by Marian Keyes
‘Then I want to “okay this” with Liam.’ With a swaggery walk, led from the hips, he said, in a deep, dorky voice, ‘“Hey, Liam, seeing as you’re a selfish arse to your wife, I’m guessing you won’t care if I drive her there.” Ha-ha, that’d be gas.’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’
‘Nell, I utterly fucking hate him.’
A thought occurred. ‘Aw, Ferdia, no! Are you doing this to get back at him because of Sammie?’
‘I’m totally not. I want to visit the gallery because I want to visit the gallery. Nothing shady.’
She felt mistrustful. ‘You might get bored. I don’t want to have to stop mid-tour because you’ve had enough.’
‘If I get bored, I can leave. We have phones! I’ll wander the streets of Florence, without a plan, like in a movie.’
‘You might meet a girl who’s leaving Florence on the five p.m. train. You could fall in love for the day.’
‘I’m so there for that. But basically you can stay in the gallery until they kick you out. Okay?’
Nell was still feeling doubtful. ‘I need to talk to Jessie about the car. I don’t think you’d be on our car insurance, so you’d have to borrow Jessie’s.’
‘Okay, let’s do it.’ With a flourish, he ushered her to the door. ‘Andiamo.’
‘If it’s the driving you’re worried about, we could get you a car and driver,’ Jessie said to Nell. ‘Do-I-Amooze-You could probably sort it.’
‘I couldn’t deal. I wouldn’t know what to say to the man. I simply couldn’t.’
‘Okay. Ferdia can drive you. But, Ferdia,’ Jessie was stern, ‘you can’t change your mind half an hour in and start whinging that you’re bored.’
Nell expected him to kick off but he simply said, ‘Maybe Nell could bring colouring books and crayons for me.’
Which was so unexpected that Nell exploded with laughter.
‘So it’s decided?’ he said. ‘Right, I’m off to be waterboarded by Vinnie.’
Jessie held Nell by the arm until he was fully gone, then hissed, ‘Find out what happened between him and Barty, will you? Good girl.’
Cara was standing at the marble food sink, washing lettuce leaves for lunch, when Johnny appeared.
‘How’s things?’ she asked.
He seemed uncomfortable. ‘Grand.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Look. I want to apologize. We’ve asked a lot of you, me and Jessie. Doing our accounts and that. If all the stress pushed you over the edge, you know …’
She’d been hoping for a chance to extricate herself. Here was her opportunity and she needed to be brave. After a breath, she said, ‘Would you mind if I stopped doing your monthly accounts? I feel slightly … uncomfortable. Knowing all that stuff about your money.’
‘Sure. Grand. Of course.’ Johnny looked mortified. ‘Sorry for –’
She put a hand on his arm. ‘Let’s not make a thing of it. Anyway,’ she managed a smile, ‘the pair of you never even look at them.’
‘But we knew if we were in terrible trouble you’d tell us. So, with the Airbnb, could you give me a lesson in running it?’
‘I’m okay to keep doing that. It nearly runs itself. Hassan does the heavy lifting. All I do is throw an occasional eye over it.’
‘Well, that’d be great, but if it ever gets too much, just –’
‘I will. I promise.’
After an awkward pause, he blurted, ‘It’s going great, isn’t it? The apartment?’ He sounded so proud that she had to laugh.
‘Yep. Bookings nearly all the way to October.’
‘November!’ he said. ‘I checked earlier today. Barely a day free between now and then.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘I keep refreshing the calendar to admire it,’ he said. ‘I feel so … Would the word be validated? Reading the nice reviews, I feel, yeah, warm on the inside. When they say the location is great, I think how smart I was to have bought it all those years ago. I feel like a savvy biznizzy man. So that’s all okay then, is it? Thanks, Cara, thanks.’ Full of smiles, he left the kitchen.
Cara resumed her lettuce-washing, her hands trembling slightly. That went okay, she thought. She’d been brave.
But poor Johnny.
Then, What is he planning to do with all that money?
It wasn’t much later when Jessie came in, dumping her old-fashioned shopping basket on the worktop. ‘Do you know what they have in Fausto’s grocery store up the town?’ she exclaimed.
