Hush Hush

by Mullarkey, Gabrielle

  ‘You’ll be right as rain in a minute,’ said Rosie’s voice from a cupboard. ‘Hair of the dog is what you and I need.’

  She loomed suddenly over Angela’s chair, her face blotchy from drink and the cool spring night air, a flower wilting on its engorged, purple stalk. Angela shrank back by instinct. ‘I want to go back to Pauline’s,’ she whimpered drunkenly.

  Rosie stalked to the table, shoved the vase aside. Paper-crisp petals shook onto the table with a final death rattle. Rosie banged down a half-full bottle next to a bread board. ‘There’s bloody gratitude for you! I direct the taxi out of my way to show you evidence he’s skipping the country, and you want me to back-track all the way to Pauline’s. Well, diddums.’ She went to a drawer, then stuck her head in a cupboard under the sink.

  When she turned round again to face Angela, a long-handled knife gleamed in one hand. Angela gasped.

  ‘I suppose it’s the shock,’ mused Rosie, dumping two lemons on the bread board with her other hand. She cleaved one cleanly with the knife. ‘Gin and tonic should do the trick, going easy on the tonic. Fuck it, glasses!’

  Her next trip was to the sink. She scattered dishes with crashes that jolted through Angela’s skull, before extracting two greasy tumblers. ‘You know, it was a shock for me, too. I mean, meeting my successor. Just when you think you’re getting over being dumped, you meet the proof of how little time he needed to get over it. The bastard!’ She stuck the knife in the other lemon. A bolt of pain shot through Angela.

  ‘Ow!’ Rosie held up a thumb and squinted at it. Blood gushed from a flesh wound, red and fresh. She jammed the thumb in her mouth and sucked noisily. Then, as an afterthought, she held her thumb over the rim of a glass and squeezed. ‘Homemade bloody Mary,’ she cackled and looked at Angela.

  It was the look that did it. She’s mad, panicked Angela. She thinks I ruined any chance of her getting back with Conor. She’s going to make me drink her blood, then finish me off with the knife. I’ll never get out of here alive. There’s no window I can run to and yell for help.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Rosie’s face darkened with a frown. Her voice rose fractiously. ‘Why are you looking at me like that!’

  She darted forward, the knife still in her hand, blood staining its handle.

  Angela gasped as the pain ripped through her. After that, the last thing she saw was Rosie’s look of shock, before she pitched forward and fell off the chair.

  When she woke up, her first emotion was panic. Then came pain, sharp and orbital. Her eyes had opened onto womb-like darkness. Now, as she strained to discern the outline of her surroundings, her eyes felt like rawly peeled grapes. How long had she been out cold, with her contact lenses still welded to her eyeballs?

  A spring dug into her back, clawing her spine through a couple of heaped cushions. So she must be lying on ‒ a mattress or sofa? And someone had put cushions under her. Rosie! She sat up suddenly in the darkness and a wave of nausea swept over her. She flopped back. She was covered by a thin blanket. Underneath it, she wore only bra, knickers and tights. She didn’t recall undressing! She stretched her arms out in front of her, paddled wide to both sides and finally, dropped her hands to her sides. Her wedding ring hit plastic, clanging noisily. Seconds later, a shaft of light from the hallway hit the room and Rosie loomed above her in striped pyjamas.

  ‘You want something?’ she whispered hoarsely in the gloom and righted the bucket placed strategically next to the sofa. ‘Try and use it if you feel like chucking again. You didn’t make it to the bathroom first time.’

  There was a suppressed reproach in her voice that forced Angela to rack her scrambled brains for what had gone on earlier in the evening. Memory drip-fed titbits to her. A knife, blood, terrible pain.

  Suddenly, she was alert again, springing upright on the sofa, fighting the dizziness that overcame her. ‘What have you done to me?’ she trembled. ‘Why am I here?’

  Rosie’s padded bulk dropped next to her on the cushions. She grasped Angela’s feebly flapping hands and pinioned them across her chest, ignoring the panic on her captive’s face. ‘Calm down, will you! You’re here because I haven’t got a spare room, and I can’t let you have my bed in case you pebbledash the mattress. Not very hostessy of me I know, but there it is. You got stomach cramps and barfed up Pauline’s party nibbles all over my kitchen and that posh frock of yours. What were you eating all night?’

