by Stella Duffy
“Honestly Maggie, it’s not that I don’t like her – how could I not? I love the woman. And the kids are besotted with her. Of course they are, she’s completely loveable. It’s just that she … well, I know she’s your friend but she’s … so …”
“Mad?”
“Yes. And she doesn’t do the dishes.”
“That’s Dolly, Keith. She’s also crap at getting dressed.”
By the time Annie managed to force Dolores downstairs (wearing one of her dead grandmother’s sequinned cocktail dresses), other people were starting to arrive. The selection at Annie’s parties was always eclectic. Though she was only recently with Dolores, we’d both known her for years, so a good deal of my past turned up at that party too. By about nine o’clock they were all there. Two of my ex-lovers, Keith’s son and his girlfriend, his daughters and their boyfriends (it is a truth universally acknowledged, that given “alternative” parenting, teenagers will regularly emerge with partners far more suitable to their grandparents’ choice than their parents’), Keith’s mother, all of my ex-flatmates, half a dozen husband and wife couples and a gentle sprinkling of London lesbians. (The Brixton contingent stunning in mini skirts and platform shoes, the Stoke Newington crowd with DMs and dogs). And despite this huge group of people, loads of old friends, and a massive cake made by Dolores’ own hands (no candles, but three incense sticks – that is reality for Dolores!), despite all this, I still wanted my darling. Wanted her to wish me Happy Birthday. Wanted her to sing to me. Wanted her to hold me. Wanted her.
Which is when I did it. Went to the phone. Picked it up. Dialled their number. And hung up straight away. Of course they wouldn’t let me speak to her. Of course they’d hang up on me. So I grabbed Keith. I made him call them. A man asking for her wouldn’t do anything but appease them. She’d thank me AND be able to talk to me. It was ideal.
Keith dialled to my instructions. He mouthed to me the phone was being answered. I could hear a man’s voice. He asked for her. There was talking on the other end of the phone and then Keith said goodbye. He hung up.
“Um, I’m sorry Maggie. That was her father. He said she hadn’t been there. Not all night. Not for a couple of weeks. He said to try her at home.”
I called our home number, but of course there was no reply. I asked Keith not to mention it to anyone and sent him to get me another glass of wine. I went outside to sit and wait. And think. I didn’t have to wait long. The car came round the corner within five minutes and I made my decision. It was my party and I didn’t feel like crying. I wasn’t prepared to argue with her so I decided not to mention it. Perhaps she’d been off buying my present. I ran inside to say goodbye and then dashed out to the car.
“Don’t let’s go back in. I just want to be with you. Let’s go home now.”
“OK birthday girl, whatever you say.”
On the drive home she told me about her evening. How her mother had asked about her job, how her father had just grunted when she bravely mentioned my name, how she’d stolen me another bottle of champagne from her parents’ supply.
And I just smiled and nodded and accepted her story. Like I accepted her present – a beautiful, big oval silver and onyx ring. Accepted it even as I wondered how she could possibly afford it. She put it on my finger.
“Maggie, I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you tonight. But believe me, I thought of you the whole time.”
I let her kiss me and tried to return the kiss. I felt like my body was with her while my soul was off on the third level of Hell. I kissed her back then and held her very tight as if by holding her I could keep out the sharp splinter that was driving between us and cutting me. Cutting me up.
Of course I couldn’t. Once it was in there, it had to drive much further in until it could be finally drawn out the other side and the wound cleaned to heal.
She stroked my hair for hours that night. Her last words before she fell asleep were “I want to stay with you for the rest of my life.”
And she did.
CHAPTER 12
Dodgems
Saz didn’t have to wait long for Charlie to come round. She was woken by the shrill alarm of a telephone call at 7am.
“Hey, ah, yeah … could I speak to Mrs Hannon please?”
“Mrs Wha … oh, yes, sorry, this is Mrs Hannon speaking.”
Saz regained her accent and her composure.
“Is this Charlie?”
“Yeah, ah, you said I should call … I know it’s early but I don’t have a lotta time.”
“No, of course not, Charlie it’s fine. I did want you to call me. I’d like to meet you if I could. Soon. Today. Obviously, I’ve just woken up, but …”
“Well, why don’t we meet for breakfast? I don’t start again until three, so that should give us plenty of time.”
Saz arranged to meet him at ten, hoping that five hours would be long enough – sure it was lots of time for what Charlie had in mind, but was it enough for her to get all she needed to know from Charlie?
She dressed in her most seductive outfit – mostly borrowed from Caroline and hailed a cab with the abandon brought on by spending a week in New York on John Clark’s money.
She arrived at the coffee shop fifteen minutes early, wanting to be there before Charlie so she could set herself up with a nice high status position and give him lots of room to grovel to her. She ordered coffee for both of them and a croissant for herself. She didn’t have to wait long for Charlie. He had obviously spruced himself up for the occasion. His shoes shone as brightly as his slicked back hair and he came armed with a small bunch of violets.
“For you, I hope you like them.”
Saz felt almost guilty at having led him on so far, but decided to get on with her story anyway.
