The Mystery of Mercy Close

by Marian Keyes

  The Woo-Woo crew: i.e. those purveying alternative cures. And actually there were hundreds of them – urging me to do reiki, yoga, homeopathy, bible study, sufi dance, cold showers, meditation, EFT, hypnotherapy, hydrotherapy, silent retreats, sweat lodges, felting, fasting, angel channelling or eating only blue food. Everyone had a story about something that had cured their auntie/boss/boyfriend/next-door neighbour. But my sister Rachel was the worst – she had me plagued. Not a day passed that she didn’t send me a link to some swizzer. Followed by a phone call ten minutes later to make sure I’d made an appointment. (And I was so desperate that I even gave plenty of them a go.) Most likely to say, ‘This man’s a miracle worker.’ Followed by: ‘That’s why he’s so expensive. Miracles don’t come cheap.’

  There was often cross-pollination between the different groupings. Sometimes the Let’s Laugh It Off merchants teamed up with the Tough Love people to tell me that recovering from depression is ‘simply mind over matter’. You just decide you’re better. (The way you would if you had emphysema.)

  Or an All About Me would ring a member of the Woo-Woo crew and sob and sob about how selfish I was being and the Woo-Woo crew person would agree because I had refused to cough up two grand for a sweat lodge in Wicklow.

  Or one of the Runaways would tiptoe back for a sneaky look at me, then commandeer a Denier into launching a two-pronged attack, telling me how well I seemed. And actually that was the worst thing anyone could have done to me, because you can only sound like a self-pitying malingerer if you protest, ‘But I don’t feel well. I feel wretched beyond description.’

  Not one person who loved me understood how I’d felt. They hadn’t a clue and I didn’t blame them, because, until it had happened to me, I hadn’t a clue either.

  ‘No, Claire, I’m grand,’ I said. ‘No mad urges to fling myself into the sea.’

  While I waited for my phone to charge, I suddenly felt overcome with exhaustion. I couldn’t think of one productive thing I could be doing to find Wayne and I decided to just let go for a couple of hours. I texted Artie:

  Have d kids gone out yet?

  He replied within seconds:

  Bella still here. Wil txt soon as shes gone.

  In the meantime my parents’ house was full of newspapers and confectionery.

  ‘Will we have some biscuits?’ I suggested.

  ‘Get her some biscuits,’ Mum said to Margaret.

  ‘Chocolate ones,’ I called after her.

  So we ate chocolate biscuits and leafed through acres of newspapers and much scorn was expressed over Zeezah’s ‘pregnancy’. No one believed it, not even Margaret, who was one of the most credulous people I’d ever met.

  ‘How could she be pregnant?’ Mum said. ‘When she’s a man? When she doesn’t even have a womb?’

  ‘Exactly!’ I said, although I was fairly sure that Zeezah was a woman.

  ‘And this tissue of lies!’ Mum held up the magazine that featured Frankie Delapp’s ‘At Home’. ‘That’s not his home; it’s a suite in the Merrion that everyone uses for these photo spreads. I’ve seen it … well, I couldn’t tell you how many times. Billy Ormond pretended it was his house. Amanda Taylor pretended it was hers. The number of times I’ve seen that “oak dinner table that seats twenty”.’

  ‘What about Wayne Diffney’s house?’ Margaret asked. ‘Is that a hotel?’

  Mum took a look. ‘That’s real,’ she pronounced. ‘No hotel would be allowed to have such odd colours.’

  God, it was really hard, verging on the impossible, to keep my mouth shut about how much I knew about Wayne’s house.

  ‘Peculiar looking place,’ Mum said, inspecting the pictures of Wayne’s beautiful, beautiful home. ‘Actually –’ she looked up at me, almost suspiciously – ‘it’s the sort of thing you’d like, Helen.’

  ‘Ah … is it?’

  ‘Wayne Diffney, he looks …’ Mum said, staring at the photos.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A gentle sort of a soul.’

  ‘Not that gentle,’ Claire said, from behind a magazine. ‘Remember him hitting Bono with the hurley that time?’

  That’s right. I’d forgotten. It had been years ago but for a while Wayne Diffney had been a hero. For a short few weeks he’d been the people’s champion. Bono was such an iconic figure in Ireland that to hit him. On the knee. With a hurley. Well … it broke all sorts of taboos. Like flicking a red thong at the Pope.

