The Mystery of Mercy Close (13 page)

Once that was done I decided to ring Artie. Then I hesitated. I felt so odd in myself, so disconnected from the world, that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to try talking to him. I didn’t know how normal I’d be able to be and I didn’t want to freak him out.

And what if I did freak him out? What if he couldn’t handle me like this? What would happen to us?

These thoughts were so unpleasant that I decided to play it safe: I’d skip the phone call and maybe talk to him later. But there was nothing good on the net, no exciting celebrity break-ups or meltdowns, so after a few minutes I decided: Ah, to hell, I’ll ring him anyway. He’d just have to learn to put up with me being peculiar.

But after all that, his phone was switched off. Maybe he’d gone for a run. Maybe he was already at work and in a meeting. Maybe he was having quality time with the kids, over a breakfast – pancakes, maybe – that he’d made himself. At the thought of them all sitting round the table with their blueberries and their maple syrup, I was assailed by an unpleasant emotion that I identified as mild jealousy. Tricky business, when your boyfriend was a devoted father. It was definitely a challenge getting my head round the fact that no matter how much Artie might care about me, I’d never really, entirely, be his number one.

Okay, time to focus on something else. I rang Wayne’s mobile again; it was switched off. How about his website – could that give me any clues about the person he was? But it was just a record company template and all of the information was factual – albums he’d released, gigs he’d played, that sort of thing. According to it, he was still planning on playing the MusicDrome next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Well, time would tell.

It was 7.58 a.m., still too early to ring Birdie Salaman, so I looked at scarves on the net while the time inched by painfully slowly. Eventually – eventually! – it was eight thirty, an acceptable time to call someone at home, but after three rings Birdie’s voicemail kicked in. Call-screening? Gone to work? Who knew. I left a message then I took a deep breath and rang Dr Waterbury and prayed that he’d sacked Shannon O’Malley, his receptionist, whom I’d been at school with.

Sadly, she was still there and thrilled to hear from me.
‘Helen Walsh! I was just talking about you the other day! I met Josie Fogarty, she’s got four kids now, and she said, “Do you remember Helen Walsh, wasn’t she mental?” Are you married yet? We must all get together for some vino, a night off from the kids.
Great
to talk to you. How
are
you?’

‘At the peak of my mental and physical health,’ I said. ‘Which is why I’m looking for a doctor’s appointment.’

‘God, you’re hilarious,’ she said. ‘You always were. You just don’t care, do you?’

I’d have to change doctors if I had to go through this rigmarole every time I needed an appointment.

‘I’m just looking at the book here,’ she said. ‘He’s out the door with people today, but I’ll see if I can squeeze you in, as a special favour for an old friend. Give me your number there and I’ll call you back.’

The first time I’d been to see Dr Waterbury had been – I counted in my head – December 2009, two and a half years ago. I’d moved into my new apartment around six months earlier and he was the nearest GP.

Shannon hadn’t been his assistant then. It had been someone else, some woman whom I didn’t know, and I’d had a good long wait, over forty-five minutes. Admittedly, it had been December, peak season for doctors.

When I was finally ushered into the inner sanctum, Dr Waterbury had barely looked up. He was bashing away on his keyboard, being baldy and generally behaving harassed. Despite the baldyness he wasn’t as old as doctors usually were. This I liked. I couldn’t abide older men doctors; they acted like they were God and they’re not any more, not since we can Google our symptoms and do our own diagnoses.

‘Helen … ah … Walsh.’ He clicked away, putting me into his database.

Then he put everything aside, gave me the full eyeball and asked, as if he was really interested, ‘How are you?’

‘You’re the expert,’ I said. ‘You tell me.’ Like, what did he think I was paying him sixty euro for? ‘Here’s what’s going on. I’m waking at 4.44 every morning, I can’t eat proper food – I can’t remember the last time I could stomach chicken – and overnight I’ve stopped caring about the plot of
True Blood
.’

‘Anything else?’

‘I think I have a brain tumour. I think it’s pressing on some part of my brain and sending me a bit odd. Can you send me for a scan?’

‘Dizzy spells? Flashing lights? Impaired vision?’

‘No.’

‘Headaches? Memory lapses? Colour-blindness?’

‘No.’

‘What do you enjoy? What gives you pleasure at the moment?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But that’s normal for me; I’m quite narky by nature.’

