She sat at the furthest end of the table, as far away as she could get from the rest of us, and ignored everyone. I gazed at her until I was so engulfed by envy that I thought I might puke. I would have loved to be good at being aloof, but I always ruined it. (Asking, ‘How am I doing? Am I being aloof enough?’ is undeniably counterproductive.)
It seemed as if the collection of men around me held their breath. They gazed raptly at Misty, as she took out a newspaper and started to do the crossword.
‘She thinks she’s great,’ scoffed Mike. ‘Just because she wrote a book when she was only seventeen.’
‘Did she?’ I was passionately intrigued, but tried hard not to show it. It really wasn’t cool to be interested and impressed.
‘Surely you’ve heard of Misty?’ asked Mike, with what sounded like irony, but I couldn’t be sure.
‘She used to be a right jarhead?’ he enquired of me.
I shook my head.
‘Then last year she stopped and wrote the book?’
Again I shook my head.
‘And was only seventeen when she did it?’ This was definitely said with irony.
‘No? Well, she did. Then, the next thing you know, she’s there every time you turn on the telly, telling how she knocked the drink on the head and became a writer and was only seventeen.’
Misty’s story was starting to ring bells for me.
‘And before you know it, she’s back on the sauce, and ends up in here to be “recovered” all over again.’ Mike’s sarcasm was, by now, out in the open. ‘By this time, of course, she’s not seventeen anymore.’
Yes, in fact, I had heard of her. Of course I had. The newspaper that I had read out of hysterical boredom on the flight from New York was full of the story of her fall from grace. The implication being that it was nothing but a publicity stunt. Surely it was no coincidence, it suggested, that Misty’s new book and photographs of Misty were plastered all over every shop?
‘Why she expected to get so many claps on the back for just giving up the drink is beyond me,’ continued Mike. ‘It’s a bit like Yasser Marrowfat winning the Nobel prize for Peace. You know, behave like a right bollix, then stop, then expect everyone to tell you you’re great…’
Misty must have known she was being talked about because she suddenly looked up from her newspaper, and stared in disgust, before raising two fingers at us. I was torn between excessive admiration and great jealousy.
‘She does The Irish Times crossword every day,’ whispered Clarence. ‘The cryptic one.’
‘And she never eats a thing,’ said Eamonn of the moon face, and matching arse.
‘Is her name Misty O’Malley?’ I asked in an undertone.
‘Have you heard of her?’ Mike asked. He sounded almost afraid.
I nodded.
Mike looked as if he might cry. But he cheered himself up by saying, ‘I believe no one could make head nor tale of that book she wrote.’
‘It won an award, didn’t it?’ I asked.
‘My point exactly,’ said Mike.
‘Givvus a clue, Misty,’ shouted Clarence.
‘Fuck off, Clarence, you fat old culchie,’ she said malevolently, without looking up.
Clarence sighed, a look of naked, hungry, devotion on his face.
‘I would have thought a writer would have been able to come up with a better insult than “Fat old culchie”,’ Mike called scornfully.
She looked up and smiled sweetly. ‘Oh Mike,’ she breathed and shook her head. Her red hair caught the light and became spun gold. She looked beautiful, vulnerable and appealing. I’d misjudged her. Mike obviously thought so too. He was so still that I was afraid to move while a long taut look stretched between the two of them.
But wait! She was going to speak again! ‘When are you going to ask them to put bromide in your tea, Mike? You just can’t leave me alone, can you?’ She gave a savage little smile and Mike went grey. Smirking, she picked up her newspaper and slowly wiggled out of the room. All eyes were on her as she jutted one skinny little hip, then the other. None of the men spoke until she had disappeared. Then, looking slightly dazed, they reluctantly turned their attention back to me.
‘She has our hearts scalded,’ said Clarence, in what sounded annoyingly like admiration. ‘Thank God you’re here now. We can fancy you and you won’t be mean to us, will you?’
Bigheaded, unpleasant, little bitch, I thought. You wouldn’t catch me behaving like her, not in a million years. I’d be so nice, everyone would love me. Even though, of course, I had no intention of getting involved with any of the people here. Despite myself, I was uncomfortably aware that I felt very much in awe of her…
Then someone exclaimed ