Rachel's Holiday

by Marian Keyes

  To my surprise, a look of pain skittered across Chris’s face, like a breeze blowing over a field of corn. I was so used to thinking of him as totally in control and omniscient that his vulnerability scared me.

  ‘This isn’t my first time in here, you know,’ he said, pulling a chair close to me.

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I said. That shocked me. It meant his drug habit must be very advanced.

  ‘Yeah, I was in here four years ago and I didn’t listen to anything. But this time I’m doing it properly and I’m going to get my life back together.’

  ‘Were you very bad?’ I asked nervously. I liked him too much to want to hear stories of him rolling round in puke, a needle stuck in his arm.

  ‘It depends on what you mean by “bad”,’ he said with a twisted little smile. ‘While my life wasn’t exactly Trainspotting, with me shooting up smack and living in a squat, it wasn’t a fulfilled, useful life either.’

  ‘What, er, drugs did you take?’

  ‘I mostly smoked hash.’

  I waited for him to continue with a long list: crack, angel dust, heroin, jellies… But he didn’t.

  ‘Just hash?’ I croaked.

  ‘Believe me,’ he grinned, ‘it was enough.’

  I hadn’t thought you could be a drug addict without using needles. Nervously, I asked another question.

  ‘How did you manage for money?’ I hoped he’d say he’d dealt drugs or been a pimp.

  ‘I had a job.’ He seemed surprised.

  ‘But…’ I was confused. ‘You don’t sound like a drug addict to me.’

  He opened his mouth and reeled off ‘I spent nearly every night on my own, off my head. Most days in work I was unable to perform. I was forever preoccupied with where the next smoke was coming from. I never wanted to do anything like go to the pictures or go for a meal because it might take time away from being stoned.’

  He paused and said lightly ‘Is that bad enough for you?’

  ‘No.’ I was still confused.

  ‘OK,’ he took a deep breath, ‘I owed money to everyone, I was a friend to no one. And it wasn’t just that I lived my life badly. What went on in my head wasn’t good either. I always felt on the edge of things, not good enough, you know?’

  I nodded cautiously.

  ‘I got into the wrong kind of relationships with the wrong kind of people. I didn’t care about anyone except myself. And I didn’t care much about me either.’

  Anxiously, I wondered what kind of relationships he was alluding to. ‘I’ve used drugs to deal with every unpleasant thing that life has ever thrown at me. When I came in here they told me that I had the emotions of a twelve-year-old.’

  ‘How do they know?’ What kind of measuring process did they use?

  ‘Because that’s when I began using drugs. You only grow up by living through the shit that life throws at you. But, whenever life threw problems at me, I just got out of it. So my emotions stayed stopped at twelve.’

  ‘I can’t see what’s wrong with being twelve, actually.’ I gave a little laugh to let him know I was having a joke.

  He wasn’t amused.

  ‘It means I’ve never had a sense of responsibility. I’ve let people down, I’ve stood people up…’

  I was beginning to dislike him, he was far too uptight and humourless.

  ‘I’ve told millions and millions of lies to protect my own skin, so that people wouldn’t be annoyed with me.’

  That really put me off him. How weak!

  ‘What age did you start using drugs at?’ he surprised me by asking.

  Me?

  ‘I was about fifteen,’ I said stumbling over my words. ‘But I was only ever a social user. I certainly never did any of those things that you described, taking drugs on my own, owing money, being irresponsible…’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ he asked, with a face-splitting grin.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I was annoyed.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I decided to change the subject. ‘What will you do when you get out of here?’ I asked.

  ‘Who knows? Get a job, behave myself. You never know.’ He gave me a wink. ‘I might even go to New York. And while I’m there, see this Luke bloke and sort him out.’

  Stars filled my eyes and I disappeared on a wild fantasy. A vision of me arriving back to New York with Chris on my arm, going into the Cute Hoor with him, both of us hysterically in love, Chris no longer with the emotions of a twelve-year-old, the pair of us mad keen to party. A handsome, well-matched couple.

  Naturally we would lie about where we had met.

