The Mystery of Mercy Close

by Marian Keyes

  Suddenly the part of the motorway we were on began to seem … something. I don’t know the exact word. Meaningful. Familiar, perhaps.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked.

  Jay was feeling it too. He wouldn’t look at me and he clearly didn’t want to answer. ‘Look at the signs.’ He pointed at a big blue one overhanging the four lanes of traffic.

  ‘It says the next turn-off is for Ballyboden,’ I said.

  ‘Now you know.’

  ‘That’s Scholarstown, isn’t it?’

  Where Bronagh lives. Or lived. No idea if she was still there.

  Roger’s entire flat looked like it had been built from a flat-pack. Wobbly, clapboardy, flimsy and tawdry. The couch was lopsided and the carpet was coffee-stained. At least I hoped it was coffee.

  ‘I love what you’ve done with the place,’ Jay said. ‘How come you’re up?’

  ‘Time for my early morning run.’ The sarcasm of the debaucher, I understood; clearly he hadn’t been to bed yet.

  ‘Drinking alone?’ Jay picked up a half-empty vodka bottle.

  ‘Not now, I’m not,’ Roger said. ‘Who’s this?’ He eyed me up and down, in a totally different way to the way John Joseph had. In real life Roger had a bad-boy electricity that simply did not come across in photos or television. He had floppy, black, Brian Ferry hair and a lanky, easy body. Wrecked-looking, though – it was hard to believe he was only thirty-seven.

  ‘Helen Walsh,’ Jay said. ‘Private investigator, on the hunt for Wayne.’

  ‘Ah God.’ Roger sank on to his manky couch. ‘Would you not let him alone? Give the poor bastard a couple of days. He’ll be back.’

  ‘No way. Clock is ticking. We’re putting a world-class show together here. Starting next Wednesday, Roger, in case you’ve forgotten. Six days from today. Six days from today,’ Jay repeated, to himself. ‘Oh my God.’ His face went grey. ‘There’s so much still to do. The rehearsals, the sound checks, the costume fittings, the merchandising … We’ve forty thousand Laddz souvenir T-shirts arriving into Dublin docks from China tomorrow morning. Plus twenty thousand Laddz scarfs. We’ve programmes, pashminas –’

  ‘Pashminas!’ I was excessively scathing. Imagine a Laddz pashmina. How pathetic would you have to be to wear one of them?

  ‘If Wayne doesn’t come back, what are we going to do with them?’ Jay sounded like he was talking to himself.

  ‘Just throw them in the sea,’ I said.

  ‘They’ve already been paid for,’ he said.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ I asked.

  ‘The manufacturers were hardly going to do them on sale or return, were they? What would they do with leftover Laddz pashminas? We have to sell the fecking things; we’ve already shelled out a fortune.’

  ‘Ah, relax,’ Roger muttered, but he was starting to look a little sweaty.

  ‘And the media,’ Jay said. ‘Christ, the media! We’ve radio and telly lined up over the weekend. How’re we going to explain the absence of Wacky Wayne?’

  ‘He’ll be back by then,’ Roger said. ‘And –’ he directed this next part to me – ‘Wayne’s not wacky. Wacky is the last thing Wayne is.’

  I asked Roger the usual questions and got negatives on everything – no drugs, no loan sharks, no girlfriend, no idea what Wayne’s password was.

  ‘Where do you think he is?’ I asked.

  He sighed. ‘Probably at home, hiding under the bed.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Look, we’re grown men. This reunion thing … none of us want to be lepping around wearing matching Communion suits, the way we did when we were twenty.’

  ‘Except Frankie,’ Jay said.

  ‘Except Frankie. For the rest of us it’s mortifying. But what choice have we? It’s a chance to make a few quid and we’re all skint.’

  In surprise I said, ‘Even John Joseph?’

  He laughed a bitter laugh. ‘You’ve met him? You loved him? She loved him,’ he said to Jay. ‘Everyone loves him.’

  ‘Excuse me, I liked him but –’

  ‘And Zeezah? Delightful, isn’t she?’

  ‘In a way, actually, yes.’

