The Valentine's Card Read online

  ‘But … oh.’

  ‘I loved the new top floor so much I kept it.’ Maude pushed at the door of the flat on the middle landing, sandwiched between the shop and the minimalist garret. ‘I feel so Scandinavian up there, wafting through white rooms free of clutter. Whereas this flat …’ She stood back to let Orla in.

  The door opened directly onto the sitting room, which stretched across the front of the house. Trinkets. Gewgaws. Thingummybobs. Shelves of books, tables bearing lamps and glass ornaments and snuffboxes, paintings of doe-eyed ladies and dashing gentlemen. It was hard to imagine Sim in this corner of old lady-ville.

  Two sash windows ogled the top deck of a passing double-decker. Orla followed the room as it snaked around the corner, knocked through to create an L shape, with a kitchen, of sorts, in the shorter leg.

  ‘Sim kept the curtains closed all the time.’ Maude tugged at the moss green drapes with tiny hands, allowing a little February sunlight to elbow through the lace nets. ‘Bedroom’s at the back.’ She pointed to a door at the far end of the defiantly unfitted kitchen. ‘Shower room’s off the bedroom. The place needs a little TLC. I haven’t lingered here since … well, since he died.’ Maude forced it out. ‘Sorry, dear, I can’t say he’s passed away or gone before or, heaven help us, only sleeping. Poor old Simeon is dead and we must manage the best we can with that fact.’ Maude put her head to one side to survey Orla’s drooping face. ‘Have I offended you?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m no fan of those euphemisms either. It’s just,’ Orla breathed harder, as if a thumb pressed on her throat, ‘I need to be on my own, if that’s all right.’

  ‘If that’s all right!’ Maude seemed touched. She cupped Orla’s cheek briefly and left the flat, the door closing behind her with a camp squeak.

  Orla waited in vain for quiet to descend, so she could tune herself in to the last space Sim had inhabited. The traffic coughed on, the crossing signal beeped and the homeless man burst into song. Orla went to the back of the flat and sank to the bed, laid her face on the pillow. The longed-for sense of connection didn’t come. The pillow smelled of fabric conditioner. Orla let loose a single tear.

  The journal would bring him back. Through its pages, she would reacquaint herself with him. That journal would tell her all the secrets Sim would rather have kept to himself.

  When she had read that, she would feel free to read the valentine.

  Sim’s journal

  17 October 2011

  Landlady’s a rum old bird. Cut-glass accent. Weeny. Vague blue eyes, but they’ll burn bright in a flash.

  Street’s filthy. Authentic! Wouldn’t tolerate it in Dub, but London has its own rules.

  Meeting with Reece today. Great bloke. Great agent. From the moment he took me on last year I knew having a London agent instead of a Dublin one would make things happen. ‘Be prepared,’ he said, ‘you’re going to be a star.’

  YESSSSS!

  But also AAAARGH!

  There is NOBODY I can confess my UTTER FUCKING RAMPANT TERROR to except that Fairy of mine. I just tried her and she’s not picking up.

  Right. Enough navel gazing. What to wear? Reece is introducing me to my leading lady over dinner at his club tonight. So, you’re a famed man-eater, are you, Ms Anthea Blake? Like ’em young, do you?

  My Dolce and Gabbana suit, methinks.

  ‘What?’ Reece’s voice was surprised, wrong-footed. ‘You’re here already? But I would have met you at the airport. Or at least sent a car.’

  ‘Really?’ Orla pulled a face at herself in the baroque mirror over the antediluvian gas fire. ‘No need. I have two feet and half a brain.’ Bereavement had made a beanbag of the other half. ‘I’m staying at Sim’s flat. I thought I should let you know, as the BBC are paying the rent. I suppose you should tell them or something.’

  ‘That’s not a problem.’ Reece’s voice was assured, confident, measured. Carefully classless in a way that screamed ‘public school but works in media’. ‘Look, I’m here for anything you need. It’s the least I can do. Sim is very important to me. Not just as a client. As a friend.’

  ‘I see you’re having trouble with the past tense too.’

  ‘Yes. It feels …’

  ‘Disloyal? Just breathing feels disloyal. I felt like a murderer when I cancelled his subscription to GQ.’

  Reece laughed. Throaty. Male. ‘He said you were funny.’

