by Anne Enright
‘Amazing,’ said her father.
They didn’t feel sick at all, said her mother, apart from once, on the second day. It was huge. It was like being in a shopping centre, only you knew you were moving, somehow, you could just sense it.
Then you got off, said her father, and the ground set solid.
‘The thump of it,’ he said. ‘Under your feet.’
‘Did you get a hat?’ Kate asked him, unaccountably jealous.
‘I did not.’
‘I told you to get yourself a hat.’
‘Sure I have a hat,’ he said.
But they stopped talking about the ship, and asked instead about the family, children and grandchildren; who was where, this week – Kevin, Kate’s brother, was in Maryland on business, coming back via New York.
‘You might have flown up to meet him, for a day or two. Seen Manhattan,’ said Kate, knowing, as she said it, that such a thing was beyond them. They had had their adventure. They would never leave the country again.
‘You forgot all about the sea,’ her mother said, wistfully. The middle of the boat was hollow.
‘Like a spaceship,’ she said. ‘Oh, it was huge.’ It was the size of two football pitches, said her father, set end to end.
‘And four storeys high,’ said her mother, with every type of restaurant and bar; Thai, Mexican – a lot of it very spicy, so they steered clear.
‘Hard to sleep,’ said her father.
Yes, it was funny how hard it was to sleep. You would think it would rock you, like a baby. And sometimes, even with the size of the thing, you’d hear a booming in the metal walls.
‘Very far away,’ her father said.
The air conditioning was perfect, but there the two of them were – wide awake. She got up out of bed one night with an urge to see the water, walked for miles, past the nightclub and shut-up restaurants, looking for the right lift, the one that went all the way to the top. And when she got out into the fresh air, she said, the stars were so beautiful, you could almost see the sky turn. Then the black sea, and the waves breaking in a white V, everything moving and shifting, miles and miles below.
‘Lovely,’ said Kate.
They stopped talking about it for a while – by midsummer, you might have thought the cruise altogether forgotten – but when autumn came and the cold crept in, it started up again. Even more amazing, this time around. The Cruise! The Cruise! It was a dream, endlessly retold: from the miniature fittings in the bathroom to the other couples they met over dinner. There was a pair from Limerick called the Feenys who owned a furniture showroom, ‘four thousand square feet of it!’ There was a mixed race couple, ‘from Belfast, of all places’. Most famous of all were the Carters from Yorkshire. There was nothing Kate did not know about the Carters from Yorkshire. She knew about their daughter’s second round of fertility treatment, and she knew about their taste in Tanqueray gin. Mr Carter had had his veins stripped. Mrs Carter played golf. They set up Texas Hold’ em in the Silver Lounge and begged a jar of dried pasta from the steward, for chips.
Mrs Carter said the hairdresser was only paid five pounds an hour. Mr Carter said there was a body in the freezer – there always was on the big ships – and the purser said it would be two, by the time they made it back home.
At which point her mother would pause, out of respect for the anonymous dead.
Kate imagined a retired advertising executive stiffening as the boat ploughed on; his lips covered with frost, his back pushed and dropped by the sea, in a discreet compartment between the breakfast rashers and a hundred ready-made pavlovas, while the five different swimming pools swelled and rolled counter to the waves.
One day, when her father was really quite sick, Kate idly scanned a letter on her parents’ hall table. It was one of those round-robin things people send at Christmas. ‘Imagine our consternation,’ she read, ‘when we discovered that the paw prints on the living-room carpet, were actually those of a badger!!’ There were three family photos printed on the second page, ‘Freezing our **ses off in Cromer,’ ‘Grandparents at last!’ and ‘Call that a dog?’. It was signed ‘Lewis and Sally (Carter)’. They looked happy, Kate thought, as she chucked the thing back down. They looked like another world.
