Angels

by Marian Keyes

  Helen thought about it. ‘Yep. First, I need to develop a drink dependency. Shouldn’t be any problem considering the gene pool I come from. Secondly, I need a wacky family.’ Helen swept an approving eye over the assembled group, over Mum’s patchy face, Dad’s argyle socks and Anna’s I-get-dressed-in-the-dark chic. ‘Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we appear to be in luck!’

  ‘Someone’s coming out. Someone’s coming out!’

  ‘Calm down, Dad.’

  But it was just a Mexican gardener with a leaf-blower.

  Dad rolled down the window and shouted at him, ‘Is Julia around?’

  ‘Hooleeya?’

  ‘Julia Roberts.’

  ‘Thees ees not Mees Roberts’ khouse.’

  Oh,’ Dad said in consternation. ‘Well, do you know which one is?’

  ‘Yes, but eef I told you, I would have to keel you.’

  ‘Fine help you are,’ Dad muttered, rolling the window back up. ‘Come on, who’s next?’

  After visits to the ‘houses’ of Tom Cruise, Sandra Bullock, Tim Allen and Madonna had yielded nothing but views of electronic gates and Armed Response signs, we gave up on it and went to the Chinese Theatre, which was overrun with tourists seeking their favourite actors’ handprints, then putting their own hands in and having their photo taken. Dad paid homage to John Wayne’s hands, Mum couldn’t get over the tininess of Doris Day’s shoes and Anna seemed very touched by Lassie’s paw print. Helen, however, wasn’t so impressed.

  ‘This is boring,’ she said loudly and tagged a passing official. ‘Excuse me, sir, where can I find Brad Pitt’s arse?’

  ‘Brad Pitt’s arse?’

  ‘Yes, I heard it was here.’

  ‘Didja? OK. Hey, Ricky, where can this lady find Brad Pitt’s arse?’

  ‘What’s an arse?’

  ‘An ass,’ Helen translated helpfully. ‘A butt, if you prefer.’

  ‘Do we have Brad Pitt’s butt? Hey, LaWanda, where’s Brad Pitt’s butt?’

  But LaWanda wasn’t as stupid as the rest of them. ‘We don’t got it,’ she snapped.

  ‘Did someone steal it?’ Helen asked sympathetically.

  LaWanda eyed Helen angrily. ‘You weird.’

  ‘Because I want to see a concrete copy of Brad Pitt’s arse? It’d be weird not to want to see it.’

  ‘Brad Pitt ain’t gonna come on down here, drop his pants and sit his ass in wet con-crete. He a star!’ By now LaWanda was giving the hand and doing that side-to-side, head-popping thing they do on Jerry Springer. I knew what usually followed. Before Helen got the crap beaten out of her, I moved her on.

  Later, I dropped them back to the Ocean View, with instructions to get ready for the film screening, then to come round to Emily’s.

  ‘And we’re to get dressed up?’ Dad asked, hoping the answer would be no.

  ‘It’s a film premeer,’ Mum scolded. ‘Of course we are.’

  ‘Are we?’ he asked me again.

  ‘You might as well.’

  Though Doves was only an independent film – which meant no household-name stars and no one in Ireland being impressed because they’d never hear of it – all the same, it was worth looking our best.

  And then, I don’t know what got into me, but I decided I’d take a trip to Arizona and Third and get my nails done.

  I found Nail Heaven easily. Not only was it on the corner of Arizona and Third, just like Lara had said, but it had a pink-neon hand in the window and a blue-neon sign that said ‘nails, nails, nails’ (only the ‘n’ wasn’t lighting properly so what the sign actually said was ‘ails, ails, ails’, but what harm?). Down a couple of steps and in I went.

  It was run by Taiwanese girls, Lara had said. The best. Behind a desk sat a beautiful, doll-like receptionist, whose name badge said ‘Lianne’. As I explained myself to her and apologized for not having an appointment, I was distracted by her nails – they were about two inches long and each one was individually painted with the stars and stripes. All at once, a wealth of nail-related possibilities opened up – maybe I’d get mine done the same!

  ‘You don’t need appointment,’ Lianne said – just as Lara had promised – then she grasped my hand and bent over it to examine it. ‘Ooohhh,’ she breathed, sounding quite shocked –and suddenly I saw what she was seeing; the uneven, crooked nails, the scraggy cuticles, the general air of neglect. I’d never thought it had mattered before. How wrong I was!

