Emma Donoghue Two-Book Bundle (22 page)

Niniane had always thought her brother liked her. But how little he knew of her any more. He’d been away for her breakup with Mark, and her promotion, and that time she had the ovarian cyst and for a month thought she was dying. Whereas, to give them their due, her parents had always been there. Sunday after Sunday. Always on the same sofa in the same front room in the same terraced house on the same street in Limerick, the same sofa both she and Arthur had clung to when they were learning to walk. Her father getting balder and more taciturn, her mother rather more irritable since her hip operation, but both still there, in their places. And so was Niniane. Her own job, her own flat, but a daughter still, a daughter till the end.

She put her few possessions in her bag and went outside to hail a taxi.

The worst pictures always came when she was only half awake, or stuck in traffic. Arthur in prison, crouched in the corner of a cell. Arthur shooting up in an alley, his hairless arms pockmarked with holes. Arthur hawking himself on a street corner, bony with disease. What was it, his mystery? What was so bad that he couldn’t lift the phone?

It occurred to her for the first time that he was dead. Doris Day’s only brother died of epilepsy when she was thirty-three. These things happened. Was that relief Niniane felt, that curious surge in her throat? It couldn’t be. She felt sick with shame. She pressed her face against the sweaty glass of the cab window.

Light-headed, she walked through the white corridors of LA Self-Storage. Fluorescent strips crackled overhead. The only sound was the pant of the air-conditioning. She thought if she turned a corner and bumped into a stranger she might scream. But who else would come here on a Sunday evening? She whispered the chorus of ‘Hotel California’ to give herself courage. This place was like a prison for misbehaving furniture.

She came to 2011 at last; it looked like all the other doors. The key was in her hand. What could furniture tell her? Arthur always had good taste, but there wouldn’t be some vault of treasures. There wouldn’t be a film of the missing years.

For a moment, as she slid the key into the door, she hoped it wouldn’t open.

Niniane felt for the light switch and flicked it on. The locker was about ten by ten by ten feet of nothing. She stepped in, as if to search the bare corners. Nothing at all. She shut the door behind her back and for a moment feared she’d locked herself in. She was more alone than she’d ever been. There weren’t even gaps in the dust to hint at whatever Arthur had once kept here; not even the marks of his size-thirteen feet from the day he must have taken it all away.

Niniane let herself slide down the door till she was sitting on her heels. She began to cry, slow and grudging, like loosening a tooth. The hard walls multiplied her breath. In between sobs she kept listening for footsteps.

At the pay phone, various options ran through her head as the receiver played ‘Greensleeves’ in her ear, but each seemed more improbable than the last. If she missed this flight home, she had no way of paying for another. If she went to the police, they would look embarrassed for her and tell her to come back with some evidence that a crime had been committed. No known associates. No last address.

‘But I’m his sister, I swear,’ she told the voice at the other end of the phone. ‘You must still have his address, because he’s paying for one of your storage lockers, he must be, or else you’d have changed the lock, wouldn’t you?’

The voice sounded computer-generated.

‘Will you at least take my address in Ireland?’ she butted in. ‘Just in case. I don’t know, in case he ever stops paying or something. I’m his sister,’ she repeated, like a bad actress from a soap. ‘He’d want me to know where he was.’

Which was a lie, she thought, as she jammed the phone onto the hook. She had no idea what Arthur wanted. Most likely she would never find out if the empty locker meant that he was dead, with his bank account slowly draining, or that he was living high on a hill with all his chairs and lamps around him, rich enough not to mind paying for an empty locker, too careless to remember where he had left the key.

‘The airport, now, please,’ she repeated to the taximan, who was barely visible behind the smoked glass. Niniane lay back against the sticky leather and let the traffic draw her into its slipstream. LIVE NUDE GIRLS, said a neon sign, NOW HIRING. Now there would be a quick way to change her life.

The sky was full of planes, crisscrossing like fireflies. In the far distance she caught a glimpse of the famous white letters lit up on the hill. If she hadn’t known they said
Hollywood
she would have had no idea:
No Food
, she would have read, maybe, or
Hullaballoo
, or
Home Now.

At the airport, Niniane was told that her bag had just arrived from Pittsburgh. She stood in line to pick it up, then queued again to check it in for Shannon. In Duty Free, she bought her parents a $19.95 gilt Oscar that had a hopeful, dazed expression. She would bring it over next Sunday. It would give them something to talk about so they wouldn’t have to talk about Arthur. She would see it on the mantelpiece every Sunday for the rest of her parents’ lives, and someday she would have to decide whether to give it to Oxfam with the rest of their stuff or take it home and put it on her own mantelpiece.

She had a window seat. All night she stared out at darkness or read Proust. When the sun came up over Shannon, hurting her eyes, she had finally got as far as the bit about the madeleine.