  ‘Listen to me – what did you say your name was? Helen? I probably have more money than John Joseph. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: look at the state of this place. But believe you me, it costs a fortune keeping that whole Hartley show on the road – Alfonsos and Irish wolfhounds don’t come cheap. And now with Zeezah cut loose from her label and John Joseph having to invest his own moolah in her, well, he’s up to his oxters in hock.’

  I took a moment to digest this. ‘So, his Aston Martin?’ I said to Jay.

  ‘Sold,’ Roger interjected. ‘Like the Bugatti, the Lambo and both Corvettes. All he’s got left is Zeezah’s Evoque and that’ll be going the same way if things don’t turn round.’

  Jesus. Was that true? I flicked a quick look at Jay and his face told me that it was. Briefly, I was stymied, then I rallied, deciding to go down a different line of questioning.

  ‘Do you like Wayne?’ I asked Roger.

  ‘Like Wayne? I love him. Wayne is like a brother to me. All the Laddz are.’

  ‘If you could knock off the sarcasm for just five minutes …?’

  Roger thought about it. It looked like the first time he’d ever considered it. ‘Actually, I do like Wayne.’

  ‘You must know him very well after being in Laddz together, living in each other’s pockets?’

  ‘Yeah, but … all a long time ago. Haven’t seen him much in the last, what? Ten years? Fifteen? Whenever Laddz split up. Me and him, we’re not tight, not like himself and John Joseph. But he’s a decent bloke. Principled.’ He made it sound like a disease. ‘Too principled at times. Life isn’t meant to be that hard.’

  ‘Humour me a minute here,’ I said. ‘Would you have a think about where Wayne actually is at this moment. Let your imagination run riot.’

  ‘Oookaaay, I think Wayne is … wandering the streets, in a fugue state, trying to bite passers-by.’

  Could happen, actually. Sometimes people take a strange turn and they forget everything, even their own name. But it’s rare.

  ‘Or he’s been arrested and is in a holding cell.’

  ‘Arrested for what?’

  ‘Jesus, anything you like. Urinating in public, although that wouldn’t be like Wayne; or passing himself off as an ophthalmologist –’

  ‘Ah, there’s no point in asking you,’ I said. ‘You’ve too jaundiced a view of things.’

  And there’s no way that a court reporter wouldn’t have picked up Wayne’s name. If Wayne had been arrested, the whole country would know about it.

  ‘Here’s my card.’ I gave it to Roger. ‘Call me if you think of anything, no matter how insignificant. Can I have your number?’

  ‘Certainly can! And you make sure you call me if I can, ahem, help with anything. Yeah, anything.’ The dirty article. He flicked a shrewd look at Jay Parker. ‘Ah … I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes here? Am I detecting a wee bit of a buzz between you two?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re not.’

  ‘Oh-kaaay.’ Roger gave a short, sardonic laugh. ‘Any further questions? Or can I step down.’

  ‘Just one more. How come Jay Parker didn’t make you have Botox?’

  Jay and Roger exchanged a startled look.

  ‘Actually … I did,’ Jay said.

  ‘You’d want to see the state of me without it,’ Roger said, with another of his bitter laughs.

  ‘Thanks for your time,’ I said. ‘Come on, Jay.’

  Just before I walked out the door, I said over my shoulder, ‘By the way, Roger, Gloria says hello.’

  He looked suddenly stricken. ‘Does she?’

  Bingo!

  I turned back into the room and sat down next to him, all cosy. ‘Tell me,’ I said invitingly, ‘about Gloria.’

  He looked a little sick. ‘It’s probably better if you tell me. What is it? A sex-tape? Not … Oh G
od, no, not another one, not another paternity suit?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Confusion bounced between us, then I understood: Not bingo.

  ‘You don’t know anyone named Gloria, do you?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t even recognize the name, yet you think you might have fathered a child with her?’

  He shrugged. ‘Welcome to my world.’

  As we drove towards home, I said to Jay, ‘I need Wayne’s mobile number.’

  ‘Texting it to you right now.’

  ‘And I need the key to his house.’

  ‘I’ll get another one cut for you and drop it over in the morning.’

  ‘Just give me the one that you have.’

  ‘No. I’ll get another one cut.’

  I said, ‘I want to install a camera in Wayne’s house to let us know as soon as he comes back.’