  Angela gaped at her, a terrible realisation dawning. ‘Prawn sandwiches! Oh God, this happens every time I eat shellfish. I never learn. Mind you, I wasn’t paying proper attention.’ She’d been off guard at Pauline’s, wolfing down the sandwiches without thinking, distracted by Rosie’s presence and revelations. So in a way, it was poetic justice that she’d made a fool of herself at Rosie’s, and added to the unholy stink in her kitchen. Just as she was thinking this, Rosie patted her hand awkwardly. ‘Look, I’m just across the hall if you need anything. There’s a towel next to the bucket. I sponged the worst bits off your dress and hung it over the sink for the night. You should be able to wear it home tomorrow without stinking out the borough. Looks like a dry-cleaning job, though.’

  ‘Th-thanks. Contact lens bottle,’ whimpered Angela in a tone she hoped Rosie would interpret as a request. ‘In jacket pocket.’

  Rosie leant across her and plucked the black jacket out of the shadows behind the sofa. She draped it over Angela’s throat.

  ‘Thanks. And Rosie?’ Angela shifted experimentally, newly aware of a fresh horror, one brought on by her upset stomach. Humiliating confirmation crept damply down her thigh. She gulped. ‘Rosie, I hate to be even more of a pain, but I’ve just started my period. It can come early if I’ve just heaved my guts up. Would you ‒ have you got ‒?’

  ‘Christ, not a thing!’ Rosie’s hand tightened over her own. ‘Tell you what I have got, if it’s any use to you. A box of disposable nappies I keep for when my sister comes round with her baby. Otherwise, you’ll have to stuff another towel down there. Sorry.’

  Angela crimsoned in the darkness. She was the one who should be apologising, first barfing, then bleeding all over the soft furnishings of a woman she’d only met a few hours ago. But of course, it was easier for Rosie in a way. She could be magnanimous, amused even, at this close encounter with the bodily functions of her romantic successor. No doubt it would be all round Pauline’s next therapy group. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ she mumbled ungratefully.

  Rosie bounded off and returned with two large, white nappies flapping in her arms like trapped seagulls. ‘Can you make it to the bathroom on your own OK?’

  ‘Yes, thanks,’ replied Angela, struggling uncertainly to her feet.

  ‘I would’ve put the light on in here, only I thought it would blind you.’

  ‘I prefer it this way.’ Her pants were soaked. She didn’t want to look at Rosie’s sofa cushions until the morning.

  ‘Need any Anadin for the pain?’

  ‘No thanks. I feel much better after vomiting. The period pain’s like being stroked with a feather compared to upset stomach pain.’

  ‘Well, then, goodnight.’ Rosie watched solicitously as Angela hobbled into the bathroom. ‘Oh, and don’t worry. I’ve no intention of sharing tonight with Pauline’s lot or anyone else. G’night. Again.’

  ‘Night,’ croaked Angela, shutting the door. She collapsed on the toilet lid, fiddling shakily with the adhesive tabs on a nappy. Once swaddled, a duck’s bum filling her tights, she waddled back to the sofa and rearranged the cushions, touching them gingerly for wetness. It took a long time to get semi-comfortable. Before she drifted off to sleep, the daftness of the situation sank in. Across the hall was a woman she had everything and nothing in common with. A woman who’d seen her at her most vulnerable. A woman who’d also slept with Conor McGinlay.

  Sadie paused on the doorstep. She hoped this wasn’t a ploy by Angela, trying to outsulk her. It wasn’t easy for Sadie to make the first move twice. The first time was th
at morning, when she’d phoned Goss! and discovered that Angela was off sick. Sadie had been overcome with confusion and embarrassment, but the woman she spoke to ‒ Paula? Pauline? ‒ hadn’t sounded the least surprised or interested that a mother and daughter who lived in the same town didn’t keep abreast of each other’s illnesses. Maybe half of Goss! knew that Angela was just lazing at home and particularly didn’t want her mother to know.

  Sadie jabbed the doorbell. Her readiness to forgive Angela jibed with her concessionary arrival on Angela’s doorstep. It was Angela who should be calling on her.

  The door inched open. ‘Ma, come on in. I’ve meant to ring you.’