  ‘Did he?’ Orla liked Reece. He had a light touch without abandoning depth, and he’d obviously been fond of Sim. So he should be, whispered the valentine. He was on twenty per cent.

  ‘He told me lots about you, Orla. He missed you terribly.’

  ‘I should have come over sooner.’

  ‘Oh look … we’d all behave differently if we could predict the future. Listen, Orla, I’ve got to go. New York’s on the other line. We’ll have lunch, yes? And call me. If you need anything. Anything at all.’

  The candle guttered, making the dark perimeter of the sitting room wobble. The table was cosy as a campfire.

  ‘You made a start, I see.’ Maude sloshed red wine into their glasses. A jet choker glittered at her neck. ‘First time the place has looked shipshape in months.’

  ‘I folded up his clothes, sorted them into piles. Charity. Bin. Me.’ Orla pursued the last smudge of cheesecake around her plate with her finger. Her appetite had raised its head again; Maude’s supper on a tray had been welcome. ‘Some of them were new to me. There were shirts I never saw him in.’

  ‘He was rather a dandy.’

  ‘I put his books to one side. Perhaps you’ll take them for the shop? I’ll hang on to this.’ Orla reached in to her bag and fished out a copy of One Day. ‘We talked about this on the phone. He said he should have got the part in the film.’

  ‘Didn’t he say that about every part in every film?’ Maude swirled her Barolo, making a turbulent sea of it.

  ‘I’ve put away his glasses.’ The ones he never admitted to needing. ‘I’ve disposed of his medication, as the containers say. I kept the vitamins. I’m keeping his laptop. It was a present from me last Christmas when he bought me an iPad. I’ve packed up his passport, his birth certificate, his wallet. I’ve cut up his bank cards.’ That had felt brutal. ‘There’s one thing I can’t find. And it’s bugging me. It should be here. He wrote in it every day.’

  ‘The journal? Silly big leather thing like something out of Dickens? It’s definitely here somewhere. I often caught him scribbling in it when I nipped down with a little bite of something.’

  ‘You fed him?’

  ‘You make him sound like a guinea pig. He didn’t mention it? Oh yes, I fed the boy. Otherwise the stink of stockpiled takeaway containers might have felled me in the hallway.’

  ‘He told me he was learning to cook. Easy things. Like pasta.’

  ‘There was a pasta.’ Maude grimaced. ‘Best forgotten. If I had eyes like Sim’s I’d expect the nearest gullible old bat to feed me, too.’

  Sim was so fond of fibs. From their earliest days together, she’d learned that a casual, ‘Hi, what have you been up to?’ was invariably answered with an evasive, ‘Oh this and that’. But now details were important.

  ‘I’ve looked in every drawer, every cupboard. The journal isn’t here. Reece – I think you met him, he’s Sim’s agent? – he brought the personal effects here from the hospital so it wasn’t with Sim when he collapsed.’

  ‘I’ll help you look in the morning. Wine doesn’t improve my sleuthing skills. It’s here. He was very attached to it. Abnormally so. Oh.’ Maude squinted over at the dresser, her eyes on the pink envelope propped against a casserole dish. ‘What’s this? It’s addressed to you, dear.’ Maude leaned over to pick it up. ‘Did you bring this with you?’

  ‘Yes. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Oh good lord, it’s a valentine.’ Maude put her hand over her mouth. ‘You poor girl.’

  Fighting an urge to snatch the card, Orla nodded.

  ‘That is hard.’ Maude laid it o
n the table, a hand palm down either side of it. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Orla moved the card a centimetre or so, further from the glasses, further from the chaos spilt Barolo could wreak. ‘I don’t need to.’

  ‘Explain, dear.’

  ‘I know what it says.’

  ‘Happy Valentine’s Day, presumably,’ suggested Maude. ‘Did Sim sign them or just put a question mark? I always put question marks.’

  ‘Sim always signs them. Signed them. He’s – he was very good at cards. Made them special, you know?’

  ‘I can guess.’ Maude’s eyes, though tired, were set to optimum twinkle.

  ‘The valentine contains a proposal.’ Orla sucked her lips, then carried on. ‘So, really, Sim asked me to marry him before he died.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ In the candlelight it was hard to tell whether Maude’s expression was one of delight or horror.

  ‘As sure as sure can be.’

  ‘I do love that accent. Even the four minute warning before a nuclear apocalypse would sound charming in a light Irish accent.’