Now, whenever they wanted to say how much he had changed, people said how well Kate’s father had looked when he came back from the cruise. It was the last fixed point they had for him. He was in bed a lot of the time – quite cranky, if the truth be told – and Kate’s mother was at a loss. There was no more talk about the Carters, or the green flash at sunset, or the marshmallows they floated on your coffee in the bar on Deck Fourteen. But sometime later, Kate found another letter with a Yorkshire postmark and, when she asked, her mother said, ‘I wanted to tell them about your dad.’
Kate was so cross she had to turn away.
‘I wish you wouldn’t, Mammy,’ she said.
‘Darling,’ said her mother, ‘I am seventy-two years of age.’ Though what that proved, she didn’t presume to say.
When it came to it, her father did not have an easy death, though the ward sister said that she had seen a lot worse. ‘I know that’s not much comfort to you.’ But they were all outraged by the end – not that there was anyone to blame – it was just so outrageous: watching the tide of their father’s death wash over him and recede, wave after wave of it, until, by the end, they didn’t know if they wanted him to stay, or to go.
And when he did go, finally, they couldn’t believe that either. They looked around at each other, brothers and sisters – real to each other for the first time. There was something very honest about the days that followed. The funeral went well, the graveside prayers were almost bearable, and they managed their mother between them. She was the great worry, of course. They kept wishing their mother would cry, but she didn’t. Grief had made her astonishing. Kate’s mother wore a suit of dove grey, with a blue scarf at the neck, and she looked like Bacall might have done at the death of Bogart: untouchable. She hugged and shook hands with neighbours and friends, and not one of them made a dent in her. It wasn’t a good sign. Kate was on the other side of the crowd, inviting people back and organising lifts, when she finally heard the noise they had all been hoping for since – well, since her father had gone into decline. It was the sound of weeping. She pushed through to her mother and found her, collapsed and sobbing, in a strange man’s arms.
‘There, there, now,’ said the man, stroking her blonde-grey hair. ‘There, there.’
He was dressed in a safari jacket the colour of sand; his neck was thick and red, and his eyes were an uncertain blue. Beside him, a tiny woman in a trenchcoat picked up her mother’s hand and stroked it.
‘There, there,’ said the woman, joining in. ‘There, there, Marjorie. There, there.’
From behind her mother’s heaving shoulders the man stretched out a stubby arm, but Kate did not need the introduction. She already knew his name.
‘Lewis Carter,’ he said. ‘My sympathies, at this time.’
And later, when the three of them sang ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ in the corner of the living room, Kate was not surprised. She had expected that too.
NATALIE
Natalie put me straight. Who knows what Natalie wants or what she likes, but we know what she doesn’t like, that’s for sure. At least we do now.
‘Well,’ I said, after I put the phone down, ‘I won’t be getting in your way again.’
Natalie should be a star. When she grows up, that is. Natalie should be something really impressive. Because if she isn’t, then it’ll get pretty lonely, won’t it? I mean, how many friends has she got, to lose?
I will be a writer when I grow up and I will put it all down on the page, the tangle between Natalie and me, which is supposed to be about Billy’s mother, but I don’t think it is, really. Billy is Natalie’s boyfriend. I nearly went out with him once, but that is so long ago and it wasn’t even a proper thing. Now he’s best friends with my boyfriend, who couldn’t
care less, and neither could Natalie, so that isn’t what this is about, either.
I wake up in the middle of the night I am so upset. I mean, when I put down the phone I didn’t know what to think – Natalie is so polite, you could hardly call what we had a fight – and then I am lying there with my eyes wide open; looking at what turns out to be the ceiling (duh!), wondering what terrible thought just woke me up.
My sister is asleep across the room – she has a kind of glowing pebble night-light that changes colours, very slowly, and she is lying in this sea of stuff: books and broken Nintendos and inflatable Bratz cushions, and God knows what else is in the pile, except from somewhere deep inside the heap, her breathing. And it makes me think of the milk inside a coconut, and I also think of Natalie’s room that I was in once, and it was really tidy. That’s all. It was just really tidy.
Natalie is an only child. She says it’s OK. She says she doesn’t know if her parents really, really love her or really, really couldn’t care less. She has nothing to compare it to. They never shout at her anyway, they just have ‘little conversations’ – which sounds like hell to me but she says it’s OK.
