City of Lost Girls

by Declan Hughes

  “How did the letters arrive? Through the post?”

  “By hand. They just appear, in my coat. In the pocket of a notebook.”

  “Okay. Well, we could set up surveillance on the set, get a fix on who is delivering them.”

  “Okay, good.”

  “But you probably know already, don’t you? You know, but you don’t want to deal directly with it.”

  Jack grimaces again.

  “Do you want me to give you a list?” he says.

  “What do you want me to do, Jack? Either you’re worried or you’re not. If you are, tell me why and help me narrow it down. The biblical stuff, the Trinity, does that ring any bells?”

  Jack twists in his chair again, heaving his great bulk about like a figure trapped in a landscape that hasn’t been drawn to scale.

  “My sister. My older sister, Marie. She’s…we’re not close. She resents…has always resented me my career, my success.”

  “Did she have similar ambitions?”

  “She worked in the theater. As an actress, then when that didn’t work out, as a director. She wrote plays, had her own company, first they did kind of socially committed stuff, going around community centers and so on, and then they changed to a kind of theater-in-education outfit touring schools. None of it ever quite caught fire. She tried writing plays, got a couple produced, again, didn’t really lead anywhere. All the time she’s broke. And I’m, not to make myself out to be a great fellow, I’m paying her bills, so on. I bought her a house, in the mid-nineties, just before the boom, a little cottage in Ringsend, that’s where she wanted it. For cash. So she doesn’t have a mortgage. Worth a lot now, less than before, but a lot more than she didn’t pay for it. And she’s got a job, she’s a script editor for that RTE TV soap, whatever it’s called.

  “So you know, she’s doing all right, she’s not exactly a tragic case. But it’s not what she hoped for. She wanted to be, I don’t know, in the National Theater in London. Or at the BBC. Or in Hollywood. And she’s just…she’s got this idea that I stole her life, I had all the luck…because it wasn’t even my intention to do this, I was training as a singer and then sidestepped into film, that somehow I deprived her…like there was only room for one talent in the family. It’s not rational. But it’s what she thinks.”

  “And the religious stuff?”

  “In the past few years, she’s joined a Catholic group, Communion and Liberation. I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with them. There isn’t the sinister vibe you get with Opus Dei. But the last couple of times I’ve met her, she talks of nothing else: Jesus this, the incarnation that. Gone into it very deep. The Holy Father. And there’s a crowd of Latin-mass folk she’s got in with as well, the Tridentine mass, very traditionalist Catholic. The Society of Saint Pius the Tenth—SSPX. Now, they are a creepy shower, proper back-to-the-fifties merchants.”

  “I still don’t get it. She’s your sister, she doesn’t like you, she’s very religious. Even if she did send you these letters, mightn’t they be more in the way of a spiritual wake-up call? Man must die to be reborn, Jesus was greater than you, and He died among thieves, don’t be getting above yourself, type of thing. I mean, she’s not threatening you, is she?”

  Jack nods as if he’s agreeing with me, then produces an envelope, out of which he gingerly prises a folded sheet of thick art paper. Rust-colored fragments shed from the page as he flattens it out on the table and pushes it toward me. There are two images daubed there. One is an upside-down crucifix; the other is the finely etched rendering of a fetus in the womb. The drawings are dark red in color, and if I’d been asked to guess, I’d say they were painted in blood, or at least painted to look that way.

  “A few years ago, Marie got pregnant. Wasn’t with the father, didn’t want to be with the father, called me and asked me what she should do.”

  “She’s your older sister?”