  Angela plodded inside, leaving Sadie to follow uneasily. Angela seemed quite unfazed and her tone was heavy with resignation. She shuffled into the kitchen and flicked the kettle switch. Sadie’s opening speech died on her lips. ‘Ange! What are you doing in your dressing gown this late in the afternoon? So you really are sick!’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence in my honesty.’ She moved wearily towards the teapot.

  Sadie drew herself up. Sickness took precedence over unsettled scores. ‘You shouldn’t be up and about at all, by the look of you. Go and sit in the warm, and I’ll make tea. Would you like soup as well?’

  Angela turned. ‘Look, Mum, I’ve been dying to apologise for what I said to you about Robert.’

  ‘Water under the bridge, lovey.’

  Angela’s pale face scanned her mother’s. ‘Is it? Really? And about the other things I said, about when I was growing up.’

  ‘No need to say anything.’

  ‘Shush, Ma, I’ve got to! You know how crap we are in this family about baring our souls and going for the group hug, so let me finish. It wasn’t true. I didn’t row with Robert about you on the eve of his death. As for the other stuff, I was looking for the handiest stick to beat you with, and came up with being a bad mother. I neglected to mention all the times you sat up with me when I was ill, the effort you put into making my first communion dress and loads of other things.’

  Sadie had been listening ‒ right up until the moment her gaze fell on the swing lid of the bin. Poking out of the top were flower stalks.

  ‘Mum, you do believe me, don’t you? You had nothing to do with Robert’s heart attack, indirectly or otherwise.’

  ‘I know that, lovey.’ Flustered in case she’d been caught staring at the bin, Sadie looked quickly out of the window, at the row of washing on the line. She concentrated on a pink and black dress flapping in the wind.

  ‘Nice dress. You don’t wear it often enough.’

  ‘That’s because I’ve only had it five minutes. Conor bought it for me off Rachel’s stall. It’s a Rachel cast-off.’

  Sadie frowned. A submerged memory shifted in murky depths, struggling to break free and float to the surface.

  ‘And no, I’m not mad at you because you said something to remind me of Conor. Tea’s ready.’

  Sadie followed her into the sitting room, troubled by the fact that a key part of her speech was still unsaid. ‘I don’t love Owen more than you,’ she insisted in a dangerously wobbly voice. ‘But I’ve examined my conscience, and maybe I didn’t play fair.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, I’m a grown-up and got over it years ago. You were a good mother, and only human, like the rest of us. I was just mad with you for phoning Conor.’

  Sadie nodded tremulously. ‘And now?’

  Angela stirred tea vigorously, her lower lip jutting out like a precipice. ‘The bottom line is, I love you, Mum, and don’t make me say it again or elaborate because I find it bloody hard to say things like that. Park your bum and sip it slowly. It’s hot.’

  Sadie obeyed, meekened by Angela’s brusqueness. She felt light-headed with joy and relief. Angela loved her! Verbal affirmation of soppy emotions normally had to be extracted from a Feeney with the aid of tweezers, so she must mean it.

  ‘I phoned Goss! and they said you were ill.’

  ‘Spring flu.’ Angela snuffled theatrically into a hanky.

  ‘So, nothing to do with pining for Conor?’

  ‘Now, Ma! Don’t ruin a beautiful moment between us by alluding ‒ unsubtly ‒ to where I went wrong with Conor and how I can still make it right. Because I can’t.’

  She slurped her tea. ‘He’s sold the house and is staying in America.’

  Sadie gasped. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’

  ‘The grapevine’s bellowing the news. Suffice to say his house is on the market. I rang the estate agent’s, posing as a prospective buyer. It’s going for a packet.’

  Sadie rattled her plate, thinking rapidly.

  ‘Don’t even think it!’ interrupted Angela coolly. ‘No more phoning New York behind my back.’

  ‘But hasn’t he called you? Sent you a text?’

  ‘No,’ said Angela, and added with a sadness that belied her words, ‘I don’t want him to. I suppose he’ll turn up at some point and say he couldn’t send a text because what he needed to put into words could only be done face to face. But anyway, I don’t care. He’s caused enough damage for one lifetime. Maybe his wife understands him. She can have him.’

  Sadie opened her mouth, shut it again.

  ‘The truth is, it’s not even solely his fault. I had no business getting involved so soon after Robert. Especially in light of the row we did have the night before his death.’ Angela began to fiddle frantically with a worn sofa seam.

