by Maria Hoey
“She’s a phony, that’s why,” said my mother. “That voice, that accent, everything about her, none of it is real.”
“I don’t know if she’s a phoney,” said my father. “Maybe this is really who she was meant to be.”
But that was too subtle for my mother. She had a go at him for defending Mrs Duff, who, so annoyed was she, she insisted on calling Florence Flynn.
I listened for a while and then I wandered away to look at the food. It all looked very fancy to me although I liked the hedgehog made from tinfoil stuck with cocktails sticks threaded with cubes of cheese and grapes. There was a lot of celery and dishes of things to stick it in, but I did not like celery.
I took some cream buns and left the tent. I ate as I walked in the direction of the pram which was still under the window at the front of the house. Somebody else was standing next to it now and as I came closer she turned and saw me coming and quickly walked away in the other direction. I recognised her as the pretty black-haired girl who had earlier rushed past us at the gates. She looked back once and, when she saw I was still watching her, she broke into a run and kept on running until she rounded the turn in the avenue.
I turned back to the pram. The baby was fast asleep. “Hello, Alexander,” I whispered.
He was dressed that day in a sailor top and dark-blue shorts. He had kicked off one white sock and the sole of his little naked foot was wrinkled, like an old man’s face. I thought he was a nice baby, Alexander Duff, plump and with a big face like his father and thick pink lips like Mrs Duff. His hair, which had been dark when I had last seen him, had turned fair and he had long fair eyelashes and big round cheeks with a perfect red spot in the middle of each, like a moon. I wondered if he was too hot. But, if he was, wouldn’t Violet-May have come and told her mother so?
“Poor little baby,” I whispered and I wished again that he was my baby brother. I would not have left him lying there in the heat, that was for sure.
I left him and strolled away around the side of the house. I had not been there alone since the day I had come for the birthday concert. A memory from another day struck me and I kept on going until I came to the place where I had seen Robbie bending down that day when I had stood at the playroom window. There was a little mound with a wooden cross on top, and someone had carved the word PRINCE into it.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped up and whirled around.
Robbie Duff was standing there watching me.
“Nothing, I was just looking.”
“Who was that girl, the one looking into Alexander’s pram?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t know?” Robbie sounded angry.
“Yes, I’m sure. I never saw her before. Except at the gate when we were coming in today, I saw her then but that was the first time. I don’t know who she is.”
Robbie said nothing, just stuck out his foot and toed the green mound.
After a while I said quietly, “I’m sorry your dog died.”
“He didn’t die,” said Robbie. “I wish everyone would stop saying that. He was killed.”
“Because he ate a poisoned rat,” I said, “or my daddy said that maybe he ate poison in one of the fields – the farmers put it down to kill rats.”
“Is that what your daddy says?”
Something in the way he said it made me realise what a baby I had sounded. “Well, that’s just what my father says,” I amended.
I watched as Robbie’s foot toed the mound once more.
“I bet you’re glad you’re home from boarding school,” I said.
“Wrong again.” Robbie bent down and with a fierce little movement pulled out the cross.
I had no idea what to say then, so I said something stupid just for the sake of saying anything at all. “But you’re having a lovely party.”
Robbie looked at me. “Wrong again,” he said. “Listen to that – does that sound like it’s my party?”
I listened. Even from there we could hear the strains of the music.
“You don’t like the string quartet,” I said. I was proud of myself for remembering what Mrs Duff had called the band. “I don’t like it either.” I wondered desperately what music he liked. I wondered if he liked Bananarama. I was afraid to ask in case he would think I was a baby again.
While I had been torturing myself, Robbie had been staring down at the cross in his hands,
“Are you going to put that back?” I said.
“No, I’m not.” He raised his arm and hurled it from him, so violently that it rose in a great arc in the air and soared across the garden before falling to earth what seemed to me a great distance away, lost among the shrubs. He watched it go. “I was just a dumb kid when I made that.” Then he turned to me, “And you’re just a silly little girl, Kay Kelly, who knows nothing. Now why don’t you run away back to the party you think is so lovely, and leave me alone?”
It was the second party at the Duffs’ house where I had felt miserable. After Robbie walked away I almost burst into tears and thought about running home alone. I wondered if my mother would notice I had gone. It would have been a perverse sort of comfort to be able to convince myself that she would not, but I knew the truth was she was probably looking for me right this minute. I decided to go into the house and see if Violet-May was still there. I went in through the kitchen and up the iron staircase, which was a thrill because it always felt to me like a secret staircase even though everyone who lived in the house knew it was there.
As I came out onto the first-floor landing I was just in time to see Robbie on his way up the main staircase to the next floor. There were three other boys with him and they were laughing and all talking at the same time and Robbie was laughing too, almost as if he were a completely different person to the one who had been so cross with me in the garden.