“Charlie, I’m afraid I must come clean about something straight away. I have to tell you I’ve deceived you.”
His face fell, but Saz pushed on.
“You see Mr Hannon isn’t my ex-husband. He’s my present husband. And I want him back. That’s why I’ve come to New York. To take him home.”
Charlie looked more than a little pissed off, but when Saz started to cry, he obviously couldn’t stay angry.
“Hey no, come on, don’t cry. God, I hate it when a lady cries. Look honey, what can I do to help? I already told you we don’t got a Mr Hannon at Calendar Girls.”
“No. I know. I mean, obviously not. But let me tell you what I know. My husband has always been a gambler. Mostly in London, but occasionally, if we were on holiday he’d try other … establishments. Well, last time we were in New York was three years ago and I know he came to your workplace. He told me about it when we walked past one day. I think a business associate of his introduced him as a member.”
“So who’s that, perhaps this friend knows where he is?”
“The name is neither here nor there, Charlie. I probably couldn’t remember it if I tried. My husband knows so many people. Anyway, we have several businesses. Some are in my name and some in his and some in both of our mothers’ maiden names. My husband is a very astute businessman, Charlie. He knows all about tax dodges. He could be a member of ‘Calendar Girls’ in any one of four or five names.”
“But I don’t understand …”
“Just listen and I’ll explain. A few years ago, he started coming to New York more frequently. Usually midweek. Though I think there may have been a few occasions when he was here for a weekend, or at least a Friday night. Then, about two months ago it all came out – I found a long blonde hair on his jacket, confronted him about it and he told me.”
Saz took a deep breath, a big gamble and started again.
“He’d met a girl at your club. He wasn’t specific. I think she may have been English. Anyway he wanted to take her away from it all and … and I’m sorry Charlie …” Saz blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes.
“Well, we had a dreadful argument and then I suppose he must have taken her away, because I haven’t seen him since. Which is why I�
�m here. Because I think if I can find her, then maybe I can find him.”
Charlie reached for his coffee cup, finished his drink and looked up at her.
“You’d better be telling me the truth, because if you’re not, we’re both going to be in a lot of trouble.”
“Why should we be in trouble? I’m only trying to find my husband.”
“Let’s just say Mr James doesn’t like people to ask questions and leave it at that, yeah?”
“But can’t you help me at all?”
“Look, all I can tell you is that there was an English girl who worked at Calendar Girls and she was a fine looking woman. As my granddad used to say ‘Fine like a hot summer’. He thought of himself as a poet. He wasn’t, he was a drunk. But anyway, that’s why I called her June.”
“June? That’s her name? June?”
“No, Mrs Hannon. I don’t know the names, any of ’em. It’s like the gaming rooms, some of the girls are called by months of the year, some by days of the week.”
“I see.”
“So. This English girl. June. She didn’t work regular. And not your midweek either. Well, hardly ever. Just one Friday night four or five times a year, but she was a looker and she was smart. So she didn’t come to work a lot, but Mr James was real happy when she did, said no-one could get the money off them like she could.”
“Get the money off them?”
“Sure, it’s a gambling place, but you’ve got to get them to the tables first. Left to themselves, those guys would just talk business all night if they could. The girls get them to buy champagne. Dozens of bottles. Then they’re drunk by the time they start to play – and the house can’t lose. Well, hardly ever.”
“So what happened to her?”
“I dunno. There was a big fight with Mr James and she went storming off. I guess she must have told him about your old man. Mr James doesn’t like the girls to mix with the customers in that way – ‘they start wasting their money on diamonds and pearls instead of diamonds and spades’, that’s what he says anyway. Yeah, it must be seven or eight weeks since I last saw her. Which fits in with your husband running off, doesn’t it?”
“Do you think Mr James might know where she went?”
“Maybe. He was pretty fond of her. But you won’t get him to tell you. He’s very protective of the girls. That’s why they all have the hair and the eyes.”
“I noticed the two yesterday.”
“They’ve all got it. It’s weird sometimes, when you see fifteen or sixteen of ’em together. Just wigs, peroxide and contact lenses. We got white girls, black girls, Hispanics, Asians – and one or two of them natural. Only not many. It don’t matter – they’ve all got the same hair and eyes. It’s to ‘protect them from the customers’, Mr James says. But I reckon they look like the Stepford Wives when you get them all together. It’s kinda creepy.”
“Charlie, you’ve just given me a brilliant idea.”
“What’s that?”
“The Stepford Wives.”
“Huh?”
“Well, I could do it. I’d only have to dye my hair.”
“Oh no you couldn’t, there’s a lot more to it than just looking right. What do you know about gambling?”
“I could learn couldn’t I? All the girls can’t be pros when they start.”
“You’re too high class. You wouldn’t know what to do if one of those rich old men started coming on to you.”
“Oh really? I knew what to do with you didn’t I?”
Charlie looked up sharply, then smiled.
“Well, I guess so. You got me there.”
“Anyway, I’d only do it for a couple of nights. Just to get to talk to Mr James. Not even long enough to need to get good at it. Just to see if he knows anything about June. And my husband. Then I’ll go back to London forever and no one will ever know the difference. Please Charlie, will you help me?”
