The Other Ida

by Amy Mason

  “So there you are. Did you have a good time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I see you’ve been crying. That’s a shame. It would at least have been nice for you to have a good time. There’s not much for you in bloody Bournemouth is there?”

  “I did have a nice time.”

  “But why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “As long as you don’t think those people liked you, Ida, any more than they liked me. They’re a fickle lot, I’ve told you that. You’ve got the name for it, but not the looks, and probably not the talent. Don’t let them fool you for one God damn second.”

  “Okay.” Ida lay on the bed and turned away.

  “At least wash your face before you get into bed. Your skin needs some air.”

  Ida stood up and walked towards the brightly lit bathroom. Her hair was a mess and she had make-up smudged round her eyes but, from where she stood, she couldn’t see her spots in the mirror. Instead what she noticed was a faint, peach lipstick mark, just below her neck. She turned round.

  “I’m not having it anymore, Ma. Some people do like me – they think I’m clever and funny and interesting – even pretty. And if you think I’m not, well, that’s the way you and Da fucking made me and that’s your problem. I won’t listen to you being horrible to me anymore. You’re a wino, and a fucking… a fucking, bloody, horrible bitch. And everyone, absolutely everyone thinks so. Okay?”

  Bridie sniffed and turned back towards the TV. Herman Munster was dancing. “Someone’s grown up,” was all she said.

  Chapter eleven

  ~ 1999 ~

  They had given up on TV. Tom had been out for more wine before the shop shut and they sat around the kitchen table with a glass each. Radio Four was on, quietly, and Ida could see her hunched reflection against the night sky in the glass of the back door. Behind her she could see Tom rubbing Alice’s back. She had a sudden, sharp wish for Elliot to come. Not that he’d dream of rubbing her back.

  Alice was writing things down and explaining them as she wrote. She was slightly slurring her words. “So, I’ve ordered the willow coffin and the Mass cards, Hendon’s are dealing with them, and Father Patrick is doing the service, she always liked him.”

  “I can’t believe he’s still alive,” Ida said, picking the wax off the candlestick that stood on the table.

  Alice didn’t answer.

  “What about the eulogy?” Tom asked.

  Ida and Alice looked at each other.

  “I think she’d hate it,” said Alice. “I’ve asked the priest to say a few words about her, and us and her work.”

  “No, that’s one of those things she would say she’d hate. People going on about how great she was? She’d love it!” Ida said.

  “I don’t think so. Anyway, it’s arranged.”

  Ida kept quiet. She had no idea why Alice was asking her questions when she didn’t want them to be answered. At least there was more wine. But nowhere near enough.

  “You know what,” Alice said, “I could actually do with a fag.”

  Tom and Alice were lying on Bridie’s bedroom floor laughing hysterically and smoking. Alice had lit candles and put them round the room and Ida felt inexplicably angry and miserable while she watched them rolling about. She supposed it was the drinking; she often got bored drinking with normal people as they always got drunk so quickly, leaving her in the unusual position of being the sober, sensible one. Tom had suggested coming up here to smoke, the room still smelled of cigarettes anyway, but it was Alice who had suggested reading the film script out loud. There it was, the curled bundle of A4 sheets, signed by Anna DeCosta, with ‘bullshit’ written in huge letters on the front.

  “Read us another bit, please. Dear God, oh God I’m going to wet myself,” Alice said.

  “All my cells are broken, crushed, you don’t know what it feels like,” Ida read, frowning. She was being the sister – Kate – the pathetic one; the one they’d discovered had the best cheesy lines.

  “All my cells are broken, Tom, you don’t know what it feels like,” Alice said to Tom and he tickled her.

  The wine was nearly finished.

  “I think I might go to bed, it’s after three,” Ida said.

  Tom stopped tickling Alice; sat up and turned towards her. “Don’t do that, read some more,” he said.

  “Alright, but not this shit, I’m reading from Ma’s actual play. You are as well. Come on, sit up you two.”

  Ida crawled towards the wardrobe and opened the door. She closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready to see her mother’s clothes and the smell of damp and Chanel No.5 was almost too much. She reached in and pulled out a box. It was still there, it had been there for years.