‘What?’
‘Fuck-all! Pure fuck-all.’ Jessie cast an anxious look about. ‘Any of the bunnies here?’
‘Am I a bunny?’ Tom popped out from the pantry, where he’d been holed up, reading.
‘Course you are.’ Jessie grabbed him and planted several quick smackers on his head. ‘But you don’t judge.’
‘It’s just a word,’ Tom said. ‘The F one. It’s got no moral value in itself. Dad says.’
‘That’s grand,’ Cara said hastily. ‘But you’re still not to say it.’
‘I’m not saying Fausto’s shop isn’t lovely,’ Jessie said dreamily. ‘It’s like a movie set. Soft yellow paper sacks of semolina flour, dusty cans of chestnut purée, four gazillion jars of preserved lemons … But a box of Rice Krispies? Not a chance. I managed to get bread, wine and ice-cream, all the major food groups. But we need a visit to the big supermarket on the Lucca ring road. We’ll be grand with bread and cheese for lunch today. Salad from the garden?’
‘And we’re making the pizzas for dinner.’
They’d been there less than forty-eight hours but they’d already slipped into an easy routine: a late breakfast, followed by pool time. A light lunch, more sunbathing, a snooze, then dinner, usually up in the town.
‘I’ll go to the big supermarket tomorrow,’ Cara said.
‘Good woman.’
SEVENTY-ONE
In her bedroom, as Cara hit Peggy’s number, her first morning checking in to St David’s came back to her.
‘Date of birth?’ the female admissions clerk had asked, then stopped typing and looked up as the office door opened. A man in a shirt and tie had come in, looking flustered. ‘Peggy wants her letters.’
‘Those.’ She pointed with a pen at a pile of paper.
‘Thanks.’ The man took a sheaf of pages and hastened away.
‘Sorry. Give me that date again.’
When all of Cara’s details were input, the clerk pressed an intercom and spoke: ‘Can somebody come and get one of Peggy’s?’
Then to Cara, ‘You’re with Peggy.’
‘Who’s Peggy?’
She seemed surprised. ‘Peggy Kennedy. Your counsellor.’
The way Peggy was being spoken about implied she was important.
A security woman materialized. ‘I’m here for one of Peggy’s.’
Cara was led along shiny-lino corridors, through set after set of double doors, en route to this Peggy. The hospital looked clean and well-maintained but it was old and austere. I should be at work right now. Instead I’m a patient in a psychiatric hospital.
It was impossible to believe.
‘Everyone seems scared of Peggy,’ she said to the security woman.
She’d expected, at the least, to get a smile out of her. But the woman said stiffly, ‘She’s very highly respected.’
Cara burnt with embarrassment. She’d only been trying to make small-talk.
‘Here we are.’ The guard ushered Cara into a small room, then promptly left.
Cara sat in one of the two armchairs. Apart from a low table, the room contained nothing else. What am I doing here? What’s gone wrong in my life? How could I have avoided this?
In came a short woman with curly hair, probably in her late fifties, wearing an A-line skirt and a pale pink blouse. The kind of woman who might be described as ‘cuddly’. ‘Peggy Kennedy.’ She extended her hand and gave a quick, brisk squeeze. ‘You’re Cara Casey? So what has you here?’
&
nbsp; ‘… Haven’t you been told?’
‘I’d rather hear it from you.’
Oh. Okay. ‘So … on Friday night, I had a small seizure. It looked far worse than it was. It was just a bit unlucky. But my husband panicked, so here I am.’ She paused. ‘Everything feels a bit Kafkaesque to be honest …’
Peggy looked blank.
‘I mean, as if I’ve been incarcerated for something I didn’t do.’
‘I know what Kafkaesque means. Tell me about your bulimia.’
Cara revised her opinion. Peggy wasn’t cuddly. At all. ‘It wasn’t really bulimia. It was just a temporary thing and I’ve stopped now. I hadn’t realized people were so worried about me.’
‘So? Fear of food? And love of food? Hatred of your size? Overeating when you’re angry, anxious, stressed or lonely? Eating in secret? Once you start eating sugar you can’t stop? Guilt after overeating? Promises to yourself to eat normally? How’s that sounding?’