‘Nothing at all? Music? Art? What about shoes?’

I was surprised (category: pleasant). ‘Nice one, doc.’ I looked at him in almost-admiration. ‘I do love shoes.’

‘As much as you always have?’

‘Ummm … I always buy myself shoes in December, high sparkly ones for parties and stuff, and now that you mention it, this year I haven’t bothered.’

‘Handbags?’

‘Now you’re just patronizing me.’ Then I realized something. ‘Well … my sister Claire has a new Mulberry bag, it’s sort of grey-black, it’s pony-skin. I wouldn’t expect you to know it, but it’s fabulous and I always borrow her new stuff – you know, without asking, I just take the things out of her bag and put them into my old crappy bag and leave it for her to find and I run off with her new one, like it’s a joke, although I keep the bag as long as I can – and this time I haven’t.’

‘What about work? I see you’re, ah –’ he referred to my
form – ‘a private investigator. God.’ He perked up. ‘That sounds interesting.’

‘That’s what everyone says.’

‘And is it?’

‘Weelll …’ It was a while since I’d been excited at the idea of digging myself into a ditch. In fact my early – forgive me, forgive me –
hunger
seemed to have abated. Fear of poverty rather than love of my job was what had kept me returning calls and showing up for meetings. And after I’d been punched in the stomach a couple of months earlier by a man I was surveilling, I was less confident about spying on badzers.

‘I suppose it must be very stressful,’ he said, surprising me with his insight.

‘Actually, it is.’ The long hours, the tension of never knowing if I was going to get a result or not, the fear for my physical safety, the lack of opportunities to go to the loo – it all added up.

‘Anything else going on for you?’ he asked.

There was one thing and I thought I’d better say it. ‘You know that story that’s all over the news, the four teenagers that were killed in the car crash in Carlow? I know it’s a shameful thing to say, but I wish I’d been one of them.’

He made a note on his pad. ‘Any other suicidal ideation?’

‘What’s suicidal ideation?’

‘What you’ve just said. Having a desire to die, but not necessarily having a plan to bring about your death.’

‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ I said, almost excited at someone putting my strange, frightening thoughts into words. ‘I wish I was dead, but I wouldn’t know how to go about it. Like, I’d love to have an aneurysm.’ Several times a day I willed it to happen; I spoke to the blood vessels in my brain, like people speak to their plants, and urged them to burst. ‘Go on, lads,’ I used to think, trying to fire them up. ‘Do the right thing by me. Burst, burst!’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘It’s very unlikely you have a brain tumour.’

‘You don’t have to humour me. I can take the chemo, I can take the surgery – I don’t care, I just want it sorted.’

‘It sounds to me more like you’re suffering from depression.’

He might as well have said, I think you’re suffering from fairy wings sprouting out of your back.

There was no such thing as depression. We all had days when we felt fat and cold and poor and tired, when the world seemed hostile and rough-edged and when it seemed safer to simply stay in bed. But that was life. It was no reason to take tablets or get time off work, or go into St Teresa’s for a while. Muffins, that was the cure. Muffins and chunky chips and daytime telly and a few rash purchases on ASOS.

In any case, I didn’t feel depressed, I felt more … 
afraid
.

‘I’m going to write you a prescription for antidepressants.’

‘Don’t bother.’

‘Why don’t you take the script anyway? You needn’t fill it if you don’t want to but you have it if you change your mind.’

‘I won’t change my mind.’

Christ, if only I’d known.

While I was waiting for Shannon O’Malley to call me back, I rang Head Candy, the hairdresser’s that Wayne had made three calls to yesterday morning. There was a chance that I’d get the answering machine message again because lots of salons didn’t open until ten or even eleven, but some opened at eight, for people to get their hair blow-dried before work, so maybe I’d get lucky.

Sure enough, some girl answered. ‘Head Candy.’

Then the code of the hairdressers kicked in and she said, ‘Can you hold?’ Before I had a chance to say a word, there was a click and I had to endure ninety seconds of anonymous R’n’B. And the thing was, I knew your woman wasn’t on another call or dealing with a customer, she was just staring into space, clacking her leopard-print nails on the counter, but that’s what happens when you ring a hairdresser’s, right? It’s taboo for them to treat you politely and there’s no way round it; they’ve a protocol as unwavering and sacred as that of the Samurai.