  “I know. It’s always been this way. Because our parents died when we were so young, or not because of that, but…that’s what I’ve always put it down to, Marie missing our father, wanting me to stand in and then resenting me for it, never able to sustain relationships with other men. Anyway. She calls me, and I say, do what you want, if you really want to keep the child, I’ll help support it. If you want a termination, we can arrange that also. And she says, in this tight voice, very emotional, very clenched, ‘if I really want to keep it,’ and then she says, ‘termination.’ Which is to say, I am weighting my advice, I am using mimsy words for brutal procedures, I am biased toward encouraging her to have an abortion. Am I? Maybe I am. Maybe I don’t think it’s entirely reasonable of my sister to depend on me to support a child she wants to have without a father in the picture. I offer to, sure, but maybe I don’t toast her to the rafters and strew the bunting around the village. She hangs up on me. Calls me again the next day and says she wants to have an abortion, in L.A., and can I arrange it. So I do, and a week in Shutters on the Beach afterward to rest and recuperate.”

  “And she’s never forgiven you.”

  “Something like that. Another debit entry in the ledger.”

  “And…what? This is your sister. I assume you’re not saying she’s a danger to you.”

  “I don’t even know that she’s the one sending the letters.”

  “But if she was. What exactly do you want me to do?”

  “Get her to stop.”

  “It’s family, Jack. You don’t feel up to dealing with it yourself?”

  “She makes me feel guilty. And she wears me out. I’m exhausted with her. And I know I’ve done everything I could for her, and her problems are not my problems, but…what I suppose I’d like you to do is, ask her to leave me alone. I’ve…I don’t want to deal with her anymore. See her anymore.”

  “Tell her you love her and kiss her good-bye.”

  “I know. I know you’ve done that for me before. I…it’s not the same.”

  “They were never your sister before. Otherwise…okay, forget about it. Anyone else?”

  “You’re laughing at me.”

  “I’m not laughing, I’m…smiling through the pain. Just tell me who else you think might have written the letters.”

  “There’s my ex-wife.”

  “Your ex-wife. When did that happen?”

  “When you and me were on the outs. She was a runner on Twenty Grand, the film I made after The Dain Curse.”

  “I saw it.”

  “You were the one, then.”

  “That bad?”

  “A metaphysical road movie set in the Sierra Mountains, starring a cast of unknowns and Harry Dean Stanton. Lord God Almighty, Ed, was I on drugs?”

  “I don’t know. Were you?”

  “Of course I was, but that’s no excuse. The business it did, let me tell you, it made Kundun look like Star Wars.”

  “And you met your wife on the set?”

  “That’s right. Teri. I mean, Geri. Fuck.”

  At this moment, Jack at least has the grace to blush.

  “Geri. Geraldine,” he says.

  “As opposed to Teri. Teraldine.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “How do you forget the name of your ex-wife?”

  “It’s late. And these drinks are strong. Anyway, I didn’t forget her name. I misspoke her name.”

  “I’m sure she’d appreciate the distinction.”

  “Of course she wouldn’t appreciate the distinction, that’s why she’s my ex-wife.”

  “Forgetfulness—excuse me, ‘misspeaking’ like that is apt to turn wives into ex-wives.”

  “Do you want me to tell you about her or do you just want to sit jeering at me?”

  “Sitting and jeering is working well at the moment, actually. And for the record, I liked Twenty Grand.”

  “Well, that makes the entire painful, humiliating and very nearly career-ending experience worthwhile.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “You didn’t happen to see The Late Late Show last week, did y
ou?”

  “I didn’t,” I lie.

  “Speaking of career-ending experiences.”

  “Never mind The Late Late Show, Jack. Geraldine.”

  “Geraldine was and is Irish, from Dublin, South County Dublin, Foxrock to be precise. She was in the costume department, the design assistant, so she was their eyes and ears on set, keeping the actors sweet while making sure they didn’t roll up their sleeves or unbutton their collars between takes, you’d be surprised how dumb actors can be about all that stuff. Anyway, she was a dab hand at keeping everyone sweet, being bubbly and flirty and easy on the eye, but she was completely useless at the main part of her job, so the thing very quickly became a continuity nightmare. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she wasn’t endearing herself to her department in a variety of other ways either, vanishing when she should have been on set and coming in late and generally behaving as if for some obscure reason she could do exactly as she pleased.”

