Laura Cassidy’s Walk of Fame

by Alan McMonagle

  ‘Mother, could you please ask your younger daughter why she let my boy out of her sight today.’

  For a moment nobody speaks. Jennifer stands out of the chair and stares out the window. Mother walks fully into the room and sits in the chair Jennifer has vacated. She looks at the pair of us, at a loss as to precisely what is going on between us.

  ‘She needs help and lots of it,’ Jennifer says, addressing mother and jabbing a finger in my direction. ‘I said it a year and a half ago. Now, I’m saying it again.’

  Jennifer remains by the window. Mother looks so sombre. I feel the dizziness coming on, my chest getting squeezed, and before I give myself a chance to think it all through, I have blurted it out.

  ‘I did an audition for a new production. Today I heard I got the part.’

  That gets their attention.

  ‘Come again?’ Jennifer says, giving me her best I’m-not-sure-I’m-going-to-believe-a-word-of-this-but-tell-me-anyway face.

  ‘That’s why I got distracted with Juan,’ I go on, quickly finding my stride. ‘I bumped into Stephen Fallow. The director. He wanted a fast word with me, and there and then he broke the news. I got so excited I took my eyes off Juan for a minute or two. I’m sorry, Jennifer . . .’

  I cast about quickly to get a sense of any softening towards me. Jennifer wants to remain focused on what happened with Juan, at how I reacted when she confronted me about it, but I sense that a small part of her might be prepared to indulge me. Mother looks concerned, but wants to hear more. I’m only too happy to oblige. I give her a few lines about the new director and the Tennessee Williams production Khaos intends to put on, and I mention how it was one of daddy’s favourite plays and so I couldn’t resist going for the part, and wouldn’t he be thrilled to know that I am going to be in it.

  At that point I stop speaking. Mother is busy absorbing my extra piece of news, possibly arranging inside her head the precise wording of her concerns. Jennifer looks as though she has some more things to get out there. Before she has a chance, off I go again.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jennifer. I saw the director and thought I would just be a minute. And actually, a couple of terr . . . tourists I know were watching out for him. I swear, it was a one-off.’

  ‘A one-off?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s just that Juan also said something about the two of you being out on the pier together – sometime last week.’

  ‘That’s right. We had fun. Did he tell you about the swans?’

  ‘It was the middle of the night, Laura! It was blowing a gale. He said the two of you were up on the wall.’

  ‘The lights, Jennifer. I wanted to show him the lights.’

  ‘What! WHAT LIGHTS? LAURA! Jesus Christ! Are you completely insane?’

  She stands facing me, without saying a word. And I am waiting for her to turn to mother, See, I told you. St Jude’s, that’s where she belongs, when my get-out-of-jail-free card arrives. Little Juan has decided he wants in on our little gathering and, when he enters the bedroom, he walks right over to me and wraps his arms around my waist. Absolution indeed.

  Jennifer reaches out her arms, claims her boy. Checks that he is OK. Then she looks my way again.

  ‘I thought you were doing better. Even mam said you’ve been great company for her.’

  ‘Saves you ever having to be around then, doesn’t it?’

  Whatever else Jennifer has in mind to say is going to have to wait. With Juan now present in the room, she is no longer so fast to condemn me. Mother, too, isn’t saying much. Slowly, she stands out of the chair she has been sitting in and walks out of the room. Jennifer looks at me and follows mother, hauling the little man with her.

  25

  It was not long after the time Enrico the Magician came to town when I was first asked to talk about how daddy had died. It was more than three years since the accident, I had just turned fourteen, and for one night only Enrico was performing in the Town Hall. Myself and some classmates had snagged tickets. Mother decided to come as well. Jennifer and her friends.

  In fact, the entire town must have shown up for the performance. Enrico came on and did a few card tricks, sawed up a few people, made melons disappear under his hat. Then he asked for a volunteer. He wanted to hypnotize someone. Without thinking about it I shot my arm up, leapt out of my seat and bounded onto the stage. Good girl, Enrico said. Then he tried to put me to sleep. You are getting drowsy, he said to me. Your eyelids are getting heavy, they weigh like full buckets. At any moment you will nod off. I couldn’t have been more awake. Knew I wasn’t going to be hypnotized. He could have hit me on top of the head with a mallet and I don’t think I’d have shut my eyes for him. But he kept the routine going, telling me I was getting sleepier and sleepier. He turned to the audience and then looked intensely at me and I could tell he knew I was willing to go along with it, that I was happy with whatever it was he had in mind to do. Then for the next two hours he proceeded to make a gargantuan ass out of me in front of the entire town, and I was a willing participant.

  I remember him asking me my name. What? I said. You mean my stage name? He chuckled, as did the packed hall, and I could see Jennifer and her friends laughing. Then he had me play all sorts of musical instruments. I was lead guitarist in a rock group. A classical violinist. A trumpeter. He gave me some superpowers. I could fly. Walk on water. Go invisible by clicking my fingers. I was very convincing. Then he wanted to have me executed. And he had the audience shout out their preferred methods of execution. Put her in front of the firing squad. String her up. Poison her. The audience was not shy. Tie the witch to a stake and burn her, I heard someone call out and I started to think it’s time the show was over. Then I looked right into the audience and saw Jennifer and her friends load their rifles and shoot. I had to react and clutch my chest when the bullets landed and fall agonizingly to the floor and cry out my dying words. Then Enrico brought me back to life and I had to go through it all over again. I must have died and been brought back to life a hundred times that night. Jennifer and her friends, mother, the entire place was in stitches.

  The icing on the cake was him getting me to pretend I was a lost little girl searching for her parents. Enrico gave me a countdown from thirty and I had to climb down off the stage, jam two fingers inside my mouth, and trawl through the audience in search of my mother. What I did was seek out Jennifer. I found her, sitting with her friends, and I plonked myself down beside them and put my arms around Jennifer as though to give her a hug. Then I moved my hands to her throat and started squeezing for all I was worth. How the audience gasped. And Jennifer was screaming and Enrico was fast-counting down, three, two, one, then he clapped his hands and hey presto I was returned to normality. Except I was no longer listening to Enrico’s instructions. I held my grip. And it was all mother and some others could do to prise me away from her.

  A couple of weekends later, mother sat me down at the kitchen table and told me about the head doctor she had invited around, while home-from-college Jennifer stood by the window, looking on. I didn’t know for how long mother had been planning this. And I remember looking over at my sister and asking why she had to be present. Jennifer started to answer, but then the doorbell sounded, oh, here he is, mother said, I watched Jennifer go to let him in, and something stirred inside me, a gnawing resentment that she didn’t have to go through any of this.

  St Jude’s aside, it was the only time I talked to anyone about daddy. I can still remember his words – after I had half-answered a couple of his questions.

  I want to tell you something, Laura. About your father . . . about the night he died. It was an accident, Laura. A terrible accident. It was the storm . . . it’s not your fault, Laura. It’s not your fault.

  Later, I remember mother held my left hand as she repeated the words. She held it with both of her own hands. I remember they were so cold. I remember her eyes imploring me to say something, to accept what had been said to me.

  I ran out of there,
not stopping until I had reached the boathouse and had scampered up the back-wall ladder onto the flat roof where I perched myself and tried to shut out everything around me.

  And I was back to that wild winter night. Howling wind and crashing waves. I’m running towards the pier-end. I holler when I see him. Daddy, daddy! Guess what? I got the part. At school. He turns to me. He smiles. A wave crash-lands. And then he isn’t there.

  It’s all I could see when I opened my eyes and looked out into the auditorium on opening night a year and a half ago. Daddy standing at the pier-end. There one moment, and then gone.

  I often wondered if Jennifer knew I was faking it. That Enrico had failed to work his magic on me. And if she did know, had she asked herself why had I gone for her the way I did?

  It’s like I’ve got all these parts to me. Easy-to-see parts and long forgotten parts and parts I encounter in my problematic dreams. I have shadow parts. They do not wish me well. When I least expect it they tiptoe inside my skin, whisper awful things, needle my flimsy blood. Life is a series of ladders you have to climb, I remember the genius in St Jude’s saying during one of our sessions together. Me? I don’t go up ladders. I slide down snakes.

