Take a Look At Me Now

by Anita Notaro

  There was a decent-sized kitchen out the back – and Violet had it spotless – complete with industrial washing machine and tumble dryer for all the towels and robes and flannels, a pile of which were stacked neatly on the counter top. They felt warm and comforting as I smoothed out non-existent creases the way I’d seen my sister do with Charlie’s clothes many times. We both loved touching – another of our similarities – but give me warm, sticky dough over just-dry, fluffy towels any day. I opened presses and found half-full packets of vermicelli and a few tins of tomatoes and jars of spices that I’d used on the odd occasions I’d visited Ali. That was well before the flat upstairs was fitted out and I remembered rustling up a plate of pasta for her, all the time wishing I owned the place, or that she’d opened a café instead. Then I would have been in heaven and she wouldn’t have been able to keep me away. So much of her time had been spent nurturing the business over the last few years and even though we lived together in Dublin, any time she was here I was either working or minding Charlie, so I felt now that I’d largely missed out on this part of her life. I often wondered why she didn’t invite me down to Wicklow more, but it was probably because I was always slagging her about becoming a culchie.

  I wasn’t sure I had a key for the flat upstairs, but the first one I tried fitted the lock. I’d never been up here before, except when she was showing me around after she’d first bought the place. In the beginning it was used as a stockroom but then Alison had arranged for it to be cleaned and decorated.

  ‘Whatever for?’ I’d asked at the time.

  ‘I dunno, I might have to stay over occasionally,’ she’d said with a shrug.

  ‘And leave Charlie with a minder? Or worse, me? I don’t think so,’ I remember teasing her. ‘You’d be afraid I’d have him in some greasy spoon, or force-feed him those lime-green jelly snakes you hate.’

  ‘E numbers are not good for children.’ She’d wagged her finger at me. ‘Anyway, Mrs Rafter loves having him and she needs the few bob,’ she’d reminded me, referring to one of our neighbours, a well-kept sixty-something widow. She was anxious not to make me feel I had to mind Charlie all the time. ‘You never know, I might even rent it out.’ She’d been vague, but then I hadn’t really been interested.

  Now, as I opened the door I was surprised to see it was quite beautiful. A few lamps had been left on a timer, for security reasons, I imagined, and the place was filled with plush fabrics and what looked like expensive pieces of furniture. It was a compact flat: just one bedroom, a living room with a galley kitchen off it, a bathroom and a small utility room – more like a closet really, into which was crammed all her stock, I saw as I opened the door. Typical of my sister, though, everything was on shelves, labelled and probably in alphabetical order.

  The bathroom was very posh, all white and chrome with thick towels and gorgeous accessories, way too flash for a smelly Wicklow tenant, I decided uncharitably. The bedroom housed an oversized bed with a luscious velvet throw and supersoft sheets with a thread count up in the thousands, I suspected. I only knew about thread count because Alison always made me check when we were looking for sheets in Arnotts’ sale – the higher the better, apparently.

  There was also a delicate Victorian chair which she’d obviously had re-upholstered and her desk, a piece she’d picked up in an antique shop ages ago and which I knew was her pride and joy. I opened an inlaid wardrobe and was surprised to discover some wispy, slip-type things in bridal colours with matching silk wraps. In a drawer I found a selection of pricey-looking underwear, some with the tags still on. Not Alison’s, I decided; neither of us could afford this type of thing. And besides, Ali wasn’t the kind of girl who wore red-and-black-satin French knickers or virginal white, lacy thongs. I giggled at the thought. She must have had someone staying, or maybe they belonged to demure-looking Violet.

  God, perhaps Violet was using this place for illicit sex with that boyfriend of hers? What was his name? I’d met him once at a party in our flat. All I could remember was that he had yellow teeth and a pockmarked face. What a waste of fab underwear. I shuddered as I thought of his lank hair and piggy little eyes.

