It Could Never Happen Here, page 10
Christine produced a Dictaphone and notebook from her bag. She didn’t really need both, but they were good visual aids to remind people they were talking to a newspaper. ‘Why would you want to remind them?!’ she could practically hear Derek shouting. But Christine, like her daughter, needed a clear conscience to sleep at night.
She pressed record and flipped back the notebook cover.
‘What was the school’s response when you told them about the photo?’
13
••••••
Mrs Rodgers had to bribe Albert with a promise of two more episodes of The Chase to get him to sit still while she ensured he was thoroughly rinsed. She gave him a quick towel-dry and carried him into her bedroom where he stretched out on the eiderdown.
She took a hand mirror from her dressing table and held it up to him. ‘What do you think? New home, new you?’
But Albert just yawned laboriously.
Mrs Rodgers ran her hand along the dressing table and idly picked up the hairdryer. She did a slow, exaggerated yawn of her own, so as not to rouse his suspicion (Albert was a very intelligent animal; he could have been on The Chase, and that show was so rapidly running out of gimmicks that a pets special was only a matter of time), then she pointed the contraption at the cat, pulled the trigger, and blasted him out of it. Albert gave a high-pitched whine and leapt up and out of the room. Mrs Rodgers sighed. It would have to do.
She turned the thing off, just as the doorbell went. Pulling back the net curtain from her bedroom window, she peered down on to the thinning crown of Conor Maguire from number seven.
Mrs Rodgers was surprised to see him back again. They had settled this last night.
She made her way slowly down the stairs, scooping up Albert as she went. Remembering at the last minute to hunch herself forward – frailty was her greatest weapon – she slowly allowed the front door to creak open.
‘Hello?’ she said, forcing her voice to croak. ‘Who goes there?’
‘Conor Maguire, Mrs Rodgers. Sorry to disturb you.’ He was standing on her path, prancing on the spot like a boxer warming up for a fight, except he was wearing slacks and a shirt. ‘I’m here about the cat. I talked to my wife and we’d really like him back, if that’s all right. You see, the kids are missing—’ He stopped jigging. His eyes had dropped to her chest. It was a while since a man’s gaze had rested there. ‘Is that Porcupine?’
She looked down, as if noticing the animal curled up in her arms for the first time. ‘Hmm? Oh, no. This is Albert.’
Albert purred at the sound of his name.
Good cat, thought Mrs Rodgers.
Conor blinked.
‘I haven’t seen your cat in days, I’m afraid. But I will let you know if he comes calling again.’
‘Mrs Rodgers, I was here last night. You had Porcupine then. That is Porcupine.’
‘Al-bert,’ she said, slowly, kindly.
‘What happened to his …?’ Conor’s brow furrowed as he inspected the cat. When he looked at her, his face was flooded with a sort of horrified respect.
She smiled vacantly.
‘Mrs Rodgers … did you dye his fur?’
‘Whose?’
‘Porcupine’s! Our cat. The cat you’re holding!’
‘As I said, I haven’t seen Porcupine. Maybe you should put up some Missing posters? I hear they can be very helpful.’
Conor opened his mouth, but no words came out. It took two more attempts before he spoke, though it was hardly worth the wait. ‘That’s my cat,’ he said meekly. ‘Please give me back my cat.’
‘This is Albert,’ she said again, patiently, though she needed to get back inside. It was chilly and Albert was still damp. Plus, it had been at least forty minutes since his last meal. ‘Albert is my cat. I suppose he does look a little like Porcupine, but you couldn’t get them confused, not really. Albert’s fur is so distinctive, with this big patch of black on his back. See?’ She nodded down to the animal, then looked back up at Conor. He had reverted to opening and closing his mouth.
She hoped he wouldn’t cry. Animals were very sensitive to human emotions.
‘If Porcupine has any similarly distinctive features, it might be an idea to mention them on the poster. You’re a dentist. Maybe you noticed something unusual about his teeth?’
