Under My Skin Page 9

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I have a nice pleated skirt for you.’

  And here she turns to me and she is really laughing now. Her eyes are bright and she is all beauty again.

  She walks to the hall door and into the scullery and turns their boiler on.

  ‘How did you meet?’ and I shout it out. ‘Mrs Costello!’

  He hears me now. Understands that we are two strangers heading into another zone. He locks his wide fingers together and tells me. There are no photographs in their room. No pictures of children in dressed-up outfits. No grandchildren balanced reluctantly on knees. There is one photograph of a man and a woman holding two violins. She wears a full skirt and high heels. He wears a big pinstripe suit and he has slicked back his hair. He is handsome. Eager.

  ‘The first time I saw her…’ and his eyes take me back with him. He says nothing for a minute but I know he is seeing it all again as if it is right now. ‘Boy, she knocked me sideways.’

  Mrs Costello comes back in. Her shoulders are hooped now. She walks on matchstick legs but she is smiling and I can see how she might have done that to him.

  ‘I had a flatmate,’ she adds quietly, settling into her chair. ‘Her name was Elizabeth May. She had red hair. I went to her house one weekend. Her family owned a little country pub. We were in there the first night. Sitting on two stools. Drinking a Coke. He was on tour with the orchestra. He came in. Looked over.’

  They don’t speak now.

  ‘Later,’ she says quietly then, ‘he gave us a ride in his taxi to a dance. And afterwards took us home.’

  She leans in and pours more coffee. He looks out the window now. Not able to hear what we are saying and losing interest anyway.

  ‘Then I went on holiday, to the seaside… and I sent him a postcard.’ And here she tells me quietly what she did to hook her man. I like Mrs Costello. Until our wedding she was just the little old lady who lived in the flat downstairs.

  ‘He was always a good timekeeper. Doesn’t sound important but it is.’ She holds the biscuit tin towards me.

  ‘And he wasn’t a drinker. Two very important things… does Larry take a drink?’

  ‘Just a beer now and then.’

  ‘And he works hard?’

  ‘He works really hard.’

  ‘Ah, well you found a good man,’ and she pats my knee.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell her, ‘Larry is a good man.’

  Mr Costello begins to fall asleep. His chin rests on his chest and he snores softly. She makes no apology for him and his regular old man ways.

  ‘Did he play the violin for you?’

  ‘Oh yes. Many times. He was a very fine musician.’

  The plates are cleared and I stand with her in their kitchenette. The dog walks sadly to the end of the room and flops down. Until now, lying in bed, I never knew what that sound was. She hands the wet plates to me and I dry them.

  ‘Where are you both from?’ she asks.

  ‘Larry is from the West, Mayo.’

  ‘Ah,’ she says, ‘friendly people in the West – and you?’

  ‘Oldcastle. In Meath.’

  She had knocked on my door on Saturday night.

  ‘On Wednesday,’ she said, ‘you come down and have some chicken soup. Neighbours…’ and her voice trailed off. Larry had thanked her. Said he was looking forward to it. Made some joke about her cooking and mine. When Wednesday came he was still in Vertigo and so I went downstairs on my own. I wished he had been here to see the Costellos, to watch how they are now and to see what it is all about, after fifty-six years. She puts her arm kindly around me when I say I must leave.

  ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘You have your own man to care for now.’

  On Thursday Larry makes meatballs with rigatoni. He closes the diner early and walks down the street in his apron and he begins to cook as soon as he gets home. The kitchen is long and narrow. We stand side by side and cook together at the stove. He tells me about his day at the diner and I grind black pepper over his mixing bowl. Then he rolls the meat and the egg mixture in his hands and I roll them in flour and toss them on to the pan. At times like this we are never more than a few inches away from each other. He tells me everything about his day and I tell him about ‘Hell’ – which is my new name for ‘work’.

  ‘We had a nice time in Alcatraz today, Larry,’ I say.

  ‘Did you, darling?’ he replies.

  ‘Yes… the inmates were a little restless but otherwise it was fine.’