The American pilot announced that they would be landing momentarily. Niniane’s head shot up out of her doze; for a second, she misunderstood his use of the word and believed him, thought the plane was only going to dip down like a bird onto the runway, gather strength for a moment, then wing away to somewhere else entirely.

When she emerged from Customs there were people waiting with cardboard signs held against their chests like X-rays. None of them had her name on. Trunks and totes spilled along the conveyor belt, climbing over each other at corners. She edged into the crowd, watching the procession of bags. A sign over the conveyor belt said in red letters,
ALL BAGGAGE LOOKS THE SAME. BE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR OWN.

May blew smoke out of the car window.

Her younger sister made an irritated sound between her teeth.

‘I’m blowing it away from you,’ May told her.

‘It comes right back in,’ said Martie. She leaned her elbows on the steering wheel and looked through the darkness between the streetlamps. ‘You told him to be at the corner of Fourth and Leroy at two, yeah?’

May inhaled, ignoring the question.

‘Fifteen’s way too young to go to clubs,’ observed Martie, tucking her hair behind one ear.

‘I don’t know,’ said May thoughtfully. ‘You’re not even eighteen yet and you’re totally middle-aged.’

That was an old insult. Martie rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, well Laz is so immature. Dad shouldn’t let him start clubbing yet, that’s all I’m saying. When I heard Laz asking him, on the phone, I said let me talk to Dad, but he hung up.’

May flicked the remains of her cigarette into the gutter. Somewhere close by a siren yowled.

Martie was peering up at a dented sign. ‘It says “No Stopping,” but I can’t tell if it applies when it’s two a.m. Do you think we’ll get towed?’

‘Not as long as we’re sitting in the car,’ said her elder sister, deadpan.

‘If the traffic cops come by, I could always drive round the block.’

May yawned.

‘I guess Dad was feeling guilty about being away for Laz’s birthday, so that’s why he said he could go clubbing,’ said Martie.

‘Yeah, well the man’s always feeling guilty about something.’

Martie gave her big sister a wary look. ‘It’s not easy,’ she began, ‘it can’t be easy for Dad, holding everything together.’

‘Does he?’ asked May.

‘Well, we all do. I mean, he may not do the cooking and laundry and stuff, but he’s still in charge. And it’s hard when he’s got to be on the road so much—’

‘Oh, right, yeah, choking down all those Texas sirloins, I weep for him.’

‘He’s not in Texas,’ said Martie, ‘he’s in New Mexico.’

May got out another cigarette, contemplated it, then shoved it back in the box.

‘Are you still thinking of giving up the day after your twenty-first?’ asked Martie.

‘Not if you remind me about it even one more time.’ May combed her long pale hair with both hands.

Silence fell, at least in the old Pontiac. Outside the streets droned and screamed in their nighttime way.

‘Actually, I don’t think Laz gives a shit that Dad’s away for his birthday,’ remarked May at last. ‘I wouldn’t have, when I was his age. Normal fifteen-year-olds don’t want to celebrate with their parents, or go on synchronized swimming courses or whatever it was you did for your fifteenth.’

‘Life Saving,’ Martie told her coldly.

‘The boy wants to go to some under-eighteens hiphop juice-bar thing where they won’t even sell him a Bud, that doesn’t seem like a problem to me, except that he better get his ass in gear,’ said May, slapping the side of the car, ‘because I’ve got a party to go to.’

‘I said you should have called a cab.’

‘I’m broke till payday. Besides, Dad only lets you use the car when he’s away so long as you give me and Laz rides.’

‘You could use it yourself if you’d take some lessons,’ Martie pointed out.

‘There’s no point learning to drive in New York,’ said May witheringly. ‘Besides, next year I’ll be off to Amsterdam and it’s all bikes there.’

‘Motorbikes?’

‘No, just bicycles.’

Martie’s eyebrows went up. ‘What are you going to do in Amsterdam?’

‘I don’t know. Hang out. It’s just a fabulous city.’

‘You’ve never been,’ Martie pointed out.

‘I’ve heard a lot about it.’

Martie tapped a tune on the steering wheel. ‘It’ll be weird if you go.’

‘Not if. When.’

‘When, then.’

May yawned. ‘You’re always complaining I never clean up round the apartment.’

‘Yeah, but when you’re gone, there’ll still be Laz, and his mess will probably expand to fill the place.’

‘Oh, admit it,’ said May, ‘you love playing Martyr Mommie.’

Martie gave her elder sister a bruised look. Then she scanned the street again, on both sides, as if their brother might be s
lurking in the shadows. ‘This thing you’re going to tonight,’ she said, ‘is it a dyke party?’

Her sister sighed. ‘It’s just a party. With some dykes at it. I hope.’

