Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait

I consulted with Granny and she was fully encouraging. I didn’t have the first clue how to go about it though, so before I dug any further, I took myself off to the library and borrowed A Complete Guide to Garden Ponds . Granny and I pored over the right way to approach it, and I had to go back into town to buy some rubber sheeting with which to line the pond.

On Sunday, having spent the morning pretending to study, I started digging again in earnest. I was excited by how pleased Mum would be. Reinstating the pond would take a few weeks, but it was a project that she might take an interest in. She would be proud of my efforts and see that she didn’t need Dad to do everything around the house. My mother always liked to have Avalon perfectly preserved, exactly how it was in her childhood. A few modern conveniences had been acquired over the years, like a dishwasher and washing machine, but Mum would have nothing to do with them until the cleaners had to be let go after Paddy Bloody Carey had done his worst. I thought that the restored pond would delight her. The stone bird bath had lain wrapped in hessian in the corner of the shed since long before I was born. I didn’t want to get too ambitious, but I thought that later, in the summer, with a bit of expert advice, I could re-install that too.

The instructions in the pond manual suggested that I needed to dig down quite deep, about four feet, because a brick layer had to go under the rubber sheeting, to allow for earth shifting and ground stability. But then my spade hit something odd, and I could see some kind of fabric under a half-torn piece of black plastic, peeking through the soil. I brushed the earth back with my father’s boot, curious and irritated at the same time. I didn’t immediately recognize the herringbone pattern. I bent down to pick it up. And then the stench hit me.

I shouted out loud in horror and disgust, and, unable to look away, pushed the plastic upwards with the tip of my boot. Above the herringbone cloth, a tuft of unnaturally black hair was visible, while creatures of many legs and none slithered and crawled through the cavity behind part of an exposed lower jawbone. The crooked snaggle-tooth was unmistakable, though the flesh around it was blackened and bloated. I quickly shovelled all the soil back on top of Annie Doyle, my tears blinding me as I did so.

Granny rapped at the kitchen window, calling through the glass that it was getting dark, that dinner would soon be ready and that I should come in and shower and change. I returned the gardening tools to the shed and went into the house, stopping in the dining room for a swig of brandy straight from the decanter. I went upstairs and showered. In the bathroom cabinet, Mum’s Valium bottle stood on the shelf. I had never taken one before, but I knew how they were effective in lessening her panic, so I put my mouth to the tap and swallowed a tablet.

I don’t remember much of our dinner conversation, just that I fought to stay awake and Granny commented on how quiet I was. She prattled on about this and that, and when I could no longer keep my eyes open, she said that maybe digging out the pond was a bit much for me and that she would do a bit of digging herself tomorrow. I struggled then to be aware, insisting that I was fully capable and would get back to it during the week after school.

‘Well, if you’re sure?’

I went straight to bed, and slept the best night’s sleep I’d had in many months, without dreaming, until my alarm went for school the next day. The horror took hold of me once again.

At breakfast, Granny was peering out the kitchen window. ‘I thought you were digging out the pond? It looks like you’ve filled it all in.’

I made up some nonsense about having to weigh down the rubber sheeting to settle it before I removed the earth again. She looked doubtful, but was happy enough to assume that I knew what I was doing.

I was a small pebble being washed out to sea by an enormous, storm-force wave and there was nobody I could turn to for help. School that day was… I have no idea. Helen was waiting for me at the bus stop when lessons were over.

‘May I come to your house for dinner?’ I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

‘What about Granny?’

‘Fuck Granny.’

‘Ooooh, Lar, what has she done this time?’ Helen was used to my giving out about Granny.

‘Nothing, I just want to go to your place.’

Helen took this as a compliment, but really it was nothing to do with her. I wanted to be surrounded by her and her noisy brothers and her gravel-voiced mother. I wanted there to be chat and squabbles and music and television, clamour and distraction. I didn’t want to go home and look out my kitchen window.

Perhaps because of the contrast, that evening in Helen’s was one of the most enjoyable I’d ever had. Her mother was pleased to see me, in her perceptive way: ‘Oh, Lar, look at you – you look great – but a little pale.’ She didn’t mind when Helen and I cracked open cans of beer at the dinner table, and I found my voracious appetite had returned as I forced more and more food into my maw.

‘I think you’ve had enough,’ said Helen as I scraped the last crumbs of an apple pie on to the side of my fork. Helen and I went upstairs ‘to study’ and fumbled with each other in an ungainly fashion, and I got further with her than any time since we’d had full intercourse, but not quite there.

‘Jesus, you’re persistent tonight,’ she said, ‘but you’d better go home. It’s nearly eleven and Granny will have the guards out looking for you.’

When I got home, Granny was livid. ‘I’d made a special dinner for you as it is my last night, and you didn’t even have the decency to ring to let me know. It shows a complete lack of consideration. What was I supposed to think? I suppose you were in that girl’s house?’

I apologized. I should have rung her, but I knew she’d have forbidden me from going to Helen’s on a school night. Mum would be home tomorrow. How was I going to tell her what I had found? She had been through so much already. But I would have to tell her eventually. I cursed my father for what he had done, not just to Annie Doyle, but to us too. What would happen to us now? I didn’t think my mother would be able to handle it.

In the beginning, being married to Dessie was great. We had our wedding the summer after Annie went missing. It was a quiet, small affair, partly because of money and partly because it didn’t seem right to celebrate without Annie. For the first few years, Dessie was really affectionate and considerate, but I didn’t want to have kids yet and he was in an awful hurry. He’d always said that the age difference shouldn’t come between us, but I was afraid now it might. I was twenty-four. I thought there was loads of time, so I was always pretty careful. He said he wanted to have a son before he was too old to kick a ball around a field with him.

‘What if it’s a daughter?’ I said.

‘Sure, we’ll keep going till we get one of each.’ He laughed but he wasn’t being funny, and I knew that sooner or later I really was going to have to sit him down and have a proper conversation.

I hadn’t told him yet about Miss La Touche and her offer. She used to come into the dry-cleaner’s a lot, and sometimes when the others were on lunch I’d do the counter service. She was in her mid-forties, I guessed, always very well groomed, with immaculate hair and painted nails. She was tall and slim, walked in a particular way, hips forward, head straight, and she was always neat and tidy-looking. She was really particular about her clothes, and she must have been minted because nearly every stitch was dry-cleaned, and it was all fur, velvet, silk, satin and jewel-coloured fabrics with labels in foreign languages. I recognized some designer names. You couldn’t work in a dry-cleaner’s without taking some interest in clothes, and just occasionally me and the girls used to try stuff on if Mr Marlowe was out, even though I was the assistant manager by then. There would have been war if we were ever caught, but we were careful. The other girls would comment on how everything always looked so good on me, and I have to admit, I loved Miss La Touche’s luxurious dresses.