If This is Paradise, I Want My Money Back

by Claudia Carroll

  Timidly for her, Kate distributes the gifts, then excuses herself to go upstairs and freshen up for dinner. Paul still isn’t back from rehearsing yet, so I figure she’d rather be alone in the spare bedroom than having to deal with this shower. I stay behind, though, and sure enough, no sooner is she out the door than the backbiting starts. Honest to God, Kate trying to be nice to them is such a big mistake. A huge mistake, in fact. With cellulite and love handles and thunder thighs. Put it this way: this is one family tableau that I doubt Norman Rockwell would want to paint.

  ‘She bought me a shaggin’ cake?’ is Rose’s opener. ‘When everyone knows I was a county finalist at this year’s bake-fest above in Oranmore? Bloody cheek of her.’

  ‘She left the price on the scented candle she got me,’ mutters the pregnant one. ‘Forty-two euro! Scandalous. Imagine forking out that amount of cash for a candle? She’ll have poor Paul ruined in no time.’

  ‘And buying bag-loads of sweets full of E-numbers for the kids,’ snipes the third witch in the coven, who’s at the sink draining spuds. ‘They’ll all be so full of sugar they haven’t a chance of sleeping tonight, and wait till you see, they’ll give the babysitter hell. My one night out, too. Thoughtless cow.’

  Jesus Christ, I think, going straight back to where Kate is changing upstairs. She can’t bloody win with these people. Damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t.

  Nor do things improve when Paul eventually does get back. By my reckoning, he’s in and out the door in about thirty minutes flat, only stopping for a lightning-quick shower, to change clothes and wolf down the roast chicken and spuds dinner that’s plonked in front of him. He’s like a whirlwind, in and gone before you’d even know it.

  Leaving Kate alone. Yet again.

  I stay with her as she politely offers to drive anyone who wants a lift to Sheehan’s for the fortieth party, but the horrors-in-law all elect to travel in Rose’s big people-carrier mammy wagon. Together. Without Kate. Connor, the youngest brother, must feel a bit sorry for her, though, as he hops in beside her, just so she’s not totally alone. It’s the nicest thing any of the family has done for her all day.

  The party is beyond awful. Kate doesn’t even get two seconds alone with Paul, as he’s playing non-stop for the night, and on the rare occasion when the band do take a breather, they just chat among themselves about the playlist for the next set. And apart from Paul’s family, she knows no one, nor do any of the in-laws bother introducing her around. When the beers kick in, things start getting a bit raucous, and in no time, everyone’s up on their feet dancing to some Chuck Berry number, arms in the air, having great crack.

  Everyone except Kate, that is. She’s sitting all alone at the family table, while the in-laws are dancing around their handbags, knocking back the Bacardi Breezers, laughing their half-pissed heads off. Honestly, poor Kate might as well have a sign over her head saying, ‘Do not engage the social leper in conversation, she doesn’t fit in. In case anyone hadn’t noticed.’ Another break in the music and this time the famous Julie is over to Paul, all wiggling hips and deep-voiced and doe-eyed. She’s young, about twenty-three, with the head so bleached off her that if you look at her sideways, she kind of has a look of Eva Braun.

  So yet again, Kate sits at the edge of the family table, the picture of isolation and loneliness, while her husband blatantly ignores her. Doesn’t even come near her once all evening. Doesn’t even look over in her direction to see whether she’s OK. Doesn’t offer her a drink, nothing. After a few hours of this appalling treatment, Kate looks utterly miserable, so unhappy that she’s only about a heartbeat away from recording a Country and Western album. In her defence, she sticks it out till about midnight, then makes her excuses and leaves, pleading exhaustion after a long day. No one says goodbye to her. No one looks sorry to see her go.

  In fact, I don’t think anyone even notices.

  I don’t stick around for the bitch-fest which usually erupts the minute Kate leaves her sisters-in-law, I go straight back to Briar Rose’s house where Kate relieves the babysitter, pays her (not that she’ll get any thanks for it), then slopes forlornly off to bed. Hours and hours later, there’s a commotion in the driveway as the rest of the family land back, and from the sound of it, head straight for the kitchen where Rose sticks on a late-night fry-up. Kate’s lying awake, staring at the ceiling with the smell of rashers and toast wafting upstairs to her, and I have a horrible feeling that I know exactly what’s coming next.