  More visions flitted past. Luke puking with grief. Luke begging me to take him back. Luke going bonkers with jealousy and trying to hit Chris… it usually came back to Luke trying to hit Chris. One of my favourites.

  42

  The night Luke stormed out of my kitchen – oh yes, even though he’d done it with cold control, he’d stormed nevertheless – the course of our true love stopped running at all and actually came to a complete standstill. It spent over two weeks doing nothing but loitering on a street corner, waiting for dole day, half-heartedly whistling at local girls coming home from their shifts at the factory.

  And of course Daryl was no compensation.

  When he’d arrived so unexpectedly on my doorstep and scared Luke off, he hadn’t even come to see me. He was only there because his dealer had been busted. He was doing the rounds of everyone he knew on the island of Manhattan as he looked for an alternative source of drugs. Once upon a time, people used to recommend hairdressers to each other. Or plumbers. Or even personal trainers. Now it’s dealers. In different circumstances I might have thought this was charming.

  Good-neighbours-New-York-close-of-Millennium style. Instead of dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar, they come to borrow a couple of grams of coke. But in the wake of Luke’s departure I thought little was charming.

  And of course I didn’t have hide nor hair of a drug to give to Daryl.

  But I knew a man who did.

  As it happened, due to the feelings of wretchedness engendered by Luke’s leaving, I was keen to see Wayne myself. So, I cynically used Daryl’s desperation to my own advantage. Daryl had money for drugs, but didn’t know where to get them; I knew where to get them, but didn’t have the wherewithal to do so.

  We needed each other.

  I placed a phonecall to Wayne, then Daryl and I sat back and waited. I even managed to cheer up slightly. OK, so Luke hated me again, but Daryl was wearing really nice clothes. A pair of ultra-groovy purple velvet flairs that were at the cutting edge of attractive menswear.

  It wasn’t his fault they made him sweat so much.

  But he did have a very glamorous job.

  ‘Apart from Jay McInerney, do you know any other authors?’ I asked, leaning forward and hoping he was a tit-man, it was the best I could offer him.

  ‘Um yeah,’ he sniffed, his eyes sliding away from mine. ‘I know lots.’

  ‘How does it work?’ I asked, ducking and diving my head, trying to follow his escaping glance. ‘Do you have authors specifically assigned to you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, with a furtive little look, that gave me a crick in my neck as I tried to meet it. ‘That’s what happens.’

  ‘So who are yours?’ I asked, despairing of making proper eye contact with him. What was his problem ? ‘What have your most successful books been?’

  ‘Let’s see,’ he said thoughtfully. At his words I suddenly felt a rush of pleasurable anticipation. It was great to be talking to someone who knew famous people.

  He didn’t disappoint me.

  ‘You’ve heard of the writer, Lois Fitzgerald-Schmidt?’ he asked, in a tone that implied that of course I had.

  ‘Yes!’ I said enthusiastically.

  Who?

  ‘You have?’ Daryl asked enthusiastically back.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, glad to have achieved an air of animation. It seemed to please him.

  ‘I was in a key po
sition for the marketing of her book, Gardening for Ballerinas, which made the New York Times list in the spring.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of it.’ In fact, as I remembered, it had won novel of the year award, or something similar. I smiled across at Daryl, proud to be with someone who had such an interesting and successful career.

  Thinking fast, I wondered if I should pretend I’d read the book. I could throw in a few vague sentences like ‘Wonderful lyrical use of language’, and ‘Marvellous strong imagery’. But, on balance, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sustain an entire conversation like that.

  All the same, in New York it was very important to read the books that were currently fashionable. Or at least to pretend to. I’d even heard of people offering a service where they would read the book for you then present you with a résumé of it. And for an extra charge they would give some recommended phrases to throw around at glamorous dinner parties (‘Derivative plagiarism’ and ‘Yes, but is it art?’ and ‘I liked the cucumber scene’).

  So I said apologetically to Daryl ‘I haven’t got round to reading it yet. I’ve bought it, of course, and it’s in a pile by my bed that I keep trying to work my way through. It’s hard when you’re as busy as I am…’

  Naturally, there wasn’t a single syllable of truth in that sentence. The only book beside my bed was The Bell Jar, which I was reading for the umpteenth time.

