by Liz Nugent
I couldn’t remember exactly, but I knew it hadn’t been there for that long before Dad died. I grumbled and delayed, but Granny insisted. ‘I can’t believe Andrew left it like that with random plants just dumped into the earth. Go on out and dig the whole thing up. There’s some dahlia tubers ready to go in the potting shed. It all needs to be replanted. Go on now, it will be a nice surprise for your mother. You can do it on your study breaks.’
It was April now, almost Easter, and it was still whip cold outside, though there had been no frost that week. I wrapped up in a woolly hat and cardigan and Dad’s wellington boots, and fetched the shovel and rake from the shed. As I began to dig at the edge of the raised bed, I discovered a granite border about six inches below the surface. I remembered old black-and-white photographs of an ornamental pond at this spot with a bird bath at its centre, and it occurred to me that maybe it would cheer up Mum if I could restore the pond to its former glory.
I consulted with Granny and she was fully encouraging. I didn’t have the first clue how to go about it though, so before I dug any further, I took myself off to the library and borrowed A Complete Guide to Garden Ponds. Granny and I pored over the right way to approach it, and I had to go back into town to buy some rubber sheeting with which to line the pond.
On Sunday, having spent the morning pretending to study, I started digging again in earnest. I was excited by how pleased Mum would be. Reinstating the pond would take a few weeks, but it was a project that she might take an interest in. She would be proud of my efforts and see that she didn’t need Dad to do everything around the house. My mother always liked to have Avalon perfectly preserved, exactly how it was in her childhood. A few modern conveniences had been acquired over the years, like a dishwasher and washing machine, but Mum would have nothing to do with them until the cleaners had to be let go after Paddy Bloody Carey had done his worst. I thought that the restored pond would delight her. The stone bird bath had lain wrapped in hessian in the corner of the shed since long before I was born. I didn’t want to get too ambitious, but I thought that later, in the summer, with a bit of expert advice, I could re-install that too.
The instructions in the pond manual suggested that I needed to dig down quite deep, about four feet, because a brick layer had to go under the rubber sheeting, to allow for earth shifting and ground stability. But then my spade hit something odd, and I could see some kind of fabric under a half-torn piece of black plastic, peeking through the soil. I brushed the earth back with my father’s boot, curious and irritated at the same time. I didn’t immediately recognize the herringbone pattern. I bent down to pick it up. And then the stench hit me.
I shouted out loud in horror and disgust, and, unable to look away, pushed the plastic upwards with the tip of my boot. Above the herringbone cloth, a tuft of unnaturally black hair was visible, while creatures of many legs and none slithered and crawled through the cavity behind part of an exposed lower jawbone. The crooked snaggle-tooth was unmistakable, though the flesh around it was blackened and bloated. I quickly shovelled all the soil back on top of Annie Doyle, my tears blinding me as I did so.
Granny rapped at the kitchen window, calling through the glass that it was getting dark, that dinner would soon be ready and that I should come in and shower and change. I returned the gardening tools to the shed and went into the house, stopping in the dining room for a swig of brandy straight from the decanter. I went upstairs and showered. In the bathroom cabinet, Mum’s Valium bottle stood on the shelf. I had never taken one before, but I knew how they were effective in lessening her panic, so I put my mouth to the tap and swallowed a tablet.
I don’t remember much of our dinner conversation, just that I fought to stay awake and Granny commented on how quiet I was. She prattled on about this and that, and when I could no longer keep my eyes open, she said that maybe digging out the pond was a bit much for me and that she would do a bit of digging herself tomorrow. I struggled then to be aware, insisting that I was fully capable and would get back to it during the week after school.
‘Well, if you’re sure?’
I went straight to bed, and slept the best night’s sleep I’d had in many months, without dreaming, until my alarm went for school the next day. The horror took hold of me once again.
At breakfast, Granny was peering out the kitchen window. ‘I thought you were digging out the pond? It looks like you’ve filled it all in.’