I was still watching them when the door to the bathroom opened and Rosemary-June came out. She looked past me and up the stairs to where now only the feet of the four boys were visible and then they too disappeared, although we could still hear them laughing.
“You were watching Robbie again,” she said.
“No, I wasn’t,” I said, and I felt my face growing hot and knew it was getting red and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Yes, you were,” said Rosemary-June. “You’re always watching him. I suppose he’s gone up to his room with his friends to play his tapes and drink beer. I hope he locks his door or Mummy will walk in and catch him.”
“Robbie wouldn’t drink beer,” I said.
“Yes, he would, he already does,” said Rosemary-June.
Then from above our heads we heard a sudden burst of music.
Rosemary-June looked up and then she smiled at me. “See, tapes and beer. I have to go now,” she said. “Mummy sent me to fetch the baby but I needed the bathroom.”
“He’s asleep,” I said. I was relieved her mind had moved away from Robbie, although my face was still warm.
“He’ll wake up soon,” said Rosemary-June, “and he’ll start crying again, because he’s hungry or wet or something.”
“He’s only little,” I said, “he can’t help it.”
Rosemary-June put her head to one side as she looked at me. “You like Alexander,” she said. “So does Robbie, so do I.”
“Of course we like Alexander – he’s a baby, everyone loves babies.”
“I don’t think Mummy loves him,” said Rosemary-June. “She says he’s difficult. And Violet-May hates him. She pinches him and makes him cry.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said. As I said it I was thinking of how Violet-May had leant over Alexander’s pram and the little cry I had heard. A terrible thought came into my mind: had she kissed him or pinched him?
I told Rosemary I needed to use the bathroom too, but as soon as she went downstairs I crept up to the second landing. I stood for a while just listening to the sounds of music drifting along the corridor. A ma
n’s voice was singing, “I want to break free”, and I could hear the sound of laughing and voices although I could not hear what they were saying. Then someone or something fell against a door and I bolted back along the corridor and down the stairs again. My heart was thumping so hard in my chest that it hurt but I didn’t care, because I had been almost outside Robbie Duff’s room door and I had heard the music he was playing.
At home that evening I told my parents that I was too old for ‘Mammy’ and ‘Daddy’ and from now on I would be calling them Mam and Dad.
Chapter 9
There was an earthquake in Dublin in July 1984 and apparently in some of the flats in the tower blocks in Ballymun ornaments fell from the mantelpieces. It did not even register on my personal Richter scale but, even so, apart from going to see Ghostbusters in the cinema with my father, it was still the most exciting thing to happen that summer. The Duffs went to France at the beginning of July and did not come back again until the beginning of August. When I first heard that they were going away, I had let myself imagine that Violet-May might invite me to go too. I allowed myself to conjure up vivid and elaborate daydreams in which Robbie and I had wonderful adventures on sunny beaches during which it became clear to Robbie that I was not a silly little girl at all, but quite intelligent, very interesting and incredibly witty. Instead the Duffs sailed to France without me, leaving me to play in the road with the other kids in the estate.
I did not learn to swim like a fish that summer either. In the Deep one of the big boys pushed me and I went under and swallowed a lot of water and almost choked. As a result, I was even more nervous than I had already been. My father had bought our first car, a second-hand Ford Escort, the colour of mustard, and in it he took us to Portmarnock beach a couple of times. On both occasions the wind was high and the waves too strong for my liking. I considered myself too big now for armbands but too frightened to leave the shallows without them, and so I stayed paddling at the sea’s edge while my father swam so far out he was just a dot in the distance.
Violet-May came back from France, brown and somehow different, although I could not have put into words what the difference was.
The day her mother’s car pulled up outside our house I had been playing in the road for hours and was sitting on the Nugents’ wall between the twins. We were dusty and hot, the ice-cream van had just been and my face and hands were sticky from the ice-pops my father had bought for the three of us.
Violet-May got out of the car and came across to us. She was wearing a white skirt and a white top and her hair was done up in a new and fancy way in some kind of plait. She looked beautiful and absolutely, impossibly clean. Maybe that was why Mandy Nugent stuck out her tongue at her or maybe it was because the Nugent twins had got me back and were not about to let me go again without a struggle. I knew in my heart that they resented the time I spent with Violet-May and, although I felt guilty about it, I was also human enough to recognise and be pleased by the compliment.
But right now Mandy Nugent’s tongue was purple from her Dracula pop and I felt so embarrassed I wished I could pretend I didn’t know her.
Violet-May acted liked nothing had happened.
“Do you want to come into my house?” I said, getting up from the wall.
“I can’t,” said Violet-May. “Mummy’s waiting.”
“Mummy’s waiting,” said Mandy, and she sniggered.
“Stop it, Mandy,” I said.
“Yeah, stop it, Mandy,” said Dolores.
I walked away from them and back toward the car with Violet-May.
“So immature,” she said.
I nodded in agreement. “I know.”