  I had to say, Wayne Diffney intrigued me. His house was decorated in individualistic, almost challenging colours. He didn’t buy milk. There was the assault on Bono, of course. And after his wife, Hailey, had run away, he’d gone after her and pitted himself, a little David, against the Goliaths of Bono and Shocko O’Shaughnessy, to try to win her back. (It hadn’t worked, but full marks for effort.) He was passionate, impulsive, romantic. At least he had been once and I was sure that all of that hadn’t been wiped away.

  And when I thought about those books on his bedside table … Like, he had the Koran. Obviously lots of the intelligentsia read the Koran in an attempt to understand the mindset of towel-head suicide bombers. (And I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t have referred to them as towel-head suicide bombers. Although no one could ever have mistaken me for a member of the intelligentsia.)

  And, of course, Wayne did do most of his work in countries where it would be handy to know about the seventy raisins in Paradise and that sort of thing …

  My phone beeped, telling me it was fully charged. I picked it up and held it close to me. Perhaps I was a little too attached to it. Seconds later a text came from Artie:

  Dere ALL gone out, ALL of dem. Come immediately!

  I dithered for a moment; surely there was something I could be doing to find Wayne? But this opportunity with Artie was too rare and precious to waste.

  ‘Right!’ Quickly I gathered my things. ‘I’m off. Thanks for the biscuits.’

  ‘No flinging yourself into the sea,’ Claire chided cheerfully.

  ‘Hohoho,’ I replied.

  51

  He was waiting for me. He was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and as soon as I launched myself through the front door he stood up and took me in his arms and kissed me. I laced my fingers through the tangle of hair at the nape of his neck – I loved that part of him – then I slid one hand down the front of his body until it reached his groin. He was already rock hard.

  ‘Where are they?’ I asked.

  ‘Out.’ He was unzipping my jeans. ‘All out. Don’t talk about them. I want to forget they exist.’

  ‘When will they be back?’

  ‘Hours from now.’

  ‘I started undressing in the car. When I was stopped at a red light, I took my trainers and socks off so we could get my jeans off quicker.’

  ‘What a woman you are.’

  I opened the button and zip of his jeans and slipped my hand under the waistband of his Calvins, then closed my palm around the baby-soft skin of his erection.

  ‘God,’ he groaned. ‘Do that again.’

  ‘No. You’ll have to wait.’

  ‘Oh, you’re cruel.’ He took my face in his hands, brushing my hair off my forehead, ready to kiss me again, then he froze. ‘Jesus Christ! What happened to you?’

  ‘Nothing. I mean, someone hit me, but I’m fine. Don’t stop.’

  ‘You don’t look fine.’ Already his erection was beginning to wilt.

  ‘It’s fine, Artie, I’m fine,’ I implored, dragging him upstairs, towards his bedroom. ‘I swear to you, it looks worse than it is. We can talk about it later, just don’t stop. I’m taking my clothes off.’ At the top of the stairs I shimmied out of my jeans. ‘Look, Artie, I’m going to take my knickers off now.’

  He had a thing about my bum, despite my scar from the long-ago dog bite. ‘It’s so round and cute,’ he often said.

  ‘But you’re injured,’ he said. ‘We can’t do this.’

  I turned to him and took his face in my hands and said fiercely, ‘I�
��m telling you, Artie, if we stop now, I will die. I will kill you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  We got to his bedroom, to his big white bed, and we tumbled on to it, savouring the freedom to be as noisy as we liked. I kicked off my knickers and let them fly across the room, then I whipped off my T-shirt and bra. Within seconds he was also naked and I pulled him to me, feeling the indescribable pleasure of his skin pressing against mine.

  I couldn’t stay still. I wanted to feel all of him. I crawled on top of him so my stomach and chest were pushed up against his. If I could have climbed inside his skin, I would have.

  ‘The smell of you,’ I said. ‘It’s delicious.’ I pressed my face into his pubes, where his Artie-smell was most concentrated, and inhaled deeply, thinking: If you could bottle that …

  I took him in my mouth and slid one of my hands under his balls and held his shaft with the other. Slowly, I got into a rhythm, my tongue twirling, my hand pushing him upwards into my mouth, and I could hear his breathing become more ragged.