  Spy technology, how I love it. My sister Claire spends every second she can on Net-a-porter, yearning after shoes she can’t afford, and I’m a bit that way on spy equipment sites. Don’t get me wrong, I love clothes, I love shoes, I love bags; I have a thing for scarves and I keep buying them, or at least I did until my card started being declined.

  The funny thing is that you’d think one scarf would be enough. You’d think that if you went from owning zero scarves to owning one scarf, your life would be vastly enhanced. But for me, having merely one scarf just highlighted the entire world of scarves out there that I didn’t have. I had to get more. But the more I got, the more I wanted – I’m like that about everything.

  So I kept buying more scarves, and beautiful as each one was, none of them was enough. Then I had the great misfortune to see a French girl casually knot an Isabel Marant scarf around her elegant French neck, and I wish I’d been spared it because it ruined My Life In Scarves. I knew I’d never be able to achieve her effortless élan, her innate grace, her genetic elegance. But it didn’t stop me trying. Instead of blaming myself and my deficiencies, I blamed the scarf: if only it was a bit wider or longer or had a bit more silk, or was a genuine Alexander McQueen instead of a skanky copy, it would work.

  Anyway …

  ‘Did you hear me?’ I said to Jay. ‘I need to install a camera in Wayne’s house. And I want to fit a tracker to his car.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘When else? In a month’s time? Every second counts.’

  ‘Okaaay.’ He sounded tired and reluctant.

  ‘First, we have to go back to my parents’ house to pick up the stuff.’

  ‘Ah, no, Helen, it’s three in the morning. I’ve to be at Dublin docks at seven to sign the Laddz merchandise through customs. It’s a massive job. You wouldn’t believe the documentation and you’ve sniffer dogs running all over the place, getting paw prints on your suit, and you’ve to open boxes and boxes of T-shirts to show that you’re not hiding some poor Chinese girl in there. Let’s leave the Wayne stuff till after that.’

  ‘But what if he comes back and we miss him?’

  ‘Right now I’m too wrecked to care.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I say we leave it for tonight and I’m the one who’s paying you.’

  ‘Speaking of which … I’m still not saying I’m taking the job but, if I am, these are my terms.’ I laid it out for him and to my surprise (category: unsettling), he acceded without a fight. He didn’t even haggle.

  ‘Are you sure you understand?’ I said. ‘A week’s pay. In advance. In cash,’ I stressed. ‘And by that I mean real money, not fuel vouchers.’ I’d been caught that way before. I once spent thirty-nine hours hiding up a tree on a child custody case, ending up with a cold in my spleen, and for my pains I was rewarded with five hundred euro’ worth of kindling.

  10

  Mum appeared on the landing in her nightdress and curlers as soon as I put the key in the door. ‘It’s ten past three. In the morning.’ She came hurrying down the stairs and I was nearly blinded by the shininess of her night-creamed face. ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Out with Jay Parker. By the way, thanks for telling him he could find me here.’

  ‘Are you two-timing Artie?’

  ‘Not out in that way. Out working. You’ll never believe who I met tonight. But you’re not to tell anyone. Swear on the Pope’s red leather Gucci man-bag.’

  ‘John Joseph Hartley and Zeezah.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Jay Parker told me he’s Laddz’s new manager, so I made an educated guess.’

  ‘I was in their house.’

  But she already knew about the Irish wolfhounds and the antler chandelier. There had been a whole issue of RSVP dedicated to it. I don’t know how I missed it myself.

  ‘Jay said he’d get me tickets to the opening night.’

  ‘Ah, Mum …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That makes me look unprofessional.’ And of course there might not be any Laddz gigs at all if Wayne didn’t come back.

  ‘I spoke to Claire.’ My eldest sister. ‘And she said she wouldn’t come with me.’

  Well, that was no surprise. Claire was very, very busy. Also, by nature, reluctant to oblige. They say we’re alike.

  ‘Then I spoke to Margaret and she said she’d come if I couldn’t get anyone else.’

  Margaret, the sister next in line to Claire, was also very busy – two children to Claire’s three – but she had a powerful sense of duty.

  ‘I don’t want to go with Margaret,’ Mum said.

  ‘But she’s your favourite child.’

  ‘She dances like an uncle at a wedding and she’d make a show of me.’

  ‘You’re no Ashley Banjo yourself.’