After the correctly insultingly long period of hold had elapsed, she came back. ‘Ya, help you?’ In my head I could vividly see the peacock-blue streak in her meringue-hard, albino-white, twelve-inch high, asymmetrical quiff.

‘You, young lady,’ I flooded my voice with warmth, ‘are currently top of my Shovel List.’ Then I spoke quickly. It’s essential to move with speed when you’ve just dissed someone. Don’t give them any recovery time, that’s the key. ‘Hi, my name is …’ Who would I be today? ‘Ditzy Shankill. Wayne Diffney’s assistant. Wayne has lost his mobile and he thinks he might have left it with you. He was in with you …?’

Come on, meringue-head; tell me if you’ve seen him
.

‘But he didn’t come. No, it’s over there on the other shelf, no, the one up high.’

Clause 14 of the Hairdresser Receptionist Code says that it’s obligatory to carry on a conversation with an embodied person while on the phone to a disembodied one.

‘What? Wayne didn’t come?’

‘That’s forty-five euro. Will you be wanting any products today? No? Laser? No, Wayne made an appointment to see Jenna yesterday at one o’clock, but he didn’t show.’

‘When did he make the appointment?’

‘Just enter your pin there. Yesterday. Eight thirty. Soon as we opened. Wanted to come in right away. Begging, like. Earliest Jenna could do was one o’clock and we had to move things round to fit him in. But then he didn’t come.’

‘Did he ring to cancel?’

‘No. And I got my head bitten off by Jenna. How was I to know? He’s never flaked before.’

‘Was it normal for Wayne to ask for last-minute appointments?’

‘No. Quiet sort of guy. No hassle. Usually.’

‘Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.’

‘Have I?’ She sounded alarmed. Could she get into trouble for that?

Mum had reappeared, trying to persuade me to go to CoffeeNation with her and Dad.

‘No, I’ve a busy morning,’ I said. ‘As well as me going to the doc, Jay Parker will be calling round with a key.’

She went a bit dreamy-eyed. ‘I don’t understand why you and Jay Parker ever split up. You and him were perfect.’

I eyed her coldly. ‘What way perfect?’

‘You’re both … you know … great fun.’ She said this awkwardly. It pained her to say anything nice about any of her offspring. It’s the way of her generation; she wouldn’t
want us getting self-esteem. I think there was a law passed saying Irish mothers could actually be prosecuted if any of their female children exhibited signs of normal self-worth. As it happens, I have plenty of self-esteem, but I had to make my own and if the right people found out I could have got Mum into a lot of bother.

‘I thought you liked Artie.’

After a long pause she said, ‘Artie is his own man.’

‘How have you made that sound like a heinous insult? You mean he doesn’t smarm all over you like Jay Parker does.’

‘We can’t all be charmers.’

‘I said “smarm” not “charm”.’

‘With Artie, well, it’s complicated, isn’t it? With ex-wives that don’t seem very ex to me –’

‘She is ex. She’s entirely ex.’ I worried about many things but unfinished business with Artie and Vonnie was not one of them.

‘But she’s always at their house.’

‘They’re friends, they’re civilized, they’re …’ I struggled to explain. ‘
Middle-class
.’

‘We’re middle-class and we don’t carry on like that.’

‘I think we’re the wrong sort of middle-class. They’re liberal.’

‘No, we’re certainly not liberal.’ She said this with some satisfaction. ‘But with his three children, it’s a lot for you to take on.’

‘I’m not “taking on” anything. I see him; I have lovely sex with him –’

‘Oh!’ she howled, pulling her cardigan over her eyes.

‘Stoppit!’

‘What if you wanted children of your own?’

‘I don’t.’

‘So why would you take on someone else’s kids? Three of them? And one of them a neo-Nazi?’

‘He’s not really a neo-Nazi. I shouldn’t have said that – he just likes their look.’

‘And that young one, Bella. She’s mad about you.’

Bella
was
mad about me.

And that was a concern. I didn’t want anyone to start depending on me.

I checked my emails. Good news and bad news. No, let’s just call it bad news. I’d heard back from my two contacts – which was good – and both of them were refusing to help me – which was obviously bad.

You see, I wasn’t entirely honest with Jay Parker when I said that he’d been watching too many movies. It is
extremely
possible to get access to a person’s private phone records or bank details.