The Other Ida

by Amy Mason

  The Sindy she’d had when she was small.

  She took deep, slow breaths as she reached the window. Piled up on the sill were ornaments and horse brasses, the things Mary thought passers-by might want. She ran her hands over them and noticed, in between two decanters, an empty wooden box of crystallised ginger and a battered, damp copy of her mother’s play.

  Ida stood at the bus stop trying to look inconspicuous, shaking her head at drivers when they slowed to stop. Her clothes were icy and she was shaking, rubbing her arms as fast as she could with her white hands.

  Now the people who walked past her were wearing Bridie’s things. Her blue kimono; her hairpiece; her nightdress; her pearls.

  Ida wanted to reach out for them – she’d loved the kimono best of all – but nothing would work properly, not her limbs or her brain.

  It wasn’t right. None of it was right. Bridie had made her, Bridie had cursed her, and now Bridie had escaped.

  Maybe things would be better, or maybe they’d be worse.

  She’d walked out of the shop without locking it. People had probably gone in and stolen stuff, all that treasure she’d laid out so carefully. And her mother’s things. She had left her mother’s things there too.

  Terri said Bridie had got a bit better, dried out and started eating. But it hadn’t made any difference, had it? Her mother was dead. Ma was dead. Bridie Adair was dead.

  They’d left Willie to clean out her house. And no one had thought to tell Ida. It hadn’t happened last year – when Ida had left her on the floor – but it had happened now. It was probably still Ida’s fault.

  She couldn’t face the bedsit, her rent was already late. Tina was going to go mad.

  Where the fuck was she going to go?

  Two doors down from the bus stop there was a dirty-looking locals’ pub she’d never been into. The windows were frosted, the light was orange through the glass, and Ida had the feeling it would be ancient inside, that if she dared to go in she’d be offered bread and cheese and a place to feed her horse.

  She would make her way to the ladies’ loos, stand under the hand driers, then lock herself in a cubicle until she got chucked out. It was the only plan she had.

  A small shaven-headed man was going in too, and she squeezed past his round belly.

  “Bloody hell, love, you’re frozen,” he said. “Becky, sweetheart, get this girl a brandy. Put it on my tab.”

  The bar woman carried on polishing a glass. “She looks about fifteen Dave.”

  He pointed at Ida’s tits. “You’re having a laugh Beck! She’s at least twenty. Here,” he took Ida’s arm and a group of men moved away so they could be served.

  “New girlfriend?” one of them said and the others laughed. “Carol’s not going to be happy about this.”

  “Pah,” he said.

  The glass was on the bar and he handed it to Ida. “You sit yourself there and drink that down. Have as many as you want on me. What’s your name, love?”

  “Annie,” Ida said.

  The brandy moved right round her body, loosening her joints and heating up her head. She finished it quickly.

  The barmaid frowned. “You’re not a junkie are you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Well, behave yourself. You can use the driers in the toilet to get yourself defrosted.”

  “Get her another one, the poor girl’s thirsty,” said Dave, and Becky turned to pour it out. Dave put his hand on Ida’s thigh and she moved it away and hopped off her stool.

  Ida crouched underneath the drier, the wonderful heat thawing her jumper and warming the back of her neck. People did moan – she was always amazed how much everyone moaned – when brandy and a hand drier were all you needed to make everything okay.

  At five thirty Becky stopped serving Ida and asked Dave to take her home.

  He’d given up on both Ida and the drinks and was busy at the fruit machine, chain-smoking.

  “Lock in!” Ida shouted. She wasn’t as drunk as they thought she was, she knew she’d be alright.

  “Not time for that yet,” said Becky. “The grown-ups have still got a few hours left in us.”

  “Fuck off,” said Ida.

  “Dave, will you sort this out?” Becky said.

  He’d won forty quid a while before but had pumped it all back in. “Fucking hell.” He punched the machine and the group of men to his left went quiet. “What do you want me to do then Beck?”