  I sat down at the desk and switched on a lamp and ran my hand over the smooth, warm wood. As with her closet, I felt like an intruder, so I contented myself with a cursory glance. There was nothing much to see except a couple of accounts ledgers and a few bits of stationery. One drawer was locked and none of the keys fitted. I was just about to give up when I came across a key in a small padded pill-box. It fitted. Inside all I could find were some photos and another appointments book, along with a very snazzy mobile phone. Must have been left behind by one of her clients, I decided, coveting it. The book was for the current year and seemed to contain only a few names, as far as I could tell. They all had regular appointments, too, except for someone called Richard, who seemed to come any time he wanted. Maybe they rented out the apartment, a sort of short-term corporate let? That would explain the sumptuous surroundings, although not the crotchless knickers.

  Suddenly, I began to enjoy the mystery. I wandered around, checking out the fridge in the kitchen for a soft drink. It was well stocked – wine bottles with gold thread, champagne in wooden casks, you name it. When I looked for a glass I found a press full of crystal and another drinks cabinet containing what looked like expensive cognacs and single malts. This was definitely odd. Alison would never have drunk this kind of stuff and it was hardly the sort of thing you left for tenants. Corporate clients then. Definitely.

  Getting into the sophisticated mood that had nothing to do with the way I looked and everything to do with the surroundings I found myself in, I poured myself an ice-cold beer and swanned around, deciding that I could live here very easily. I sat back down at the desk and found another book, an expensive, leather tome. Inside, it contained notes about various people. There were no names, or at least none that I could easily identify, just the odd badly written line here and there. Smokes cigars, likes Scotch on the rocks, that sort of thing. There were lots of little squiggles and initials. They must be important, I decided. Maybe it was a secret code? The thought plunged me straight back to my Famous Five days.

  I took the book and my drink over to the bed and settled myself comfortably to read more. All I was short of doing was getting under the covers with a torch. I had the same sense of being up to something bold.

  The notes looked like a sort of résumé of several people. One was listed as W a few times – Will, it looked like further on, and he had something to do with the theatre. God, maybe he was a celebrity and came here with his girlfriends – or boyfriends even? The tabloid press had never been further south than the M50, I felt sure, so his secret was safe. He’d never be rumbled in sleepy old Wicklow. Maybe he was a cross-dresser? That would explain the underwear. Perhaps he was a movie star and guarded his privacy – wanted his chest waxed in secret. I laughed at myself, enjoying the ridiculous notions. There were more notes on R – maybe the Richard I’d read about earlier. I wondered if they were clients she didn’t declare to the taxman, but dismissed the notion immediately. Alison was too straight.

  No, these people came here regularly, and were important enough that she wanted everything to be just right for them. I closed my eyes and started to imagine that this was the meeting place of some kind of secret society. Later I began to fantasize that Alison was in a relationship with a woman – or could she be having an affair with a married man? It was a bit of a shock at first, even thinking about it. It just wasn’t like my sister. As I lay on the decadent bed in the sumptuous room, a number of things fell into place – like the way Ali sometimes had a last-minute appointment in the evening and needed me to babysit. I remembered grumbling that her clients should schedule their treatments during her normal hours of business, like ordinary mortals.

  My God! I sat up in bed as another thought popped uninvited into my head: maybe she did topless massages or lapdancing or something. I started to giggle then because I knew none of
this was really possible with Ali, of all people. I had a sudden impulse to ring Sally back and tell her about my detective work. But Sally would say that there was more chance of Camilla Parker Bowles cheating on Prince Charles than Ali lapdancing for wealthy men. No, there had to be a simpler explanation for it all, like why she seemed to be a wizard with money when things were really tight. Whoever they were, these clients must have paid her well and given her expensive presents – hence the endless supply of designer handbags. Perhaps she’d thought I wouldn’t understand, especially if they were married. But then we told each other everything – always had. That thought made me sad, until I realized that of the two of us, I was the non-judgemental one, so Ali wouldn’t have worried about me thinking badly of her, would she?

  And then there was the biggest question of all, which I have to admit had been nagging at the back of my mind for weeks now – why she’d always been so reluctant to tell me who Charlie’s father was. God knows I’d brought it up often enough, but somehow she usually managed to make me feel it was none of my business without saying anything of the sort. It wasn’t like it was a big deal or anything, not these days in Ireland anyway. Half our friends brought their children to their weddings, for God’s sake.

  One night when we’d shared a bottle of wine she said that Daddy would have killed her if he’d been alive, which I thought at the time was odd. From then on, I hadn’t pursued it really, in case it upset her. I knew she’d tell me one day when she was ready.

  Now I needed to know, and I had a hunch that one of these men had answers to at least some of the questions. I lay there for ages until the flat felt cold and less inviting and decided that I was going to try to find out a bit more about the people who visited Ali here. I needed to know if one of them could possibly be Charlie’s father – that way I could learn more about what kind of battle I might have on my hands if any of them tried to take him away from me.

  I drove home in a bit of a daze. Next morning the whole thing seemed ridiculous. I rang Violet and tried to pump her for information but all I found out was that she was no longer dating the Ali G lookalike. When I casually mentioned how great the flat upstairs was, Violet simply agreed with me. All in all, I got nowhere.

  I’d taken home the ultra-cool mobile phone and Ali’s appointments book, but my beer-fuelled courage seemed to have deserted me today. I knew I couldn’t possibly make contact with these men – never mind meet them.

  Later I phoned my aunt, intending to tell her all about my ludicrous notion, but then at the last minute I was afraid she might think badly of Ali. I was only half listening to her because I was imagining she’d be so shocked by even the mention of ‘private clients’ that she’d insist on talking to the authorities – ridiculous, but that was how big the whole thing had become in my head.

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ she asked when I’d said ‘yes’ or ‘no’ once too often. ‘You sound tired.’

  ‘I am a bit. I went down to the salon last night. It was tough.’

  ‘Oh Lily, don’t be putting yourself through all that just yet,’ she advised. ‘Maybe I could go with you.’

  ‘I’ve done it now,’ I told her. ‘The flat upstairs is beautiful, I was surprised.’

  ‘Oh yes, I know all about it,’ my aunt said. ‘Ali spent a lot of money on it. She had a number of private clients who didn’t want to be seen. One was an actress who used to come for Botox injections, I think.’

  ‘Ali didn’t do Botox.’ I couldn’t believe my ears.

  ‘Well, maybe not, but they all came for non-surgical facelifts, that collagen stuff, you know the sort of thing. Ali told me. I thought it was very exciting. Men too, would you believe. I’d say they were worse than the women.’

  ‘Do you know how many clients she had?’

  ‘Not many. Ali told me they liked to relax afterwards. I imagine she had a juice bar and all that. Wheatgrass they’re all into now, isn’t it?’ my aunt wanted to know while I tried to stave off a fit of coughing. ‘Are you OK, love?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, sorry about that.’

  ‘Anyway, she was very discreet, that I do know.’

  ‘She never mentioned it to me. Isn’t that funny?’

  ‘Well, she only told me because I was in Wicklow one day with my ICA group and I dropped in to the salon unexpectedly. I hadn’t phoned because I thought we were only going up as far as Gorey, to see the ostrich farm. Anyway, Alison was all dressed up and she was very apologetic that she couldn’t give us the grand tour because she had a client waiting upstairs. Nora Mooney swore she saw Gay Byrne at the window, but then he was on telly later that night so we knew it couldn’t have been him. We talked about it all the way back on the bus and from then on I used to try and get regular updates for the Monday meeting.’

  ‘So what was the juiciest bit?’

  ‘Oh, nothing really.’ My aunt sounded disappointed. ‘As I said, Ali was very discreet. She only ever answered my questions and even then she changed the subject as quickly as she could. I didn’t like to pry, that’s not my style.’ Milly sighed. ‘But the ICA ladies still talk about it. Apparently there’s some actor on Fair City who lives in Wicklow and has definitely had an eye job. Mary Curran is convinced he’s a client.’

  I had a terrible headache by the time we’d finished our chat. But talking to Charlie and hearing him say how much he loved me gave me the added courage I knew I’d need – because I decided I was going to meet at least a couple of the men who were my sister’s secret clients. That way I reckoned I’d have a head start on any problems that might arise in relation to Charlie. He was mine now, all I had left of Ali, and no one was going to take him away from me.