  “Here it is,” she said, opening it to reveal a pile of black and red books. “Take one and pass it on.”

  Alice had forgotten about her no spirits rule and was drinking a glass of whisky, kneeling on the carpet and gesticulating with her free hand, her hair coming loose from its band and falling over her face.

  “This is what I trained for actually.”

  “You did English and Drama at some knobby university, now you work in what? Some bank?” Ida said.

  “Falmouth is pretty good for drama,” said Alice.

  “And you were always too scared to even read in church,” Ida said.

  Alice ignored her and looked at Tom. “It’s meant to be based on some Greek tragedy. There’s a bloody chorus. I want a chorus following me around.”

  “Alice went for a joggg,” Ida sang, operatically, “now she’s eating some pulses or maybe some veg-e-tables!”

  “Ida had ten billion drinks,” Alice sang, “now she is taking some drugs and having sex with strangers and going to hos-pi-tal.”

  “Brilliant Alice,” Ida said. “Your student grant was money well spent. Let’s get on with it.”

  “Ready? Let’s pick a page,” she closed her eyes and flicked through. “Here, page 30. Okay. We can’t escape it –” Alice read.

  “Pah! We can escape anything – we’re so much stronger than you think,” read Tom, putting on a comedy cockney accent.

  “You sound like Dick Van Dyke,” Alice laughed. “They’re meant to be Irish.”

  She noticed Ida was looking pissed off. “Alright, don’t get your knickers in a twist, I’m reading it. Anyway, you should be playing you, not Tom.”

  “Fine. We can escape anything – we’re so much stronger than you think. We could build a boat –” said Ida.

  “With what?”

  “Branches, leaves – a hollowed tree –“

  “You’re mad.”

  “If I am, you are too. We are the same, Kate, the whole way through. Your blood is my blood – dangerous blood.”

  Tom started laughing. “Dangerous blood. Have they got hepatitis?”

  “I thought this was meant to be good. It’s so over the top,” Alice said. “I feel bad for saying it. I mean, I like the film in a trashy way but the play has dated.”

  Ida stood up, flustered. “Of course it has. Mum wrote it ages ago for fuck’s sake. I’m going to bed.”

  She walked downstairs clutching a copy of the play and lay on her low bed. She knew this rage, the anger born of some kind of loyalty; she felt it often for Elliot. But why now? Why tonight? She hated her mother and she hated the stupid play.

  She turned to the first page. She had forgotten it started with a lullaby. Bridie had often sung it to her when she was a child; Seoithín, Seohó. Ida didn’t know what the words meant, but she knew the gist. A child had to get to sleep or the bad fairies would come to take her away. A threatening lullaby; no wonder her mother had liked it.

  Above her a spider had made a cobweb, and again she noticed the curling paper, the rose pattern underneath. Without meaning to she remembered the study as it
had been when they first moved in. She sat up. Yes, it was rose papered, big, old-fashioned roses, and the carpet had been… She looked at the beige carpet by her feet and squeezed her eyes shut. She remembered people coming to change it, squishy underlay and the cat, Boots, playing with the off-cuts. She must have been seven or eight at most.

  Above her she could hear her sister laughing, rolling around with her stupid boyfriend. She reached for some tablets and prayed silently to Our Lady, as she had done, secretly, for most of her life.

  She was almost asleep, with the book open on her chest, when she realised what was wrong. It was so simple she could hardly believe it. She was the play, wasn’t she? It wasn’t just her stupid name. And if it was so terrible, so irrelevant, then what on earth was she?

  Chapter twelve

  PRODUCTION NOTES

  The stage comes forward to meet the audience and the exact place where the stage ends and the auditorium begins is not clearly defined.

  IDA and KATE sit downstage and the audience enter. IDA is kneeling and plaiting KATE’S hair and KATE is sitting cross-legged and smoking while idly playing with a pile of pebbles next to her.

  It is not clear to the audience whether a fourth wall is present; the girls occasionally seem to acknowledge the audience with a glance or nod, but it is hard to be sure.

