Angels

by Marian Keyes

  Eventually everything went still – like the calm after all the popcorn has popped – so I opened my eyes and began to struggle to my feet. Only to be stopped by Anoushka insisting, ‘No!’

  Obediently I lay back and shut my eyes again. But nothing happened, and I cautiously squinched open one eye to find Anoushka studying me with great concentration.

  ‘The hardest part is knowing when you’re finished,’ Lara said admiringly. ‘All the great artists say that.’

  Over the next ten minutes, a single hair was plucked from my right eye and none from my left, then Anoushka saw fit to declare, ‘Finish!’

  Sitting up, I looked into the mirror: my nose was red and my eyes were rheumy, as though I’d been crying for a week. I reminded myself of someone. Who? Oh, myself. Last February. But my eyebrows were lovely, no doubt about it.

  ‘Better than a facelift,’ Anoushka said. Now where had I heard that before? And once again, it was almost as expensive.

  When we got back into Lara’s pick-up truck, a change occurred. All of a sudden, she was uncomfortable, and the feeling filled the small space. ‘There’s something I’ve got to say to you,’ she said, then picked up my hand. Alert, I stared into her blue eyes. Oh God, here it comes. Lezzer snog! Senses instantly heightened, I noticed that she smelt of strawberries, that her legs were so long her car seat was as far back as it could go… She pulled my hand to her face. Was she going to kiss it? And then me?

  ‘I feel bad saying this,’ she sighed, ‘but you have the worst nails. You have got to get to a nail bar.’

  It took me a perplexed moment to realize she’d returned my hand to me. No lezzer snog. Just another instalment in Lara’s mission to groom me to LA standards.

  ‘Have you, like, ever had a manicure?’

  ‘Of course I have.’ I’d had one when I’d got married, hadn’t I? And other times too, I’d say.

  ‘But not in a while, right? OK, there’s a place in Santa Monica, on the corner of Arizona and Third. Nail Heaven, Taiwanese girls, they’re the best! Tell them I sent you.’ I waited for her to grab her palm pilot and book me in, but she didn’t.

  ‘You’re not…’ I tried to sound normal, ‘getting me an appointment?’

  ‘You don’t need one, not for nails. This is a civilized country! Hey, you don’t hate me, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Phew! So what’ll we do now? Go for a drink, or get some dinner, or…’

  Before we could decide, her cellphone rang. ‘Yes –’ Her eyes slid to me, ‘I’ve got her.’

  It was Troy! Tracking me down! Mad for sex with me!

  But it wasn’t. It was Justin. Emily had called him and he was under instructions to take care of me that evening.

  ‘Can I come too?’ Lara asked.

  ‘No Nadia tonight?’

  ‘No.’ Suddenly subdued, she switched on the ignition, and we drove over to Justin’s house – a red-roofed mini-hacienda, with lots of Spanish archways and wrought-iron window shutters. He wore a blue and green Hawaiian shirt that I hadn’t seen before. He must have hundreds.

  ‘Hi, how are you?’ I asked.

  ‘Pretty sore,’ he answered, his voice even higher than usual.

  ‘Why, sweetie?’ Lara asked with concern.

  ‘Some other guy keeps getting the parts I’m up for. Look at him!’ He hit a copy of Daily Variety with the back of his hand, then showed us a little photo of the other guy. It was uncanny – he was so similar to Justin, they could have been brothers, but this guy was just that little bit plumper and cuter and his face was even more open and uncomplicated than Justin’s.

  ‘All I can do is be fat and expendable,’ Justin said, slumped in depression. ‘If I can’t do that, I’ve no job. I’m a total loser.’

  Lara and I pitched in, reminding him he could give great foot massages and was an excellent cook (according to Lara), until eventually he perked up. ‘Aw, I’m sorry, guys. So what’ll we do? We could catch a movie?’

  ‘Suits me.’ Going to a film was always a great opportunity to eat loads of confectionery under cover of darkness.

  ‘How about Flying Pigs?’ Lara said.

  ‘Nah, I hated his last one,’ Justin said.

  ‘Which? Introspection?’

  ‘No, Washday Blues.’

  ‘Did he do that?’