“How?”
“You don’t have to do anything. Just don’t give me away when I turn up tomorrow looking for a job.”
“What if James recognises you?”
“He won’t, he barely glanced at me yesterday – he was much more worried about you giving away the trade secrets.”
“I don’t know …”
“Please?”
Saz took his hand and looked at him with all the imploring innocence she could muster thinking “Shit Saz, if this doesn’t work, you could always get a job as Lassie”.
Charlie gave in. Saz bought him lunch and then left, armed with the one ex-worker’s real name that Charlie knew, a girl he’d “spent a bit of time with” who was now happily married in Ohio. The sort of friendly girl who could well have given Calendar Girls’ address to a good-looking English woman travelling the States and looking for work. Saz called Mr James and arranged an appointment for the following day.
She then went back to Caroline’s via the hairdresser.
“Hi Carrie, I’m home – and be thankful I’ve got naturally brown eyes.”
CHAPTER 13
Brain food
I started going to the gym. And swimming. I thought about starting to run but I couldn’t afford the shoes. I started to do all that “physical stuff” I’d scorned for years – Dolores had once threatened to give up her softball team if I didn’t stop mocking it so much – I started it so that I could go out. So I could be out of the house as much as possible. I decided I had to cut her off before she could cut me out. I thought I knew what she was up to and I needed to be one step ahead of her. I started to work it out. It was quite nice in a way – the gym was old, a bunch of machines in a windowless, grimy room. Every night there’d be six or seven of us there, no conversation, just sweaty grunting and panting. It was like being in a boxing movie only without the skipping. Best of all, I didn’t have to talk to anyone.
And I tried to get it clear in my head.
I’d work out and work it out.
The nights she’d spent away from home, not just evenings, but whole nights – mostly Fridays, sometimes even midweek. Nights away from our bed, nights away from my body. Nights that she’d gone out straight from work and not come back until the following evening. Never to friends, of whom I could feasibly be jealous, always to her family.
“God, Maggie, just because they’re being assholes, you can’t expect me to divorce them!”
And I couldn’t disagree with her. Family is family, and in Jewish households, like their pre-Vatican II counterparts, that’s Family with a capital “F” – Dolores had taught me that much. But then, Dolores’ family hardly count.
And then there were the several nights at a time, she’d been away on “business”. No legitimate excuse for my complaint there either. I’d always known she had to go away for work sometimes.
I spent hours biking furiously on a stationary bike – counting up the nights we’d spent apart, not that many, six or seven a year at most – and after nearly four years that’s not much. But then again, if they were twenty nights she’d spent with someone else, then yes it was “much” – far too much. And then there were all those Friday nights, ones where she’d come home late to me, but now I didn’t know where she’d spent them. Certainly some of them must have been with her family – I don’t suppose she went out and bought the honey cake she brought home to me, or the latke, carefully wrapped in greaseproof paper –
“I asked Mummy if I could bring something home.”
“Did you tell her it was for me?”
“Not exactly, but she knows you’re going to eat it too.”
“That’ll account for the unmistakable taste of arsenic then!”
“Unlikely, she knows I couldn’t possibly give it all to you and not eat over half of it myself!”
We shared food late at night, food she’d brought to our home from wherever she’d spent the evening. We shared food and love and lust, crumbs in our bed, sheets on the kitchen table.
I eat alone now.
I’d swim another forty lengths, the whole
time a litany of “Where were you?” going over and over in my head. All the nights I’d been out performing, nights I’d had no reason to call her at home, so now I’d never know if she’d been there or not. It was easy to cry in the pool – salt from my tears and chlorine in the water staining my eyes red.
My history was becoming untrustworthy – I now knew my recollection of events wasn’t necessarily real. I couldn’t trust my memory because my memory might be based on falsehood.
Perhaps she’d only lied to me on my birthday, on that one night.
Or perhaps she’d lied about them all.
And there was no one I could tell, no one I could share my pain with. Dolores liked her a little more, but not that much. Not enough to be OK about blatant lying. Besides Dolly was in love and her calls had dwindled to a mere one or two a week. She wouldn’t understand and anyway I was too embarrassed to tell her. Too ashamed that this love of my life had turned out to be a dud like all the rest of them. Too ashamed to do anything other than let the pain fester and breed. I was furious and it just built up day after day, I fed it day after day. And I’d push myself to the gym, stomach churning with the strength of my anger, steel machines meeting the force of my rage.
I got pretty strong.
For a while we didn’t see much of each other. She was still working days – out at nine thirty, home at six. If I had a gig I’d be out of the house by eight at night. And I was trying much harder to get work – I had a stronger body and better bank balance than I’d ever had, only I felt like I’d lost the only person I wanted to share them with. The nights I didn’t perform I’d mostly be at the gym or the pool. Sometimes both. I’d come home exhausted and fall into bed. And then there was our social life – occasional parties where we spent the night on either side of a crowded room – the modern ideal of a non-clingy twosome, dinners with the increasingly coupled Dolores and Annie.