  “Apart from screwing the director, I wonder why that was.”

  “So the costume designer fired her. Quite correctly.”

  “And what, to cheer her up, you married her?”

  A comedy twinge of shame flashes across Jack’s increasingly bleary features.

  “Something like that. She was so upset. And…I don’t know, I didn’t even like her very much, she was a spoiled little princess with a deluded sense of entitlement, she didn’t have much a sense of humor, wasn’t even that keen on sex, or as I was later to find out, wasn’t that keen on sex with me. I don’t think she even liked me very much either. It was just, I felt I was the reason she had lost her job, although the costume people told me later that that wasn’t true, she was rubbish at her job long before she began to think she could get away with being rubbish at her job because she was screwing the director. And there she was, hanging around, crying, waiting for me to make it right.”

  “So you proposed to her. Out of embarrassment and inappropriate guilt, with a dose of white-knight-to-the-rescue for good measure.”

  “Like I said, you and me were on the outs, Ed. I had no one around to tell her I loved her and kiss her good-bye. God forgive me, I didn’t even like her.”

  You didn’t like any of them, Jack. That’s been the problem all along.

  “And how long did it last?”

  “Long enough for me to buy a big house around the corner from Mummy in Foxrock. I was still in post on the movie, Geri found the place. I never actually set foot in it. We agreed to divorce before Twenty Grand was finished. Mostly because, when she paid an unannounced visit to L.A., she caught me in bed with someone else. And that was the end of it.”

  I shake my head.

  “Until? There isn’t enough there for upside-down crucifixes and fetuses daubed in blood. What happened next?”

  “What happened next was, I bumped into her one night about five years later, about five years ago, in this very spot, and drink had been taken and bygones had become bygones and I finally got to see the house I’d bought, indeed, to spend a night or two or five, to be precise, there. And very nice it was, too, although I’m not sure we liked each other anymore by the end of it. And then I went back to L.A., only to hear a while later that Geraldine was seven months pregnant and I was the father and maybe this would be the making of us, destiny once more, true love will find a way. And while I’m an anything-for-a-quiet-life-at-heart type of guy, as you know, and often to be found on the passive-to-pussy-whipped scale where the ladies are concerned, I sort of hoped if and when I had kids, it might be with someone I actually liked, or failing that, who at least liked me. And I wondered about it all. I specifically wondered about the fact that Geraldine, who had always been built like a boy, had grown hips and a belly by the time we got together again. Not that I didn’t like any of it, I did very much, but I just wondered. And I wondered about the drink as well: it had been very much taken by me the night we met, and continued to be throughout the week, but not by her, half a glass and then she’d stop. And what I wonder was if she was pregnant already.”

  “I say it again, Jack, you can do your own detective work. Save yourself some money.”

  “So I congratulated her, said I’d be happy to do what I could, and asked for a paternity test. And she freaked out, and wept, and said I was a shit, and that she’d never lie about such a thing, and how dare I not trust her, and so on. But she wouldn’t agree to the test. So I didn’t acknowledge the child. Children. Twin girls. Called them Jacqueline and Joan, you know? Fuck.”

  Jack is telling the story as if it plays in his favor, but when he reaches the child’s new names, his mouth sets firmly and his eyes darken.

  “Jacqueline, Jack, Joan, John, you know? Fuck. And this…it had just happened a couple of times in L.A., women I could barely remember, and I was all ready to pay out, but my lawyer said, you’ve got to protect yourself, this is not an uncommon scam, and with both of those ladies it was, so it was in my head, the possibility she had set me up? And I felt anyway, I was paying her so much maintenance she wouldn’t be short of a buck.”

  “But you still have doubts, that you may actually be the father?”

  Jack Donovan drains his drink.