Here are the four of us: I am the fat, jokey one with the flaking nail polish, though it is always interesting flaking polish, like mirror silver or navy blue – still, you can tell by the way the stuff jumps off me that I don’t really mean it. Natalie is more a Rouge Noir sort of girl. She might have her doubts, but that polish stays put.
Natalie has the kind of looks you have to get used to – but once you do, it is as though you have personally discovered her. Her features are sort of see-through, her skin is really pale and she has thin white-blonde hair. Which is why I say she should be a star, because the camera loves all that, close up. She hasn’t a single open pore. Though she needs to get her eyelashes dyed professionally. She did it herself once and all around her lids went pink, so she had to stop using anything for a while. Which made her look sort of blinky and peeved.
When I say I am fat – even though, statistically speaking, I’m an eight and a quarter stone midget – my boyfriend says that I am not actually fat, I am just sleek. So that’s the new word for fat – ‘sleek’. But before I go completely self-hating, I do actually like my hair, which is black and really glossy, especially when it is, like, totally saturated with grease.
Who else?
Billy is a lot of trouble and I like him a lot. Hey, I like trouble. Or so I say to my boyfriend when he rolls his eyes up, the way he does. Billy has the kind of looks I used to go for a couple of years ago when I was about fifteen; soulful and soft, with absolutely no hair on his chest.
Though when I say Billy is my boyfriend’s best friend, I don’t think my boyfriend has a best friend, actually. So maybe that’s the real question – Who knows what my boyfriend wants, or who he likes? Does he even like me? It’s a mystery.
I am so in love with my boyfriend – at least I know that. He has eyes like George Clooney and beautiful hands. At least, the backs of them are beautiful; inside, they are a bit dry and shattered looking. I tried to get him to use some cream, but that’s like trying to put him in a tutu, as far as he is concerned. I literally had to chase him around the room, and he ended up pushing my hand with the cream on it all over my face, even though it is handcream and like lard, basically.
My boyfriend has his own room and his parents gave him a gas heater to help him study in there, and I don’t know if it is the smell of the gas or the heat of it that made us feel so fuggy, all last winter. We did a lot of kissing in front of that heater – and yes, we have gone ‘all the way’; but that’s only when his parents are out, which, these days, is never. But I don’t mind. We kiss until we are dizzy, and my boyfriend is just so gorgeous and gentle about it. We tried to go further in the park but it was freezing and dark and I didn’t find it sexy at all; in fact, I think it made me a bit upset. (I am not saying I am leaving my boyfriend mad with lust, I am not that sort of person. And, actually, that’s all I am going to say about that).
Our debs dance was on Friday evening, and I’m still getting flashbacks; it’s like a nightmare – that guy getting sick over my shoulder, and Billy’s mother flattened up against the sitting-room wall, and Natalie smiling like some kind of nun. But I am not even thinking about all this, as I lie there in the changing pink light. I am thinking, It is something else again.
It all started with Billy’s Terrible Time last year, just a little while after he hooked up with Natalie. And we were all delighted he had her, because she is like a flame in the daylight – that’s what I think – unwavering, you can hardly see her, but she is always there. And after that mad bitch and, excuse me, cocktease ‘Peony’ Mulvey, we were really glad he had someone sane. Natalie is above all things sane.
In the middle of the night I think, Maybe she’s not sane at all.
Anyway.
Billy’s mother (who I really like, actually) got cancer last year and she came home from her first chemo session high as a kite from the steroids and she told Billy – told them all, in fact – that she didn’t love their father any more, had never loved him in the first place, and once her chemo was over then her marriage was too. It was like, ‘I’m alive! I’m alive! I’m not going to waste my life any more!!!’ At least, that’s how Billy described it. Then all her hair fell out and she was sick as a parrot, and Billy’s just looking at his da and his da is looking at him – and you know, there is nothing wrong with Billy’s da, he’s a genuinely lovely man – and he is bringing her four hundred cups of green tea a day while she lies on the sofa with a face on her that says, As soon as this is done, then I am out that door.