  Today Larry made eighteen euros in profit at the diner and no one at work will tell me when I’ll get paid. There is a drawer full of unpaid bills in the kitchen and we jump every time the doorbell rings.

  Yesterday the debt collector called again and he didn’t use the doorbell at all. Instead he picked up a garden gnome and sent it through the sitting-room window.

  ‘Larry… there’s a gnome in the sitting room,’ Doreen said and then she went back to watching Coronation Street on TV.

  Then Larry went downstairs and when he came back up, eventually, he was very pale and his bottom lip was bleeding and his only shirt was split all the way down the front.

  We eat the meatballs and the rigatoni and we try to think of ways to get the money, and people we could ask for help. But after each suggestion we look at each other and shake our heads.

  Juna

  The Costellos

  Larry’s dad

  Jack

  The Indians

  Larry opens a beer for me. He says he’s sorry about everything and especially sorry that he wasn’t able to buy me an engagement ring.

  ‘What do we want an engagement ring for?’ I ask. ‘We’re married now,’ and he looks at me and starts to laugh.

  He puts one hand up to my cheek and when he looks into my eyes he can still make me blush right up to my ears. We never bother saying ‘I love you’ or any of that old stuff. Before Larry, there was no one else. After Larry, there is no one else. It was always straightforward and kind of simple for us.

  Pitch v. – 1. To throw or hurl something. 2. To fall or stumble, or cause somebody to fall, especially headfirst. 3. To try to sell or promote something such as a product, personal viewpoint or potential business venture often in an aggressive way.

  There are fifteen cars in the car park, and a bubble car sleeping behind a jeep. Inside there are people like me, wondering if we will ever breathe fresh air again or smell the summer sea. Two weeks now we have worked on the pitch and the circus people gather in the early hours to rehearse. The boardroom is like a trampoline. We bounce out our slides and bow and step back into our place. It is my first time to attend a pitch and I even own a suit. Today the Creative Director is wearing converse runners with a bright red Hawaiian shirt. He says the creative brief is like a bowl of spaghetti flung in the air and then caught on a plate.

  ‘OK, Hope – you’re on,’ Jonathan says.

  The only reason I am here is because the Account Director keeps calling in sick. Last week he came to a shoot by ambulance, just to make his point. Last night at ten o’clock they decided I should present the research and the creative brief.

  ‘I want them to hear from you,’ Jonathan said as I tried to stay awake. ‘I want them to see you up on your hind legs.’

  Then Frankie comes in.

  ‘Bonjour,’ he says and he winks at me and slides into a chair and then the laptop which carries everyone’s presentations gives a little sigh and goes completely black. Someone asks if there is a spare laptop anywhere and Jonathan keeps his eyes fixed on me. He is just staring at me really calmly and he seems to be breathing in and out through his teeth.

  ‘Where are the laptops kept, Hope?’ he asks.

  ‘At Brendan’s desk.’

  ‘Why are the laptops kept at Brendan’s desk, Hope?’

  ‘Because Brendan looks after the laptops.’

  ‘Why does Brendan look after the laptops, Hope?’

  ‘Because that’s his job, Jonathan.’

  ‘How man
y laptops do we have, Hope?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Jonathan. Fifteen or sixteen.’

  Somewhere in my head there is a huge grey cobweb brought on by my lack of sleep. I have been here until nine every night and so far I have worked every weekend. I miss my husband and I miss getting drunk with Doreen and I miss my grandmother’s voice. In two hours the soup people will be here and if things don’t improve I’m out of a job.

  ‘So, Hope, are all the laptops at Brendan’s desk?’

  ‘Possibly not.’

  ‘So back to my original question, where are the laptops, Hope?’

  ‘In people’s cars? Maybe.’

  There is a part of me that wants to tell my boss something about this laptop and his arse. It’s 7.15 a.m. I am supposed to be asleep.

  ‘Let’s move on,’ Jonathan says. He is watching a spot on the table and breathing slowly, in and out, and I realize that he is more nervous than me.

  After the rehearsal he gives the team a pep talk.

  ‘We better win this,’ he says.

  Then a very tall girl holds her arms out to me.