  ‘I’m elderly, no one expects me to bust some moves. Look, I don’t know why, but I’d rather go with you.’

  ‘Ask Rachel,’ I said. ‘Ask Anna.’ My other sisters. Five of us in total.

  ‘In case you’d forgotten, they both live in New York.’

  ‘Ask anyway. You never know your luck.’

  ‘How many nights of my life have I wasted at your crappy school plays, your boring old ballet things, your awful sports yokes? Between the five of you it was years, years, I’m telling you, and all I’m asking for is one night …’

  Enough of that. ‘Delightful as it is to be standing at the foot of the stairs, at three fifteen in the morning, listening to you complain, I have some work to do.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said coldly. ‘Sorry to have taken your precious time.’ She began climbing the stairs, her back stiff with reproach.

  ‘Have you no friends to go with you to Laddz?’ I called after her.

  ‘They’re all dead.’

  She disappeared into her bedroom and I had an urge to call her back. I wanted someone to talk to, about how weird it had been to see Jay Parker again and how we’d passed so close to where Bronagh used to live and how sad I’d felt. But Mum had never liked Bronagh. The first time she’d met her, Mum had the oddest expression on her face, like she was thunderstruck. She had stared, bug-eyed, from me to Bronagh and back again, like someone in terrible shock and you could actually see her thinking: ‘I’d thought I had the most difficult child any mother could ever have. But here’s one who’s actually worse.’

  And was Bronagh worse than me? I’d have said we were evenly matched. There were times when I managed to have her gazing at me in naked admiration; but no doubt about it, she set the bar very high. Like, take the very first time we met.

  It was a summer’s day, it must have been six years ago, and I was fighting my way up Grafton Street, weaving through the crowds, highly irritated by every single person who wasn’t moving at exactly the same speed as me. ‘For the love of God,’ I was muttering, ‘would you just fucking walk? Like, how hard can it be?’ Legitimately expending all that crankiness was very enjoyable, in fact so enjoyable that I made a fundamental mistake: out of nowhere someone had glommed on to me. A
nd not just anyone – it was a man with long, blond, white-guy dreadlocks, carrying a clipboard and wearing a red plastic tabard advertising some charity.

  He walked backwards, in front of me, his arms outstretched. ‘Talk to me. Hey, talk to me. Ten seconds?’

  I dipped my head; it was fatal to make eye contact. I was furious with myself for being sucked into this charity orbit. I should have seen it coming and taken appropriate avoidance action. In fact I saw it as a mark of personal failure that the bloke even thought I was a possibility.

  I dodged to the right and he came with me, as if we were umbilically joined. I lurched to the left and he lurched too, as graceful as if we were dancing. I started to feel panicky.

  ‘Okay, here’s a deal,’ the guy said. ‘Talk to me for five seconds? You’ve got great shoes, you know that? You hear me? Those trainers are sick. Why won’t you talk to me?’

  With monumental effort I wrenched myself from his force field and skipped away sideways, to wish him ill from a safe distance, and he called after me, for half of Dublin to hear, ‘So you can buy yourself yet another pair of trainers you don’t even need but you can’t give, like, two euro a week to help paralysed donkeys? I feel waaaay sorry for you.’

  I bitterly regretted that I didn’t know how to make the noises that people make when they’re putting the evil eye on you. I really should have paid more attention that time it had happened to me. (My refusal to buy the lucky heather from the scary-smiling lady in a patterned headscarf had brought forth a stream of nasty enchantment in a hypnotic, gutteral voice.)

  Even as I was wondering if I should give it a go anyway, if I should just try to make some chanty, spell-like sounds and throw a scare into him, the charity bloke had turned his attention to someone else. From her short hair and neat little body, I thought at first it was a teenage boy, then I realized it was a woman, around the same age as me, and there was something about her that made me keep looking.

  ‘Hey,’ the guy crooned at her. ‘Your trainers are great!’

  ‘Really?’ the girl asked. ‘You think?’

  ‘I do think! Could we have a quick gab?’

  I crept closer, people bumping into me and giving me a good tsk. But I barely noticed because I was so focused on the unfolding scene. Somehow I knew this girl was going to do something dramatic, perhaps kung-fu-kick the bloke or take his already obscenely low-slung jeans and give them a sharp tug so that they were suddenly down around his knees.