Laurence to know anything about that, but when I was forced to, I misspoke when talking about the pond. My son thought that Andrew and I had murdered that girl together. He may have been correct, but he could not possibly know why, and I knew that if I could just talk to him, I could make him understand.
I slept and wept in his bed, trying to hang on to the essence of him. It was my bedroom when I was a girl. And when I pulled back the writing desk, I found my old hiding place in the wall. There, I found photographs of the girl who I assumed was Laurence’s new lover. I was taken aback by how beautiful she was. They were studied, professional photographs. She could have been a film star. And then I really worried because this girl had something that I could not compete with. Beauty, yes, but youth too. I did not want her in our lives. Also, I found the identity bracelet and newspaper cuttings about Annie Doyle’s disappearance, and disturbing handwritten
fantasies about him dating Annie Doyle and having sex with her. When had he written these? Why had he kept hold of these items? Why could he not let go of the past?
I tried to call him, but he would not take my calls at work and hung up when I called the cottage. A week after he had left, he came to the house with a hired van and began to remove furniture without speaking to me or looking at me. He trooped through the house seven or eight times and refused to acknowledge my cries and pleas. I contemplated another overdose. Helen had confiscated my medication and was doling it out to me as if I were a child. She also found the phentermine.
‘Why are you taking these?’ she said.
I lied that Malcolm had prescribed them.
‘Idiot,’ she said, and flushed them down the toilet.
Helen was always insightful. I still had one of Malcolm’s prescription pads and could get any drugs I wanted, but I decided to wait, and the longer I waited, the more my anger towards Laurence increased.
But when after six weeks he telephoned and said he was coming to Avalon to talk to me, I heaved a huge sigh of relief that my son was finally coming home. I filled the prescription for him.
I was shocked by his appearance, and I think he was shocked by mine. For every pound in weight I had lost, he had gained three. He was closer to the obese boy I had been able to control. This pleased me. Because it could not have been attractive to her.
I had sent Helen home and prepared his favourite meal. I had dressed carefully and washed my hair for him and laid the table in the dining room. I chattered about the weather and programmes on television while I piled his plate high.
He was reluctant to talk in the beginning, but I soon coaxed him into conversation.
‘Darling, it’s so good to see you. I’m so glad you came back.’
‘I’m just visiting.’
‘Of course, and how is Granny’s cottage? Draughty, I imagine, with those big windows?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘But aren’t you lonely there?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have friends coming to see you there? Because if you liked, you could have your friends visit here. I would stay in my room –’
‘Just one friend, my girlfriend.’
‘Oh, you have a new girlfriend? How sweet.’ I feigned ignorance. I did not want to talk about
her.
I changed the subject. ‘Darling, about Annie …’
He passed his hand over his eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk –’
‘But we must, otherwise you will spend your whole life thinking that your father and I are monsters, and we aren’t. It was an accident, just like Diana –’
‘Mum, please …’
‘Annie Doyle was hired by your father to do a job.’
His curiosity got the better of him. ‘What job?’
‘You know how desperate I was to have a baby, a little brother or sister for you? You remember, don’t you?’
He said nothing but he watched me, watched my mouth as I spoke.
‘Your father, I … we hired Annie … to get pregnant.’
‘What?’
‘It was my idea. Your father was to get her pregnant and she was to give us the baby.’
‘But … that’s ridiculous! Dad would –’
‘She was to provide a service, darling. I didn’t know she was a prostitute. Your father didn’t know either. He was never a kerb crawler, my Andrew. He had to be so discreet.
He caught her picking his pocket one day, but he felt sorry for her. He could have had her arrested, but instead he helped her. And then later he asked her to help us. She was handsomely paid for her services, and after only three or four attempts she told him she was pregnant.’
‘This is crazy! It’s illegal for a start, and … oh my God, poor Dad.’
‘I know, poor Andrew didn’t want anything to do with it, but I was desperate, I begged him, and even though he tried to persuade me it was a terrible idea, I convinced him. I needed that baby. You were growing up. What was I going to do without you?’
‘Mum, do you have any idea how insane you sound?’
I struggled to remain calm. ‘Don’t. Don’t you say that. I always wanted to fill this house with children, with life. It isn’t insane to want to be a mother. I had no mother growing up, I needed someone of my own. I had no sister because she was dead.’
‘But, Mum –’
I didn’t want any interruption. ‘And I had so much love within me to give. Every miscarriage ate away at my soul. You will never know what that was like for me, time after time, the life being torn out of me. I need family.’
Laurence sat perfectly still. ‘So what happened to Annie?’
‘She lied to us. She demanded more and more money. She refused to get a doctor’s note to confirm her pregnancy, and I began to doubt that she was pregnant at all. And then, on … that … last night, I told your father I wanted to see her. He had …
dealt
with her, made the arrangements … impregnated her, or so he thought. I had kept away, but I was worried. We had so little money and he was paying her month after month. I needed proof that she was pregnant, so when she was supposed to be about five months gone, Andrew got into a row
with her because she had figured out who he was and she admitted that she wasn’t pregnant at all. She tried to blackmail him. She said she was going to the papers. He lost his temper.’
