The Other Ida (7 page)

“Were they all that bad?”

“I've got unexpectedly high standards, I'll have you know. Anyway, I'm talking bollocks and I'm pissed. It's been a long day.”

“Not at all, you're bloody funny,” said Tom, putting away a saucepan. “You should write that story down. My mate's got this fanzine, well, more of a magazine; there are book reviews, not only music stuff, and some weird short stories. You could write something for that.”

“Bah. I spend too much time drinking. Don't tell Alice I said that.”

“That doesn't need to be all you do. I'm in a band. We're rubbish, but it's fun.”

“Yeah, everyone's got bloody interests,” Ida said, “everyone except me.”

He paused. “Shit, I'm so sorry. I'm not having a go at you. I don't even know you. And your mother's just died. I'm trying so hard to keep Alice going that I forgot it's not my job to help you too.”

There was something so earnest, so open about him, that Ida spontaneously squeezed his arm. “Thank you,” she said.

There was a bang from the hall as the sitting room door slammed. “Right, that's it for now,” Alice shouted, “I've had it, let's go to bed. Two of them say they can't come because they're ‘under the weather'. Somehow I don't think they're as ‘under the weather' as Ma was. I nearly pointed that out to them.” She appeared in the doorway. “Leave the rest of the washing up, we can do it tomorrow.”

“Sweetness, you look knackered,” said Tom, stepping towards Alice, hugging her and kissing her forehead. “Let's get you upstairs.”

Ida looked away.

“And Uncle Peter wasn't in,” Alice said as she left. “You get to call him tomorrow.”

Ida slept through her alarm.

“Shit,” she said to herself.

She'd fully intended to help out this morning, to try and show that she was capable and mature. Inexplicably she felt angry with her sister, as if she'd been tricked into failure. Sitting up, she saw there was a note under the door.

Morning Ida.

Could you please do some stuff around the house? Cleaning? We're going to need to sort through Mum's things too as I want to sell the house as soon as poss. Could you make a start? Please put anything you might want to keep to one side so I have a chance to look at it too. There's a list on the back of this note of people who need to be called – their numbers are in the book.

PLEASE HELP. I'M SICK OF FIGHTING BUT I REALLY NEED HELP! Al x

Ida turned the note over.

Margot

Dianne

Julie and James

Uncle Peter

Ida sat on the sofa, flicking through her mother's address book. It was virtually incomprehensible, full of crossings-out, and Ida noticed how like her own spidery writing her mother's had been. In some places there were notes about people: ‘wonderful actress' or ‘total prick', making Ida laugh. Still, she held the book at a distance, as if she were holding something precious but vaguely nasty you might find in a museum. It was interesting to see all the names she didn't recognise, next to long defunct dialling codes. Who were all these people that her mother had once had a reason to call? It made her realise how little she really knew about her ma.

Ida stared at the phone. She hadn't spoken to Elliot since she'd arrived and ached for him to ring. There was no way for her to contact him – it had been months since his phone had been cut off – so all she could do was wait.

It wasn't only because she loved him so much, there was more to it than that. She was desperate to speak to someone who understood her, someone normal, who got up late and got wasted and forgot to wash their hair. She tried hard to put aside the other constant worries she felt about Elliot, that he'd take too much, or take something bad, or get beaten up for unpaid debts. She hoped somebody would have got in touch if something like that had happened.

The phone was an old fashioned one with a circular dial, and she misdialled Peter's number four times.

“054,” said a young-ish man, to Ida's surprise.

“Oh, hello, can I speak to Peter please? It's Ida Irons.”

“Ida! The famous Ida! I'll get him, so sorry about your mum, I'm Jonathon, his friend. One mo.”

There was rustling then some distant shouts and then a deep, older voice.

“My darling, darling, fabulous thing – Princess of Bournemouth! How are you sweetheart? Crying into your wine or ‘Ding Dong the Witch is Dead'?”

“Neither really.”