  *

  Someone is calling my name. Then gently touching me.

  ‘Laura! LAURA!’

  I open my eyes and Jennifer is standing over me.

  ‘For a minute I thought you had fallen asleep and were having a bad dream. Are you OK?’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She has turned on the lamp by the window. Now she kneels down on the floor, very close to me and is staring intensely at me. I clear the tears away from my eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, taking the hanky she has offered and blowing my nose.

  ‘What’s wrong? Please, tell me.’

  I clear my eyes some more, can feel her taking it all in. Middle of the night. Soup all over the floor. Distraught younger sister sobbing by herself in the kitchen dark.

  When I don’t answer she gathers up pieces of the broken bowl and she fetches a cloth and starts wiping up the spillage.

  ‘Leave it,’ I say.

  ‘It’s OK. It won’t take a minute.’

  ‘I said, leave it.’

  ‘Laura. We want to help you. Please, let us help.’

  I stand out of the chair and leave her to her cleaning up.

  I leave the house, cross the road and walk the pier. It’s cold but not as cold as it can be, and in the night sky I can even make out stars. I have no idea what time it is.

  I wish myself back in time, back to the nights I was out here with daddy, back to nights in the nearby hall watching the Claddagh Players in all their glory.

  I think about the year they put on Streetcar. The last show daddy appeared in, the final part he got to play.

  I stand at the end of the pier. Strain to make out the lights reflected in the water. They are so faint, scarcely make an impression on the darkness all around. The merest flicker, nothing more.

  Part IV

  DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

  GENE TIERNEY

  November 19, 1920 – November 6, 1991

  aka Laura

  Inducted: February 8, 1960

  Star address: 6125, Hollywood Blvd

  Discovered aged seventeen while on a tour of Warner Bros Studios

  After her first movie declared she sounded like ‘an angry Minnie Mouse’

  Struggled with episodes of manic depression

  For twenty minutes stood on the ledge of a Manhattan high-rise

  Fled one institution after 27 shock treatments

  (note to self: do not end up in a jam like that)

  26

  So, daddy, it’s been almost a month since my audition, the play has been cast, and rehearsals are well and truly under way. I keep checking my phone on the off chance there has been some kind of mix-up at Khaos, that Stephen has seen the error of his ways and here he is pleading for a chance to make amends. Oh, Laura. We have made a horrible mistake. Of course you are perfect for the part of Blanche. I was blind. We were all blind here at Khaos. Please accept our apologies for this terrible misunderstanding. The part is yours. It always was. It’s here, waiting for you. Please, please come back to us. But every time I look all I see waiting for me is another alert from Imelda, detailing the latest from her stellar life. Location shoots. Photo-shoots. Her mug on the cover of glossy magazines. Her operatic love life. Her lecturing me about my potential. Potential, daddy! And if I hear another word about Marty and this Gloria Swanson biopic I really do think I’ll rock up in London and tell her face to face exactly what she can do with her role of a lifetime.

  Still. It’s got me thinking, daddy. About Khaos. Stephen Fallow had his reasons for not giving me the part I was after, he even tried to explain them to me before offering me that other part. But by then I wasn’t really in a listening kind of mood and, amidst all the confusion with Little Juan, maybe I was a little fast out of the traps letting him know what he could do with his idea. That’s another thing. Jennifer has been very slow letting go of that particular incident. Even though Fleming found the little fellow safe and sound, happily enjoying the company of a pair of terrorists who were plying him with the largest pizza I had ever seen. My, my, was Jennifer mad. You should have heard her, daddy. Yelling to all and sundry that I need locking up, that my head needs prying into. She even started raving about my taking Little Juan out along the pier. You would think I was intent on dropkicking him into the bay the way she was going on. All I wanted to do was give him a look at the lights – just like you used to do with me. It got so bad that mother had to intervene to calm her down. And all this before I made the blunder of not only telling them about the audition, but that I had in fact gotten the part. Call it a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, an impulse on my part to divert attention away from my faux pas with Little Juan. And something to do with the wonderful time of it Imelda is having. So, as of right now, daddy, the way things stand I am going to have to crawl hands and knees back to Stephen Fallow and tell him, Sorry, old chap, I was a tad hasty earlier. Thank you for the offer and here I am to accept the part of Eunice the neighbour from upstairs. Otherwise, that sister of mine is going to interpret my behaviour in this matter as further evidence that I belong back inside St Jude’s. If you have any suggestions as to how I find my way out of this bind, daddy, now might be a good time to present them to me.

