Being Shirley Page 30

  I often wonder, when I open my books to find another boy or girl’s mark inside, whether that faceless child felt the magic, too. Who were they, these little people who had scribbled their names inside books long since forgotten by adulthood?

  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs arrived with neither pomp nor ceremony but rather by mail thanks to an online auction I was determined to win. Inside the tatty cover, in precise, big print was the dedication:

  To Amy with love from Owen Christmas 1973

  Beneath this, scrawled in orange pencil pressed deep into the cardboard, she had forever made her mark:

  Amy Aherne

  Glenariff Farm

  Ballymcguinness

  6 years old

  As I looked at the scribbled inscription, I began to wonder. Who was she, this six-year-old girl from the seventies? Was she a dreamer like me, who was now learning the hard way that princes don’t just pop up every day and that there are an awful lot of frogs out there? Or perhaps she was a realist who didn’t believe in a man supplying her with a ready-made happy ever after? Might we have been friends if we had met? Where was she now? What had she grown up to do with her life?

  I felt a compulsion that was almost a physical tug. It was one that I have never felt before—this overwhelming need to know. I would find her and tell the story that lay within the name inscribed in the storybook.

  What I found, though, was not at all what I expected.

  Chapter One

  “Oi, nice slippers, love!” A broad Dublin twang shouted down from the heavens.

  A lack of privacy was the downside of apartment living, Jess thought as her gaze shot upwards to scan the myriad windows overlooking the courtyard. She was rewarded by the sight of a lad with a crew cut who looked far too young to be the proud owner of such a bulbous drinker’s nose. His purpose, judging by the plume of smoke he had just exhaled through his nostrils, for hanging out the window on a Saturday morning was not to spy on other residents but to have a sly smoke.

  Having been there and done that, Jess shrugged. Each to their own was her motto because she, better than most, knew what it felt like to always have someone else sticking their ten cents’ worth in. As her mother’s face floated before her, she gave Puff the Magic Dragon a little curtsey and got an excited wolf whistle in return before opening the door to her block and disappearing inside.

  It was true, she mused as she waited for the lift, that along with a sagging bottom and boobs, age—almost as though it were compensation—brought confidence. There was a time when she would have blushed a shade of beetroot upon being whistled at like that. That was back in the days when men were still allowed to down tools on building sites in order to harass the young women hurrying past. Funny, too, how when you were a nubile, barely post-teen strutting your stuff around Auckland’s CBD, you took those whistles for granted—almost as your due—and then when you reached a certain age, you became pathetically grateful for them.

  Jess knew that before the morning was out she’d be texting her best pals with the exciting news that she had received a wolf whistle and…wait for it… she was wearing her elephant suit, as her friends liked to refer to her Penney’s tracksuit ensemble.

  Her apartment was housed on the second floor of the Sandbank Wing of the Riverside complex. Although she often joked that by the state of the Liffey when the tide were out, perhaps the Smelly Mud Flat Apartments or Abandoned Shopping Trolleys Apartments might have been more apt names. Being on the second floor was something that made her feel happier when she spied the diehard smokers like ole randy, big nose boy—her reasoning being that if there was a fire, at least she had the option of jumping.

  This cheery trail of thought was interrupted as the lift door opened and disgorged Gemma from across the hall. She looked to be a woman on a mission, judging by the water bottle in hand and the amount of skin-tight black spandex on display.

  “Morning, Jess!” chirruped the svelte redhead with the bouncy ponytail and perky everything else. “Glad to see you’re up and at it.” She gave Jess’s track pants and slippers the once-over. “Well, kind of anyway.”

  “We can’t all be gym bunnies like you, Gem. Besides, you’ll do yourself an injury on that cross-trainer one of these days. Just you mark my words.” Pushing past her, she stepped inside the lift. “Besides, my old bones have a good ten years on yours.”