“Oh it will come, you mark my words. Now, when do I need to come down? And where shall I stay? John's working but I'll be there. We've been praying all over the shop, me and John, and had a mass said at St. Mary's.”

“It's on Tuesday. You can come down whenever though. And stay here of course, we'll find room. I can't wait to see you. Oh Peter, you couldn't just talk to me, for a bit, about any old crap? Make me laugh.”

When she put down the phone she noticed a pain in her side. She decided she must be hungry and put the list on the floor. Breakfast first; the rest of the calls could wait.

For a full forty-five minutes Ida stood outside her mother's bedroom, staring at the unmade bed and rubbish-strewn floor through the foot-wide crack in the door. She couldn't go in. The thought of it made her exhausted and then panicky – it would be like cleaning her own room times fifty and she couldn't face it, not yet. She would clean the bathroom, cut the grass, vacuum the house, anything, except sorting out that room. Alice could do the sentimental stuff; she actually enjoyed sentimental stuff. She would let Alice boss her around as much as she wanted to if she would let her off the grown up jobs and give her some clear instruction. Ida was disorganised, she was scatterbrained, she was ruthless and lazy, and drunk. Why would Alice want her to sort through her mother's room? She'd be sure to do it all wrong.

But she couldn't quite stop staring inside. Somewhere in that room there were important things. Her mother rarely threw anything away and Ida knew that somewhere there'd be a draft of the play, or a notebook that Ida could turn into something for
The Guardian
culture bit at the very least. ‘Ida – the true story', or ‘The Elusive Bridie Adair'.

There might be other things too, personal stuff. Little bits of information she could piece together for herself, to make more sense of her strange, solitary ma.

And even though she tried not to care, maybe it would be interesting to work out why her mother had written one strange, violent play, and nothing ever again.

“That was awful. The man was a total weirdo,” said Alice as she stood in the doorway, watching Ida scrub the sides of the bath. It was so old the enamel had gone, leaving it rough with bare patches of metal in places, and Ida was having a hard time getting it clean.

“Well he would be, wouldn't he, he dresses corpses for a living.”

Alice hesitated. “If you want any proper input let me know. It's going to be pretty simple. I thought I'd put her in her nice cotton nightdress with a rosary…” she waited for Ida to reply but she carried on scrubbing. “Anyway, thanks for doing the cleaning. Did you start on Mum's room?”

“No. Not yet. I'm not sure I'm the best person to do it. I'll do other stuff, tidying and whatever.”

“Please help me. I can't do it on my own. And, I know you'll laugh at me for the pop psychology crap, but I think it would be good for you. You still haven't faced up to it all.”

“I faced up to it a long time ago, actually, Alice. But fine, whatever, I'll help you. Can you take the bath mat with you when you go down? It needs to go in the wash.”

By the time they started on the bedroom most of the cleaning had been done. Ida marched through her mother's door, staring at the opposite wall and concentrating on simply putting one foot in front of the other until she reached the clothes-covered bed. It didn't smell of Bridie which was one good thing; instead it smelled of antiseptic and air freshener. She sat down on its edge.

“I wouldn't sit there,” said Alice.

Ida noticed the mattress was dotted with wet stains. “It's fine.”

“Really? You don't want to know what that is. I'll get Tom, he's got some bungees in his car. He can take it to the tip. Fuck, he got more than he bargained for when he started seeing me.”

Ida stood up and they both looked down at the bed, until a laugh started to form somewhere in her throat. She could never stop herself when the worst things happened.

Alice sensed it.

“Did you speak to Peter?” she asked.

“Yes, thank goodness. He's coming down.”

“I'm glad… for you. I know you're very fond of each other,” Alice said. “He can help you through it all.”

Ida had an almost overwhelming urge to push her sister, head first, onto the nasty bit of the mattress and it took a great deal of strength to turn and walk out of the room.

Chapter eight

~ 1976 ~

The first time the man shouted her name Ida thought she must have misheard. She knew it was a man, although Alice didn't, because of his height and the long, bendy legs in their stripy tights that came out from under his skirt.

