by Amy Mason
“Ida! It’s me. Annie.”
Ida peered at her. Surely it couldn’t be. Despite her taut face this woman looked old and truly strange, her lips puffy and her skin slightly shiny.
But as she got closer Ida realised it actually could be her. “Fucking hell. What are you doing here?”
They hugged.
“I’m on tour with Anything Goes. We’re in Bournemouth tonight. I kind of thought it was meant to be. Your mother was so cool.” She reached out for Ida’s cigarette and took a drag. “You look shocked.”
“I am – really, really shocked.”
In fact Ida knew she looked ridiculous – gormless, unable to form a sentence in front of her even after all these years. And she knew she was staring, it was impossible not to stare – her face looked like it was made out of wax. All those years she had desperately wanted to see her and now, here she was – wobbling on her ridiculous heels and smoking Ida’s Lambert and Butler.
Ida heard her name shouted from the front of the church. “Annie – I have to go to the burial. You’ll come to the house, yes? Please do. We won’t be long.”
There were a few of them at the graveside, huddled around the nondescript plot and listening to Father Patrick as the cars sped by behind them. Alice was twitching and Ida knew she was upset about the spot, wished she’d made more of an effort and found somewhere nicer, underneath a tree or at least further away from the road.
The coffin was haltingly lowered into the grave and Alice threw the first handful of earth, sobbing openly, Tom holding her back as though she might jump in.
Then it was Ida. As she picked up a handful of cool soil she thought of how her mother had looked when they’d left the hospital all those years ago, shaking and magnificent in her tattered camel coat. She closed her eyes and heard the leaves rustling around them, louder, perhaps, than the noise of the road if you bothered to listen properly.
Agnes went next, Peter holding her arm as she leant to pick up the earth, Bryan gazing at her, amazed from the other side of the grave. “I’m so sorry,” she said loudly towards the coffin.
“She was too,” said Ida, surprising herself by speaking out loud and realising that everyone was looking at her. “I know she was. Trust me. Her whole life was a bloody apology.”
They pulled into the drive to find cars were already there – the caterers had started letting people in. Ida jogged up the steps, desperate for a drink, relieved that it was finally all over.
The door was on the latch and she walked straight through to the sitting room. Annie and Elliot were side-by-side on the sofa, with a glass each and an almost empty bottle of red wine on the coffee table.
Ida winced, confused and annoyed. “What the fuck are you doing here – not you Annie. Elliot?”
He stood up. “Shit, sorry about all of that. I know it sounds crap but I can explain everything, I promise. I was going to show you all of it.”
Ida shook her head and walked back out the room and into the kitchen. She realised she was shaking.
“Hey Ida, relax – have a drink,” Annie shouted.
There were crates of wine piled up on top of each other and Ida picked the nearest bottle, filled up a huge Christmas mug, and downed it. She did the same thing twice more until the bottle was nearly empty.
More guests were arriving and Ida could hear Alice and the others chatting away to Annie, unaware of what it was, exactly, that Elliot had done.
Peter walked into the kitchen. “Princess – what are you doing? Don’t get pissed and make a banana of yourself. I know it’s awful – we all feel awful – but this isn’t going to make it better. Do you want me to ask him to leave? Is that it? I can do it now, I can be quite scary when I want to be.”
“It’s fine,” she said, hugging him. “I can handle it. Honestly.”
She walked back into the room smiling as broadly as she could, carrying two bottles of Chablis, ignoring Elliot who was sitting in a corner, still talking to Annie. Agnes, Bryan and Terri were sitting together, and Terri was coping remarkably well with him having his hand on Agnes’ knee. Alice was standing near the food with Father Patrick, piling sandwiches onto his plate. She didn’t seem to be eating herself but had a near empty glass of wine which Ida filled up.
More people came into the sitting room – some of the women from church, Martin and Tash, still tiny and simpering – but Ida managed to avoid most of them, drinking glass after glass of wine, talking to Peter mainly. Why wouldn’t Elliot leave? The pain was back – somewhere near her womb – and she felt hot and irritated by everything and everyone. She wished she could go to sleep. This should have been a great opportunity to get pissed and relax, but this thing with Elliot was ruining everything. Annie seemed bloody enchanted by him! She’d barely looked Ida’s way since she’d arrived.
Alice was on the sofa now, her head resting on Bryan’s shoulder.
“She’s a little worse for wear,” he mouthed up at Ida.
“Oh shit,” said Ida, remembering the pill she’d given her that morning, “She’ll be okay.”
Some flash old drinking friends of Bridie’s had crowded round Annie now, their backs to the rest of the room, blow-dried hair bobbing as they laughed, delighted to be meeting someone even a little bit famous and she could hear Elliot telling some anecdote.
She felt sick – she needed to stop this urgently. She walked upstairs.
They’d left a small space around Ida and for the last few minutes had faced her almost silently as she struggled to make the projector work, tutting under her breath at the unhealthy sounding clicks and whirrs which were coming from the machine. The curtains were drawn, it was difficult to see and she stumbled as she fiddled clumsily with the machine, refusing help from Agnes or Peter or anyone else. She was unsteady in heels at the best of times and there was the occasional clink of her glass as she knocked it against the metal box. By Ida’s feet were two tins of film.