  I tuned out as the pedigrees of the many, many films currently showing in greater Los Angeles were discussed – this is the one complaint I’d have about hanging around with people who work in the film industry, they know too much – and tuned back in only when they’d finally nominated a candidate. Something called Seven Feet Under.

  ‘A black comedy,’ Justin explained. ‘Directed by the guy who made –’

  ‘Grand, whatever.’ I was more interested in the bag of M&M’s I’d be eating while I watched it.

  On our way out of the house, I noticed the name on Justin’s mailbox: Thyme.

  ‘Justin Thyme? That’s a great name. Is it –?’

  ‘No.’ He beat me to it. ‘Not my real surname. I made it up to try and stand out from the thousands of other expendable fat guys out there.’

  By Sunday morning, I was itching for Emily to come home.

  And for Troy to ring me.

  When was he likely to? What were the rules? Perhaps it was way too soon – it had been less than a day. Then I checked my watch – OK, just over a day. Nothing, no length of time. I could ring him, of course. That’s what people did, normal people that I had to start behaving like. But I didn’t have his number.

  Aimlessly, I opened a couple of cupboards, found nothing of interest, then sat staring at the floor, wishing Emily would come home from her sexathon with Lou. Sundayitis – the same wherever you are.

  When the phone rang, the adrenalin rush felt like a heart attack. Nerves a-jangle, I picked up on the second ring. But it wasn’t Troy, it was my mother.

  Are you all right?’ she asked.

  I nodded assent, too disappointed to speak.

  ‘Is it nice there?’

  Quickly, I got it together. ‘Lovely, lovely!’ I so didn’t want any pressure to go home. ‘Nice people, gorgeous weather –’

  ‘Is it sunny?’ she cut in.

  ‘Sunny? Splitting the stones!’

  ‘I’d love a bit of sun,’ she said wistfully.

  I got a strange little inkling and began backtracking. ‘Mind you, it can be smoggy too. Very overcast. And there’s always the chance of an earthquake.’

  ‘It hasn’t stopped raining here since the day you left. I’d prefer an earthquake.’

  ‘Ahaha,’ I laughed nervously, changed the subject, then said goodbye and resumed staring at the floor.

  Emily got home around two o’clock. Lou had love-bombed her all weekend: taken her out for fabulous meals, practised his Shiatsu on her, then last night they’d driven up to Mulholland Drive to watch the lights of the city and he’d said that this was something they’d tell their grandchildren.

  ‘Classic commitmentphobic,’ she said gaily.

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘They do instant intimacy – just add water and stir. Then you never hear from them again.’

  ‘You almost sound happy about it.’

  ‘It’s nice to know there are some things you can depend on… Unless he actually meant all that stuff about telling our grandchildren,’ she added scornfully. ‘That’d be even worse!’

  No need to tell her that Mort Russell hadn’t called: she’d checked her messages several times.

  ‘So how are you?’ she asked.

  How was I? Troy still hadn’t rung, which had whipped up a ball of anxiety in my stomach. But hadn’t I always been one for deferred gratification? When he finally came through, the wait would have been worth it.

  ‘You look… different.’

  Oh my God, was it that obvious?

  She studied me thoughtfully. ‘Your eyebrows!’

  ‘Oh, ah, right. Lara took me to Madame Anoushka.’

/>   ‘Tell me about Cameron Myers’ birthday party.’

  ‘Weeelll,’ I said, unable to keep my delight from spreading right across my face. ‘It was great.’

  ‘How? Tell me everything.’ Then her expression altered. ‘Oh, shit.’ She looked surprisingly shocked. ‘You slept with Troy’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she insisted. ‘Nothing… OK,’ she admitted, ‘it’s just a bit weird for me. Like, for nine years you’ve been Garv’s wife, you’ve been here – how long? – less than two weeks and you’re sleeping with other men. And you were never a goer –not really – and, you know, it’s a bit hard to get used to, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve got used to it.’

  ‘Great.’ She made a very obvious attempt at being fine, and with a big smile asked, ‘Was it fun?’

  ‘Fun isn’t the word.’

  ‘Fair play to you.’ For a second, it looked like she was about to say something else, then she stopped.

  25

  About three years ago, two things that I never thought would happen, happened. My thirtieth birthday arrived and, after five years in Chicago, Garv was offered a promotion in the Dublin office and we decided to move back to Ireland. Garv settled into his new managerial position, I got a six-month contract at McDonnell Swindel and suddenly it was baba time!