  “My head says, no question: if she wouldn’t agree to the test, it meant the girls weren’t mine. But…I don’t know, I guess for a man to doubt a woman’s word like that, over something so…sacred. It’s still pretty bad, I feel guilty about it. I feel like I’ve betrayed her trust and denied my own—even if she was lying and somebody else was the father.”

  “Okay, Jack. I’ll go and talk to them both. Anyone else?”

  Jack sighs, as if the notion is absurd, then shoots a cagey glance toward the door and leans in to me.

  “You know Madeline. My assistant, and current…you know. Beautiful Galway girl, very smart, apart of course from her unaccountable lapses in judgment when it comes to men. And I suppose you’d call getting involved with a coworker a textbook definition of insanity on my part: repeating behavior that has had nothing but disastrous consequences in the past, expecting it to work out this time. If I do expect that.”

  This is a plot too thick for me.

  “You think Madeline is sending you anonymous letters and freaky drawings? She was the one pleading with me to help you. She’s crazy about you, Jack.”

  “Which is what I’m saying to you. What’s up with that? She’s too smart to fall for me. What’s her angle?”

  “It would be nice if I thought you were taking this seriously.”

  “I am, Ed, I just…look, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Go see Madeline as well. I don’t think she’s sending them herself, but she might be helping whoever is. Please?”

  “You’re asking me to spy on your girlfriend?”

  “I’m asking for your help, Ed. And maybe I can’t explain why this has got under my skin the way it has. Maybe I can’t, maybe I don’t want to. Maybe the women will fill in the gaps. I’m just asking for your help. Please?”

  Jack all plaintive now, pleading Jack, innocent Jack, what-have-I-done-to-deserve-this Jack, and the winsome smile then, at his own bewilderment. Does he think I’m going to refuse him? Does he not understand I still feel guilty about abandoning him back in L.A., even if I do have right on my side? Sometimes you can do the right thing and regret it nonetheless. Somebody once said if it came down to a choice between betraying his country and betraying a friend, he hoped he’d have the guts to betray his country. I don’t think that would be the right thing to do, but I know what he meant, and I hope I’d have the same kind of guts. I was tried and found wanting before. Not this time. But there’s no need to burden Jack with that level of friendship. It’d only embarrass him. It would certainly embarrass me.

  “I charge a thousand a day, plus expenses. I’ll need three up front. In cash.”

  Jack narrows his eyes and a cagey grin snakes across his mouth, as if, much to his relief, I have forfeited the high moral ground to him at last. Like every client, he has had
to tell me things about himself he would have preferred to keep secret; in return, he gets to remind me that I’m a hired hand. That isn’t the whole story, of course, and Jack has aways been a generous man, but sometimes I wondered if his generosity was a way of keeping me at a distance, of reminding me of my place, and therefore, of his. He takes a silver money clip out of his jeans and thumbs green hundred-euro bills onto the desk, his grin widening as they pile up. Jack loves to spend money, but then he loves everything about it: the deals, the budgets, the stakes; the way it makes you feel, the things it lets you do. It doesn’t make you happy, he used to say, but it completely changes your life, and sure isn’t that as good as happiness? Better, in fact!

  There were five other directors like him in Dublin in the early nineties when he had made the break, five who’d made little independent films around the same time, and at least two, maybe three, were better than Jack was, or at least, their movies were: Jack would say so himself, and indeed, as the years wore on, he liked to remind people of the fact, his way of saying that he had come through on a lot more than sheer talent. And the fact was, none of the five, each of whom has continued to work in the industry, had wanted full-blown Hollywood success as badly as Jack; each had been content with a kind of independent, art-house, succès d’estime level of operation; none wanted to engage with what they loftily referred to as “suits.” Jack was under no illusions: filmmaking was an art and a business, and you could no more ignore one than the other. When he met Maurice Faye, a film buff who’d been running a chain of pubs in Galway by the time he was twenty-four and was keen to get into the movie business, he’d found his ideal partner.