  ‘Don’t do it, Kate,’ I say out loud. ‘Don’t pick a fight with Paul. Not in this house, where Briar Rose probably has a CCTV camera here so she can watch the whole thing live, then play back the edited highlights to the other pair of witches tomorrow. Trust me, don’t do it. At least wait till you’re home, in your own space, where you have some privacy.’

  No such luck, though. Not long after, Paul falls in beside her, pissed as a fart, and off Kate goes. As marital rows go, it’s a particularly ugly one, with Kate coolly dissecting how completely ignored she felt for the whole day and night, and by the husband she’d made such an effort to come and see. A fair point, but Paul’s way too slaughtered drunk to even come back at her; he just grunts at her to leave him alone so he can sleep off his bellyful of beer.

  ‘Paul, I’m talking to you,’ she says, wobbly voiced, all the upset, anger and frustration of the whole crappy day and night coming back to her.

  Kate, please don’t do this, not here and not now. I wouldn’t put it past Rose to be outside the door with an empty jam-jar pressed against it so she can hear every word you’re saying. Sorry, shouting.

  ‘Ah leave off your nagging and go to sleep, woman,’ growls Paul from somewhere under the duvet.

  Which only starts her off on a fresh bout of rowing, the theme this time being, ‘On what planet do you think this is an acceptable way to treat your wife?’ On and on they go, with Paul eventually sitting up on one elbow, wide awake now, realizing that he won’t get a wink of sleep till the row has run its course. He gives as good as he gets, and at one point even drunkenly tells Kate to shut up, cop on to herself, and that all his brothers reckon he’s married to a heart scald. Horrible phrase, and if he had said it to me, I’d probably have clocked him one. Then, as if the atmosphere wasn’t hostile enough, he adds insult to injury by accusing her of making no effort with his family, none at all, because she reckons she’s too good for them. Which is both untrue and unfair. The pièce de résistance, though, is when he slurs from the side of his mouth that behind her back, the bitches-in law all refer to Kate as Hatchet Face.

  Ouch, ouch ouch.

  As for me, as I watch, a horrible little doubt is beginning to ferment at the back of my mind.

  Could it be possible?

  Or maybe, just maybe, is Perfect Paul not quite as perfect as we all thought?

  Chapter Fourteen

  JAMES

  Like I said, Dad’s a great man for inspirational quotes, and I always remember a particular one from Hamlet that he was for ever trying to hammer home to me and Kate. When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. Which might sound a bit Elizabethan, but when you hear what’s lying ahead for James, believe me, it’ll all start to make sense. I think after the awfulness of Kate’s miserable night with Paul, I need cheering up, and what better way to do it than by calling in on someone who’s a helluva lot worse off than any of us, including me.

  And, like, I’m the dead girl.

  Screechy Sophie appears to have just moved herself in, and when I get to the house bright and early the following morning is actually standing in the converted loft upstairs wearing my dressing gown and ironing one of her flowery summery dresses, humming a song, the bare-faced bloody cheek of her. What next? Is she going to start wearing the rest of my clothes and dancing around on my grave singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’? Meanwhile, bastard-face James is in our bedroom . . . get this . . . clearing my stuff out of the wardrobe. And dressing table. And bathroom. Everything.
My books, including a first-edition John McGahern that Fiona gave me one Christmas. Signed by the author, no less. My CDs, even the ones that he himself bought me. All my make-up and cleansers and out-of-date magazines. Jesus, he even grabs the photo of me and Kate on her wedding day off the dressing table and flings it into a plastic bag.

  OK, now I’m getting really angry.

  I remember when Dad died, I couldn’t bring myself to throw out any of his old clothes or even donate them to a charity shop, nothing. All I wanted to do was smell his jumpers and coats, and be in some weird way comforted by just how much his lingering scent brought him back to me. But here’s cackhead James actually flinging my stuff into Tesco’s bags. Not even pausing for the briefest whiff of my perfume, nothing. I’m rooted to the spot staring at this latest war crime in total and utter shock, just as the doorbell clangs and brings me back to my senses.

