Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait

‘What’s that thing you have on?’

She stuck her wrist in his face, but he couldn’t make out the word on the bracelet.

‘It says “Marnie”,’ she said, ‘your granddaughter’s name if you must know.’

Gradually, Annie went back to her old ways. She was fired from the bakery by Da’s boss because her work was shoddy. After that, the frostiness between her and Da was unbearable and she moved out of the house. I admit that I was glad when she moved out.

Though she was always a rebel, when it came to my schooling, Annie leaned hard on me to do my homework and stay out of trouble.

‘You’ve got brains and beauty, Karen,’ she said. ‘You need to use both of them.’

I am clever enough, I suppose, and I liked school, but I worked hard to remove the stigma she had tainted me with. My teachers recognized this. ‘You and your sister, chalk and cheese!’ said Miss Donnelly one day, scoring me a B in an English test. When I meant to leave school at fifteen and try for work in the Lemons factory, Miss Donnelly spoke to Ma and Da and told them that I could stay on to do the Leaving Certificate. Nobody in our family had ever done the Leaving Certificate. My parents were thrilled and Annie was over the moon. ‘You’ll take the bad look off me!’ she said.

I wasn’t a natural genius, but I studied hard to justify Ma and Da’s pride. Then, when I got reasonably good results, there was talk about going to university. I knew that keeping me in school had been a strain on my parents when I should have been out earning, and I could probably work my way through college, but I couldn’t decide what I would study. English and Art were my best subjects, but if I studied English in college, I would have to do a three-year arts degree and then a year’s HDip just to be a teacher, and if I did Art I’d have to go to an art college and Ma said there were no jobs for artists. Anyway, I had the wrong accent for university.

Ma thought I should do a secretarial course. There were still some jobs for typists, though they were few and far between. I liked the idea of that a lot better, and AnCO were running six-week courses for girls who had got good Leaving Certificate results. Annie was disappointed in me. ‘You could have gone to college, you could have got a grant.’ She didn’t understand my reluctance. I was not curious like she was. She loved that I had stayed in school, but when she was drunk, she mocked me when I used big words that she didn’t understand.

Annie got bits and pieces of cleaning work here and there, but most of the time she was on the dole, living in a bedsit not too far away. Ma gave her money sometimes on the sly. On her Sunday visits, Da would try and pretend he was glad to see her, but I think he was ashamed of her, though he denied it later. He couldn’t understand why she was so different to the rest of us. Ma and Da and me all worked hard for what we got. We were quiet and tried to avoid trouble. Annie went looking for it.

After I did the course, I got a job in a dry-cleaning company, typing up invoices and doing a bit of bookkeeping as well. I can’t say I loved it, but I met Dessie Fenlon there. Some of the men I dealt with were sleazy, passing comments on my figure or making smutty remarks, but Dessie was different. Just respectful, like. One day, I saw him giving one of the young lads a clip around the ear for the way he’d talked to me. Dessie was one of the van drivers. He was quite shy, and it was six months before he got up the courage to ask me out. I think he thought the age difference was too much. He was twenty-six, almost nine years older than me. The best part of the job was when he’d come in to do pick-ups or drop-offs, because we’d be giggling and flirting like mad. We started going out properly then. He said he couldn’t believe his luck that I’d said yes to a date. When it was clear to everyone else in the shop that Dessie Fenlon and I were an item, the comments stopped. Dessie was quiet, but he could be fierce too if you crossed him. He had a reputation as a scrapper and had thrown a few punches in his time.

The job was dull and I was bored most of the time, but I was earning enough to move out of home too. I said to Annie that we could get a flat together, but she wasn’t too keen on the idea. I was disappointed. I mentioned it to Ma, who told Da. He said, ‘Don’t move in with Annie, she’ll drag you down to her level.’ I wonder whether, if I had moved in with Annie, things would have been different. I wonder if Da remembers saying that. If it haunts him. I don’t want to remind him. He’s already suffering. We all are.

On that last day I saw her, she was agitated but excited about something. She said she was going to buy me a proper painting set because she knew that I still loved sketching and painting. I should have been excited about the promise of a gift like that, but I knew Annie too well. She was annoyed that I wasn’t jumping up and down with happiness, but Annie was always swearing to buy me things or to do things with me, and they rarely ever happened.

‘A proper set. I saw it in Clarks’s window, paints in tubes in a big wooden box with all kinds of brushes. All watercolours and inks, not oils. You see? I remember everything you told me about your art stuff – I know you don’t like oils. It’s gorgeous. The box is really old-fashioned-looking, but it’s brand new and there’s loads of things in it. I’m buying it for you on Saturday morning. I really am. I promise. Come round on Saturday, in the afternoon.’

‘Where will you get the money for that?’

‘Never you mind, I’ll have the money.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I will. Do you not believe me, Karen?’

It was easier to play along, but I knew it was never going to happen. Like the time she said we’d go for dinner in Sheries in Abbey Street a few weeks before that, and I’d waited half an hour outside in the cold but she never showed up, and when I rang her about it, she’d said she was busy and we’d go another time.

Despite all this, I loved Annie. She wanted the best for me, wanted me to learn from her mistakes. She warned me off fellas, told me I was too good for the lads round our way and that I should keep myself for someone special. I didn’t always obey her. Nobody could make me laugh like she could, and although her time in the mother and baby home turned down her brightness, the old spark was beginning to re-emerge by the time she vanished into thin air.

‘Promise, you’ll call on Saturday? About three, yeah? I can’t wait to see your face when you open it.’ So I promised, not daring to hope that she’d keep her word but never imagining that I wouldn’t see her again.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I’ll bring Dessie.’

Her face clouded over. They’d got on well to begin with, though he thought she was a bit wild. He didn’t like how drunk she’d get and, like Da, he didn’t like me spending too much time with her. When I told him about Annie’s pregnancy and her time in St Joseph’s, his attitude to her worsened.

‘She’s one of them slappers?’ he said. ‘Who was the father, or did she even know?’

I was disgusted by his reaction. I ignored him for weeks then and avoided talking to him in work, but he didn’t give up and eventually he won me over again with a bunch of flowers and a written apology. He said that he shouldn’t have called my sister names. But if Dessie, who was basically good and kind, thought that way about Annie, so did everyone else. He was never comfortable in her company after that, and Annie wasn’t stupid.

‘What’s wrong with your fella?’ she said once in the Viking. ‘He’s always in such a hurry to leave.’

‘He just doesn’t like this pub much,’ I said, which was true. The Viking was a rough enough spot, in a semi-derelict part of town. Teenage glue-sniffers hung around the area. Dessie had often given out about the fact that we had to meet her there, but Annie was a creature of habit. ‘It’s full of alcos,’ he said, but I pointed out that could be said about most pubs in Ireland. Annie was clearly a popular character in the bar and was one of the youngest regulars. Late in the night, a sing-song would start and Annie, worse for wear, would sing ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ or ‘I Will Survive’ in a loud voice. Dessie hated that. ‘She’s making a show of herself,’ he’d say, and though sometimes I agreed, she could still carry a tune and had full recall of the lyrics. I wasn’t going to stop her enjoying herself.