Albert purred, more insistently this time.
He was right, of course. It was getting late, and she had promised him two more episodes before bed.
‘Well, thank you for the visit, Conor dear, and best of luck with the cat. Tell the children I was asking for them, and Christine. I do hope they’re not working her too hard at the paper. Busy, busy!’
..................
They were wrapping up the interview when Beverley heard Ella’s old Peugeot sputtering its way up their porcelain-paved driveway. They had offered to buy her a new car, as a reward for doing so well in her exams, but she had taken her grandmother’s banger instead. This had succeeded in pissing off both parents: Malachy because he did not like having a piece of junk in his driveway, and Beverley because it was a constant reminder of the close relationship Ella had with her mother, and not with her. She gave her girls everything she never had, and Ella just kept finding new ways to throw it back in her face.
Beverley picked up Christine’s cup, and her own. She was halfway to the sink when she realised the journalist still had coffee left. But she couldn’t bring them back; she’d look ridiculous. She was never at ease when an outsider was in her home, even though she’d spent years getting it just right for showing off. It was a hangover from childhood.
Her jitters were not helped by the fact that Christine was the only person from school who’d ever been in her house as a child. And of course, she’d had to be there for dinner.
Beverley’s dad was constantly making comments about her mother’s weight: lamenting that she was ‘too good a cook’ in front of strangers and calling her an embarrassment in front of the kids. But mealtimes were the worst part of Beverley’s childhood. When her mother was eating, he said nothing. He would lay his own cutlery to one side, making it clear her consumption had his undivided attention. He refused to eat a morsel until she was done. He just sat there watching her. Beverley had watched too, not out of meanness, but because he made it seem so enthralling. Her mother never lifted her eyes from her plate. The day Christine came for dinner she’d insisted they eat in her bedroom, but she was sure she’d noticed anyway. How could she not?
Ella strolled into the kitchen, tapping away on her phone. Beverley carefully moulded her lips into a smile: not too wide as to be needy, but not too tight as to be antagonistic. She never knew where she stood with her eldest daughter these days, and she did not want to have an argument in front of someone whose only familial complaint was that her daughter confided in her too much.
That had been a humble brag worthy of Lorna Farrell.
‘Hello, darling,’ said Beverley. ‘How was college?’
Ella looked up from the screen and, though it took her a second, she returned the smile. If nothing else, the Franklins knew how to keep up appearances.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Grand.’ She looked at Christine. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ the woman replied, raising a hand. Ella’s gaze lingered on the Dictaphone.
‘Ella, this is Christine Maguire. She’s a journalist with the Southern Gazette.’ Her daughter’s face remained blank. ‘That’s the local paper. You know newspapers, darling? The physical things with words printed on them.’ She’d meant it to sound jovial, a little ribbing, but playful was not a tone she excelled at. ‘And Christine, this is my elder daughter, Ella. She’s studying psychology at UCC.’
‘I know what newspapers are, Bev. You’ve shown me your scrapbook enough times, all those articles from your time as an actor that never actually mention your acting.’
Beverley held on to her smile. ‘It’s not a scrapbook, darling,’ she said, with just a hint of a warning. ‘It’s a few cuttings I happened to hang on to.’
‘And laminate,’ Ella muttered. ‘Are you writing something about Bev?’ she asked, louder. ‘Has she told you about the time she nearly got Minnie Driver’s part in Circle of Friends, but the director said she was too young and too thin?’
It was actually the casting director – her agent had been far too lazy to get her in front of the actual director – and those hadn’t been his exact words, but years of auditions had taught Beverley to read between the lines.
‘Christine is writing about Glass Lake and its complete rejection of any responsibility for how its students communicate with each other.’
‘Is this about Amelia’s nude?’
Beverley’s nose wrinkled.
Still, at least ‘nude’ was better than ‘pic’, or indeed ‘dick pic’.