I made up some nonsense about having to weigh down the rubber sheeting to settle it before I removed the earth again. She looked doubtful, but was happy enough to assume that I knew what I was doing.
I was a small pebble being washed out to sea by an enormous, storm-force wave and there was nobody I could turn to for help. School that day was … I have no idea. Helen was waiting for me at the bus stop when lessons were over.
‘May I come to your house for dinner?’ I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.
‘What about Granny?’
‘Fuck Granny.’
‘Ooooh, Lar, what has she done this time?’ Helen was used to my giving out about Granny.
‘Nothing, I just want to go to your place.’
Helen took this as a compliment, but really it was nothing to do with her. I wanted to be surrounded by her and her noisy brothers and her gravel-voiced mother. I wanted there to be chat and squabbles and music and television, clamour and distraction. I didn’t want to go home and look out my kitchen window.
Perhaps because of the contrast, that evening in Helen’s was one of the most enjoyable I’d ever had. Her mother was pleased to see me, in her perceptive way: ‘Oh, Lar, look at you – you look great – but a little pale.’ She didn’t mind when Helen and I cracked open cans of beer at the dinner table, and I found my voracious appetite had returned as I forced more and more food into my maw.
‘I think you’ve had enough,’ said Helen as I scraped the last crumbs of an apple pie on to the side of my fork. Helen and I went upstairs ‘to study’ and fumbled with each other in an ungainly fashion, and I got further with her than any time since we’d had full intercourse, but not quite there.
‘Jesus, you’re persistent tonight,’ she said, ‘but you’d better go home. It’s nearly eleven and Granny will have the guards out looking for you.’
When I got home, Granny was livid. ‘I’d made a special dinner for you as it is my last night, and you didn’t even have the decency to ring to let me know. It shows a complete lack of consideration. What was I supposed to think? I suppose you were in that girl’s house?’
I apologized. I should have rung her, but I knew she’d have forbidden me from going to Helen’s on a school night. Mum would be home tomorrow. How was I going to tell her what I had found? She had been through so much already. But I would have to tell her eventually. I cursed my father for what he had done, not just to Annie Doyle, but to us too. What would happen to us now? I didn’t think my mother would be able to handle it.
Part 2
*
1985
9
Karen
In the beginning, being married to Dessie was great. We had our wedding the summer after Annie went missing. It was a quiet, small affair, partly because of money and partly because it didn’t seem right to celebrate without Annie. For the first few years, Dessie was really affectionate and considerate, but I didn’t want to have kids yet and he was in an awful hurry. He’d always said that the age difference shouldn’t come between us, but I was afraid now it might. I was twenty-four. I thought there was loads of time, so I was always pretty careful. He said he wanted to have a son before he was too old to kick a ball around a field with him.
‘What if it’s a daughter?’ I said.
‘Sure, we’ll keep going till we get one of each.’ He laughed but he wasn’t being funny, and I knew that sooner or later I really was going to have to sit him down and have a proper conversation.
I hadn’t told him yet about Miss La Touche and her offer. She used to c
ome into the dry-cleaner’s a lot, and sometimes when the others were on lunch I’d do the counter service. She was in her mid-forties, I guessed, always very well groomed, with immaculate hair and painted nails. She was tall and slim, walked in a particular way, hips forward, head straight, and she was always neat and tidy-looking. She was really particular about her clothes, and she must have been minted because nearly every stitch was dry-cleaned, and it was all fur, velvet, silk, satin and jewel-coloured fabrics with labels in foreign languages. I recognized some designer names. You couldn’t work in a dry-cleaner’s without taking some interest in clothes, and just occasionally me and the girls used to try stuff on if Mr Marlowe was out, even though I was the assistant manager by then. There would have been war if we were ever caught, but we were careful. The other girls would comment on how everything always looked so good on me, and I have to admit, I loved Miss La Touche’s luxurious dresses.