  I took a quick glance at him. His jaw was clenched and he was watching me with such intensity he almost looked afraid.

  ‘No,’ he said, gently lifting my head away from him.

  ‘No?’

  ‘It’ll be over too soon. And,’ he said, a wicked gleam in his eyes, ‘I want to make this last.’

  Unexpectedly he flipped me on to my stomach, his forearm across the small of my back, pinning me to the bed. ‘Can you breathe?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll soon sort that out.’

  With tortuous slowness, he began to kiss the backs of my knees, the inside of my thighs, my bum. It was so wonderful that eventually I had to say – almost beg – ‘Please, Artie.’

  ‘What did you say?’ he whispered, his breath hot against my ear, his full weight pinning me to the bed.

  ‘Please, Artie,’ I said.

  ‘Please, Artie, what?’

  ‘Please, Artie, fuck me.’

  ‘You want me to fuck you?’

  ‘I want you to fuck me.’

  From behind, he placed his tip against my entrance. ‘This much?’ he asked.

  ‘More,’ I implored.

  He moved in a little further. ‘This far?’

  ‘More.’ I was almost crying from frustration.

  ‘This far?’ And he moved right into me, all the way in, right to the end, filling me up.

  ‘God, yes, thank you.’ The relief was short-lived. I needed him to keep doing it.

  ‘Again,’ I said. ‘Again. Fast.’

  He balanced himself on his arms like he was doing press-ups and moved in and out of me, not too smoothly, a little rough and ragged, the way I liked it, fast, faster, faster, until the circles of pleasure exploded in me and I whimpered into a pillow.

  He gave me a few minutes of recovery time. ‘Now,’ he said with a sexy glint, ‘it’s my turn.’

  He lay on his back and I sat on top of him, placing the flats of my hands on his stomach, the skin on my palms electrified by the contact with him. ‘I can feel your stomach muscles,’ I said. ‘Must be from the running and sit-ups you do. I can feel everything so … so much.’ A line of hair, darker than the rest of his hair, led from his belly-button down to his pubes and I followed it with my finger, almost in wonderment.

  I lowered myself down on to him and he held my bum in his hands. As I rotated on top of him we looked into each other’s eyes and I could handle it, I could take the intimacy, at least while I was in the throes of passion like this, and it made me feel a little better in myself, that I wasn’t a total weirdo.

  He waited until I’d come for a second time then he let go completely, shuddering, panting, gasping, almost yelling. He was usually such a controlled man – so discreet in his job, so protective of his children – and to see the wildness in him was thrilling.

  He gathered me to him and within moments he’d fallen asleep. When he woke up, about ten minutes later, he was a little confused and dopey.

  ‘Coffee?’ I asked. ‘I’ll even go downstairs and make it, that’s how much I like you.’

  ‘Even though you don’t believe in hot drinks.’ He yawned.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was one of the first things you ever said to me, that day in my office. “I don’t believe in hot drinks.”’

  ‘And what did you think?’ We’d had this discussion countless times, but I still liked hearing it.

  ‘I thought you were the most intriguing woman I’d ever met.’

  ‘So would you like me to get you a coffee? My offer still stands.’

  ‘No, I’ll get one in a little while, but I don’t want to let go of you.’

  ‘Can you reach your laptop? It’s there on the floor.’

  He stretched and almost fell off the bed, but returned triumphant. I didn’t even have to tell him what to do. I wanted to see the Booker winner’s lady-hair on YouTube.

  Sleepy and relaxed, we watched several interviews with the man and laughed and laughed at his hair. Then we watched some dogs doing the ‘Thriller’ routine, some cats singing ‘Silent Night’, some horses re-enacting the ‘Do I amuse you?’ scene from Goodfellas, then we watched the author’s lady-hair again.

  It felt like a long time since we’d been together like this. Between his kids and his job, it had been a couple of weeks and a flash of resentment made me say, ‘I wish we could do this whenever we want.’

  After a long pause Artie said, ‘… yeah …’

  I waited for more and when it didn’t come, I said, ‘That’s all you’re going to say? “Yeah”?’

  ‘Yeah. I said “Yeah”, because I mean, “Yeah, I wish we could do this whenever we want.”’