“That lady wants you, that lady wants you,” said Alice loudly in her little voice, standing up on her seat, making the people in the row in front turn round and laugh right in Ida's face.

Everyone was clapping. Ida knew they were waiting for something – something that involved her.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Unlike Bridie, Da wouldn't have smelling salts, so Ida put her head in between her legs like she'd been taught to when she felt faint. Everything was scratchy – the red seat on her hands, her white woolly tights, her silky dress, her velvet headband. She tried to think about the scratchiness, to be annoyed about the scratchiness, and not to think about all the people who were waiting for her.

“Ida, Iddy Iddy Ida, I've been told you want to come up and see me,” said the man from the stage in a kind of song. The clapping got slower, someone coughed and a baby started to cry.

“For goodness sake pull yourself together,” her father whispered into her ear.

“She looks ill, Bryan, is she going to be sick?” It was the strange lady who'd come with them, a neat, smiling woman who smelled of tinned peaches.

“Ida, darling, my poppet, where are you hiding – watch out or you'll get a right good hiding,” sang the man and then everyone in the whole theatre was laughing again.

“Right, that's it.” Ida felt her father's hands round the waist of her taffeta party dress and she was lifted into the air, her eyes still closed tight, her arms by her sides and her head down. She had borrowed a book about sharks from the library and had been practicing playing dead for weeks.

As she was carried through the air people cheered. And then there were bigger hands on her waist, lifting her higher into the air and a new, kind voice whispering, “Stand up, sweetheart, it won't last long.” She straightened her legs, took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

The light was so bright she couldn't see at first and felt all wobbly like she often did at Mass. The man took her hand and Ida put her other arm in front of her face to shield her eyes.

“Now, have you been a good little girl?” the man asked in his big loud lady voice.

“No. Not really.”

Everyone laughed, and under her arm Ida could see children pointing up at her.

“What a serious girl. You're meant to say yes, sweetheart, or there won't be any chocs. Shall we try again? All together now – have you been a good little girl?”

Everyone said it together and Ida wondered if Alice and Da and the strange woman –
Terri
– would be saying it too.

“Yes.”

“Well done deary. Everyone give her a round of applause.” The man patted her on the bottom, handed her a Cadbury's selection box, and whispered, “Go along now dear,” while the smiling blonde ice cream lady walked towards the stage and led her down some wooden stairs and back towards her seat.

“That was bloody embarrassing. Now you have to thank him for the chocolate and tell him how much you enjoyed it or that's it,” said Ida's da.

They were walking through the stage door to Peter's dressing room. Peter was Da's friend.

There were people standing around in the corridor, some little girls still in the sequinned leotards they'd been dancing in earlier on stage. They had their hands on their hips, were chewing gum and even had make-up on, Ida could tell.

A door opened and there were some long skinny legs in suit trousers.

“Bry!” the man shouted and hugged Ida's da, while the strange woman held Ida's hand for the first time. Ida looked at her shoes. She wished she'd stayed at home with Ma, and watched her eat crystallised ginger, get drunk and mouth all the words along with
The Wizard of Oz.

“Come in, come in, get yourselves comfortable. Sorry there's not much room, that stupid Jeanine tart has got the best dressing room obviously, despite being a terrible trollop and a bloody – excuse my French – awful actress to boot. Enough of that, here's the star of the show!”

Ida was jostled in until she was half under a rail stuffed with shiny dresses and feathery things. There was an electric heater in the corner, the fake-coal type that Bridie said was naff, and a table covered in make-up and brushes and vases of flowers. It was so cold Ida could see her breath and she jiggled from side to side.

Peter walked over and crouched down until he was face-to-face with Ida. She gasped, although she knew that was rude. Although he was wearing a suit and had short, grey hair, there was sparkly blue stuff all round his eyes and on his thin cheeks there were two red circles. Ida wondered if he realised.