  ‘Come here,’ she says. ‘Come here… you look like you need a hug,’ and she pulls me into her arms and just holds me there – and I hardly know her. If I was a hedgehog, this is the point in my life when I would roll into a ball.

  Email to Accounts 7.45 a.m.

  From Hope Swann

  Hi, would it be possible for someone to tell me when I will get paid?

  Thank you very much.

  Hope.

  Email to everyone 8.05 a.m.

  From Jonathan Kirk

  The Country Fresh Soup people will be here at 9 a.m. and afterwards Hope will be giving the agency tour. Please tidy your desk areas. Best bib and tucker please.

  Email to the Creative Dept 8.20 a.m.

  cc client service

  Re: New wastepaper baskets

  From Stephen Hanson

  Troops,

  I have left a new wastepaper basket beside each of your desks. That’s where anything less than a ‘Shark’ goes. If the idea is not jumping, it’s not alive. If it’s not alive, it’s dead. If it’s not on fire – I’m not interested.

  Mucho gracias,

  Stephen.

  The Marketing Director begins to speak. He thanks us for our presentation and then he says the brief has actually changed. What he really wants is to promote a new range of French bread with a new range of Mediterranean tomato soup. We are not expecting this so everyone is scratching their heads and wondering about it – and I have an idea but I am afraid to speak. Then I begin to wonder if this could be my big career break – and what a fool I would be not to speak up. But I’m too afraid.

  So then I write it on a note and pass it to Jonathan who looks completely horrified and I can feel the colour rise to my cheeks. He glances at it and says nothing and then asks a question about ‘competitor market share’.

  The note says, ‘Fancy a dip in the Med?’ – and I am beginning to think of going in under the table for the rest of my natural life. On the tour of the agency, we meet the IT guy who is wearing a one-piece cycling suit. Then we find a Finished Artist who is arguing with an Account Director and it ends with ‘Fuck off and do it yourself.’ And then someone’s toast sets the fire alarm off.

  In the car park the Marketing Director asks about my car.

  ‘Who owns the Messerschmitt?’ he asks, and we are both glad to be off the ship.

  ‘It’s mine,’ I tell him, and when we walk towards it Jonathan watches, with his hands in his pockets, from the door.

  ‘It’s a beauty,’ he says, and I blush and smile up at him.

  I open the doors. Even now I love that faint leather smell.

  ‘Do you look after your clients this well?’ he asks and we both laugh. I keep my eyes on him and tell him that ‘yes, yes’, and ‘please, please, yes, I do’.

  He walks to his car, smiling, and he gives me a little wave.

  One by one the other workers leave. Desk lamps are switched off and it’s just me sitting inside my window under the single lamp’s glow. There are invoices piled up around me. Emails that are not cleared – and silence now as everyone else leaves to go home. The men in suits swing their briefcases and run through the door. They have wives, and casseroles to eat, and laughing babies sitting in high chairs.

  There are footsteps on the wooden stairs and Jonathan appears. His hands are in his pockets. He gives me a small, tight smile. He is not very tall. Just a little bit taller than me. His hair is blond and it is brushed back over his ears. His tan says golf and sailing and money and a second home in the South of France.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hope,’ he says simply and I can feel myself blush warm red. He is so sudden and clear and honest about it. My boss wanting to say ‘Sorry’ before he says ‘Goodnight’.

  ‘Things were a bit tense this morning.’ He is awkward now and more embarrassed than me. I swallow and say, ‘That’s all right.’

  Until now he has terrified me. He wears a black suit and a grey silk shirt. He is thirty-four. He has already told me. He folds his arms and watches me carefully.

  ‘By the way… are you anything to Edmund Swann… the artist?’

  ‘Actually… I’m his daughter,’ and my voice is very quiet.

  ‘Really?… My God… I love his work… I’m a collector anyway… but his work is… beautiful… so you’re his daughter,’ and he is shaking his head and smiling.

  ‘Indian Slippers,’ he says and our eyes suddenly meet.