One day Miss La Touche had come in to collect an Yves Saint Laurent silk coat that had been for Special Attention Cleaning, and as I handed it to her in its plastic wrapping, I had to say it to her: ‘That’s the most beautiful thing we’ve ever had in here.’ She peered at me over her glasses, and looked me up and down before she responded.
‘What height are you?’
‘What? Uh, five foot seven, I think?’
She peered over the counter to look at my flat shoes.
‘Pity.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Have you ever done any modelling?’
I laughed, pointing to my hair. ‘With this? No way.’
She reached out and took my chin gently in her hand, turning my face up to the light. Her accent was almost English. ‘Your hair is your best asset, dear. Don’t underestimate it. Good bone structure too. You’re too short for catwalk, but product shots are a distinct possibility. You could be the rare Irish girl that goes international. The Italians love redheads.’ She pulled a card out of a wallet. ‘Give me a call if you’re ever interested.’ And then she glided out of the shop, as smoothly as she had entered.
I had only seen a business card once or twice before, but this was a work of art in itself. On a background of very pale pink roses, in a curly script, there was her name in embossed gold:
Yvonne La Touche
The Grace Agency
Ireland
Telephone: 01-693437
I kept the card in my purse for a few weeks. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Dessie, but I think I was afraid he’d accuse me of getting notions about myself. He often gave out about actresses and models in the magazines I was reading: ‘Look at the state of her, half-dressed. I bet her father’s proud.’
It hurt me when he said those things, because it reminded me of Annie and my father, and the girls in the magazines weren’t even doing anything like the guards had said Annie had done.
We didn’t talk about her any more. My family hadn’t heard a single thing from the guards since my encounter with O’Toole nearly five years earlier. I had written to his superiors to complain about his behaviour, but they never wrote back.
Dessie could be fairly judgemental about what I wore and how I dressed, but when he bought me things that were a little more buttoned-up than I would have chosen, I knew it was because he wanted to protect me. I had become a bit well known after the publicity around my sister’s disappearance. I had overheard one of the suppliers referring to me as ‘yer wan, the ginger wan who’s the prossie’s sister’. I had been upset, and Dessie was furious on my behalf. I had to restrain him from giving the fella a thick ear. I couldn’t blame him. He said it made him look bad too.
Ma and Da had separated. Ma blamed Da for driving Annie away, and Da blamed himself and hit the bottle a fair bit. Ma eventually moved back to her sister’s house in Mayo on the other side of the country. She begged my forgiveness for going, but I knew she’d be better off there in the end. Da stayed in the house in Pearse Street, but things were bad for him at work. People were being laid off, and he thought he’d soon be let go.
We never said it, but at Christmas times, and on our birthdays especially, we scoured through every card, looking for a few lines from Annie. Her signature would have been enough. There was never anything. But none of us wanted to say it. ‘Maybe next year?’ Ma would say, though the hope had faded from her eyes. And yet I saw Annie, or thought I did, in pubs, on street corners and in supermarkets, and I would run up behind her, about to scream at her for leaving us, and then I’d see the perfect lips that made her someone else.
It was mean of Dessie to say those things about the girls in the magazines. I thought it would be easy money to get your photo taken, and surely if you didn’t want to wear a bikini in a photograph, they couldn’t force you to.
I rang Miss La Touche two months after she gave me the card. ‘Call me Yvonne,’ she said. I met her in a large attic office in a building on Drury Street. I had dressed carefully in an A-line green dress I’d bought for Christmas in Mirror Mirror. My hair was washed and blow-dried and tied into a straight ponytail. My shoes were high and made of plastic that looked like patent leather.
I’d never been in a room like this before. It was long and vast, but surprisingly warm. Miss La Touche was alone in there. Free-standing mirrors and rails of clothing were everywhere, and piles of shoes all over the floor. Overstuffed filing cabinets ran the length of the wall behind her desk. Another long wall was covered with photographs of beautiful girls with golden hair and long limbs. I immediately felt like a fake. Yvonne was pleased to see me. But I was shocked when she asked me to strip down to my underwear.