‘And?’
‘He lost his temper. It wasn’t his fault. He was under so much pressure financially, and she had stolen from us. She was a common thief, Laurence. She had used us and defrauded us and your dad … lost his temper.’
Laurence pushed his empty plate away and rose from the table. I needed Laurence to see that the girl was the victim of her own misfortune. I had to bend the truth a little.
‘He killed her.’
‘Yes, but he didn’t mean to. It was an accident. She pulled a knife on him. She was a nasty guttersnipe. It was self-defence. He strangled her. He was dreadfully upset. He really didn’t intend to kill her.’
‘Oh God. I was right all along. He murdered her, but you are as much to blame.’
‘Me?’
‘I can’t believe you forced Dad into such an outrageous plan. No wonder he died so soon after. The stress of it all killed him.’
Tears welled up in my eyes. I needed Laurence to understand.
‘I miss him every day. That girl, she was so evil. She tried to stab him! She pushed him to the limit.’
‘
You
pushed him to the limit. And yet you’ve been able to carry on as if nothing has happened, just like after Diana … drowned.’
‘Life throws hurdles at us, darling. We must get over them.’
‘Annie was a hurdle? Diana was a hurdle?’ Laurence’s voice was breaking.
‘Please don’t be dramatic about this. What is done is done, and we are both implicated.’
I could feel his anger. ‘You involved me. You knew what had happened, and you involved me. I poured cement over her grave!’
‘Yes, but we have to just forget about it all now, get back to normal.’
‘You have no idea what normal is.’
‘I’ll do anything you want, I can change.’
‘You can’t.’
‘But I will –’
‘Mum, I am never, ever coming back to live with you. Ever.’
‘I see.’
I was perfectly calm, set a smile on my face.
‘I can’t live in a graveyard.’
I used the only thing I had. ‘Darling, I can make you slim again – look how you have ballooned since you left this house.’
I knew that I had thrown him with this statement. He sighed heavily and pinched the top of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I had you on phentermine. It’s a drug prescribed for lethargy and depression, but the side effect is weight loss.’ I explained how I’d got the drug, how I had crushed it into his meals. I went to the kitchen and took the bottle of tablets out from behind the vanilla essence and showed him. ‘Here, you can keep them. They work really well. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel self-conscious about it. I wanted you to think you’d lost the weight by yourself.’
Laurence began to cry, and I took him in my arms and
placed the tablet bottle in his pocket, but he aggressively shook me off and stood in the opposite corner of the room.
‘This is so screwed up. I can’t believe it.’
‘Everything I do is for you, darling.’
‘Please, just stop.’
I stopped then because everything I said seemed to make things worse. He threw open the window and inhaled deeply. Freezing December air stole into the room. The silence between us grew in length, and the atmosphere plummeted with the temperature. When he turned back to face me, his tears had dried and he pushed his thumb under his chin the way Andrew used to when he was going to make an announcement. He spoke without emotion.
‘For now, I will support you financially as far as I am able. Once a month, I will come for dinner.’
My heart lifted. It was something. I could work on him to make it once a week.
‘But there is one condition. I have a girlfriend. You must accept her, she will come with me. I’m only here now because she forced me to come.’
‘Oh, but, Laurence, can’t it be just us? You are my only relative. She would feel like an intruder.’
‘Mum, I will not be living here, and she will only feel like an intruder if you make her feel like one. And … there’s something I have to tell you about her.’
His forehead glistened with sweat, and I wondered what could possibly make him so nervous.
‘She is Annie Doyle’s sister. It’s Karen. Karen Doyle is my girlfriend.’
I was utterly stunned.
‘The prostitute’s sister?’
‘I think you should refer to Annie as the murder victim. Karen is not a thief or an addict or a prostitute. She is sweet and
kind and generous, and really beautiful. If you gave her a chance, you would really like her. She is modelling at the moment, but she’s going to study art, and she is quite well travelled. You might even have seen her in magazines …’
He babbled on and his eyes shone as he spoke of her, but I tried not to listen because my head began to pound, although it didn’t stop me from hearing him say, ‘I love her, Mum.’
The treacherous bastard.
Somehow I kept it together and managed not to show signs of the electrical storm fizzing in my head. Laurence asked if he could bring the girl to dinner. I smiled and nodded.
‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘Do you need more time to get used to the idea? Of course, she doesn’t know anything about what happened to Annie. We won’t even mention Annie. I think she might be uncomfortable if she knew … that you knew about her sister. Are you really sure it will be OK?’
‘I’m sure, darling.’
He looked at me with uncertainty. ‘I think I’m glad I know the truth now. About Dad and Annie. I think I can understand why he did what he did, but it really is unforgivable. And, Mum, I really think you need to get help, psychiatric help. Obviously, you can’t tell Malcolm about Annie, but you should see somebody, professionally. I think you have invested too much of your life in me, and you need to let go now.’
I agreed with everything he said, and smiled benignly at his suggestions while waves of red-hot anger surged backwards and forwards between my temples.
After Laurence left, I went upstairs and carefully applied the very last of Mummy’s scarlet lipstick.