  The verses or poems should be chanted/sung by the girls and/or the chorus (where indicated), according to the needs of the situation.

  IDA: Dark, Irish, tall, aged about eighteen. Bold, funny, crude, with an explosive laugh, but moves gracefully and her singing voice is strong. Not pretty, but striking and knows it. Has made herself up to her full advantage.

  KATE: Dark, Irish, smaller, aged about fifteen. Potentially more beautiful than her sister but shy and unsure of herself; occasionally mumbles for this reason.

  ******

  KATE and IDA are already sitting downstage. There is no change to the lighting and the only indication that the play has started is that KATE begins quietly singing a lullaby. The audience should be allowed to realise this in their own time and not hurried to settle/be quiet by means of KATE singing more loudly. As is traditional in Irish songs both girls hum in between the verses.

  KATE: (Quietly, in a pretty but ordinary voice)

  Seoithín, seohó, mostór é, moleanbh

  Mo sheoidgancealg, mochuidgantsaoilmhór

  Seothínseoho, nachmór é an taitneamh

  Mo stóirínnaleaba, nachodladhganbrón.

  A leanbhmochléibh go n-eirí do chodhladhleat

  Séan is sonasgachoíche do chóir

  Támise le do thaobh ag guídhe ort nambeannacht

  Seothín a leanbh is codail go foill.

  (IDA begins singing with her sister in a much better and more confident voice)

  IDA/ KATE: Armhullachantításíodhageala

  Faolchaoin re an Earra ag imirt is spoirt

  Seoiadaniariad le glaocharmoleanbh

  Le mian é tharraingtisteach san liosmór.

  Chapter thirteen

  ~ 1999 ~

  Although Ida slept until late there was no note under the door. She was too annoyed to cope with a note today, something Alice must have sensed. At least the house was empty, and she could pad around, braless, smoking and looking for medicines. She was shaking and there was no booze left in the house – she needed something to keep her going.

  She walked up the stairs to her mother’s room. She wanted to find it messy, full of fag butts and bottles, but irritatingly Alice had tidied up. Things were just as they had been before they’d started drinking and Ida briefly wondered whether she’d dreamt the whole thing. Realising that she hadn’t, she hoped that the shame of drinking and smoking wouldn’t make Alice behave like even more of a cock. She would try not to mention it although it would be hard.

  To her left was the chipped cream door of her old bedroom, the room Alice now said was hers, and Ida stood outside it. Above the handle there was a ripped-off sticker and Ida traced the tip of a lightning bolt. She touched it and remembered it had been a T-Rex sticker that Terri’s unfortunate nephew had given her. Given? Or was that the story she’d told? She’d a funny feeling she’d nicked it from his bag.

  She grasped the Bakelite handle and turned. It opened a crack and she said ‘hello’ stupidly, before remembering there was no one there. She pushed it open and peered inside. Her bunk beds were gone. Instead, there was a double bed, and rather than hundreds of posters and records there were framed prints, potted plants and two neat racks of CDs.

  By the window was a desk with a computer on it, a newish looking computer and a pink plastic pot filled with pens. Next to the desk were a suitcase and a rucksack, and on the bed were neatly folded clothes. For the first time in a long time Ida wanted to smash everything up. She wanted more than anything to throw around the clothes, piss on the bedclothes, stamp on the computer and kick apart the drawers. Where the fuck were her bunk beds? She’d bought them with her own fucking cash.

  “I’m glad you’re dead!” she shouted at the top of her voice. She hoped the flash new neighbours could hear.

  She took a deep breath and walked further into the room, pulling the pine chair away from the desk. Standing on it she peeled the loose paper away from the light fitting and found, as she’d known she would, yellowed Sellotape holding a piece of card over a large, shallow hole in the plaster. She pulled at the edge and there was the brittle plastic bag saying ‘Safeway’ in an ancient font, stretched out over the book it contained. It had been hammered into the ceiling – God knew where she’d got that idea – and she ripped it away from the nails, replaced the card and the ceiling paper, stepped down from the chair and wiped the plaster dust off her hair and clothes. Her hands were shaking. As she walked from the room she resisted the urge to slam the door and went back down to the study.