The chairs and TV had been shoved into the corner and on the bare wall there was a trembling yellow square, splattered with shifting brown shapes.
Someone coughed quietly.
Blues and greens appeared on the wall and Ida fiddled with the knob on the side of the projector, turning it until the image was clear.
There she was, a skinny twelve year old in her ma’s blue kimono, flinging her arms out to towards the camera while she mouthed lines from the play and weird, terrible poetry she’d written herself. Above her drifted the blurred shapes of gulls.
“Here we are when we were little,” said Ida. “Weren’t we bloody magnificent? Well, we thought so at least. I tried to kill her you know, tried to kill Ally that day.”
“Princess,” Peter whispered. “This isn’t the time.”
She ignored him.
“Maybe you don’t want a film of us on the beach. We were never the interesting ones, were we?” she said to the room, opening the other tin.
She unhooked the beach reel – her teenage self disappearing from the wall – and placed the new one into the machine, drawing the film through the clips and looping it round.
Bridie appeared, frowning beneath her fringe as she leant against the kitchen worktop in their brand new house, the house she had hated from the start.
Then Ida appeared wearing a kilt, her hands in the air, jumping, delighted to be filmed, grasping the tiny Alice and pulling her round the room like a bag full of coal.
Around her people laughed, and it was only when she saw a drop fall into her wine that she realised that she was crying.
Most of the guests had gone, but a few remained huddled around Annie.
The curtains were still closed but the lights were on now – it was dark outside. Tom was hugging the drunken Alice and Ida sat with them for a while, Terri stroking her hair, before pouring herself another glass of wine, walking over and standing with the people in the corner.
Terri beckoned for her to sit back down but Ida shook her head. She stood for a few seconds, listening to them talking, before, pushing her way through the group and standing in front of Annie and Elliot. “Elliot, I mean it now, will you fuck off.”
He looked confused and annoyed. “I came down here to help you with stuff – I know you’re upset, but...”
“Fuck off!” she shouted more loudly that she’d intended to.
“Jesus, we were only talking,” Annie said, looking at her knees.
Ida felt a small hand on her arm.
It was Alice, bleary eyed, pointing towards Annie. “And you can fuck off too, coming in here and flirting with everyone, I’ve been listening to you for hours. Ma thought you were a shit actress – you are a shit actress by the way – and you never replied to my lovely sister’s letters. She loved you, she wrote about it in her secret book, that I read – sorry Ida – and you look like an aging fucking blow-up doll.”
“Fuck,” said Annie, standing up. “I came here to be supportive.” She pushed her way through the crowd of people and out through the hall, shouting something incomprehensible as she left.
“Oh, fuck you,” Alice shouted after her at the top of her voice.
Ida laughed.
The rest of the room began to talk again, nervously, while the crowd around the sisters dispersed and people pretended to examine the sandwiches.
“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” Tom said. “You never should have had that Valium.”
Alice shrugged him off. “Stop it, Tom.”
Elliot stood up. He was smiling at Ida. “I knew you’d get jealous if I talked to her, didn’t know you’d go bloody mental. And her as well,” he gestured at Alice. “Didn’t know she had it in her. Come here.” He winked and held out his arms.
Without stopping to think Ida threw her glass of wine right into his face.
“Fuck Ida, my eyes,” he said, wincing and leaning over.
Tom stepped forwards and put his arm out, sensing Ida was about to launch herself at Elliot.
“Oh piss off, you boring wanker,” she said to Tom. “Why can’t you let me do what I want? I know what you’re about, you know. Obsessed with our mother, fame-hungry, grabby…”
“That’s not me, Ida. That’s him.” He looked towards Elliot. “That’s all he could talk about when we were in the pub. But I don’t give a shit about your mother being famous, or about what you do, not really. I’m here for Alice, who loved her ma. And even, as impossible as it might seem, loves you.”
It was dark, but Ida could see the outline of the desk and chair and realised that they were in Alice’s room.
She felt the bed and found that it was soaking wet. With a deep breath she reached for the side-light.
At first she thought she’d imagined it, the bright red blood all over the clean white sheets – she’d imagined things before when she’d taken pills. For a few seconds she stared at it but it didn’t go away and she froze – convinced that Alice had been murdered, perhaps by her. She checked her sister’s back, found that she was breathing, before realising that it was her own dress, not Alice’s, that was soaked with blood.
Her breathing was shallow and she felt light-headed. She turned, swung her legs out of the bed and tried to stand, but her skull filled up with light and she felt herself fall onto the carpet.
Chapter thirty-five
It was the morning, she was pretty sure of that, although the pale green curtain was pulled around her bed and she couldn’t see a clock. Somewhere an old man was coughing and somewhere else, to her right, there was the scraping sound of a wonky-wheeled trolley being slowly pushed down the hall. Ida knew she was in hospital although she still wasn’t quite sure why. She tried to sit up but the sheets were tight around her chest. She was thirsty, but from the fading sound of the trolley, she knew it would be a while before she’d have anything to drink.