  I don’t know why, but I found it an unsatisfactory answer.

  We lay side by side in a silence that was no longer so companionable.

  Eventually he spoke. ‘So,’ he said, in a very different tone of voice, suddenly sounding business-like. ‘Who’s Jay Parker?’

  ‘Laddz’s manager.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  A shaft of guilt – it might even have been fear – pierced me. It was like Artie could see into my soul, as if he knew that earlier today Jay Parker had kissed me, that for a moment I had wanted him to. I twisted to look at Artie full in the face. ‘He’s nobody.’

  ‘He’s not nobody.’ Artie’s tone was verging on cold and I felt both ashamed and stupid for trying to fool him.

  I waited for a moment before I spoke. ‘I had a thing with him. It was short. Three months. It ended over a year ago and it didn’t end well, and I’ll tell you about it sometime, but not now.’

  ‘When, then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Right what?’

  ‘Does that mean you don’t want to talk about losing your flat either?’

  I definitely didn’t want to talk about losing my flat.

  ‘Look, Helen, maybe we should –’ Artie said.

  Just then the doorbell rang. Artie froze. ‘Ignore it,’ he said. ‘It’ll be one of those poor bastards trying to get us to change cable suppliers.’

  ‘Maybe we should what?’ I asked.

  Then came the sound of the front door being opened and someone – probably Bella – sobbing.

  ‘Shit,’ I hissed, jumping out of bed and scrabbling for my clothes. ‘Bella’s back.’

  It was one thing Bella suspecting that Artie and I sometimes slept together at night, but discovering us in bed in the middle of the day was a totally different story.

  ‘Daaad,’ Bella wailed.

  ‘Mr Devlin?’ a man’s voice called. ‘Are you home?’

  Artie was pulling on his clothes and there was a hard set to his face. A kind of weariness. Like he was wondering if all this was worth it.

  Bella had fallen out of a tree. The play-date’s dad had brought her home. ‘She’s okay,’ he said. ‘Nothing broken, although she might have a few bruises tomorrow, but she got a fright
.’

  I lurked upstairs, listening. I wasn’t coming down to be introduced. With my injured face it wouldn’t be right. And I felt it wouldn’t be right anyway: I wasn’t Bella’s mother, I wasn’t Artie’s wife. How would Artie explain away me and my dishevelled clothing to a complete stranger? It would be way too obvious what we’d been up to. If we’d been on the deck reading the Sunday papers when they’d arrived, it would be all right, but not when we’d both just jumped out of bed, reeking of sex.

  I decided not to hang around. Anyway, I should be working. I wasn’t exactly sure what I could be doing, but it didn’t feel right to stay here. I said a quick hello to Bella, a quick goodbye to Artie, then I got into my car and started driving.

  52

  I didn’t want to go back to Mercy Close if there was still a chance that Walter Wolcott was there, so I drove aimlessly for a while. Until I discovered that my aimlessness actually had a purpose: I was driving north, heading for Skerries and Birdie Salaman.

  A text had arrived from Zeezah. Jay had told her about me getting hit. She expressed sympathy and concern and suggested that if searching for Wayne was putting me in danger, perhaps I should stop. Immediately I was suspicious of her motives.

  Thanks to the Talking Map I found Birdie’s house easily. It was a small, newly built box in an estate of small, newly built boxes, but somehow Birdie’s seemed cute and pretty.

  Her front door was yellow and looked freshly painted, and two hanging baskets – one on either side of the door – overflowed with cascades of bright flowers.

  Before I’d even parked, my instinct was telling me that she wasn’t there. There was no sign of her car. (I’d discovered via a mildly illegal vehicle reg search that she drove a yellow Mini. A car that met with my approval, even though it wasn’t, strictly speaking, black.)

  All the same, I got out of my car and rang her bell. As expected, no one came; the house just radiated stillness. I took a quick shufti through her window at her front room. Very nice floorboards, very nice. Three-piece suite, not to the same high standard as the floorboards. Not horrible or anything, just meh. Clearly she’d blown the budget on the floorboards. Nevertheless the overall impression was attractive. Fairy lights were draped around a mirror and, placed randomly about the room, there were several vibrant green plants in cheerful polka-dotted plant holders.