  Gemma laughed. “Listen to you—you sound like my Gran and she at least does aqua-aerobics twice a week! You really should come with me, you know.” She winked conspiratorially. “There’s lots of hotties there.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll think about it,” Jess muttered, hitting number two. She had no intention of breaking the golden rule by which she lived her life. No man would ever see her in spandex nor would she get hot and sweaty in front of the opposite sex unless there was something fun in it for her!

  “You’ve been saying that since Easter and we’re into September already, so why don’t you put your money where…” Gemma’s voice trailed off as the doors slid shut in her face.

  Gemma was right, she supposed. She did sound like a granny, even though she had only just turned thirty-four, which in this day and age of forty being the new thirty meant that technically she was twenty-four. Cheering up at that thought, Jess let herself into her apartment.

  ***

  The tired hardback cover peered up at her as she tossed the paper the book had been wrapped in onto the floor—she’d pick it up later. Being a slob on a Saturday was every single girl’s prerogative. She stroked the cover reverently; this was it!—the copy she needed to complete her collection. The rest of the Ladybird books were piled into the worn, leather suitcase she’d swooped on after spotting it at one of her favourite local second-hand haunts.

  The collection the case contained wasn’t overly valuable, given that most of them had someone else’s name scribbled inside. What was it with kids needing to put their mark on everything? It was this graffiti that devalued the little they were worth. For Jess, though, their value wasn’t monetary; it was magical. She could pore over her tattered copy of Cinderella for an age, mesmerised by Cinder’s beautiful ball gowns. There was just something so enchanting about the whole idea of living a life of rags to riches.

  Oh, she knew that these days such stories weren’t considered PC but in her opinion, things in that department had gone too far. Take, for instance, the day her local library had banned Enid Blyton’s Noddy books. Sacrilege! To say she had been heartbroken at the ridiculousness of it was an understatement. How on earth was a child supposed to make the connection between the Golliwogs and black people? And it had certainly never crossed her mind that Noddy’s relationship with Big Ears was based on anything other than platonic friendship.

  She understood now, though, that this was because kids don’t view the world the way adults do. With kids, there are no hidden agendas. But then it’s not the children who pay for the books, is it?

  Jess dismounted her high horse at the remembered injustice of it all as the phone began to jangle.

  “Hey, it’s me. What are you doing?—Harry, put that down!?” Brianna shrieked and Jess, holding the phone away from her ear, grinned at the mental picture her friend’s tone invoked.

  “The book arrived.”

  “Snow White—the one you bought off eBid?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Brianna could see the romance in collecting old books, unlike their mutual friend Nora who, upon spying the vintage suitcase and its contents for the first time, had exclaimed, “What on earth do you want with that old pile of mouldy shite? Honestly, Jess, you’ll be coming home with second-hand smalls next.” A second-hand Jane Nora was not.

  “Yes, and oh Brie, it’s just gorgeous.” She began flicking through the little book’s pages, gazing at the pictures as she did so. “You want to see the wee cottage in the woods; it’s…”

  “Like something out of a fairy story,” Brianna finished for her with a laugh that was cut short. Jess
could make out some sort of scuffling noise which was swiftly followed by, “Harry Price, you give that to Mammy right now! If Daddy catches you playing with his new razor, there will be murder.” She gave a heartfelt sigh that sounded like a long, slow hiss down the phone line. “Whatever you do, Jess, don’t ever have children.”

  “Ha! It would be the Immaculate Conception if I did and did I hear you right? Did you say Harry was playing with a razor?” She was mildly alarmed—Brianna had a laidback parenting style but that was a bit much, even by her standards.

  “It’s electric and he’s pretending to shave like Daddy.”

  “Phew, that’s alright then. Oh and Brie, if perchance I do meet Prince Charming before the menopause and have babies, then I hope they’re as gorgeous as your Harry. Put him on for me, will you?”

  “Huh! Not so gorgeous at five o’clock this morning when he decided to pay us a visit. Honestly, the concept of a weekend being for sleeping in is completely foreign to him—wait a minute… Harry, love, it’s your Aunty Jess wanting to say hello.”

  A few moments later, heavy breathing signalled Harry had taken over possession of the phone.