  ‘You unimaginable . . . fecking . . . fecker,’ is all I can barely spit at him as he legs it past me and races to the bottom of the stairs leading up to the loft, where Screechy is ironing. Not my best piece of oratory, but, trembling with rage and blind fury, sorry, it’s about the best I can come up with. He’s in such a mad rush, though, he’s not even listening to me.

  At least, not yet he isn’t.

  ‘That’ll be her, now,’ he shouts up the stairs to Miss Screechy. ‘I’ll get it, and remember to stay well out of sight!’

  ‘As if I want to have to make small talk with some interfering aul bag,’ she squeals back down. ‘Get rid of her quick, though, I’ve an audition this morning and I can’t be late.’

  ‘James Kane, did you HEAR what I just said to you?’ I stammer at him, afraid now that maybe he can’t, and that therefore I won’t fully be able to torture him and get him back for this latest outrage. In a long line of outrages. But I think he’s too flummoxed to hear me as he races downstairs. So I follow, hot on his heels. He flings the door open and there’s two people standing there. One is the postman who makes him sign for a registered letter.

  The other one is my mum.

  ‘Mum!’ I almost sob, my mood immediately switching from seething, boiling anger to waves of relief that she’s here. An ally. Who might even, metaphorically, kick James’s arse on my behalf.

  ‘I’ve so much to tell you,’ I say tearily, immediately going to hug her. ‘I was with Kate last night, and all of Paul’s family, including Paul, were horrible to her . . .’ it takes me a minute to fully trail off, realizing that, of course, she’s completely deaf to me. And even when I do hug her, my arms go right through her, like in some kind of weird 3D movie. And I just want to talk to her so much right now that it’s breaking my heart. She’s stood on the doorstep, wearing her good, brown ‘important occasions’ suit and her least comfortable pair of shoes, handbag clutched rigidly over one arm, glaring at James, almost daring him to ask her in.

  Astonishing, though, just how quickly his personality switches to ‘arse-licking sycophant’.

  ‘Mrs Grey,’ he smarms, holding the door open for her. ‘How lovely to see you. Won’t you come in and have some tea?’

  ‘Do NOT fall for the charm, Mum,’ I howl at her. ‘His new girlfriend is stashed away upstairs like Anne Frank in the attic, and if you’d seen the bastard flinging all my stuff into plastic bags . . .’

  I break off, realizing that James is doing that thing of looking around him, wondering where my voice is coming from. Finally. Then I see Mum wavering for a second, weighing up her innate dislike of James with the fact that he’s being nice to her.

  ‘Say no, Mum! Say no and tell him to feck off!’

  James starts rubbing his temples like his head is splitting him, but Mum doesn’t seem to notice.

  Or care.

  ‘No, thank you,’ she eventually says to him, primly. ‘If I can just get some of Charlotte’s things, I’ll be on my way. Kate is anxious to get all her books and music back particularly.’

  OK, so now this visit is starting to make sense.

  ‘The upstairs loft, Mum. Tell him that you happen to know most of my stuff is in the upstairs loft.’

  Oh shite, shite, shite, why can’t she hear me?

  ‘Not a problem, Mrs Grey, but no, there’s nothing at all belonging to Charlotte in the upstairs loft,’ says James, more unctuous than a greasy paparazzo. ‘Please, won’t you come in?’

  ‘I never said anything about upstairs lofts,’ says Mum, gingerly stepping inside the door, but no further.

  ‘Oh, right, yes, yes, of course,’ says James, covering. ‘So . . . emm . . . how have you been, Mrs Grey?’ he says, flinging yet more of my stuff into . . . dear Jaysus . . . a binliner.

  Mum looks suitably disapproving, but stops short of calling him an unfeeling, insensitive arsehole, my preferred outcome.

  ‘As well as can be expected, under the circumstances.’

  ‘She thinks you’re a total gobshite, you know,’ I say right into James’s face. Totally worth it, just seeing the blood drain away, while he’s simultaneously trying to suck Mum into the vortex of his charm. ‘So you’re wasting your time with the pleasantries. She knows about your legendary moodiness . . .’