  “Put her in a cab?” she said.

  “Well I don’t have any cash because of your fucking dickhead machine.”

  “Fuck it, I’ll go and drink in the street,” Ida said.

  “I’ll walk you home.” He took her by the hand and dragged her outside while she laughed.

  “Hey,” Becky shouted. “Look after her now.”

  Dave held Ida upright as they walked, slagging off his ex-wife and the men who drank at the pub.

  Occasionally he’d lunge towards her for kiss, pushing her against shop windows and thrusting his fat tongue into her mouth.

  It was only six and there were lots of people about. Ida laughed to think of someone finding her like this, snogging some gross old man against the door of The Silver Spoon.

  “Let’s go down here,” he said, leading her into the narrow alley by the side of the cafe.

  He put his hand up her top.

  She felt suddenly very sick.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “You’ve got a fucking boyfriend, haven’t you? Same old story, rinse a bloke for all he’s worth…”

  “I’ve got a girlfriend. An American girlfriend,” Ida said.

  “You shitting me?”

  “No.”

  “You pissed away my tab all night when you were a fucking dyke?”

  “Yeah, a fifteen-year-old dyke, you stupid prick,” she said.

  He slapped her, hard, and her head jerked to the left. She’d never been slapped by a man before and the pain was deep and went right through her.

  She started to laugh.

  “You ugly bitch,” he said.

  Ida flung back her head and threw it forward into his. The force sent him off balance and he slipped on the ice and onto his back, his head hitting the concrete with a crack. She crouched next to him and pushed her palm into his face.

  As she stood up he grabbed her leg. With her free foot she began to kick, her huge red boots meeting his skull again and again. He stopped struggling and started to wail but she kept kicking, her thigh throbbing and the ground around his bald head slick with a halo of blood.

  Vomit rose into her mouth and she leant forwards, puking all over Dave’s limp left arm.

  As she stood outside her mother’s house Ida realised she had no idea how she’d got there. Her head was throbbing, her lips were swollen and crusty, and she was clutching a bottle of vodka she had no memory of buying. But at least she knew why she’d come. Her mother was dead. Somehow she had found out her mother was dead. It took all of her effort to remember how she knew. Had someone told her? No. She’d found the things in the shop.

  The windows were black and Ida imagined the empty hall, as bare as when they’d first moved in. “It’s only the rattssss,” she whispered under her breath.

  A light appeared in the bathroom window and a woman, who looked like her mother, stood in front of the mirror.

  Ida knelt down.

  The street lamps came on one, two, three, four all down the road and Ida looked at the frosty pavement, sparkling under the electric lights. But she wasn’t cold.

  She peered over the top of the gate and saw the woman was still there. It was her mother, it really was. Bridie was still alive.

  “No,” Ida said. “No.”

  Back in the shop, when Ida had found all those things, she’d thought she was upset. But now she realis
ed it hadn’t been that at all. In fact her terrible broken brain was so desperate for her ma to die that it had only taken a few random bits of junk to convince her that she had.

  This is what it’s like to be mad, she thought. Now I know.

  As she looked down at her boots she remembered Dave, how she’d kicked him as hard as she could. She had wanted him dead, too.

  Ida walked round the side of the house, down the lane and deep into the woods. She lay on the ground, the frozen twigs cracking beneath her. She would sleep here, among the goblins and the moss. It was a good place for an evil girl to think about things.

  There was something wrong with her, something badly wrong.

  Because it wasn’t only Dave she’d hurt. Once, when she was young, she’d tried to kill her sister in the sea.

  There was a tapping on her forehead, something light and soft like fingertips, and she realised it was snow. She thought about Jane Eyre on the moors.

  Tina was definitely going to chuck her out. She’d said she would if Ida didn’t pay the rent.

  There was nowhere she could go, nowhere except these woods.