Defiantly, Cara said, ‘I barely know any woman who has a normal relationship with food or her body.’
‘But not every woman has a seizure as a result of her disordered eating.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t really a –’
‘You. Could. Have. Died,’ Peggy enunciated.
‘I couldn’t have.’
‘You could have. You still could, if you carry on like this.’
‘I’ve stopped.’
‘You’ll start again, without proper help.’ Peggy raised her palm. ‘Don’t tell me you can control it. You can’t. I know a lot more about this than you do. Now you’re thinking you know yourself better than I do. Once again, you’re wrong.’
A cold trickle of fear leaked through Cara. Peggy’s confidence was a worry. What if she was right?
But she probably wasn’t.
Every weekday for the following four weeks, Cara had seen Peggy for an hour and had had every one of her preconceptions shot down in flames.
When Cara said, ‘Eating disorder to me means anorexia’, Peggy had responded with, ‘Eating far more food than your body can digest, then making yourself sick, that’s an eating disorder.’
When Cara said, ‘I ate too much because I’m a pig with no self-control’, Peggy said, ‘You’ve an illness. You became addicted to the dopamine your brain produced every time you overate. It’s exactly like being addicted to drugs.’
When Cara said, ‘Don’t eating disorders happen because of traumas?’ Peggy was blunt: ‘Not necessarily.’
Peggy was opinionated and non-negotiable. She wasn’t entirely unsympathetic, but she didn’t pull any punches.
As well as daily one-on-one time with Peggy, Cara had sessions with a dietician in which she had to dismantle all her dyed-in-the-wool beliefs about food: carbs were not the work of the devil; skipping breakfast wasn’t a great idea. She was shown videos on how craving cycles worked, how will-power was useless. She learnt about the chemical changes in human brains when a large amount of food flooded into the digestive system. She was told that it was an act of self-hatred to fill her body with food it didn’t need and couldn’t digest.
Sessions with a cognitive behavioural therapist offered her healthier ways to manage her stress and anxiety.
Every day that month she was loaded up with so much information that she was too tired to resist all the parts she didn’t think applied to her.
Five weeks later, she still didn’t like Peggy, but she trusted her. Peggy wanted her to ‘get well’.
Even though Cara still didn’t really believe that she wasn’t ‘well’.
SEVENTY-TWO
Nell necked a triple espresso in the silent kitchen. No one else was up, not even Jessie.
Outside, grapefruit-coloured mist hung, like gauze, in the air. The sun, barely risen, was just starting to warm the land. Ferdia, in a pair of cargos and a crumpled shirt missing half its buttons, was waiting by the car. ‘All right?’
‘Yep.’
‘Music on?’
‘Too early.’
For about forty minutes, the roads stayed empty. Nell leant against her window, stunned by so much beauty, watching the fuzzy edges of the world burn away in the heat of the sun.
Without much warning, they reached the surprisingly horrible outskirts of Florence. Traffic slowed almost to a standstill.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ferdia said, the first words either had spoken. ‘We’ll be there in time.’
‘Okay.’ Maybe they would. What could she do anyway?
‘When we get to the gallery,’ he said, ‘we start at the top floor – it’s where all the best stuff is – then work our way down. Okay?’
She smiled. He’d obviously read TripAdvisor too.
‘Every time you see a Ladies, use it. They’re few and far between.’
‘What if I don’t need to go?’
He flashed a grin. ‘Try anyway. We can’t bring food or drink in. I’ve got protein bars we should eat before we start.’
‘You’ve done your research.’
‘Up all night, making the most of my high-quality Wi-Fi.’
As they advanced on the centre of Florence, winding though ever-narrowing streets, the traffic was a snarly, beepy nightmare. Every centimetre of road space was aggressively contested. Ferdia was doing his best to hide his anxiety but his face was white and his hands on the steering wheel were so tense she thought his bones might break the skin.
A car from a side-street inched its way into their path, its bumper almost touching theirs. Nell was braced for some sort of showdown, but Ferdia laughed and held back. ‘Go for it, if it means that much to you.’