My boyfriend looks it up online and he says ovarian cancer is a complete doozey – and who’s going to tell Billy? Like who is going to tell him that her percentages are basically on the floor? We are sitting in the chipper waiting for Billy to get off the phone to his mother – he is outside the plate-glass window trying to get good reception and he is looking at the sky and his face looks so difficult, so old and childish at the same time, that the sight of him is like a pain for each of us. It is like each of us has a pain in our side.
Then Natalie says, ‘Fuck the statistics. You just have to be in the right per cent. That’s all. You just have to be in the per cent that survives.’ And I understand she’s a bit defensive, I mean she is literally, actually defending her new boyfriend’s peace of mind here, but another part of me thinks that she is also marking her territory, which I quite respect, except I’ve known Billy’s mother for five years now and if she dies, I too will cry.
His mother, incidentally, is what made Billy bonkers – long before she got sick, his mother was what made Billy interesting and unhappy, so she’s a bit of a bitch, too, but I don’t say that to Natalie, I say, ‘You think she is going to survive?’
‘I think,’ says Natalie after a minute, ‘that we don’t know. And until we do know, then there’s not much point getting in a fizz.’
Which is so like something my boyfriend would say that I think they’d be better off with each other really, they could roll their eyes up to heaven and not get in a fizz together – while having sex, for example. And afterwards, Natalie could make tea.
So I accuse my boyfriend of fancying her, all the way back to his place, but that is just to get him going – that’s just to clear out the memory of Billy coming back in after the phone call, saying, ‘No, no. Just the usual,’ and pushing his chips away. It is also to distract me from the fact that Natalie’s aversion to ‘fizz’ is not something reasonable, and considered and right; that what she is actually saying is, You don’t own Billy’s mother.
Dead or alive.
It was only a tiny moment, you know?
As I say, I really did respect Natalie for holding the line, and somehow we seemed to feel, all through that long winter, that if Natalie didn’t flicker, if she didn’t blink, and if we all stayed nice, and stayed separate, and only had emotions that were appropriate to our actual si
tuation vis-à-vis Billy’s mother, then Billy’s mother would survive.
I just thought, What a great sense of decorum Natalie has – and God knows, there’s not much of that around. And I really admired her, that’s all. I began to see how beautiful she is close up and I started asking her advice on chip-proof nail polish, even though these things don’t interest me as much as I think they do. And that makes it worse, the fact that I don’t give a fuck about Rouge Noir, really, so a sort of wheedling, messy thing starts to happen, and it is a while before I realise that what I want is for Natalie to be my friend.
I say this to my boyfriend and he says, ‘She is your friend,’ which just shows how much he knows about these things. And after a while she does start to like us, though she doesn’t have a lot of choice, really. It can’t have been easy: her boyfriend up to ninety, and his mother lying on the sofa, and me gabbling on about some day, maybe, getting my legs waxed – I mean, Natalie just does things, she doesn’t talk about them first, and it seems that all those months were about getting nothing done at all.
Then, in the spring, Billy’s mother gets her hair back, and it has this amazing red glow that she had as a child, so we are all in and out of Billy’s kitchen again, returned from our months as refugees in the chipper, and Billy’s mother stays married, and she also stays as mad as she ever was, and also superbly happy, and I just admire her so much for all of this. The next few months are a blur for Billy and my boyfriend, because they both have their last exams, so me and Natalie hang out a little, and the thing about Natalie is, she is a really nice person. It’s like I’m making her out to be some kind of bitch or something, but she really isn’t. She is actually very cool, and nice.
In the summer, my boyfriend gets a job in the local garage so his clothes smell of petrol, and his hands smell of money, because the guy who owns the place hasn’t put soap in the toilets for three months, even though they serve coffees there as well. I say why doesn’t he take his own soap in, but my boyfriend just looks at me like I am trying to turn him into a queer.