  I’ve got a murderer’s name, Ida thought. Her ma must have known what she’d be. It wasn’t enough for Bridie to write a girl in a play, she’d had to bring Ida to life. It was a horrible experiment that needed to end.

  And Mary. She’d even let wonderful Mary down.

  She could die here, couldn’t she? People did freeze to death. It wouldn’t be like the times before, like cutting your arms, or taking fifteen aspirin. No one could say it was a cry for help.

  Fuck cries for help.

  Wonder spread through her as she realised that this – a real, quiet death – was exactly what she wanted.

  There was a pain in her cheek and she opened her eyes. A teenage boy was poking her face with a stick, while a group of his friends stood round, drinking and smoking and shivering.

  “Is she dead?” one of them asked. His teeth were chattering and he sounded scared.

  “Boo!” shouted Ida and all the boys screamed.

  “Dale, run back to the street. Get someone to call 999,” said the one with the stick.

  Ida realised that she couldn’t move her legs and in her hand, stuck with cold, was an empty bottle. Her clothes were covered in inches of snow.

  She closed her eyes and wished to God they’d left her where she was.

  They had saved her fingers and toes. Twice a day for a week they’d ‘rewarmed them’ in a little plastic bowl. It sounded quite nice but it hurt so much she’d scream, and they’d given her Valium to calm her down.

  Now each of her digits was separately wrapped like weird sausage rolls. They let her stay on the pills for now.

  Tina lied for her and told the hospital they were sisters. They had no reason not to believe her, Ida hadn’t been reported missing, but after a few days Ida relented and let Tina call her father; she said that Ida had been mugged and left for dead.

  Bryan and Terri piled into the hospital under mounds of grapes and balloons, smiling and tearful, apparently believing the story. It was only Alice – staring, scared, stroking Ida’s sore, bound up fingers – who seemed to know that something strange and much worse, something unsayable, had happened.

  Terri came in the afternoons and sat by Ida’s bed, reading her Agatha Christie books and giving her Coke through a straw. No one suggested telling Bridie and Ida was grateful for that as well.

  After a few days it was time to go home. She wished she could stay.

  Tina offered to have her back again, but Ida was too dosed up and tired to argue when Terri insisted she came back to theirs.

  It wasn’t until they arrived at the flat and she saw her room – pink and perfect with teddies on the bed – that she knew she couldn’t be there for long. People went their whole lives without saying things, with unspoken horrors, but Ida wasn’t one of them. There’d be a time, likely sometime soon, when she’d need to get drunk and tell it all to someone, and it was far too embarrassing for Terri and her father to be there when that happened.

  She lay on the bed and found her feet hung off the end. In a month or so she’d get her money from the post office and fuck off to America to see Anna. She reached into her pocket and got another pill, ignoring Terri as she shouted up the stairs about tea. Closing her eyes she tried to imagine she was on a raft, lost at sea somewhere warm and dry, drifting slowly and gently towards her home. Wherever that might be.

  Chapter twenty-eight

  ~ 1999 ~

  They’d only meant to lie down for a minute – the sex and the long bath had made them both sleepy – but it was getting dark outside when they were woken by a knock at the study door.

  “Shit sorry – let me get dressed,” said Ida, confused and shivering, assuming it was her sister.

  There was another knock, harder this time.

  “What?” Ida asked, annoyed.

  “We believe Elliot Hill is in there Miss Irons. It’s the police.”

  “What the fuck?” asked Ida, sitting up and shaking Elliot.

  He sat up, blinking, irritated, but far from surprised. “Oh fuck,” he said, “I probably should have told you –”

  “I’m coming in,” the man said. He was wearing a uniform and held his hat under his arm. “Elliot Hill?”

  “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Elliot Hill, I am arresting you on suspicion of theft. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  Elliot laughed, sadly. “Oh shit. Yes, I know the drill. Can I at least get dressed?”