As we walked, I was watching Violet-May out of the corner of my eye, trying to figure out what was different about her. She had definitely grown taller, but that was the only thing I could pin down, that and the plait.
“I like your hair,” I said.
“It’s a French plait. Do you want to come over to my house tomorrow? Mummy says it’s OK.”
“Yes, please.”
“OK, well, I’ll see you then.”
Mrs Duff leaned across and opened the car door. Alexander was crying his heart out inside.
“If you’re quite ready, Violet-May,” Mrs Duff said. “Mummy needs to get the baby home. Hello, Kay.” She was wearing very big sunglasses and I could not see her eyes, but she did not sound one bit pleased to see me.
Violet-May got in and I peered into the back. I had half hoped that Robbie would be there but there was only Alexander, all strapped up in a baby seat. His face was bright red, his mouth was open as he roared and waved his fists at the back of his mother’s head. The car door slammed and I could only hear him faintly then.
As I stood watching the car move away, the twins came and stood one on either side of me.
“She’s such a snob,” said Mandy.
“You’re so immature, Mandy Nugent,” I said, and I walked away.
I went to play with Violet-May the next day but my only sighting of Robbie was at his bedroom window. It was a lovely day and, after running about the garden for a while, Violet-May and I sat down for a rest on the front steps. They felt warm to the touch and the tiny flecks of what looked like silver in the stone winked in the sunlight. After a while we got bored of sitting and played at chasing one another up and down the avenue.
As we walked back toward the house, I saw that somebody had brought out a striped blue-and-white deckchair to the lawn in front of the house. Then Mrs Duff came out through the open front doorway, pushing the pram ahead of her. She wheeled it to its usual spot under the window, put on the brake then picked up a book which had been inside the pram.
When she turned and saw us, she put a finger to her lips and said in a whisper, “Play quietly now, girls, and no running or squealing please. Mummy has only just got Alexander to sleep and she needs a little time to herself.”
We watched her walk across the lawn toward the deckchair where she settled herself with her book in her lap. She slid the sunglasses which had been perched on top of her head down over her eyes then leaned back and raised her face to the sun.
“I want to sunbathe too,” said Violet-May. “Let’s go and get some more deckchairs.”
She raced off and I ran after her to a shed behind the house where an assortment of garden furniture was stored. Violet-May chose one with a faded yellow stripe and I took one in blue-and-white and we carried them around to the front of the house.
Crossing the lawn, I saw that Mrs Duff’s book still lay in her lap and the breeze had flipped it open and was riffling through it like an invisible finger. Her head had fallen to one side and her sunglasses had slipped down onto her nose. As we came nearer I could hear a gentle little rumble coming from her open mouth and I remember being a little bit shocked to discover that Mrs Duff snored just like my father did, just like an ordinary person really. I looked at Violet-May and we both began to giggle and then we tip-toed past where her mother was snoozing and found a spot some distance away to pitch our chairs.
I was just about to sit down when there was an explosion of sound which startled me and caused Mrs Duff to jerk awake. I saw her leap to her feet and her sunglasses slid from her nose and landed on the grass. At the same moment Alexander began to screech and Mrs Duff let out a roar which made me jump as the music had not.
“Robbie Duff!” she roared at the top of her voice.
I was shocked because I had never before seen her lose her temper or even really raise her voice. But now she was striding across the grass toward the house, roaring, actually roaring.
“Robbie Duff, show your face this instant. This instant, do you hear?”
From an open window on the second floor, Robbie’s head appeared.
“What do you want?” he bellowed.
“Turn off that music immediately!” his mother roared back. “You selfish, thoughtless boy! How dare you play it like that when I expressly asked you not to! You’ve gone and woken Alexan
der and now I’ll never get him back to sleep!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
As I watched, Robbie’s head disappeared and a moment later the music stopped.
Mrs Duff kept on marching and did not stop until she reached the pram. I saw her touch her foot to the brake, then push it very fast to the base of the steps which led up to the open front door. I watched as she climbed the steps, dragging the pram behind her. Watching it bounce, I remember wondering how it must feel to Alexander – bumpy, I was sure – and as the door slammed behind them I could hear him crying.
“What will she do to Robbie?” I said, turning to Violet-May.
“Who cares?” said Violet. “Give him another lecture about disturbing her when she’s trying to take a nap and relax. But so what – she’s always taking a nap or going for a lie-down or trying to relax.”
And I stared at the window where Robbie had been and hoped very hard that he would not get into too much trouble.
By the time I next went to play at Violet-May’s house Robbie had gone to stay with a friend where, Violet-May informed me, he would remain for the rest of the school holidays. It made me sad to think that I might not see him again until the Christmas holidays. Christmas seemed a very long time away. But perhaps, I thought suddenly, he would be allowed to come home for Violet-May’s birthday, which reminded me of something else I had been wondering about.