  But, to my distress, I still didn’t feel ‘ready’. It was great being back in Ireland, but I missed Chicago. In addition, adjusting to my new job was stressy; I hated the insecurity of a short-term contract, but that’s all that anyone offered me. And we had nowhere to live: we’d expected our return to the Emerald Isle to be the traditional one of an Irish person who goes to Amerikay: they make good, then come back and dispense largesse like it’s going out of fashion. So it came as a big shock to discover that while we’d been away, Ireland had had the temerity to go and get an economy for itself.

  Dublin was boomtown and the price of property had gone through the roof. We arrived back at the very zenith, when shoeboxes were changing hands for several million quid and if someone stood still long enough, someone else would apply for planning permission to build sixteen apartments on them. The upshot of all this was that instead of snapping up a city-centre mansion with the proceeds of our Chicago apartment, it took us five months before we managed to buy a house in the suburb of Dean’s Grange, several miles from the city Before us, it had been owned by an old lady – the kitchen and bathroom were museum pieces and small, gloomy rooms were the order of the day. So we fashioned plans to modernize: new kitchen, new bathroom, knocking through walls, adding skylights and all that. Lord Lucan Construction duly arrived, knocked down most of the house, then promptly disappeared. And every day that the pile of cement in the front ‘garden’ stood unattended was another day that I didn’t have to commence babymaking.

  But all the time the net was tightening. Just before we’d left Chicago, nearly every couple we knew were having children, and we’d barely touched down in Ireland when I noticed they were at the same lark there. Only a week after our return, Garv’s sister Shelley had a baby boy, Ronan. Garv and I went to visit her in hospital, a bunch of grapes under our oxter, where we found that Shelley’s partner Peter had conjoined with a bottle of Power’s to celebrate the birth of his first child. ‘GARV!’ he shouted, when he saw us coming down the corridor. ‘Garv, Garv! C’mere till you see the fruit of my loins!’ He thrust his pelvis at us with such vigour that he almost fell over, then, bouncing between the shiny green walls, he got Garv in a headlock, dragged him to the infant’s cot and berated him, ‘De murkil’ f new life. ‘Sa MURKIL!’ I was mortified for him, especially when he was asked to leave as he was upsetting the other fathers. But Garv seemed quite moved by it all.

  I hadn’t been able to avoid noticing that Garv was keen on sprogs. He liked them and they liked him back. They were particularly fond of messing up his hair and pulling off his glasses and poking him in the eye. When they cried, he held them and spoke sweetly and they stopped crying and looked at him with a kind of wonder and everyone said (except my family), ‘He’ll make a great dad.’

  Sure enough, Garv started making noises about us reproducing, and I cursed my bad luck. In other relationships, it seemed to be the women who wanted to have children while the men would do anything to get out of it. In fact, according to popular folklore (and women’s magazines), these child-shy men riddled the landscape like landmines. Every time Garv brought up the subject, I always managed a legitimate reason why now wasn’t the right time. But it dawned on him that my reluctance wasn’t simply temporary, one weekend when we were babysitting Ronan. (Well, I say weekend, but it was only Saturday night, all that Peter and Shelley dared leave him for. And they rang about eighty times in that twenty-four-hour period.)

  It was the first time that we’d minded Ronan for more than a couple of hours, and we weren’t at all bad at feeding, burping, changing and cajoling him. It was good fun because, you see, I had nothing against babies per se. Just the idea of having them myself. When Ronan cried a couple of times in the night, Garv got up without complaint. Then in the morning he brought him into bed with us and sat him on his lap facing us. Already Ronan was chortling, and when Garv held on to his chubby wrists and blew raspberries at him, Ronan nearly shrieked his head off. Garv was laughing almost as much, and with his bare chest and off-duty hair, he looked like the hunky man in that Man and Baby portrait. I got such a pang of confused yearning, it almost hurt physically.

  A great day was had by some and when Peter and Shelley came to collect Ronan, they asked, ‘Was he good for you?’

  ‘Good?’ Garv said. ‘He was brilliant! We don’t want to give him back.’

  ‘You’ll have to get working on a little cousin for him, so,’ Shelley said.