  ‘I’m going to start as soon as I’ve finished Primary Colors,’ I promised him, as I wondered if Primary Colors was still happening. It wouldn’t do to get such a thing wrong.

  ‘So tell me,’ I smiled winningly at him. ‘Gardening for Ballerinas, will it change my life? What’s it about?’

  ‘Er,’ said Daryl awkwardly. ‘You know…?’

  I moved closer to him, wondering at his reticence. It was obviously a controversial book addressing what? Incest? Satanism? Cannibalism?

  ‘It’s about… well… gardening. For, em, ahem, ballerinas. Well, not just ballerinas, obviously,’ he added hurriedly. ‘The bending and squatting could apply to all dancers really. We’re a non-élitist publishing house.’

  My mouth made shapes as if I was enunciating vowels. A, then O, then A again, then O.

  ‘You mean it’s not a novel?’ I finally managed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a gardening manual?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what number did it get to in the New York Times best-seller list?’

  ‘Sixty-nine.’

  ‘And what form did the work you did in your key marketing position take?’

  ‘I packaged up the books and sent them to the shops.’

  ‘Goodbye, Daryl.’

  43

  Not as such. I didn’t actually, there and then, utter the words ‘Goodbye, Daryl’. Not to him. But I said them to myself. Especially as he let slip that the lovely loft apartment he’d taken me to after my party wasn’t even his.

  So, even though we spent the night together, and most of the next morning, I didn’t hold out any hopes that Daryl and I would be shortly applying for a joint mortgage. I only put up with him, and all the crap he talked, for my share of the drugs.

  Of course the stingy creep didn’t look too pleased when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to make his escape from me with his full two grams intact.

  But I just thought ‘Tough, you owe me.’

  At a very late stage in the evening, it dawned on me like a punch in the face that I’d been thinking of Boating for Beginners, not Gardening for fecking Ballerinas.

  In the days that followed I heard nothing from Luke. My head kept saying soothingly he’ll call. But he didn’t.

  Poor Brigit was forced to come out with me every night, as I scoured the city looking for him. Everywhere we went, even if it was only down to the grocery store for ten tubes of Pringles, I was in a state of constant alert and full make-up.

  I shouldn’t have let him escape, I reiterated frantically, over and over. I’ve made a terrible mistake.

  We never saw him. Which wasn’t fair because in the days when I didn’t give a damn about him I could hardly put a foot outside my front door without tripping over him or one of his hairy friends.

  In the end I had no choice but to co-opt a select few, a very select few, friends to assist with the search. But still no luck. If I met, say, Ed, at the Cute Hoor and he told me he’d seen Luke not ten minutes previously at Tadgh’s Boghole and Brigit and I tore at breakneck speed to the Boghole, all that would be there when we arrived would be an empty glass of JD, a smoking ashtray and a still-warm seat with a Luke’s-arse-shaped indentation in it.

  Very frustrating.

  I finally ran into him on the day I like to call Black Tuesday. That was the day I got sacked and Brigit got promoted.

  I’d known for ages that my days were numbered at the Old Shillayleagh, and I found it hard to give a damn. I hated working there more than life itself. And ever since I’d cut out an article on impotency cures and sellotaped it onto my boss’s locker, with a Post-it saying ‘I thought you might find this helpful,’ I’d felt the unemployment line moving several steps closer.

  All the same, being sacked wasn’t nice.

  It became even less nice when I got home and found Brigit dancing jigs round the apartment because her salary had been doubled and she’d been given a new office and a new title. Assistant deputy vice-president of her department. ‘I only used to be junior assistant deputy vice-president, look at how far I’ve come,’ she said with glee.

  ‘Lovely,’ I said bitterly. ‘I suppose now you’ll go all New York and macho, getting to the office to start work at four in the morning, working till midnight, bringing files home with you, skipping holidays, thinking you’re great.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re so happy for me, Rachel,’ she said quietly. Then she went into her bedroom and slammed the door so hard, the front wall nearly fell off the apartment block. I stared bitterly after her. What was her problem, I wondered self-righteously. She wasn’t the one who’d just been sacked! Talk about salt being rubbed into my wound. I threw myself onto the sofa, savouring my well-deserved self-pity.