‘Is Telisse going?’

‘I don’t know. She’s not really doing the dyke thing any more, anyway.’

‘Oh.’

‘Why,’ her sister teased her, ‘did you like Telisse?’

‘No, I just thought you did,’ said Martie stiffly. She checked her watch in the yellow streetlight. ‘Come on, Laz,’ she muttered. ‘I bet he’s doing this deliberately. Testing our limits.’

‘God, you’re so parental,’ May hooted. ‘No wonder Laz hates you.’

‘He does not.’

‘He so does! He’s always telling you to get off his case. “Get her off my fuckin’ case, May!” he says to me.’ May’s imitation of her brother’s voice was gruff with testosterone.

‘He doesn’t mean he hates me,’ said Martie. ‘He doesn’t actually hate any of us.’

May groaned and shifted in her seat, leaned her head back, and shut her eyes. ‘G’night, Ma Walton …’

The minutes lengthened. Martie stared into the rearview mirror. A truck went by slowly, picking up garbage bags. ‘We could call Laz on your cell phone,’ she said, ‘except he probably wouldn’t hear it over the music. Maybe I should go in and look for him,’ she added under her breath. ‘Or no, I can’t leave the car, in case it needs to be moved. Maybe you should go.’

Her sister gave no sign of hearing that.

‘There he is.’ Martie threw open the door in relief. ‘Laz!’

The boy was stumbling a little, head down.

‘Come
on,
’ she cried. ‘We’ve been waiting. May’s got a party to get to.’

‘What do you know, the boy is wasted,’ said May in amusement, turning her head as Laz struggled to fold his long legs into the backseat.

‘He couldn’t be,’ Martie told her, ‘it was a juice bar.’

May giggled. ‘Now there’s a first.
Teens Gain Access to Alcoholic Beverage!
’

‘Okay, okay,’ said Martie, starting the car with a rumble. ‘Laz, are you in? Your seat belt.’ She waited.

‘Can we just drive?’ asked May.

‘Anyone who doesn’t wear a seat belt is a human missile,’ Martie quoted. ‘If I had to slam on the brakes suddenly, he could snap your neck.’

‘Oh Jesus, I’ll snap yours in a minute if you don’t get going. Laz!’ snapped May, turning to face her brother. ‘Get your belt on now.’

He grinned at her, his eyes drowned in his dark hair. His fingers fumbled with the catch of the seat belt.

The car moved off at last. ‘Good night, was it?’ May asked over her shoulder at the next traffic light.

The only answer was the sound of retching.

‘For god’s sake,’ wailed Martie, taking a sharp right. ‘Not on the seat covers!’

But the noises got worse.

‘That’s really vile,’ said May, breathing through her mouth as she rolled down her window as far as it would go.

‘Are you all right now?’ Martie asked her brother, peering in the mirror. ‘Do you want a Kleenex?’ But he had slid down, out of sight. She wormed one hand into the back of the car, grabbed his knee. ‘Sit up, Laz.’

‘Leave him alone for a minute, why can’t you?’

‘May, he could choke on his own vomit.’

‘You’re being hysterical.’

Martie twisted round again. ‘I said sit up now!’

‘OK, pull over,’ said May, for once sounding like the eldest.

‘But—’

‘You’re going to crash. Stop the car.’

Martie bit her lip and braked beside a fire hydrant.

May got out and slammed her own door. She opened the one behind and bent in. ‘Laz?’

No answer.

She pulled him upright, wiped his mouth with his own sleeve. ‘He stinks.’ After a long minute, she said, in a different voice, ‘I think he may be on something.’

‘On something?’

‘Laz? Wake up! Did you take something?’

‘Like what? Like what?’ repeated the younger sister, her hands gripping the steering wheel.

‘Oh, Martie, I don’t even know the names for what kids are taking these days. Laz!’ May shouted, trying to lift his left eyelid.

The boy moaned something.

Martie let go of the wheel and started scrabbling in her sister’s bag. ‘Where’s your phone, May? I’m going to call 911.’

May climbed over her brother’s legs and wrenched the passenger door shut. ‘Are you kidding? Do you know how long they take to respond? We’ll be faster driving to Emergency.’

‘Which? Where?’

‘I don’t know, try St Jude’s.’

‘You’ll have to navigate for me,’ stammered Martie.

‘I’m busy holding Laz’s head out of this pool of vomit,’ said May, shrill. ‘Just go down Fourth; there’ll be signs on Thirtieth. Move it!’

Martie drove above the speed limit for the first time in her life. Laz didn’t make a sound. May gripped him hard.

‘You should be talking to him,’ Martie told her, at a red light. ‘Keep him awake.’

‘I don’t think he is awake.’

‘Is he asleep? He could be asleep.’