  “Hello, sweetie pie, how are you today? Are you being a good boy for your Mummy?”

  The heavy breathing stopped. “Yes but she’s not being a very good Mammy.”

  Jess choked back a laugh. “Why’s that then, Harry?”

  “I need to use Daddy’s razor or I will get prickles.”

  Brianna’s voice trilled in the background, “You won’t get prickles, Harry, because you are not in the throes of puberty just yet even though some days I could swear I am living with a hormonal teenager in the body of a five-year-old. Now give the phone back to Mammy and say cheerio to Aunty Jess.”

  There was a thunk as he dropped the phone in protest and then the line went dead. Jess smiled to herself and shook her head. It really was lucky for Harry that he was such a cutie. Hanging up her end, she waited for it to ring again. She didn’t have to wait long.

  “Sorry about that. His Highness is being a right sod this morning. We’ve both got cabin fever, so I’d better keep it short before he gets himself into some real mischief. Now I know it’s a bit of a crap day and you’d never know it was supposed to be the tail end of an Indian summer, but we do live in Ireland after all and if I don’t get out and about with Harry, I will go mad!”

  “I take it Pete’s at work then?” Jess interjected. Despite having the look of a builder about him, Brianna’s nearest and dearest actually worked in IT, doing that cryptic kind of stuff that IT people do. She had once asked him to explain to her in layman’s terms exactly what it was he did do for a living. To which Pete had replied in painstaking detail and in slow, drawn-out syllables as though talking to a simpleton. The thing was, he might as well have been because her eyes had glazed over halfway through his explanation and she was still none the wiser when he’d finished. It was something or other to do with contracting his computer skills out to a major retail outlet, for which he got very highly paid. Well paid enough for Brianna not to have to work and for them to live in a lovely home with all the latest mod cons.

  “Yeah, he’s finishing off an urgent job and won’t be home until late. So how do you fancy a trip to Bray? We could do the Greystones walk, followed by a glass of wine in the pub. A lemonade and bag of crisps will keep Harry quiet and then we could all hop on the Dart back to mine for a BBQ dinner. Nothing flash—sausages in bread with salad—but I’ve managed to entice Nora, so long as they’re the low-fat chicken sausies, mind.”

  Brianna lived in a pretty red brick, two-storey house in the bustling seaside hub of Bray, a mere thirty minutes outside of Dublin. With the hills of North County Wicklow surrounding it, there was no better place for a Saturday afternoon ramble. Jess glanced out the window at the grey old day. Exercise hadn’t been on her agenda but a spot of fresh sea air, some good company followed by an ice cold glass of sav—well, it would do her the world of good, she decided. Besides, if it meant she didn’t have to cook a dinner for one, she was all for a BBQ!

  “You can’t beat a good old banger, even if they are low-fat, so count me in. Meet you at the station around two?”

  “Perfect! We can head off from there. I’ll let Nora know and we’ll see you then.”

  Jess hung up the phone and twiddled her toes inside the soft fleece lining of her slippers. She’d have to take them off in a minute but not just yet—they were so comfy.

  The slippers were a Valentine’s Day gift from her mother last February. For as long as she could remember—or at least since Jess had been of a marriageable age—she had been buying her a little something on Valentine’s Day. She said it was her way of making her daughter feel loved and once upon a time, the gifts had been saucy knickers. Inappropriate items for one’s mother to be buying her daughter, perhaps, but when your mother worked on the lingerie counter of Auckland’s iconic Smith & Caughey department store, she got to buy them at cost. Hence, Jess was sure she boasted a more exotic underwear drawer than most red-light workers!

  More years ago now than Jess cared to remember, she had really pushed the boat out and given her a pair of lace-topped stay-up stockings. She’d volunteered a demo on how to put them on, too, but Jess declined the offer as sexy stockings were not really the kind of thing she wanted to see her Mum in. Yes, indeedy, the sight of that would have been enough to make her hoist her pantyhose as high as she could get them for the rest of her days!

