Three Wise Men, page 17
‘Here,’ she produces ‘Loving You is Murder’ and starts reciting:
‘You killed our love, so I’ll kill you
You savaged it, like I’ll savage you
You spat on me as I stretched prone
Now prepare to feel saw on bone
There will be pain, it will hurt me too
There will be blood, I’ll bleed too
You’ll writhe and beg in your death throes
As I hack at fingers and sever toes
And lover, that final spasm
Will be our farewell orgasm’
It’s creepy. Gloria listens with mounting horror, and as Eimear finishes on an elated flourish, sapphire eyes alight and satin cheeks a-glow (all that verse has her thinking like a Hallmark greeting card), she’s trying to work out how to reach the door without passing directly by Eimear.
The poet is expectant.
‘It’s …’ Gloria trails off, destitute of inspiration.
‘Yes?’
‘Unusual.’
Will that do? It seems it will.
‘Precisely,’ agrees Eimear. ‘And the circumstances in which I wrote it were unusual too.’
Her voice lowers. ‘Gloria, I dreamed that poem. I fell asleep after writing in bed one night and dreamed I was reading a collection of poetry with my name on the cover. I turned to page three and this was on it. I woke up and remembered it exactly, I jotted it down immediately and here it is, the work of my subconscious.’
Eimear, you have a warped subconscious, says Gloria, if this is how it operates I’d pension it off. But the words are only inside her head.
Aloud, she enquires: ‘So you think you might try to get these published?’
Eimear chuckles. ‘Of course I will, you sap. I didn’t chew my nails ragged for an audience of one. I’m going to ring Jack’s publisher.’
Good God, she’s lost the plot completely.
‘Would he want to publish two O’Brien poets?’ Gloria quibbles. ‘And even if he did, imagine meeting Jack in the reception at Abbot Press – might that not be awkward?’
‘We’re civilised people,’ says the woman who’s set a lover’s dismemberment to rhyme. ‘He is still my husband you know, it takes the best part of five years to get a divorce in this thrustingly modern country of ours. If I can’t say a calm “good day” to my own husband once in a while, it’s a poor lookout.’
‘That sounds fair enough,’ agrees Gloria. ‘But Jack’s publisher might not be the ideal one for you all the same – your work probably has more, er, feminist appeal, it’s not exactly mainstream like Jack’s.’
She frowns at the word feminist.
‘I don’t mean that pejoratively, Eimear,’ hastens Gloria. ‘But you know, all of these poems do seem to be anti-men.’
‘Where are they anti-men? I love men,’ she objects.
‘Well, here where you compare the ice-cream seller to a perverted Pied Piper of Hamelin, luring little girls on the basis of a ninety-nine for some sixty-nine. And here, where your bulimic woman thinks if she’s thin enough men will find her desirable, so she starves herself skeletal and lies on her deathbed asking for a mirror.’
Eimear frowns, considering the evidence. ‘So I might stand a better chance of having these published if I approached Bitchin’ Babes or All Girls Together or some of those slipstream houses?’
‘I’m no expert,’ shrugs Gloria. ‘But they might be worth a call. Of course you’d probably have to change your name back to Mulligan if you’re making a pitch as a radical right-on poetess.’
‘Poet,’ she interjects. ‘Poetess is derogatory.’
‘Right, poet. The poet Eimear Mulligan.’
‘Oh no,’ she shudders, ‘I never liked Mulligan.’
‘Or you could decide to write it off altogether,’ suggests Gloria. ‘Regard this poetry exercise as healthy therapy for an unhealthy phase and move on with the rest of your life.’
‘Absolutely not.’ Eimear’s outraged. ‘I’ve lived with a poet long enough to know there’s nothing to it except lashings of self-belief and a thesaurus at your elbow. If a messer like Jack can be a poet then so can I.’
‘But why would you want to do exactly the same as him?’ Gloria is bewildered. ‘Go off and be a painter or a sculptor or a mountaineer if you want to show him, but you’re taking him on in his own backyard, people are bound to make comparisons and you’ll always come second.’