  ‘So there was still a row?’ frowned Sadie, and something in Angela’s averted face made her fear the worst.

  ‘I accused him of having an affair. With that Magdalena one at Hartley’s. It was all very ugly.’

  Sadie clutched her tea-cup. ‘An affair ‒ your Robert?’

  ‘Yes, my Robert. I know, it doesn’t square with his image, does it? Mild-mannered man with thinning hair who hated parting with his comfiest slippers, even when the heels were worn clean away. Then we have Magdalena, Mediterranean siren with come-to-bed eyes and potential for unbridled passion. You wouldn’t think Robert would be able to cope with her, would you?’

  ‘Ange, I can’t believe ‒ are you sure?’

  ‘No, that was the problem! Sorting out the washing, I found a restaurant receipt in his pocket for the night he was supposed to be at a travel seminar with Ian. Even then, I wouldn’t have been suspicious if he hadn’t been so shifty. First of all, he said he’d had dinner with Ian. But in that swank place down by the bridge? Ian would never cough up money for a place like that if it was just him and Robert. So I pointed that out, waiting to hear the fuller ‒ and still innocent ‒ explanation. He blushed, he gaped. And I knew! I tell you, Ma, he wasn’t able to lie convincingly because he’d had no practice at it over the years. That’s what made it so awful. His total inability to cover his tracks, let alone fob me off with a story I could comfortably believe in.’ She pulled at her hair, a gesture of frustration from childhood. ‘It made me so mad, that I wasn’t worth a well-rehearsed cover story to put my mind at rest! And Magdalena hadn’t been at the agency long. I’d have expected Ian to try it on with her ‒ maybe he did. But Robert?’ She pulled viciously at a green sofa thread. ‘In a totally bizarre way, I was almost proud of him, that he’d found the nous from somewhere to get it on with a stunning woman.’ She looked up at Sadie, pain battling mischievousness in her eyes. ‘I bet it makes you see him in a new light.’

  ‘Not a flattering one.’ The toad! All these years, Sadie had seen the benefits of Robert’s dull niceness ‒ his steady, faithful, comfortable qualities. Now this!

  ‘So you see, Mum, Conor did me a favour. He showed me a good time, then withdrew from the scene while my heart was still intact. It could’ve been a lot worse.’

  Sadie’s gaze strayed to her daughter’s lank hair and puffy eyes. All Conor had done was hasten Angela’s fleeing faith in human nature ‒ male human nature.

  ‘So you accused Robert of seeing Magdalena. Did he admit anything?’

  ‘He couldn’t. I see that now. He wa
s scared of losing me. I almost felt sorry for him when he stood there, humouring me with, “Honestly, Angela, this clinging wife routine doesn’t suit you,” while his eyes went googly with terror. He stomped off to bed and that was that. I yelled up the stairs that I wasn’t going to let matters rest and I planned to ring Ian first thing in the morning. Frankly, I dunno what I was planning to do. Next day, he dropped dead, and it all became academic.’

  ‘Angela ‒ darling. Don’t let that be your lasting memory of him. You had all those good years together.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ She nodded miserably. ‘It’s so maddening! Whenever an incident has called Robert to mind since his death, it’s always been in a negative light. If I think of the theatre, I remember that he was a philistine, or if I think of our honeymoon, I remember that photo he took of me throwing up in Kinsale. But the worst of it is the guilt. We could’ve made it up, spent his last night on earth pointing out that we still loved each other. Instead, I ‒’ Her voice cracked.

  ‘Life wouldn’t be life if the grim reaper served notice to tie up our loose ends.’

  ‘Now, Ma, if you’re going to start one of your homilies …’

  ‘All right.’ Sadie stood up, her legs shaking under her. She tried to make her voice sound extra firm. ‘I’ll do some shopping for you, lay in Lemsip supplies.’

  ‘No need. I’ve got plenty of everything. I just … thanks for coming round.’

  Sadie hesitated. She wanted to touch Angela, hug her, massage her hair with her fingers, ease away the pain of one love tarnished and the other lost. But the angular set of her shoulders reminded her of previous rejections. She wasn’t brave enough to try. ‘I’ll take the tea things into the kitchen,’ she decided briskly. ‘Stay there by the fire.’