  Sitting on the chair bed she took the book out. ‘Magical Days Book’ it read in Tippex across the ripped black front cover and tied around it, to hold in the letters and loose papers, was the wooden rosary Bridie had given her for her First Communion.

  10th December 1983

  So I’m going to write to her. I’m getting together the strength of mind and will and I prayed about it, which is embarrassing, but I thought I might as well. Not that the Bible says anything about being a lez. I checked. The other day Ma had Hello! and she was in it and I nearly puked right over it. Not because she was ugly (anything but!) but because I love her SO MUCH. Here it goes. (YOU CAN DO IT IDA, YOU’RE ELECTRIC!)

  Dear Annie

  Thanks for the script. I feel like such a dork telling you this but I showed some of the girls I used to go to school with and they were pretty impressed. Also showed this boy I used to snog (make out you would say!) which is embarrassing because he is sort of ugly and used to drink his yogurt at Sunday school. I didn’t tell him about the kissing, kissing you I mean. I wouldn’t tell him that. I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this.

  IDA YOU ARE A FUCKING IDIOT STOP WRITING SUCH CRAP LOVE IDA.

  Dear Annie

  I love you. I love the idea of you and the actual you. I mean, I love seeing you on screen, your wonderful little face and then the actual you – the way you smell, and the way you dance and the way you kiss. I didn’t know such a small mouth could make me feel so churned up. I feel broken, Annie, I’m in bits. Because of you!

  IDA YOU ARE AN OVER ROMANTIC DICK HEAD IDIOT WHO SHOULD BE SHOT.

  1st Jan 1984

  So I wrote to her (a better letter than the ones I practiced, promise!) and she DID NOT REPLY. I didn’t hear from her over Christmas or even New Year although the phone did ring and someone put it down when I answered, but that couldn’t be her unless she got our number from Ma’s agent or someone. I am HEARTBROKEN. How will anyone ever compare to her? I told Martin (the boy from St Luke’s who I kind of had sex wi
th) and he did not believe me, obviously, which is ridiculous as I am not a liar. However, he told everyone what I said and so I said HE was making it up so the joke was on him. HA!

  I am now taking a vow of chastity and this book will not be about romance but will solely be about secret, amazing things that happen to ME. And not just any old thing. I’m talking about magical things. These could include:

  Ghosts

  Unexplained powers

  Poetry/plays/literature

  UFOS

  Telepathy

  Strange feelings

  Furious anger

  Artistic excellence

  Beauty in all its forms

  Fortune telling

  Musings on death and the afterlife

  My glorious, inevitable fame and success

  This new theme has been inspired by (this is the last time I will mention her, promise!) my kiss with Anna (or Annie to me) DeCosta which has made me feel different, powerful and above all MAGICAL. We kind of swapped I think, like in Freaky Friday, and I got her powers and bits of her personality. And maybe even some of Ida in the film which is scary because she is a murderer. IF YOU ARE READING THIS FIRSTLY: FUCK OFF, SECONDLY: THERE ARE SOME THINGS YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN (EVEN YOU, SMART ARSE, IF THE SNOOP IS ALICE) SO THERE IS NO NEED TO LOCK ME UP. WHAT I AM SAYING IS TRUE. I AM A CHANGED WOMAN. IT IS A MIRACLE OR A CURSE. I am not sure which. It’s a mystery. That’s all I can say for sure. Only time will tell…

  (To be continued. Ha!)

  Ida put the book on the bed next to her and laughed out loud, realising that for some unknown reason she’d been reading it with one eye shut, as if watching a horror film.

  Then, after the laughter, she felt another emotion, a strange mix of sickness, confusion and annoyance. She only remembered rage from her youth, but here she was, sweet and stupid like any other teenage girl. She felt a surge of depression in her stomach as she realised that for a long time she’d been clinging onto the hope that somewhere inside was the strange, creative girl she once was. But maybe that girl never existed. The thought was almost too much to bear.