‘Yes. Although I’m an anonymous source – so you never saw Christine here, all right? And we will not be naming Amelia’ – she turned to the journalist for confirmation – ‘and you’re not to tell anyone else about what happened.’
‘Just the newspapers.’
‘It’s anonymous.’
‘Nothing’s anonymous in Cooney,’ said Ella, pulling open the fridge.
The strained relationship with her eldest daughter pained Beverley more than she cared to admit. Ella had once referred to her mother as her best friend. That changed when she hit adolescence, which was fine, Beverley knew the importance of letting your children be who they wanted to be. She’d thought they’d have more time together after she left Southern Pharmaceuticals, but the sporadic bickering and animosity had only got worse. At first, she worried her daughter had been traumatised by that horrific car crash. Ella was in the same year as the boys and it must have been quite the shock to attend the funeral of a classmate. She had been friendly with Leo Patterson, and Beverley half-thought they’d been dating. She hadn’t minded. It was slim pickings in Cooney and the son of a school principal and an accountant was at least a respectable first boyfriend. Anyway, Ella had laughed at the suggestion. They weren’t even that friendly any more, she’d said. But if it wasn’t the crash, then what was it? What had turned her into an argumentative teenager at the very point she should have been exiting that phase?
‘So not a word to anyone else,’ repeated Beverley. ‘Got that, Ella?’
‘Mmm.’ Her daughter’s head disappeared into the fridge. ‘Except Granny.’
‘No, including Granny.’
‘Yeah, well, too late. I already told her.’
‘What?’
Beverley brought her hand down hard on the marble worktop and waited for her daughter to show herself.
‘You know, I think I have everything, so I can just—’
‘Don’t go on my behalf,’ said Ella, emerging with a yoghurt, and speaking to Christine as if she was the only person in the room. ‘I’m going upstairs now.’
‘Ella Belle Franklin. What do you mean you told Granny?’
‘I rang to wish her happy birthday, which I hear is more than you did.’ Ella opened the yoghurt and slurped a bit from the carton. She did this to annoy her. Beverley resisted the urge to throw a spoon at the ingrate. Ella shrugged. ‘Granny asked.’
‘My mother asked if Amelia had sent any naked photos lately?’
‘No,’ said Ella, heading for the door. ‘She asked how Amelia was, so I told her.’
‘You couldn’t just have said “Fine”, no? You had to …’ From the corner of her eye, she could see Christine starting to gather her belongings. She still had to ask about copy approval and to see if they could get some vague reference to the boy’s ‘troubled family background’ or how the family was ‘known to gardaí’ into the piece. ‘We’ll talk about this later, Ella.’
‘Whatever you say, Bev,’ sang her daughter, as she swung out of the door, and disappeared back into the foyer.
14
••••••
‘Arlo? Is that you?’
He followed his mother’s voice into the living room where the Nine O’Clock News was on mute. The house was always quiet now. Connie Whitehead was sitting on the couch, remote by her side and mobile in her hand.
‘Hi, Mom.’
‘How was today?’
‘Long,’ he said, throwing himself down beside her. ‘And grand,’ he added. ‘Today was grand.’
It actually had been. He’d had an easy introduction to Glass Lake. Seamus had given him the tour and Principal Patterson hadn’t been mentioned let alone sighted. Fiona Murphy’s was a bit awkward but she’d added a sizeable tip. He’d had two jobs outside the town after that; neither family seemed to have feelings on him one way or the other.
‘How was your day?’ he asked. ‘How was work?’
‘Work was fine.’