  I’d always felt that there was only a finite amount of good fortune in the universe to go round. And Brigit had just hogged our apartment’s entire quota, leaving none for me, not a single atom.

  Selfish bitch, I thought angrily, as I scoured the place looking for a drink or a drug. Just look at poor me, poor unemployed me, who’ll probably have to get a job in McDonald’s, if she’s lucky. Well, I just hope Brigit’s not able for the job and that she has a nervous breakdown. That’ll show her, the smug cow.

  I opened all the cupboards as I searched for a bottle of rum that I was sure I’d seen somewhere, but then I remembered I’d drunk it the previous night.

  Ah shite, I thought, savouring my misfortune.

  In the absence of artificial mood-enhancers, I tried to console myself by thinking that Brigit would have no life, that they’d work her into the ground, that there was a high price to be paid for a successful career. Then terrible insecurity snatched me in its claws. What if Brigit leaves me? I thought, in panic. What if Brigit moved into a lovely, mid-town apartment that had air-conditioning and an in-house gym? Then what would I do? Then where would I go? I couldn’t afford to keep up with that kind of rent.

  In that moment, I had a St Paul on the road to Damascus style revelation. I suddenly saw what side my bread was buttered on.

  I got off the couch, swallowed my misgivings and gently knocked on Brigit’s bedroom door.

  ‘I’m sorry, Brigit,’ I pleaded, ‘I’m a selfish hoor, I’m really sorry.’

  A wall of silence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, ‘It’s just that I was sacked myself this afternoon and I felt a bit, you know…’

  Still no response.

  ‘Come out, Brigit,please? I begged. ‘I’m sorry, I really am.’

  The door was flung open and Brigit stood there, her face raw fr
om crying.

  ‘Oh Rachel,’ she sighed. And I couldn’t place her tone. Forgiveness? Exasperation? Pity? Weariness? It could have been any of them, but I hoped it was forgiveness.

  ‘Let me take you out and buy you champagne to celebrate,’ I offered.

  She hung her head and traced a pattern on the floor with her toe.

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Oh go on,’ I urged.

  ‘OK,’ she conceded.

  ‘Just one prob,’ I said talking very quickly. ‘I’mkindof-skintatthemoment,butifyouloanmesomemoneyI’llpayyou backassoonasIcan.’

  Quietly, a bit too quietly for my liking, actually, she sighed and agreed.

  I insisted we went to the Llama Lounge.

  ‘We must, Brigit,’ I said. ‘It’s not every day one of us gets promoted. Certainly not if it’s me, hahaha.’

  At the Llama Lounge the management had put up a sign beside the inflated sofa that said ‘People with bare legs sit here at their own risk.’ Brigit and I both took one look at it and said in unison, ‘We’re not sitting there!’ I hoped this of-one-mindness meant Brigit had forgiven me. But conversation remained stilted. I strove hard, overstrove, probably, to let her know how happy I was about her good fortune, but it was an uphill battle.

  In the middle of me telling her again how pleased I was for her, she looked at the door and murmured ‘Here’s your fella.’

  Please God, let it be Luke, I prayed, my innards atremble. And God obliged, but with a rider clause. It was indeed Luke.

  However, he was accompanied by none other than the exquisite Anya, skinny, tanned, almond-eyed Anya.

  The first thought that jumped into my head was, if he’s good enough for Anya, he’s good enough for me.

  Not that I was being given the choice, of course. Luke threw a non-committal nod over at Brigit and me, but didn’t come any closer.

  My world bellyflopped while Brigit wondered aloud ‘What’s up with Cool-Arse Luke?’

  Luke and Anya looked very intimate. Like they’d just clambered out of bed. Surely I was imagining it? I wondered anxiously. But their faces were very close together, turned into each other. Then their thighs touched. As I watched aghast, he slid his arm along the back of her chair, lightly touching her slim, yet muscular shoulders.