  ‘You know, Mrs Grey,’ he says, interrupting me, and for a second, I’m almost impressed at how good he’s getting at blanking out my voice. ‘As you’re here, there’s something I’d really like to say.’

  ‘Mum also knows about the time you did a line of coke in her downstairs loo. ’Cos I told her.’

  ‘If that’s OK with you, that is. I know what an awful time this is for you, and I’d be the last person on earth to add to that,’ he smiles at her, the eyes black as soot, still ignoring me, the bastard.

  ‘Oh and James, dearest? I forgot to tell you. Mum is also fully aware that we had sex on her new sofa, right after her sixtieth-birthday party, when she was gone up to bed.’

  A total lie on my part, but soooooo well worth it, just to see him starting to stammer.

  ‘. . . That’s not true . . . at all . . . never violated your new sofa like that, and the line of coke was a once-off . . .’

  ‘James?’ says Mum, putting on her imperious face. ‘Are you quite well? What are you talking about sofas and lines of coke for? Everyone knows Coca-Cola comes in bottles, not lines.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Grey,’ he mumbles. ‘It’s just . . . just . . .’

  ‘Tell her,’ I snarl at him. ‘Go on. Tell her that by some freak of nature, you can hear me loud and clear. And that your new girlfriend has already shacked up with you and is now cowering upstairs in my dressing gown. Tell her and I’ll consider calling a halt to my campaign of harassment against you. Take my advice, James Kane, this could be your one and only chance at redemption.’

  ‘It’s just what?’ Mum says, looking at him funnily.

  But I’d underestimated the actor that he is.

  ‘Just . . . oh, Mrs Grey. I wish I could make you understand how hard this is for me, too,’ he eventually says.

  ‘Go on,’ I say to him, ‘confess to her just how much of a bastard you’ve been. Tell her all about Miss Screechy Voice, and in return I promise to leave you in peace. I’m throwing you a lifeline here, James Kane. You do that for me and I hereby promise to leave you alone.’

  ‘. . . it’s just . . .’

  ‘What?’ snaps Mum, rudely for her.

  ‘The thing is . . . well, I suppose the most diplomatic way of putting it is to say that, of course I realize that . . . in the past, you and I never really saw eye to eye. I’m sure there were plenty of occasions when you felt Charlotte could have done an awful lot better than me. God knows, you’d enough reason to.’

  Mum hears him out, though, and for a horrible second I think she might be buying into his act.

  ‘But I just want to tell you, Mrs Grey, that I’m actually broken-hearted without Charlotte. It’s just devastating for me coming home every night, when she’s not here.’

  ‘NO, MUM!’ I yell right into her ear, even though I know how useless a
nd futile it is. ‘Tell him to shag off, tell him anything, but do NOT fall for the devastated boyfriend routine . . . it’s nothing more than one, big fucking act!’

  It’s just killing me that she can’t hear me. (Although, I know if she could, she’d clatter me for all the bad language.) Killing me, even though I’m already dead.

  And his swansong is yet to come.

  ‘There’s just so much . . . that . . . I never got to say to her.’ I swear to God, he actually turns his face upwards to catch the light as he says this, like a silent movie star. Then the faint, distant sound of footsteps coming from the attic above makes him look momentarily furtive, but in a nanosecond, he’s readjusted his face back to looking like a holy picture on a Mass card. Daniel DayLewis himself wouldn’t have turned in such a sterling performance.

  The bollocks.

  Fair play to her, though, Mum remains pretty much unmoved, takes the binliner that’s proffered to her, turns on her heel and gets the hell out of there.

  ‘I have to go, my friend Nuala is waiting for me,’ she calls back over her shoulder, not even saying goodbye to him. Proper order.

  ‘Is she gone?’ says Screechy, coming downstairs from the loft.

  ‘Give it a minute till she’s well out of sight,’ he shouts back upstairs before disappearing off into the kitchen in search for his fags.

  ‘Goodbye, you interfering, patronizing, self-righteous old boot!’ Screechy yells at the front door, when Mum is back in her car and well out of earshot.

  Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the sofa, mute. Dumbstruck at just how much of a hypocrite James can be. And of course, wishing hellfire and damnation on him.