  Orla obliged. ‘Attention. The end of the world is nigh.’

  ‘Exactly!’ They were both silent for a moment. ‘What would your answer have been?’

  ‘The loudest yes in the history of yesses.’

  ‘Then why not read the proposal, answer it in your head, and tuck the card away somewhere safe?’

  ‘Maude, I can’t break my heart twice in a month.’

  ‘You will read it.’ Maude was all action and energy, sweeping away the tray to the sink and returning with another bottle. ‘Shall I tell you when?’

  ‘If you like.’ Orla was tired, deep in her bones. Never a massive drinker, she found the second bottle of wine awoke a frightening thirst.

  ‘When you’re happy.’

  Orla spluttered. Maude continued.

  ‘Happiness creeps in by the window if you lock the door. Trust me. I’ve been as sad as you but look at me now. Cheerful as a, well, I’m no good at similes. Cheerful as a postbox. Right now you’re certain that you’ll never again giggle till you break wind, but I solemnly promise you will. Look.’ Maude lifted her profile and raised her glass. ‘This is me. Solemnly promising.’

  ‘I’m normally better company than this.’ Maude was trying so hard with her dreadful audience.

  ‘Dear, you’re at sixes and sevens. Is this your first bereavement?’

  ‘No. My father died when I was twenty-one.’ Jaysus, twelve years ago. Daddy was already a decade out of date; he’d never heard of Barack Obama, never seen Avatar, nor met four of his seven grandchildren. ‘That was different, though. Daddy was ill for ages. I moved home. It was calm.’ The family popping in and out. Tea in the pot. Father Gerry hovering. Jim Cassidy had died a traditional Irish death. Nothing left unsaid. By the time he let go of Ma’s hand one dawn the poor man was worn out from I love yous. ‘With Sim, it’s been too fast. I can’t take it in. How a man so healthy can just …’ Orla tailed off, reluctant to inflict her incessant inner chorus on Maude. ‘So much is left unsaid. Sorry. Like I said, I’m not normally this odd.’

  ‘I’ve lost many people I was mad about,’ said Maude, her high cheekbones saucily red from the alcohol. ‘It’s vile. Different every time. You have my permission to be as batty as you like for as long as you’re here.’

  ‘That won’t be long,’ said Orla hastily. ‘I’ll be gone the day after tomorrow at the latest.’ Discreetly, firmly, she reclaimed the valentine. ‘As soon as I’ve found the journal.’

  Sim’s journal

  10 May 2011

  It’s still sinking in. I got the part. I am the Comte de Caylus in The Courtesan.

  I hope you can keep secrets, dear Journal, because at long last my life is going to get INTERESTING.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Orla? It’s Ma. Can you talk?’

  ‘Howaya Ma?’

  ‘So. A week already.’ [Pause] ‘I said, love, a whole week already.’

  ‘Yes, Ma. A mere week. I’ll be home soon. It’s this journal. It’s bugging me.’

  ‘His owld diary? Sure why does it matter so much?’

  ‘Ma, we’ve been through this.’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry, love. But I worry about you.’

  ‘Please don’t, Ma. Worry about one of your other kids for a change.’

  ‘They’re all grand. Deirdre’s grand. I’m looking after her little ones while she’s at work. And that Caitlin’s tearing up New York. Hugh is after getting a promotion and hasn’t Brendan only gone and bought a llama for the smallholding. A feckin’ llama! Sure, they’re all grand.’

  ‘Except for your pesky youngest. Did you look in at my place?’

  ‘It’s still standing. I turned off the immersion. Picked up the post. All bills. Phelim! Stop hitting your sister with the Lego! They have me heart crossways. Four at once is too many.’

  ‘Deirdre can afford a nursery, surely.’

  ‘Ah no, she shouldn’t waste her money on them places while I’m here. Some school leaver who doesn’t know her arse from her elbow bathing my grandson? I don’t think so!’

  ‘Give them a kiss for me.’

  ‘I ran into the supply teacher who’s standing in for you. Pretty thing. Looks about twelve. Her great-aunt was second cousin by marriage to the one-legged woman who sold eggs to your nana.’

  ‘Practically family. Is she getting on OK?’

  ‘Apparently the kiddies love her.’

  ‘Nice try, Ma. I’ll be home soon. Promise. As soon as I find the journal. London is not my cup of tea.’

