Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait

‘Husband? Good Lord, what age are you?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘Really? My God. Well, not any more. If anyone asks, you’re nineteen. And you are not married. It is perfectly acceptable to have a boyfriend, but a husband already? You should have waited until you were thirty. Fenlon is your married name? What is your maiden name?’

‘Doyle.’

‘That’s worse. We’ll keep it as Karen Fenlon. It has a certain charm.’ A thought struck her. ‘Oh God, please tell me you don’t have children?’

‘No.’ I could be firm about that, at least.

‘Good. About your accent…’

‘Yeah?’

‘Best not to speak unless you’re spoken to. Most of my girls come from… educated backgrounds.’

I shrank back into the chair.

‘Nevertheless, my clients will be paying for what you look like, not what you sound like, but we don’t want to put them off unnecessarily.’ She paused. ‘I’m from the Liberties, you know. La Touche isn’t even my real name.’

That shocked me. People from the Liberties sounded more like me than her.

‘Elocution lessons, darling. Nobody would take me seriously in the fashion business if I sounded like… you.’

‘I can’t… change the way I talk.’

She laughed. ‘With your looks, you probably won’t have to. Now, let’s talk about your lifestyle. Drink? Drugs? Wild party girl?’

‘Pardon?’

‘If you are as successful as I hope, journalists might want to know more about you, your background. Is there anything we need to worry about?’

‘No, nothing. I’m very ordinary.’ It wasn’t a lie.

We spent the afternoon discussing my future. She assured me that I was unlikely to be asked to do underwear shoots, unless I went international, and only if I chose to do so. I smiled at the thought of that. International.

But there were obstacles. While Yvonne would pay for my classes, there were things I’d have to pay for too. I needed a photo book done by a professional photographer. I needed a range of make-up, hair accessories, hats, scarves, stockings of all colours, shoes of all heights. She advised that I could pick up a lot in second-hand shops, but the photographer would cost a week’s wages. Dessie and me were saving for a house of our own. I was happy enough in the flat above the funeral home in Thomas Street, but Dessie had been saying we’d need a garden for the kids.

I braced myself to tell Dessie when I got home. He thought I’d been to see my da, and I hadn’t exactly put him straight. Dessie and me were a team, and I didn’t usually go off making decisions on my own. I needn’t have worried, though, because when I told him everything, and that I could be getting £50 a day, he was delighted.

‘For wearing clothes? There’s some eejits in this town, eh?’ and he wrapped his arms around me and told me he was proud and lucky to have married such a stunner. ‘And you don’t have to be in your knickers, like?’

Two months later, I’d had my photos taken and done the course on make-up and all that. I’d given up my chewing-gum habit and my job at the dry-cleaner’s. I’d taken up occasional smoking and lost five pounds in weight. My first modelling job was coming up. Da was OK, but Ma was less happy about it.

‘You need to remember where you’re from. That’s what sent Annie wrong, you know. She was always curious. She wanted more than we knew about.’ Her voice down the phone line from Mayo was full of regret.

‘Maybe she’s got it now, Ma,’ I said, keeping Annie in the present tense.

I went to meet Da, who was on his customary bar stool in Scanlon’s. When Ma lived at home with him, he might go to Scanlon’s once or twice a week for a swift one before he came home to his tea, but now that he had nobody for company I was more likely to find him there than in the house. He was delighted. ‘And you’ll be in magazines, you think? I’m proud of you, girlie.’

I set off for the photo shoot. It was for a new brochure for a very expensive hotel in town, the type of place I wouldn’t dare go into. I had to dress up in all these different outfits and have my photograph taken with other girls on plush sofas in the tea room, and then on a bar stool at the bar, with my head back, laughing at this model fella as if what he was saying was hilarious, and then in bed in one of the swish rooms, with my head on the pillow, my hair combed out behind me, and the soft blankets brushing my shoulders. The other models were gas fun, though they were all a bit hoity-toity. The photographer was a fairly grumpy fella, and there was a lot of hanging around so there was plenty of time to chat to the other girls. Everybody smoked. The girls said that cigarettes stopped your appetite and kept you thin. The one male model was gay, they said, which was a shame because the blonde one, Julie, really fancied him, but it turned out that the photographer was his boyfriend.

That day, I came home with £70 in cash, which was just slightly more than I made in a week at the dry-cleaner’s. Dessie was thrilled and said he’d lodge it in the post office the next morning. I told him all about the day and the other girls and the gay male model. ‘A queer?’ He laughed. ‘Well, that’s a relief, I wouldn’t like to think of you hanging out with good-looking normal men!’

Three weeks later, I made £190 on three different assignments. Yvonne said the clients loved my look and that I should prepare myself for the big time. She told me that I was in great demand and that she was turning down clients whose brand was ‘not of sufficient quality’. I thought she was mad. But gradually, over the course of a month, the jobs started coming in and the money was getting bigger. Everything looked great. Dessie and I would soon have a deposit for a house.

And then the brochure for the hotel was published and I was amazed by it. It looked like a glossy magazine you might find in the hairdresser’s. I really thought for the first time that I looked beautiful, though I knew that I hadn’t got there without make-up artists and hairdressers and fashion stylists. I couldn’t wait to show Dessie when he got home. I left it on the table just in front of the door where the bills and letters usually stacked up. I thought it would be a lovely surprise for him. I sat in the kitchen, waiting for his reaction. I heard the door click and heard him stop at the table, and then he called out, ‘Karen?’

‘Yeah?’

He appeared around the kitchen door. His face was red with fury. I was astonished, thinking there must have been a row at work, but he held up the brochure and threw it with force into my lap. ‘You never told me that they photographed you in bed.’

‘What? I’m sure I did—’

‘You did not. Do you think I want people looking at pictures of my wife in bed?’

‘I don’t… what do you mean? But sure, I’m covered up by the quilt.’

He was being completely ridiculous. The photo had me covered up to my armpits in the bedclothes. My eyes were closed and my hair was splayed out over the pillow in a perfect circle around my head. I had one arm raised, bent at the elbow, hand facing palm outwards. My shoulders were covered in a white linen and lace nightdress. The area about two inches below my neck and my exposed lower arm were bare. There was nothing sexy about it whatsoever.

‘For Christ’s sake, Karen, did you not think? There you are, in a bed, in a hotel room ?’

I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Like a prostitute. ’

I was so utterly shocked. ‘I don’t believe—’

‘What do you think it’s been like for me, with people whispering about Annie all the time, goading me?’

‘What people?’

‘They might not say it to your face. You don’t have to listen to their sly jokes.’ He was shouting now.