‘You’re so wrong.’ She’s impatient, the words spilling out. ‘Jack will be fuming when he realises I can write poetry too. He detests competition, he’s convinced he’s the greatest living poet in Ireland and history will set him alongside Yeats in the lyrical firmament, while the rest of the pack are rhymesters who hit it lucky once in a while. He’s always reading extracts from Heaney or Kennelly and dripping so much scorn on the pages it’s a wonder they don’t disintegrate from unadulterated acid. If there’s one thing that puts the fear of God in Jack, it’s the emergence of a new poet. He’s petrified some hotshot is going to come along and prise his laurel wreath off him.’
‘And that’s what you’re hoping to do?’
‘Of course not, Glo, I just want to put the wind up him. Obviously as the erstwhile wife of an established poet I’m guaranteed a certain amount of attention. Critics will mention the book, if only to maul it, and every review will describe me as the estranged wife of the poet Jack O’Brien – they may even call me the wronged wife or the deserted wife.’
Her eyes sparkle as she admits: ‘I win both ways. Either the critics loathe the poems and Jack is tainted by association, or they go into raptures about them and he sits chewing his fingernails in his Trinity eyrie while I’m lionised as the poet in the family.’
‘My, my, Eimear O’Brien, aren’t you the girl.’
She inclines her head slightly, accepting the homage. Gloria isn’t clear that it is tribute exactly, she’s uncertain how to feel about this vengeful valkyrie. She’s not someone she’d like to end up on the wrong side of, that’s for sure.
‘I thought you were almost over Jack, you hardly mention him these days.’
‘Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, I’m sure Don Corleone said that in one of the Godfather films,’ Eimear murmurs.
‘Revenge is so unladylike.’
Eimear erupts into raucous laughter, answer enough, but she expands her response anyway.
‘Being ladylike, my sweet Gloria, is highly overrated. Besides, who defines ladylike? Once it was ladylike to pluck your hairline for a high forehead, once it was ladylike to slap white paste on your face and have the skin eaten away with lead poisoning, once it was ladylike to squeeze your body into a corset that starved you of oxygen and had you fainting at every turn around.’
‘That was centuries ago,’ Gloria demurs.
‘It’s not so many years since it was ladylike to wear white gloves in public, to wear mantillas to Mass, to stay at home and raise your children, to conquer your fleshly desires since men couldn’t be relied on to control theirs,’ Eimear continues. ‘Ladies didn’t go into pubs or smoke in public or cause a scene. But I’m going to create a huge scene – not a brawling match. Don’t worry, Glo, I won’t march up to the lecture theatre and heckle Jack in front of those students he loves so much he has to shag them. All of them. My scene will be confined to the written page. And I might even make a few quid out of it, buy a frock or two to flounce around literary soirees in.’
Gloria hugs her. ‘Eimear, do you know what you are?’ she tells her.
‘What?’
‘You’re a survivor.’
‘That vote of confidence deserves a cup of tea.’
They’re drinking it when an alarm goes off. Eimear leaps like a frightened rabbit; so much for female empowerment, smiles Gloria.
‘It’s only my clock,’ she calms the twitchy poet. ‘I carry it about in my bag now, in case I forget to sniff.’
She produces the banana-yellow box, resets it for six hours’ time and squirts hormone suppressants up each nostril. Her head throbs, she has a permanent migraine on this treatment.
While she rests, waiting for the pain to subside, the doorbell rings.
‘It’s one buzzer after another here,’ complains Eimear, padding out to the hall. A male voice rumbles, then Pearse appears in the doorway.
Gloria leaps up and goes to kiss him, vacillates, then offers a cheek anyway. His lips barely graze it.
‘Pearse, how lovely to see you, don’t you look well,’ she gushes in her uncertainty. ‘You’ve obviously been sunning yourself somewhere exotic, you don’t get a tan like that in Bray.’
‘Only Cuba,’ he radiates false modesty.
Only Cuba, you may as well say only Timbuktu. Gloria and Eimear pantomime going ‘ooh-er’ at one another behind his back.
‘Business or pleasure?’ Gloria enquires.
Pearse works for a travel company and is often sent abroad, although William Hurt’s Accidental Tourist isn’t a patch on him. He abhors being away from home.
‘I had some business on the island and then I stayed on for a few days,’ explains Pearse. ‘I wasn’t expecting to find you here, Gloria, but I’m delighted – it’s two for the price of one.’