  Quick as a flash, I indicated the raw walls and said, ‘How could we bring a baby into this building site?’ They laughed and I laughed and Garv laughed – but his laugh wasn’t as loud as ours. Even then, I knew that it had been one excuse too many and not long afterwards the rabbits showed up.

  Time passed and I still didn’t feel ‘ready’. Some of my fears had lessened, specifically the one about the pain of childbirth; I knew enough women who’d had children to know that it was definitely survivable. But whenever I heard stories about people having their first baby at thirty-nine, it brightened my day. Then there was something in the paper about a woman of sixty having a baby using some artificial process and that, too, was good news. But, a lot sooner than I expected, my thirty-first birthday arrived and tipped me into panic: I’d said I’d have a baby when I was thirty and I was now a year older than that. When would my full-blown maternal instinct arrive? I was running out of time. If it didn’t get a move on, it would show up just in time for my menopause.

  Like I say, Garv is no fool. And finally, he sat me down gently – but firmly, mind. He can be firm when he wants to be – and made me talk about it. Really talk about it, instead of fobbing him off as I had been doing for the previous twelve months.

  ‘I’m just not ready,’ I admitted. ‘And it’s not really the pain any more, I’m a bit better about that.’

  ‘Good woman, we’ll get you the finest epidural that money can buy. So what is it, then?’

  ‘Well, my job.’

  Once I said it out loud, I realized what a problem this was. For over five years, both in Chicago and Ireland, I’d been working very, very hard, pushing against the current, and I was still waiting for my job to plateau, to get to a position where I felt ‘safe’. Where I was established enough to be able to take maternity leave, sure that I’d be re-employed, and free from the worry of my colleagues undermining me in my absence and poaching my work. But I was on my third temporary contract.

  ‘You’ll get maternity leave and…’

  ‘But how easy will it be to get back in? And what will it do to my promotion prospects? If I take four months off, how will I ever get to be Frances?’

  ‘So you can sl
eep under one of the desks and wash in the staff toilets like a bag lady? Anyway, they can’t discriminate against you, it’s against the law.’

  Easy for him to say. He hadn’t heard a partner at my firm (a man, of course) complain about someone on maternity leave, ‘If I took four months off to sail around the Med, and expected to be paid for it, they’d laugh in my face!’

  This was what I was up against. Compared to his, mine wasn’t much of a career, but it was important to me. Even though it drained and stressed me, to a certain extent I defined myself by it.

  ‘OK. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes. What if it turns out to be like one of my sisters? Like Rachel and the drugs, say? Or Anna and the insanity. Or Claire and the rebelliousness. I’d never be able to control them, they’d have my heart scalded.’ I stopped. ‘Listen to me, I’m already sounding like my mother. Anyway, I’m too irresponsible to have a child.’

  That made him laugh. ‘You’re not irresponsible!’

  ‘I am! You and me,’ I urged, ‘we have a lovely time. We can go away for weekends at the drop of a hat. Think of Hunter and Cindy!’ Friends of ours in Chicago, who’d had a baby and, overnight, had their life up-ended. Once upon a time the four of us had gone on trips together, but post-baba they’d seemed perpetually ensnared by their screaming child, while Garv and I had swanned off to the lakes for the weekend, feeling guilty and relieved. ‘We couldn’t leave a baby with Dermot, the way we can with Hoppy and Rider. And parenthood never stops,’ I pointed out. ‘Not until the babies are grown up. And maybe not even then.’

  ‘OK, a baby will cause you agony, have your heart scalded, finish your career and destroy your social life for the next twenty years. Other than that, have you any objections?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘It sounds stupid.’

  ‘Tell me anyway.’

  I made myself voice it. ‘What if…like… anything happened to it? What if it got bullied at school? Or if it died? What if it got meningitis? Or was knocked down? We’d love it so much, how could we bear it? Sorry for being so mad,’ I added quickly. I’d never met anyone else who felt like this. Friends who’d got pregnant had admitted to mild regrets, but they’d all been along the lines of’Well, that’s our last romantic weekend away for the next three years,’ or ‘I’m reading as much as I can now, because you can’t concentrate on a book for the first two years. Your brain just goes.’ No one had expressed the kind of morbid misgivings that I had. The closest anyone had got was when they said, ‘I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, so long as it’s healthy’