No one had been near her yet which wasn’t unusual. Normally, a few times a day, people would ask her questions – how does it feel? Does it hurt when I press here? Is there anyone we should call? Different people but always the same questions. She had no confidence in any of them and was almost certain she was going to die there. Apart from anything else the ground was so far away, and she was so unbelievably high up – twenty feet perhaps! – that she wasn’t sure how she was ever going to be able to use the loo or stretch her legs.
Despite asking them, no one had brought her a ladder to use to climb down – not that she minded much. She was pleased to discover that, as she’d always suspected, she really didn’t mind about death and it felt like it might be easier for Jesus to find her where she was, laid out like an offering on the narrow metal bed.
She slept a lot and occasionally they brought her food. Sometimes it was mashed up, sometimes not, and after a day or two Ida understood that it was because her age was shifting, that sometimes when she lay there, finding it difficult to speak, it was because she’d actually become a child once again. It was a comfort when she realised that and no longer struggled to talk, instead gazing at the yellow outline of the damp on the tiles above her and rubbing the soft place underneath the top of her arm.
Sometimes it hurt inside her and she wouldn’t look. But instead of fighting the pain as she would have done in the past she imagined herself inside it. She knew what it looked like – deep and black and red – but at least it was warm and, while she was in there, no one could get to her.
A few times there were people she recognised, and then she wanted to speak. But it had been child-times when they visited so she had no choice but to smile and hope that they could see how much she’d shrunk. Elliot came once or twice, or someone who looked like him. He hadn’t been back for a while. Peter came all the time to stroke her hair. And a few times she had been sure her mother had visited, singing Seoithín, Seohó and holding a damp cloth against Ida’s forehead.
Above her a television was angled downwards so she could see. You were meant to pay to watch telly, she’d seen other people put coins in theirs, but she couldn’t remember putting anything in hers.
Miracles could be small.
She changed the channel.
She knew this film.
Two clasped hands filled the screen before the camera panned back, and she saw Anna DeCosta in the water, her poor, sad future already showing in her eyes.
There was a shot of sky and then the girl again, but instead of Anna it was Ida herself – this Ida, right here! – out in the water, a blue kimono stuck to her skin, while on the beach was grown-up Alice, filming her sister with an ancient Standard 8.
Then it was Alice’s turn in the sea.
Ida felt sand under her bare feet and wind on her skin. She was there now, in her hospital gown on Branksome beach, and she laughed as Alice smiled and beckoned her in.
She strode into the sea and reached for her sister’s hand. Alice pulled, hard, and they fell together under the gentle waves before clambering out and gasping for breath, the salt scratching their eyes.
“Ha,” Alice shouted into the sky as she held Ida’s arm aloft. “Haaaaa!”
It was a laugh and a roar, something joyful and victorious, and above them the startled gulls flew upwards, their wings beating the air so hard that Ida was thrown back into her bed.
The curtain clattered around her as someone pulled it open. It was a nurse she recognised. “Here she is, Jan, she’s a little confused,” she said as she looked at Ida. “Aren’t you?”
Ida glared at her. She was trying to watch Batman and it only came on once a day.
“That’s fine, Denise,” said the auburn-haired woman, quietly. “Dr Green filled me in. You can leave us to it.”
The nurse didn’t reply but looked grumpier than ever and began to walk away.
The woman pulled the curtain back round and sat on the chair next to Ida’s be
d. “Hi, I’m Dr McRoberts, from the psychiatric team. I’m here to help you, so if there’s anything you don’t understand please feel free to ask. I have some questions I’d like you to answer. Some of them might seem quite silly, apologies if so, but we need to ask them. Okay.”
Ida looked at her. She was beautiful this woman, younger than Ida, and her long hair was so shiny.
The woman laughed nervously. “Okay. Can you tell me your name?”
“Ida Irons,” she said. Her voice was hoarse. “I’m thirsty.”
“Oh God, okay, yes.” The woman looked at the empty water jug on Ida’s side table then turned to look round the edge of the curtain, searching for a nurse. “Oh never mind, here,” she reached into her bag, pulled out a bottle of Evian, unscrewed the lid and handed it to Ida. “Wait, umm, do you need some help to sit?”
She stood and peeled back the sheets and Ida winced as she hauled herself up. Then the woman lifted the back of the bed, rearranged Ida’s pillows, and held her as she slowly leant back and took a sip of water.
“Thank you,” Ida said breathlessly.
The woman sat back down. She was pleased with herself, Ida could tell.
“Okay, back to the questions. Can you tell me what the date is?”
Ida finished the water in three gulps. “Ummm, I’m not exactly sure.” She tried to remember the last time she’d looked out of the window or at a newspaper. The light where she lay was almost always the same – yellow and buzzing – it was impossible to tell if it was blazing summer or covered in frost outdoors.
Ida could see the woman draw a circle for ‘naught’ on her clipboard. “You should let me off that one though. All the days are the same in here.”