  Just in case I wasn’t already feeling ashamed, Lianne began to laugh – childish, sweet hee-hee-hees – before lifting her glossy head and excitedly summoning her colleagues to have a look. In seconds I was surrounded by slender, white-coated girls, high-pitched garrulous chatter and lots more laughter as they examined my hand, as if it wasn’t attached to me, but was a strange object found abandoned in the street.

  ‘On vacation?’ one asked.

  ‘Yes. From Ireland.’

  ‘Ah,’ she nodded, like it all made sense now. ‘Iowa.’

  Quick-fire questions in Taiwanese began to hop between the girls and the word ‘Mona’kept appearing. Finally, when some conclusion had been reached, Lianne said, ‘Mona will do you.’

  ‘Which one of you is Mona?’ I asked, looking from blossom like face to blossom-like face, and for some reason this question was enough to start the laughter all over again. I could sort of understand why when Mona emerged from some back room, a heavy-set lady quite a bit older than the other beauticians.

  ‘She very goo’,’ one of the young girls whispered respectfully to me.

  ‘She rike a charrenge,’ whispered another.

  Mona examined my fingernails. ‘The feet too?’ She leant over for a look at my toes poking through my sandals and all but winced.

  ‘I’m not sure I have the time.’

  ‘We do them same time as hands. One girl hands, other girl feet,’ she said scornfully.

  ‘OK then.’

  She summoned one of the younger girls, and in no time they had my hands and feet soaking in soapy water.

  ‘You need the hot wax. It’s goo’ for your skin,’ Mona said.

  ‘Fine.’ If the job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly, right?

  Just then a tall, well-kempt woman stalked in, wearing a beautifully cut trouser suit and an air of panic. She had a quick word with Lianne, who shouted a few urgent-sounding imprecations around the salon and within moments people were rising from their work stations and gravitating to the front of house. There was an atmosphere of importance, of professionals falling into well-rehearsed roles, and for some reason it reminded me of the time, years ago, when I’d had to go to Accident and Emergency with a badly sprained ankle. I’d been in agony, my foot had swollen up to the size of a football and I was whimpering in pain, when out of nowhere gurneys were rattling past me, bearing bodies that were losing blood hand over fist. Paramedics were running beside them, holding drips and shouting stuff like, ‘He’s still breathing.’ Apparently there had been a terrible car crash on the Stillorgan dual carriageway and my sprained ankle, painful though it was, was suddenly (and rightfully) bottom of the priority list.

  From the minute the well-dressed woman had rushed into Nail Heaven, there was the same attitude that this was a real emergency. While she told the terrible story of her ‘prize nail’ and how she’d got it caught while changing a toner cartridge, Mona rose to her feet, followed by her assistant, and a path opened up for them.

  ‘Oh, Mona, thank God!’ The woman thrust the injured nail at her. ‘Can it be saved?’

  When Mona had taken stock and eventually concluded, ‘It’s bad. I’ll do what I can,’ I almost expected them all to start scrubbing up and donning green gowns and masks.

  While the worthier woman was being fast-tracked to full nail health, I sat abandoned, my hands and feet in basins of soapy water. Some kind-hearted soul placed a magazine on my thighs, but, on account of my hands soaking, I couldn’t turn the pages. Then I moved my foot a fraction and the magazine slid off my knee
and down into the basin of water that my feet were in.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, as the same kind-hearted soul retrieved it and shook out its swollen, pulpy pages. I wondered if she’d bring me another.

  She didn’t. I looked at the two other women there who were having their hands and feet done. Neither of them had let their magazines fall into the soapy water. What was it about me that I sometimes felt I’d been born without life’s rule book?

  Eventually, after she’d saved the prize nail, Mona returned to me bringing her helper and they set to work, filing, buffing, pushing back cuticles, rubbing at callouses, and then it was time for the hot-wax treatment. A basin of molten wax was placed on the floor in front of me and I was told to put my foot in. But the second I came in contact with the wax, I hopped my foot right back out and yelped, ‘It’s much too hot!’

  ‘But it’s goo’ for your skin,’ Mona cried, clamping a vice-like hand around my knee and trying to force my foot back down into the basin.