  “I’ll have to remain in the room, my colleague will wait outside. Miss Irons, can I ask you to leave the room as well.”

  “Yes, okay, let me get some clothes.” She stood up clumsily – she was shaking all over – found the suit trousers, a shirt and a bra and put them under her arm.

  “Fucking hell. Fucking hell,” she leant down, kissed Elliot on the top of the head, and slapped him lightly on the forehead with her palm. “You total twat.”

  “‘Whatever I’ve done’, right? That was the deal we made in the bathroom?”

  “I walked right into that one, didn’t I? You’re a lucky bastard to have me. I’ll meet you at the station, yes?” They kissed briefly on the lips and she left the room.

  To the side of the door a young female police officer stood gazing at her shoes, while Alice stood to her right, holding a tea towel and looking totally defeated. Tom was standing behind her with his back against the wall.

  “What have you done? What?” Alice asked Ida, quietly.

  “What the fuck makes you think I’ve done anything?” Ida asked.

  Tom stepped forwards. “Is there anything I can do to help? Drive you somewhere?”

  Peter came out of the sitting room and put his hand to his mouth, his eyes sparkling as he looked at Ida. “It’s better than EastEnders round here isn’t it?” he whispered.

  Ida laughed and hugged him. “Peter, will you drive me to the station in a bit? Tom, you should stay with Ally.”

  “Of course, of course,” Peter said. “Go upstairs and put your kit on or you’ll get arrested too – you’re practically naked. How do your lot feel about nakedness?” he asked the policewoman who smiled despite herself.

  “Bloody hell,” said Alice, starting to cry, shaking herself free of Tom and walking quickly across the hall and upstairs.

  “Sweetheart,” said Tom after her.

  Peter shooed him upstairs. “Go up to her darling. This is the last thing she needs.”

  The policewoman looked embarrassed and examined her fingernails. No one seemed to know quite what to do and Ida was about to go and change when Elliot was led, handcuffed, towards the front door
, his head down slightly, smiling sheepishly as though he’d been caught drinking his housemate’s wine. The policeman was carrying Elliot’s brown bag.

  “Really sorry about all this, it’s a stupid misunderstanding,” Elliot said to no one in particular.

  “Worse things happen at sea, as your girlfriend would say,” said Peter walking towards him. “Do you need anything? We can try to find you a lawyer?”

  Ida touched the back of Elliot’s hair as the policeman walked him outside. Peter hugged her, hard.

  “I’ll be okay, thanks though, both of you,” Elliot said behind him as he was led down the stone steps towards the waiting car.

  The policewoman followed. “Lovely to meet you all,” she said and turned towards Peter. “Saw you in a panto years ago at The Pavillion, Mr O’Shea. My mother was a fan.”

  “Lovely to meet you too. How kind. I always think police-women look so elegant – you especially. And I’m sure you do a sterling job.”

  The woman closed the door behind her and Ida buried her head in Peter’s neck. “So elegant? Ha.”

  “Oh my, it never rains but it pours,” Peter said.

  “Couldn’t it stop, for five minutes?” said Ida. “I swear it’s been pouring for the last twenty years.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re freezing,” said Peter. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, go into my case and choose yourself a sweater. I imagine you’re low on nice things and we can’t turn up to the police station with you looking like a rag-and-bone man. Your sister will have to fend for herself for a couple of hours. We’ve a prison break to arrange.”

  The man sitting opposite Ida was thin, pale and nervous – nothing like the policemen in films or those she’d met before. It was a small room, brightly lit – the sky through the narrow window was almost black now, and there was a low hum from a tape recorder in the corner. On the table between them, in a clear plastic bag, lay Elliot’s leather satchel and next to it was a box file.

  “He’s a good man, he wouldn’t do anything like that,” Ida said. It was a formality – both of them knew he would.

  “You can see why we might have our suspicions. The gallery are insistent that he coerced a young assistant into providing him with the safe code. Then the cash went missing.”