Eimear is far from enchanted at his clumsy analogy but decides to play hostess.
‘We’re just having a pot of tea, will you join us?’ she invites and disappears into the kitchen without waiting for his answer.
Pearse balances on the edge of a chair and folds one leg over the other, displaying pastel socks that match his pale blue linen suit – a colour obviously chosen to highlight his tan. When he and Kate were together, he never wore anything unless it was grey or brown and Gloria doubts if he had so much as a linen handkerchief to his name.
‘So how have you been keeping, Gloria? You’re looking well.’ His habitually apologetic voice punctures the silence.
Looking well? That’s a big fat lie, she knows she looks dire but anyone would on IVF treatment. Still, one untruth deserves another.
‘Oh, I’m the best,’ she fibs back.
Eimear returns with a cup and saucer – visitors are never given mugs in her house – and a plate of Mikado biscuits.
‘I didn’t know you had spring-sprongs,’ Gloria is aggrieved.
‘Emergency rations,’ explains Eimear.
‘Am I an emergency then?’ asks Pearse, looking gratified at the possibility.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Eimear frowns. ‘It’s just handy to have something put by for visitors.’
‘What she means,’ Gloria interprets, ‘is that she doesn’t like to give me Mikados too often because of my idiosyncratic manner of eating them.’
‘You mean you nibble off all the marshmallow and save the jam until last,’ says Pearse.
She nods.
‘That’s what everyone does,’ he shrugs, ‘there’s nothing eccentric about that. I munch through them like that myself, although not in public.’
‘You see,’ Gloria rounds accusingly on Eimear. ‘For years you’ve been telling me there’s something atavistic about it, now I discover I’m perfectly normal and you’re the oddity.’
Eimear ignores her. ‘Milk and sugar, Pearse? Just milk. This is a welcome surprise, it’s been an age since we saw you.’
‘Best part of a year,’ agrees Pearse pleasantly. ‘Since Kate ditched me for your husband.’
Eimear is still holding the teapot, a honey-coloured teddy-bear. The teddy has to be temporarily decapitated to fill the pot, which always strikes Gloria as an unsatisfactory arrangement. Eimear pauses in the process of refilling Gloria’s mug, silence stretches between them. He drinks his tea placidly. Gloria can stand the tension no longer.
‘That was hardly Eimear’s fault,’ she protests.
‘But I hear the three of you are still friends,’ he remarks. ‘A cosy little set-up.’
This is so unlike Pearse, he’s never aggressive; Gloria and Eimear exchange disturbed looks.
‘Why did you come here, Pearse?’ enquires Gloria.
‘I could say I was just passing and thought I’d drop in,’ he answers. ‘But that wouldn’t be true. Or I could say I had some books belonging to Kate that I wanted you to return for me, but that wouldn’t be true either. I’m here because I want you to pass on a message.’
‘Couldn’t you have left it on her answerphone or scribbled her a line?’
He bites into a Mikado, chews and delays his reply. While his jaws move, Gloria scrutinises the Cuban tan – on reflection it doesn’t suit him, his skin’s too leathery and the wrinkles have become more pronounced.
‘I could have done,’ he admits. ‘But I thought Eimear might enjoy telling her, I thought she was entitled to it. Kate did, after all, treat both of us quite nastily. You may have turned the other cheek, Eimear, but you must still bear a tinge of animosity towards her. No? Not the tiniest flicker?’
‘Give us your message and we’ll make sure Kate is aware of it,’ Gloria orders but he doesn’t seem to hear, he’s watching Eimear closely.
‘Eimear, tell Kate she did me a favour,’ he intones, like someone’s who’s memorised a lesson. ‘Tell her I can never thank her enough for lying and cheating and opening my eyes to her true character. Tell her I’ve met someone else now, a caring woman who loves me for the man I am, not the man she’d like me to be, and that I’m consumed with bliss.’
He smiles mirthlessly. ‘We’re getting married in a couple of months. Obviously Kate will understand that I can’t invite her. Tell her I hope she finds true happiness herself one day, as I have.’
Eimear stretches out her long legs and stands up. ‘You have to get over her, Pearse.’ She shakes her head. ‘I’ve put Jack behind me, you need to do the same with Kate.’