  14

  WILLIAM

  WILLIAM ALWAYS FOUND Tuesdays tough going. They usually involved a stint in the public hospital, followed by a couple of hours in theatre, then ward rounds and finally a spell in the private clinic, which was where he was headed now.

  He normally went for an early morning run to get the long day off to a good start. That way he was alert and focused and felt he looked the part, which he definitely didn’t feel today as he strode through the half-full waiting room without glancing at anyone. His handmade suit and ghost-white shirt helped his image, he knew, as did the slipper-soft shoes.

  This day had not gone well, so far. His first patient had been irritable to the point of aggression, he’d had several calls from home, despite the fact that Beth knew he hated being disturbed unless it was an emergency – which Harry crying over a puppy on TV clearly was not – and finally the garage had called to say his new Mercedes had arrived in the country at last, but it was diesel and not the petrol model he’d ordered.

  ‘Sounds like you need a good lay,’ John O’Meara, a cheeky new anaesthetist, had told him earlier, after he’d overheard William recounting a long list of gripes to one of the radiologists. William didn’t like the latest ‘bright young thing’ – as he’d heard O’Meara described – so he killed any further conversation with a disparaging look, but not before he’d noticed one of the new theatre nurses giggling coquettishly at the younger man.

  ‘Here’s the list, sir.’ Adele, his inherited secretary, fussed around as soon as he arrived, tidying his already clear desk. She was forty-five going on seventy and whereas normally he liked her air of deference, today it annoyed him and he wanted to swat her away like a fly.

  ‘Shall I get you a glass of water?’ she asked as she always did, despite the fact that he’d never once said yes in the eight years she’d been with him. He bit his tongue for the umpteenth time that day, muttered a curt ‘no’, then added a grumpy ‘thank you’, and dismissed her with a slight wave.

  ‘Wheel them in.’

  ‘Certainly, sir.’ She was gone with a swish of her pleated tartan skirt.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said, barely raising his head when he heard the soft click of the door a few moments later. He was not in his normal ‘charm the private patients, especially the pretty ones’ mood. ‘Mi
ss, eh, Ormond.’ He glanced at his list. ‘Do sit’ – he saw her for the first time and hoped he didn’t look as shocked as he felt – ‘down.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She took off her coat and placed it carefully on the back of the chair, which gave him a couple of seconds to study her. This woman was the spit of Alison, who’d been his ‘paramour’ – as he liked to think of her – for the last few years. He knew it was impossible.

  William realized he was staring. ‘I’m sorry, do we . . . have we met before?’ He was not used to being flummoxed.

  ‘No.’ She was looking at him very carefully and he noticed her hands were shaking slightly. ‘But I believe you may have known my sister.’ It wasn’t a question, which was just as well because he wasn’t ready to admit to anything.

  She waited. ‘Alison,’ she said unnecessarily. She looked as uncomfortable as he felt.

  ‘I’m really not sure I do . . .’ He was playing for time.

  ‘Did.’ She never took her eyes off him this time. ‘She died recently. Perhaps you read about it in the papers?’

  If she hadn’t told him what he already knew he’d have been convinced it was Alison playing some sort of trick on him, yet when he thought about it later he knew Alison would never have called to see him at the hospital, not under any circumstances.

  He nodded in response to her question and waited for her to continue.

  ‘I’m Lily. I’m not sure if Alison ever mentioned me?’

  She smiled and he was transported back to the many nights Alison had opened the door to the flat in Wicklow wearing that very same look.

  William shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry to have popped up out of the blue like this but I wasn’t sure of the best way to make contact.’ She twisted slightly in her seat. ‘I dialled your mobile number several times but then I hung up before I’d finished. And I rang you at the hospital one day but your secretary said I needed a referral.’ She grinned at him nervously. ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t even sure what should have been wrong with me, because I don’t know what you . . . what your specialty is . . .’ She trailed off.