  These little gifts were given on the annual day of romance in the hope that Jess would use her feminine wiles to maximum capacity in order to seduce a doctor or solicitor or some such other professional.

  Marian Baré, you see, suffered from delusions of grandeur. She herself was married to a carpet layer and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that, in Jess’s opinion. Her dad was a hard worker who had always provided for his girls, as he liked to call his wife, Jess, and her younger sister Kelly.

  As the years had passed, however, and she had unwrapped yet another lacy thong, her mother had abruptly changed tack.

  “Jessica, your father and I would be just as happy if you married a tradesman, you know. They make good providers and they’re practical. That’s so important, sweetheart; I mean, a man needs to know how to unblock a toilet or change a light bulb. Look at how your father’s always looked after us.” Marian’s voice softened as she thought about her obliging hubby Frank but then she’d gotten back to the matter at hand. “Speaking of whom, your father was saying the other day that the firm’s just taken on a new apprentice. He’s only a year or two younger than you, which is nothing when you think of Catherine Zeta and Michael, so perhaps Dad could arrange for you…”

  “No way! I am not desperate, Mum, and I haven’t forgotten that awful Jeremy you got him to set me up with last time! And since when were you on a first name basis with members of the Hollywood A-list?”

  “Don’t be clever, Jessica; it doesn’t suit you. Your problem, my girl, is that you’re too fussy for your own good because there was absolutely nothing wrong with poor Jeremy that a dab of antiseptic cream on his spots wouldn’t have sorted out.”

  “Yeah, and a bottle of mouthwash, a deodorant, anti-dandruff shampoo, and soap for that matter. Personal hygiene issues aside, Mum, in case you haven’t noticed, we do not live in the 1950s anymore. I don’t need a man to be happy. I have a career of my own, from which I gain plenty of personal satisfaction, thank you very much.” Actually, now that she thought back on it, she had sounded a tad “And I am off to get a crew cut and stop shaving under my arms.” No wonder her mother had begun to narrow her eyes whenever her girlfriends popped around after that little statement.

  At the time, though, she had merely reiterated, “Yes, sweetheart, and we are very proud of you. That’s why we put you through university but a job won’t keep you warm at night, will it? Why can’t you have both? Lots of women work and maintain a relationship. I mean, I’ve hardly sat on my backside all these
years, now have I?”

  God. She was so frustrating and probably the main reason Jess thanked her lucky stars for her UK ancestry, which meant she could live and work on the other side of the world from her! She flatly refused to refer to her daughter’s chosen line of work as a journalist as a career. It was always referred to as a job—a means to an end until something better came along: aka, a man. Jess gritted her teeth in anticipation, knowing what was coming next and she was proved right.

  “Jessica, all your father and I want for you is to find someone to settle down with like your sister has. That’s not too much to ask for, surely?”

  It irked Jess the way she always included her father in the equation. It wasn’t him who put the pressure on her to get a ring on her finger at every opportunity. And, at the very mention of Kelly, she rolled her eyes. Married she may be but did it count if it were to a Martian? Okay, so he wasn’t green but he was odd and he wasn’t very attractive and she had no idea how her sister actually managed to have sex with him but she obviously did—and quite often, too, judging by their numerous offspring. Who, if she were being honest, were complete and utter little shites. Although as their aunt, she obviously loved her pretentious eight-year-old niece Mia, know-it-all six-year-old Bella, bossy four-year-old Ethan, and of course she couldn’t forget her three-year-old tearaway nephew, Elliot, who still wasn’t properly toilet trained. Nor could she forget the incident whereby he’d wet himself all over her favourite velvet Balenciaga skirt the last time she had been home. She had picked up the vintage skirt for an absolute steal on one of her op-shop forays and it would now forever bear the mark of her nephew. Kelly had tried to appease her by saying that he only peed on people he felt comfortable around. She’d tried to convince her sister that really, she should be pleased because despite his having not seen his aunt since he was six months old, he obviously had a soft spot for her. Jess was too busy wiping at the wet spot he’d left on her lap to care.