He rises too.
‘But I have put her behind me; I’ve just told you, I’m getting married.’
‘What you said and what you meant are worlds apart,’ she disagrees. ‘Go home to this woman who loves you and try to deserve her love. Don’t gamble it by chasing over here to let Kate know she’s lost her chance with you. The fact you’re so avid for her to hear you’re marrying someone else speaks volumes.’
‘You’re wrong, you couldn’t be more wrong,’ glowers Pearse. ‘You seem to be implying that I’m still in love with Kate when I’m not.’
‘Pearse,’ snaps Eimear, ‘lie to anybody you like but don’t lie to yourself. Now go away, marry, invent a new life for yourself. Be happy. Naff off out of it like a good lad.’
He does as she suggests, leaving a trail of coconut crumbs in his wake.
‘You said “naff”,’ Gloria challenges her, after they’ve watched from the window, giddy as schoolgirls, while Pearse stomps off. ‘Princess Anne says that.’
‘She said it once to some photographers, we don’t know it’s a daily utterance.’
‘You were magnificent,’ adds Gloria.
‘I know. Kate doesn’t deserve a friend like me.’
‘Will we ring her up and tell her?’
‘What a sensational friend I am?’
‘No, about Our Man in Havana coming around to reveal his nuptial intentions.’ Gloria gloats as she imagines Kate’s reaction. ‘Won’t she relish this: “Tell her I hope she finds true happiness one day, as I have.”’
‘Poor woman.’
‘Kate?’
‘No, the bride-to-be,’ says Eimear.
‘It might work out, you never know. She must have some power over him, Kate could never have persuaded Pearse into a baby blue linen suit,’ Gloria points out.
‘Kate would never have tried.’
‘It looked well on him with his fair hair and the tan, Eimear, apart from the suit being on the crumpled side.’
‘You mean he was on the crumpled side. Kate’s well rid of him, he’s too wrinkly for her.’
‘Let’s ring her now,’ urges Gloria, ‘it’ll be such a hoot.’
Eimear dials but after two shrills, Kate’s answerphone crackles on.
‘She always makes it sound as though she’s off at a rave when she’s not at home, how do you inject such a suggestion of high living into a recorded message?’ grumbles Eimear.
‘Practice,’ Gloria tells her. ‘Do you mind if I ring home? I want to remind Mick to take the casserole out of the freezer, he’ll be so engrossed in the match he’ll have forgotten and it will be midnight before we have any dinner.’
Eimear reaches her the receiver and flops on to the sofa, TV guide in hand. When Mick answers the phone, Gloria can tell immediately he’s been drinking heavily. Her heart sinks: it’s only midday. This means trouble.
CHAPTER 22
Gloria drives home as quickly as she can through the heaving Saturday lunchtime traffic, stomach in knots, ready for the row any fool could detect in Mick’s voice. A bottle of Power’s is sitting on the coffee table in the living room; the cloying scent of whiskey fills the air – Gloria has always deplored Mick’s habit of leaving his bottles uncorked as though he won’t need the cap again. Once a bottle’s opened it’s meant to be finished, that’s his outlook.
The toilet flushes and she hears his footsteps treading heavily overhead. His frame fills the doorway, eyes blinking indignantly. He’s still dressed in the Father Ted T-shirt he wore to bed last night.
‘What have you to say for yourself?’ he challenges Gloria.
‘It’s early in the day for whiskey.’
‘The day is long and so’s the bottle.’ He pushes past and slops a few inches into his glass.
‘I’ll make us some coffee,’ she suggests.
‘There’s no “us” about it.’ He eyes her in a confrontational way.
She retreats. ‘Then I’ll make myself some coffee.’
‘There’s still no “us”, though, is there?’
Gloria can see a vein throbbing on his right temple, the one that always erupts when he’s hitting the bottle.
‘There’s only you and what you want, that’s all that matters, isn’t it, Gloria?’
‘Mick,’ she steels herself to speak mildly, ‘I’m going to make us both a coffee and I’ll rustle up a sandwich for you since you probably haven’t eaten since breakfast, then I’ll come back and we’ll talk through whatever’s troubling you.’