  27

  Dearest Laura, greetings from Budapest. More specifically, from my almost splendid hotel suite – oh but, Laura, you should see the Danube at sundown. In a word: paradise. Alas, it’s my last night. And I’m having to spend it all by myself. Ennio was supposed to swing by after his concert performance, but – horror upon horror – his wife has found out about us. Did I mention his wife? She’s Russian. A cellist. Quite well known by all accounts. Her name is Svetlana and I hear she is quite fond of archery. Just as well I’m flying to Los Angeles next week! Anyway, the entire farrago is all down to that pest of a stalker. He had his camera with him the night he came prowling around, and he managed to nab himself some choice balcony shots of Ennio and myself sharing a moonlit moment. And of course the pics have been plastered all over the place. What a bore, Laura. What a bore!

  Roll on Los Angeles. A fast visit for a pow-wow with Marty, a meet-and-greet with the producers, drinks with the cast and crew. I think I’m going to posture a bit. You know. Like the great woman herself. Gloria. What a name! I’ve been watching footage of her. Talk shows. Interviews. Did you know she was a health freak? Some kind of macrobiotic diet. Tell you one thing, it worked. She looked great. I’m enjoying going through her back catalogue too. All the silent movies. Have you got a favourite? I think mine is Sadie Thompson. A woman of the night seeking a fresh start becomes the obsession of a religious extremist. What a pitch! Marty loves that one too. He’d never do a remake, would he? I might say it to him, and in such a way that allows him think it’s his idea. List
en to me! Get this biopic in the can to begin with, Imelda. Then we can worry about remakes.

  Marty FedExed me a draft of the Swanson script, actually. Oh, Laura! It’s amazing. The supporting cast is pretty interesting too. You’ll never guess who they’ve lined up – obviously I am sworn to secrecy, but I will reveal that it is someone you and I used to swoon about at great length. Someone about whom you devised an elaborate kidnap plan – to do with keeping him locked away in a certain boathouse. Ha ha! He’s coming to Europe to have a look at me in action – in the TV show, I mean. Maybe I’ll let him have me in other ways too – now that Ennio is indisposed!

  Now let me tell you one thing I am most definitely going to do when I get to LA. Make time for a stroll along the Walk of Fame. I well remember how you used to go on and on about it. Like the broken proverbial, you were. I’d give you a name and without blinking an eye you could give me the exact location of their star. I’ll be thinking of you as I make my way along it. Might even take some pics of my own.

  By the way. I had Falstaff look up that theatre group in your town. Khaos. What a great name. It looks like you’re putting a production together. I assume you’re involved, though I didn’t notice a cast listing and there weren’t any headshots. You’re probably up to your neck in rehearsals. Though I have to say I am at a loss to understand why my former understudy isn’t chomping at the bit for a smidgen of advice from someone as well placed as yours truly. Don’t say you are too proud to ask! So, then. Let me hear from you. Something, however brief. Otherwise I might just have to make a detour on my way to Los Angeles. Gotta fly! Kiss, kiss. Bang, bang. You’re dead! Mel. x

  She hasn’t enclosed any links this time. No images of that Danube sundown or moonlit moments with Ennio. Just more quack-quacking from planet Imelda. Bad enough she has it inside that inflated noggin of hers that I was her understudy. Now she thinks I am in urgent need of her advice. Well. Here is a piece of advice. From yours truly to yours truly: Never listen to a duck in a thunderstorm.