  ‘Orla, you don’t look like you,’ complained Juno, her kohl-rimmed eyes enormous on Sim’s computer screen as she peered into the Skype camera.

  ‘Sit back a bit, you eejit. That’s better.’ The screen showed Orla an underwater Juno, moving with an eerie delay, her outline bleeding into the background. ‘Sim never mentioned he had it fixed,’ she muttered. ‘It conked out a few weeks ago but it seems OK now.’

  ‘I think I prefer just phoning. You seem to be sitting in the middle of a badly lit jumble sale. And oh God is that the feckin’ valentine I can see?’

  ‘Yes it is and this flat’s nicer than it looks.’ Orla’s need to defend the three small rooms surprised her. She was sleeping better with the tranquil bookshop beneath her and Maude’s pitterpat above. ‘The clutter grounds me.’

  ‘Rather you than me.’

  Juno was a lover of all things modern. She was fast-forward all the way, leaving others – her husband in particular – panting in her wake. The modernist eruption of white concrete that was their house had been built to her design, right down to the last light switch. He had fancied something Georgian.

  ‘Listen,’ she continued, ‘a place that size doesn’t take a week to search. It’s not the diary keeping you in London, so what is?’

  The friends never fibbed to each other. Jack’s sudden howl saved Orla from answering. She couldn’t share the unformed but insistent questions about Sim’s last few months that snagged at her thoughts like a rusty anchor at the ocean bed.

  ‘Shush! Jack! Shush now! Mammy’ll be there in a minute!’ She returned to Orla. ‘He’s hungry. I sent Himself out for a curry. Told him I was too tired to cook.’

  ‘I’m shocked. You? Wriggling out of housewifely duties? Never.’

  ‘I’m scared of that new cooker. It has fourteen dials! Men flew to the moon with fewer knobs. If you pardon the expression.’

  ‘Jack sounds so sweet when he cries.’ The envy was new and unwelcome. Orla had never coveted Juno’s clothes, bags, shoes, husband, space-age house or photogenic child before. ‘He sounds like a sleepy kitten.’ Grief coloured her emotions with broad crayon strokes: she wanted a baby. She missed the baby she might have had with Sim.

  ‘Listen to it all day every day and it’s not so sweet.’

  ‘Say something nice about him, Ju. He looks like a mini George Clooney but you never big him up. You’re unnatur
al, you are.’ Orla echoed Juno’s mother.

  ‘Shut up, you. You know what I’m like. I don’t do gooey, but I’d throw myself in front of a train for little Jackster. And I’d do the same for you. You know that, don’t you, lady?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I have a favour to ask.’

  ‘I can’t babysit tonight if that’s what you’re after.’

  ‘Listen to me, Orla. Please stay in London and have an adventure on my behalf. Use this feckin’ journal as an excuse if you need to, but don’t come home and decompose in Tobercree like the rest of us.’

  ‘Isn’t Jack an adventure?’

  ‘Of course, but he’s not a reckless, dirty, filthy one like the one you should have. You’ve had freedom forced upon you, may as well not waste it.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel at all like freedom, Ju.’ More of a cell. ‘I’m not like you. I don’t have your courage.’

  Juno chafed against the manifold luxuries of her life, even though she’d chosen them. A rising star copywriter in Dublin’s incestuous advertising fraternity, Juno had turned her back on her career the instant it became clear that her boss was falling for her. The relationship had accelerated – with all the speed of Himself’s Porsche – from a casual drink after work to an epic wedding. A honeymoon baby had been a step too far even for him but, lo and behold, Jack turned up a mere nine months later. Still Juno refused to learn domestic skills, railing against her adoring, indulgent husband as if he were a tyrant.

  ‘You’re a feckin’ tigress, Cassidy. Being with Sim blunted your nails. He was so …’

  ‘So what?’ Orla said, sharply.

  ‘Well, you know, he didn’t take criticism kindly.’ Juno said it archly, as if it was code for something more damning. ‘He was the star, wasn’t he? No room for two of them in a relationship. Now you can be, well, you.’

  ‘Seriously? You choose this moment in my life to go all self-help on me? If you so much as think about telling me to feel the fear and do it anyway I’ll be on the first flight home and throttle you.’

  ‘Coming, Jack! Listen, hon, I have to dash. Call me whenever you want. Dump on me. My shoulder is there for the weeping on. But do not come home!’