‘He’s out of it; he’s unconscious,’ snapped her sister.

‘Is his windpipe open? Check his pulse.’

‘I can’t tell.’ May was gripping her brother’s limp wrist. ‘There’s a pulse but I think it’s mine.’

The light was still red. ‘Let me.’ Martie burst open her seat belt, squeezed one knee through the gap between the seats. ‘Laz?’ she shouted, pressing her fingers against the side of her brother’s damp throat.

‘Shouldn’t you—’

‘Shut up. I’m listening.’

Silence in the car, except for a little wheeze in Martie’s breathing. She put her ear against her brother’s mouth, as if she was asking for a kiss. Then the car behind sounded its horn, and Martie jerked back so fast she hit her head on the roof. ‘He’s not—’

‘What? What?’

More horns blared. ‘Green,’ roared May, blinking at the lights, and Martie slammed the car into drive.

‘I think it fucked him up when Mom went off,’ said May. The sisters were sitting on the end of a row of orange seats in the Emergency waiting area, their legs crossed in opposite directions. ‘They say the younger you are when something like that happens, the more it messes up your head.’

‘That’s garbage,’ said Martie unsteadily, examining her cuticles. ‘Laz was too young; he wasn’t even three. He doesn’t remember Mom being at home; he doesn’t know what she looked like apart from photos.’

‘He must remember her being missing,’ May pointed out. ‘You do.’

‘That’s different. I was five.’ Elbows on her knees, Martie stared up at the wall, where a sign said UNNECESSARY NOISE PROHIBITED.

‘That first couple of years, when all Dad fed us was out of cans—’

‘She had postpartum depression that never got diagnosed,’ Martie put in. ‘That’s what Dad says.’

After a second, May shrugged.

‘What does that mean?’ Martie imitated the shrug.

‘Well yeah, that’s what Dad
would
say,’ said May. ‘He’d have to say something. He couldn’t just tell us, “Hey kids, your mom took off for no reason.”’ May pulled out her cigarettes. ‘I mean, we could all have something
undiagnosed,
’ she added scornfully.

Martie pointed at the NO SMOKING sign.

‘I know. I know. I’m just seeing how many I’ve got left. What’s taking them so long? You’d think at least they could tell us what’s going on,’ barked May in the direction of the reception desk.

Her younger sister watched her.

‘At the hotel, did they say where Dad was?’

Martie shook her head. ‘Just that he wasn’t back yet. They’ll give him our message as soon as he comes in.’

‘He’s probably boinking some Texan hooker.’

‘He’s in New Mexico,’ said Martie furiously, ‘and you can just shut up. You don’t know why Mom left any more than any of us – you were only eight,’ she added after a second. ‘I think it makes sense that she was depressed.’

‘Well sure, it must have been pretty depressing pretending to be our mom if all the time she was longing to take off and never see us again.’

‘I hate it when you talk like that,’ said Martie through her teeth.

No answer.

‘You think you’re so savvy about the ways of the whole, like, world, when really you’re just bitter and twisted.’

May raised her eyes to heaven.

The woman behind the reception desk called out a name, and Martie jumped to her feet. Then she sat down again. ‘I thought she said Laurence. Laurence Coleman.’

‘No, it was something else.’

‘I forgot to get milk,’ said Martie irrelevantly. ‘Unless you did?’

May shook her head.

‘Laz didn’t eat any dinner. I kept some couscous for him to microwave, but he didn’t want it; he said it looked gross.’ Martie put her face in her hands.

‘Take it easy,’ said her sister.

‘They say if there’s nothing lining the stomach …’

‘He probably got some fries on the way to the club. I bet he had a burger and fries,’ said May.

Martie spoke through her fingers. ‘What could he have taken?’

‘Nothing expensive,’ said May. ‘He’s always broke.’

‘I just wish we knew, you know, why he did it.’

‘Oh, don’t start the whole eighth-grade lecture on self-esteem and peer pressure,’ snapped May. ‘Look, everyone takes something sometime in their life.’

‘You just say that because you did. Do,’ added Martie, her cheeks red. ‘It just better not have been you who gave it to him.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ barked May. A woman with a child asleep on her stomach stared at them, and May brought her voice down. ‘I would never. I don’t do anything scary and if I did I wouldn’t give it to my moronic kid brother.’

‘You can’t know what’s scary,’ said Martie miserably. ‘People can die after half an ecstasy tablet.’

May let out a scornful puff of breath. ‘They said he was fitting. Having fits, in the cubicle. E doesn’t give you fits.’

Her sister sat hunched over. ‘You know when she asked us about our insurance provider?’

‘Yeah. Thank god Dad’s got family coverage in this job, at least.’

‘No, but I think she was calling them, the insurance people. She picked up the phone. Why would she call them right away?’