  ‘But missus… Mona, it’s too hot.’ We struggled for a few seconds, me pushing my knee up, her pushing it down, then Mona cheated by standing up and giving herself extra leverage. Right away my foot was plunged back into the scalding wax.

  ‘It hurts,’ I begged.

  ‘It’s goo’ for your skin,’ Mona repeated, her hand steady on my quivering knee.

  All the other girls were in convulsions, shrieking with laughter behind beautiful hands.

  After a short but agonizing wait, I was allowed to lift my foot out. But as soon as a layer of wax had cooled and whitened around my foot, she plunged me back in again. The laughter started anew. In, out, in, out went my foot. The pattern was repeated four or five times, each time as painful as the first.

  Some years ago, there was a programme on the telly called Shogun. In it a man is dunked repeatedly in boiling water until he dies. For some reason I thought of that. And funnily enough, I thought of it again when we did the second foot.

  Then they wrapped my be-waxed feet in plastic bags tied at the ankles with pink ribbons, and if I hadn’t seen this done before I’d have been looking around for the hidden cameras.

  Ten minutes later, when they peeled off the white wax, to my surprise my feet weren’t in need of urgent skin-grafts but were soft and petal-like. Then they painted all twenty of my nails in a pretty ice-cream pink – they’d laughed indulgently but shaken their heads when I’d asked for the stars and stripes – and sent me on my way. Already I was a convert, promising myself that I’d definitely have it done once a week from now on. The way you do.

  Back at home, Emily was hiding her worn-out pallor beneath a mask of make-up. I don’t know how she does it, but when she’d finished she looked fantastic – radiant and shiny and not at all like a sleep-deprived, stressed wreck who’d been working flat-out and living on cigarettes and Lucky Charms.

  My family were due to arrive at Emily’s at seven, and when they hadn’t arrived by twenty-five past, I was a ball of anxiety.

  ‘They’ve got lost!’

  ‘How could they get lost? It’s six blocks, it’s a straight line!’

  ‘You know what they’re like. They’ve probably ended up in South Central and are already in a street gang. Gold chains and uzis and bandannas.’

  ‘Could you imagine your Dad in a bandanna?’ Emily got sidetracked.

  ‘Could you imagine Mum in one?’ For some reason, we were suddenly snorting with uncontrollable laughter. ‘An orange one.’

  ‘She’d look like a space-hopper.’ And we were off again, shaking with mirth. It was lovely.

  ‘Oh God,’ Emily sighed happily, scooping an expert finger under her eye and removing a little pool of mascara, ‘that’s fabulous. Hold on,’ she cocked an ear. ‘I hear them.’

  The four of them burst into the house, bringing their collective bad humours with them.

  ‘It’s her fault we’re late,’ Mum glared at Helen.

  ‘We’re here now, that’s the main thing,’ Dad tried.

  ‘And you all look lovely,’ complimented Emily.

  Indeed they did. We were a glitzy, perfumed lot (except for Dad), and it came as no surprise when, almost immediately, the Goatee Boys appeared at the door.

  ‘We’re just going out,’ Emily said shortly, trying to bar them entrance.

  ‘Hey, I’m Ethan.’ Ethan bobbed up and down, trying to see around Emily and make eye contact with Helen and Anna.

  ‘Oh, let them in for a second,’ I said.

  ‘Go on, then.’ Emily stood by narkily as the three of them filed in and stood shyly in front of the girls. I did the introductions and for a few minutes left them to sniff around each other like dogs, then we really did have to go.

  ‘What do those lads do?’ Dad asked, as he hoisted himself up into Emily’s jeep.

  ‘Catch VD,’ Emily muttered.

  ‘They’re students,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Anna said, ‘but Ethan, the one with the shaved head, he’s going to be the new Messiah.’

  Mum’s lips tightened. ‘Oh, he is, is he?’

  38

  The première of Doves was taking place offDoheny, in a wonderful old-fashioned movie theatre with red velvet seats and art deco mirrored walls, a throwback to a more glamorous age. I was glad we’d made an effort with our appearance, because everyone else looked fairly ritzy. There were even a few photographers hanging around. ‘More likely to be from Variety than People,’ Emily said, but all the same.