‘I … didn’t think …’
‘Don’t worry, dear, you’ll never be a lingerie model, your bust is too small, but I need to get your statistics.’ She laughed, though not unkindly. She was efficient as she proceeded to measure my hips, waist and bust. Then she stood me on a weighing scale.
‘Do you lose and gain weight easily?’
‘I … I don’t know. I never really weigh myself.’
‘You are one of the lucky ones. Still, you should drop about three pounds and try to maintain that weight.’
I wasn’t sure if that meant an extreme diet.
‘Nothing drastic,’ she said, reading my face. ‘Cut out bread and potatoes and you’ll be there in no time.’
She set up a very bright lamp against a white sheet at the back of the loft and took Polaroid photographs of my face from every angle. She took garments from a rail, and shoes from a rack, and sent me to a small booth to change into them. She had me comb my hair out straight, and pile it on top of my head, and tie it into bunches on each side of my face, and all the time I’d hear the click and whirr of the camera as it spat out print after print of me in every pose – hand on hip, arms behind my head, eyes closed, reclining on a sofa, jumping in the air. Afterwards, she gestured me to sit in the chair opposite hers.
‘I think you’re worth investing in. Would you like me to represent you?’
I didn’t know what she meant. Yvonne patiently explained.
‘Darling, you’re a very beautiful girl, with a natural smile. You are like a young Shirley MacLaine. Perfect skin tone and bone structure. I don’t understand why it took you so long to ring me. Any other girl your age would have chased me out of the shop.’
I didn’t know what to say.
She sighed. ‘Why do redheads have such low self-esteem? You must remember that what might have been carrot-orange in your childhood is what we now call a Titian auburn. Do you know how much people pay to have their hair dyed that colour?’
I shook my head, self-consciously running a hand through my hair.
‘My clients will pay to have you model their clothing, hair products and skin products, or it could be groceries and washing machines, who knows? But I intend to pitch you to the high-end magazines. I make twenty per cent of whatever you make, but I get you the jobs. In the meantime, at my own expense, I will send you to classes for deportment, etiquette, make-up and fashion. You need
to know how to move and dress like a model. Never wear polyester again, do you hear me?’
I was mortified. My best dress was not good enough.
‘From now on, wear just cotton and wool until you can afford better. It shouldn’t be long!’ She grinned at me. ‘When can you start?’
I was gobsmacked, and flattered of course, but all this information was a lot to take in. ‘I … I’ll have to talk to my husband first.’
‘Husband? Good Lord, what age are you?’
‘Twenty-four.’
‘Really? My God. Well, not any more. If anyone asks, you’re nineteen. And you are not married. It is perfectly acceptable to have a boyfriend, but a husband already? You should have waited until you were thirty. Fenlon is your married name? What is your maiden name?’
‘Doyle.’
‘That’s worse. We’ll keep it as Karen Fenlon. It has a certain charm.’ A thought struck her. ‘Oh God, please tell me you don’t have children?’
‘No.’ I could be firm about that, at least.
‘Good. About your accent …’
‘Yeah?’
‘Best not to speak unless you’re spoken to. Most of my girls come from … educated backgrounds.’
I shrank back into the chair.
‘Nevertheless, my clients will be paying for what you look like, not what you sound like, but we don’t want to put them off unnecessarily.’ She paused. ‘I’m from the Liberties, you know. La Touche isn’t even my real name.’
That shocked me. People from the Liberties sounded more like me than her.
‘Elocution lessons, darling. Nobody would take me seriously in the fashion business if I sounded like … you.’
‘I can’t … change the way I talk.’
She laughed. ‘With your looks, you probably won’t have to. Now, let’s talk about your lifestyle. Drink? Drugs? Wild party girl?’
‘Pardon?’
‘If you are as successful as I hope, journalists might want to know more about you, your background. Is there anything we need to worry about?’