His mother was a teller in a bank on Main Street. Arlo had wanted her to ask for a backroom position after the car crash, but she refused. She said people were welcome to bad-mouth her husband; she’d probably agree with them. But it wasn’t just Charlie Whitehead they bad-mouthed. After the trial, a man had come in, thrown a carton of eggs at her counter and demanded to know when she was going to get the fuck out of Cooney. Arlo only knew about it because the man, an uncle of Mike’s, had come up to him in Connolly’s and gloated about what he’d done. His mother hadn’t said a word, which made him wonder what else she didn’t tell him.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really,’ she said, throwing an arm around his shoulders. ‘I had a call from Glass Lake, though …’
Had he done something wrong? Had someone complained? Surely, they wouldn’t ring his mother. He was eighteen. If Seamus had a problem—
‘… about Woody.’
‘Oh, right.’ But the relief was short-lived. ‘What about Woody? Is he okay?’
‘He’s been sending naked photos of himself to a girl in his class. And this girl has been sending them back to him. Amelia Franklin, you know, of the Franklins.’ His mother shook her head. ‘I’ve to go in and talk to Nuala tomorrow, which, you know, is not ideal, but it’s fine.’ She looked at him. ‘Arlo, it’s fine.’ This was how it worked now; both trying to make the other feel better, both failing miserably.
‘Amelia Franklin?’ He hadn’t spoken to Ella since he left that morning. He’d barely looked at his phone. But the clogs were turning now, things slipping into place. ‘How did the school find out?’
Connie sighed. ‘Well, that bit’s even worse. The girl’s mother walked in on her taking a picture. A picture of herself, like.’ She winced. ‘God help me, but the first thing I thought was, Rather her than me. Can you imagine if I’d walked in on Woody doing the same? Mother of Jesus. Anyway, Beverley – you know Beverley Franklin? – was beside herself, which is fair enough. And she went up to the school.’
His mother didn’t know about him and Ella, but for different reasons to the Franklins. Her husband had just been sent to jail and he didn’t want to rub her nose in his happiness. Or at least that was how he’d reasoned it to Ella. He also liked having another world to escape to, one that was just for him, one where he didn’t have to feel bad whenever he started to feel good.
‘Did this all happen today?’ asked Arlo, recalling the argument between Amelia and Beverley that morning.
‘This morning. And I’ve talked to Woody, before you start. I’ve taken his phone off him. George says he’s probably just acting out, missing his father’s influence. He’s offered to take him fishing or hiking or on some other male-bonding activity.’
‘George from the bank?’
‘My friend George, yes.’
‘He doesn’t even know Woody.’
‘It was just a suggestion.’
‘I can take Woody fishing.’
His mother gave him a look. ‘Since when do you fish?’
‘Since now, if it’s what Woody needs.’
‘George and I are just friends, Arlo.’
‘I know,’ he said defensively.
‘George is happily married. Very happily.’
‘So are you.’
A beat. ‘Right.’
‘I’m going up to talk to Woody,’ he declared, sounding more confident than he felt. He was no longer sure how to speak to Woody. As a brother? As a father? As a friend? ‘Is he in his room?’
‘He is.’ Connie watched her eldest son make his way towards the door. He was never comfortable being observed.
He could smell his own stale sweat. If he stank last night, he really stank now. He desperately needed a shower.
‘There’s a letter for you on the kitchen table. From your dad.’
‘Did you open it?’
‘No, I did not open your post.’ Her gaze drifted back to the muted screen, where a beaming weather forecaster was now standing beside a massive map of Ireland. ‘I just assume he’s the only person writing to you from Cork Prison.’
Arlo moved out into the hallway. He didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken.
‘You don’t have to visit, whatever he says,’ she called after him. ‘You don’t owe him anything. None of us do.’
..................
‘So, you want to report a missing cat?’
‘No, not missing,’ said Christine, pacing the kitchen with her mobile stuck to her ear. ‘Abducted. He’s not missing because I know exactly where he is. He’s at number one Seaview Terrace, probably stretched out on the couch, licking himself.’
Conor looked up from his seat at the dining table, where he’d been nursing a tumbler of whiskey since she’d arrived home from the Franklins’ and poured it for him. He had relayed his latest attempt to retrieve their cat like a soldier detailing atrocities witnessed at the front.