Her shoulders slumped with relief. Not long afterwards, they descended a slope into an underground car park.
‘We’re here? Wow.’
‘See?’ Ferdia said. ‘Driving is no bother.’
‘They’re terrifying, those Italians. I couldn’t have done that last bit.’
‘I wasn’t scared.’ He laughed. ‘Apart from when I was.’
‘Only because you’re young. The young feel no fear.’
‘Nah. It’s because you’re used to driving with an old man. An old man who’s an arse!’
She gave a wobbly smile. ‘Ferdia …’ She eventually said, ‘Liam’s my husband. He’s going through painful stuff with his kids. I know you’ve issues with him, but can we not?’
‘You’re over him forgetting about today?’
‘Yep.’ It was complicated but she no longer blamed Liam. It was the fault of her own unsustainable expectations.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I won’t say anything again.’
‘Are you pissed off with me?’
‘No.’ He sounded surprised. ‘Why would I be?’
‘… People think this is a fake because her beauty is so modern. Different standards of beauty in the 1400s …’
‘… Caravaggio painted people from life’s margins. He used a sex worker as a model to paint the Mother of God, and his patron went bananas …’
‘… At first look, it’s a painting commemorating a great battle, but see where the spears are pointing? At a hunting scene. There wasn’t any battle, it was a lie and this painting exposes it. Art being political.’
From room to room they went, Nell deconstructing dozens of paintings for Ferdia. ‘Am I talking too much?’ she asked.
‘No! I’m enjoying it, maybe not the way you are. Dilly’s phrase – you’re “in raptures”, right? But it’s interesting.’
‘You’re sure? Grand. Oh, my God, it’s Primavera. Very famous work by Botticelli. Look at the flowers, can’t you almost smell them? Literally five hundred different plant types in this painting. Botanists come to study plants that are now extinct. Ed might be interested.’
‘Ed’s interested in everything.’
As they moved into the next room, Ferdia nodded at a crowd clustered round a painting. ‘What’s that?’
‘Oh.’ She took a breath. ‘Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.’
‘Even I’ve heard
of that!’ He moved closer to get a better look. ‘She looks a bit like you.’
WTF?
‘I didn’t mean the … no-clothes thing,’ he blurted. ‘I meant –’ What had he meant? ‘Her hair. Her hair reminds me of yours.’
‘Oookay.’ Her look was wary.
‘And, of course, the giant shell attached to her feet.’
‘Ha-ha. Grand.’ It was all okay again. ‘We keep going? Oh, cool, here’s Titian. See this one? Some rich dude commissioned this of his wife and …’
‘… Same doggo as the earlier painting. So definitely the same woman …’
‘… See the difference in Michelangelo’s palette? Much more vibrant than Botticelli’s? It revolutionized colour – you’re sure I’m not talking too much?’
‘Stop asking,’ he said. ‘If I’ve had enough, I’ll wait in the café. Keep at it.’
‘… Caravaggio painted people who actually looked like people. He didn’t flatter his subjects …’
Abruptly the stream of information stopped. Nell said, her tone awestruck, ‘In the next room is Caravaggio’s Medusa. I’ve loved it since I was fifteen, I’m so excited right now, I can’t even …’ She took a deep breath. ‘Okay, let’s do it.’
He followed her towards a round painting, protected by a glass case. Nell stood before it, silent for a full minute.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
‘The emotion. The horror in its eyes. He – or it might be she – has just realized that it’s dying. It thought it was invincible. Can you feel it?’
He could, actually. ‘The poor bastard.’
‘Yeah, but it went around turning people to stone.’
‘It’s just had its head cut off!’
‘Ha-ha-ha. Right.’ Then she was back to staring in wonder. ‘The realism of the snakes. Over four hundred years old …’
‘Okay,’ Nell said. ‘I’m done. Let’s get some food.’
In a nearby café, Ferdia asked, ‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Oh, my God!’ she exclaimed. ‘I loved it.’ She would have preferred to be there with Liam. She’d never again have a day in an art gallery with Liam. That was already in their past. But beauty helped heal the wound.
