Liz Nugent - Lying in Wait

She nodded. ‘Malcolm is… he’s… I just want to keep him separate, away from the rest of my life.’

‘But why?’

‘He knows me… too well.’

‘Don’t you… like him? Do you want to go on seeing him?’

‘I do, he’s a good man. It’s just that… he knows.’

‘About Annie Doyle?’

‘No, of course not, I’d never tell anyone about that, it’s just…’ She trailed off.

I had no idea what she was talking about but speculated that she might feel she had compromised her privacy with him. If that was the case, though, why did she continue to see him? It hardly made sense, but further questions increased her unease so I let the matter drop.

I recalled how Helen had behaved around my parents before with her couldn’t-care-less attitude, and I worried that it was a big mistake to have her looking after Mum, but she was completely different when she was in nursing mode: courteous, respectful and caring. I came home from work one evening to find her repotting plants with Mum at the kitchen table. She spoke softly and gently held Mum’s arm steady when the pot threatened to fall from her hands. If only she could be like that all the time. I said so to Helen later.

‘Yeah, well, I’m a good actor, aren’t I? I should get a fucking Oscar.’

Mum and Helen bonded over those few short weeks. Who would have ever thought it? Helen said Malcolm rang a few times, but Mum refused to talk to him. He sounded concerned, apparently.

‘Should we tell him what happened?’ I asked Helen.

‘No. It’s her business. She doesn’t have to see him if she doesn’t want to.’

‘But he obviously cares about her.’

‘Yeah, but does she care about him?’

At work, I was the subject of some office gossip. The girls held me responsible for driving Bridget out of her job. Evelyn and Sally wondered why I hadn’t been the one to apply for a transfer. I tried to explain that Bridget wanted to be closer to home, but they had talked to her and knew that I had broken up with her.

‘She was really good for you,’ said Jane. ‘Look at how you started eating healthily when you began going out with her. You couldn’t have done that on your own.’

I protested that I had done it on my own. They accused me of being ungrateful. I pulled rank and sent them back to their desks. Bridget rang me at home, and in the office several times, hopeful of a reconciliation. She told me that Josie had seen me in Athlone. I point-blank denied it. I told her that Josie must have been mistaken. She rang back later that afternoon. She had double-checked and Josie was absolutely sure it had been me.

‘Jesus, Bridget, just drop it, will you? We are not getting back together. I did not go to Athlone. I do not love you.’ I hung up to see Jane watching me through the open door of my office. She shook her head in disgust.

Some days later, Malcolm called to the house an hour after I’d got home. Mum was upstairs, resting.

He didn’t want to come in, but stood awkwardly on the doorstep. ‘I’m very sorry, I just wanted to… I was worried about her,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘She hasn’t returned my calls and I thought that maybe I’d offended her in some way.’ He seemed genuinely upset.

‘No, I can assure you it’s nothing to do with you. She just needs some time out.’

‘Has she… is she seeing a doctor?’

‘She is in excellent hands.’ This was true.

‘Laurence, I… I never intend to take your father’s place, you know that, don’t you? I would never come between a mother and her son.’

‘Of course not, I understand. When she’s up to it, we will all have dinner together.’

‘Really? I’d like that very much. I’m very fond of her.’

I could see that was true. I assured him that I would call him in a few weeks. He seemed relieved.

My mother got better. She treated her overdose as a minor aberration – ‘It was a very silly thing to do’ – but insisted that it would never happen again and that she had overreacted to my talk of moving out. ‘It’s just that I’ve never been on my own before…’ She still didn’t want me to go.

I had finally begun to resent my mother. Her emotional blackmail had me trapped. Helen had been good company, and though we’d agreed to keep in touch, I missed her around the place when she left. There was nothing romantic between us at all, but, unlikely as it seemed, she had turned out to be a good friend in a crisis.

Nevertheless, Karen had been constantly on my mind as I wondered what her reaction to the second Annie letter had been, and then she rang me one day in the office.

‘Did you write those letters pretending to be my sister?’

I stalled for time as I tried to anticipate the consequences of any answer I might give, but I was sick of the subterfuge, sick of the deception, exhausted from lying. What I wanted was the best for Karen. If she was now to discover that my father had murdered her sister, that Annie was buried in my back garden, that her search was over, would it bring her peace? Would it bring me peace?

‘Yes,’ I replied.

She exhaled, and then said the most unexpected thing. ‘I think I love you too.’

Laurence told me he was leaving home. I could not let that happen. His place would always be here with me. He thought I was unhinged. I could see it in the way he talked to me sometimes, as if I were a child. I decided to use his opinion of my instability for our benefit. He had been pulling away from me for some time, and he was secretive and suspicious. Covering up the whole Annie Doyle business had taken its toll on him. I told him that he must put the matter out of his mind, but he was really preoccupied with it.

Damn Eleanor, she’d got the better of me with her last will and testament. She had told me that she was going to look after us, but she excluded me and looked after Laurence alone. She had always adored him and frequently criticized my parenting skills, but even when I heard the words from her lawyer – ‘for his independence’ – I still never thought that Laurence would leave me. The only struggle I had anticipated was with Rosie and Finn, who wanted their ‘fair share’ because they had been greedy enough to have eight children. I had planned to go clothes shopping in the boutiques where they still knew me by name. I was going to take Laurence out to introduce him to the rudiments of fine dining and a good wine list. The silk curtains in our drawing room needed replacing, as did the carpets in the hall, stairs and landing. A crack had appeared on the wall above the mantelpiece, and the enamel was wearing through in my bathroom. Daddy would never have stood for such imperfections. We finally had the means to restore everything, but Laurence intended to defy me.

The suicide attempt was a desperate measure, but I had to do something. I didn’t actually take any of the pills, but I had drunk plenty of water so that I would have something to throw up when he found me, which I knew he would. I knew Laurence would never send me to St John of God’s, and thankfully he kept his cool and called on Helen. I began to see Helen in a new light after that. It was clear that Helen adored Avalon. She didn’t need much of an excuse to turn up. She had been useful before, when Eleanor died. She could be vulgar and uncivilized, but she was entertaining and wonderfully indiscreet, and at least she had a name. Her mother, Angela d’Arcy, was a poet of repute. She did not write anything to my taste, and of course she was horribly bohemian. It was hardly surprising that Helen had grown up wild like a weed, but it was she who told me the full story of Laurence’s visit to Bridget’s family in Athlone. It was laughable that that silly girl had actually thought my Laurence would marry her, a girl of no breeding or background. I thought it useful to keep Helen around, as Laurence was obviously confiding in her more than me.