  Emily went off to network –’ Just a quickie before the movie,’ and I shepherded my charges to our allotted seats. I was just settling myself in comfortably when, a couple of rows ahead, I noticed Troy and Kirsty and instantly shrivelled. Seeing him –and worse still, seeing him with Kirsty – reminded me of my stupidity, of how naïve I’d been. But then I remembered what Emily had said: I wasn’t the first woman who’d let herself be made a fool of and I wouldn’t be the last, and all of a sudden I felt a bit lighter, freer. Perhaps I’d always nurse a desire to stick a fork in his leg, but that wasn’t the worst way to feel about someone.

  Troy turned around to check the place out and I lowered my eyes, but too late. He nodded coolly at me, I nodded even more coolly at him – I like to think my head didn’t move at all, just some of my strands of hair – then his look slid over me and arrived at Helen, where it lingered speculatively. Brazenly, Helen winked at him and he grinned back. Kirsty, alerted by some sixth sense, also twisted around and when she saw who Troy was looking at, her whiny voice started up in some attempt to distract him. At least I wasn’t like her, I thought – at least I no longer wanted him.

  Then Emily took her seat, the lights went down and the movie began.

  ‘What kind of film is it?’ Dad whispered hopefully. ‘A horse opera?’

  ‘Is Harrison Ford in it?’ Mum asked into my other ear.

  Harrison Ford has cross-generational appeal in my family; Mum is as keen on him as the rest of us. In fact, even my niece Kate stops crying when Claire plays her the bit in Working Girl when he takes his shirt off – arguably his finest hour.

  Well, I can tell you that Doves didn’t star Harrison Ford and it wasn’t a horse opera. I’m not quite sure what it was. It could have been a love story, except the hero kept murdering his girlfriends. It could have been a comedy, except it wasn’t funny. It could have been a porn movie, except it was mostly filmed in black and white so that we’d know the sex wasn’t gratuitous but was essential to the plot. (It really is intensely uncomfortable watching graphic sex scenes while sandwiched between your parents.)

  It was the kind of film which makes me feel incredibly thick, which reminds me that I didn’t go to university, that I haven’t read any Simone de Beauvoir, that I thought Kieslowski’s Three Colours: Red was complete tosh (and I’d only gone because When a Man Loves a Woman had been booked out). I spent most of it a) wishing the sex scenes would end and b) trying to think of things to say to Lara afterwards about it, other than ‘pile of shite’. It took m
e the full 120 minutes of running time to decide that ‘Interesting’ was a good neutral phrase. After two dreadful hours – and seemingly midway through a scene – the credits began to roll, the lights went up and the clapping and whoops began. Mum turned, smiled brightly at me and declared, ‘Marvellous!’ Then muttered in an undertone, ‘The oddest thing I ever saw. I thought The English Patient was bad, but it was nothing on this yoke.’

  As everyone stood up to applaud the director, Dad remained sitting, staring straight ahead.

  ‘It’s not actually completed, is it? This isn’t the actual thing people will pay money for into the cinema?’ He was almost pleading. ‘Maybe they’ve shown us the out-takes, the funnies that turn up on It’ll Be Alright on the Night?’

  ‘Where’s the drink?’ Helen demanded.

  ‘I’ve to go to the loo, I’ll investigate.’ As I excuse-me-excuse-me’d through the audience out into the lobby, I over-heard someone describing the movie as ‘very European’.

  ‘Brave,’ someone else said. ‘Challenging,’ yet another person said. I filed the phrases away, they’d come in very handy the next time I wanted a euphemism for ‘pile of shite’.

  ‘Maggie, Maggie!’ Lara, luminous in a copper-coloured, floor-length, beaded sheath and big Barbarella hair, was beckoning me over. ‘Thank you for coming. What did you think?’

  ‘Yeah, great. Interesting, really interesting. Very European.’

  ‘You think? You hated it!’ She laughed with delight.

  ‘No, I… oh OK, it wasn’t really me. I’m more of a chick-flick kind of girl.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Then she noticed. ‘Hey, great nails. You went to Nail Heaven? Who did you?’

  ‘Mona.’

  ‘Mona? Wow.’

  ‘Why “wow”?’

  ‘One of the greats but she’s kinda in semi-retirement. Only does the special cases. I better go talk to some journalists, but I’ll catch you later.’

  She shimmied away and I felt happy – at least things were OK with Lara. I still wanted to keep her away from my parents, but there was no residue of awkwardness from our brief dalliance.