  ‘I’m having a few people over next Friday, how about yourself and Larry come along?’ he asks. It does not sound like a question. I have already arranged to meet with Frankie so we can talk about our boss.

  ‘Just a few drinks and some easy food,’ he says.

  ‘That would be great,’ I tell him, and before he walks away he says, ‘By the way, you did well today.’

  Outside the stars are brighter. The moon bigger. The wind louder. When I drive along the coast I see the lights dotted around the bay and know that somewhere there is a busy little diner with a tired-out chef.

  When the wind blows I open up the windows. I want to drive the Messerschmitt up high now and into the clouds. Because today I did something new and it feels like the very first time ‘I did well today’.

  Matilda writes about another New Yorker. She says her favourite of all time is Marilyn Monroe. She tells me that she lived at Sutton Place Apartments in 1956 and had her own suite at the Waldorf Astoria in 1955 – and on her birthday and on the day she died, Matilda goes to the front desk at the Waldorf and leaves twenty red roses there.

  Email to Brendan Finch 10.05 a.m.

  From Sylvia Johnson

  cc Hope Swann

  Hi Brendan,

  Would you mind not wearing your Lycra cycling suit in the office – it caused a slight problem during yesterday’s agency tour.

  Many thanks,

  Sylvia.

  Email to everyone 11.12 a.m.

  From Hope Swann

  Will the people who are eating the M&Ms please stop. These were brought in for a product shoot and I’ve just checked and they’re nearly all gone.

  Please. Leave red and yellow alone.

  (Thank you very much)

  Hope.

  Email to Hope Swann 11.13 a.m.

  From Frankie Preston

  Subject: If it’sofany help…

  I think one of the Finished Artists has gone up a dress size.

  Email to Jonathan Kirk 11.15 a.m.

  From Hope Swann

  Re: Country Fresh Soup

  Jonathan, thick country vegetable is in reception.

  Temptation n. – 1. A craving or desire for something especially something thought to be wrong. 2. The enticing of desire or craving in somebody. 3. Something or somebody who tempts.

  Jonathan lives in a tall red-brick house overlooking the river. The front door is painted black and there is a green and yellow creeper growing up the
wall. His garden stretches down to the water and there are three swans standing on his lawn.

  Larry is wearing the black tailcoat he had on at our wedding.

  ‘It’s the only jacket I have,’ he says.

  ‘It’s a strange sort of jacket,’ I tell him and my voice is low as one hand reaches for the bell.

  ‘You didn’t think it was strange a few weeks ago.’

  The door swings open and Jonathan appears. He smiles with white teeth and blue eyes like a Californian boy. His hair looks tossed and his shirt is open and hanging loose over his jeans. He looks like he is in the middle of telling a really good story and we have interrupted and still he seems glad, very glad that we are here.

  He is carrying a glass of red wine and he uses this to show us inside. When he splashes the cream marble floor he pulls a face.

  ‘Four faults,’ he says and he keeps walking. Then he shouts, ‘It’s Hope and Larry.’ He asks Larry all sorts of questions about the diner and then he makes a big fuss about getting him an extra-cold beer from the fridge. Larry stops in the hall and stares up at the chandelier. In here, he seems to be growing bigger and bigger. And then a pretty girl comes down and says, ‘Hello.’

  Jonathan’s wife is called Nina and she comes down the stairs with light bouncing steps. She is wearing white denims and a white t-shirt and when she moves her dark ponytail swings from side to side. Her clothes are dazzling to me, her teeth are sparkling. She is the cleanest, whitest lady I have ever seen. She hugs me and when she moves to hug Larry, he steps back like a horse about to take fright.

  The sitting room is at the top of the house and there are fairy lights to guide us up six flights of stairs. On each floor there are coloured snapshots of his home and other clues about Jonathan’s real life. The sliced mango on the kitchen counter. The framed photograph of Nina rollerblading in the park. The Knuttel eyes watching us from over a fireplace in his study. His wife’s silk robe tossed over a soft bedroom chair. There are light shades like giant cream drums in the centre of every room and somewhere in the distance a woman wearing a long white apron is checking that the asparagus is cooked.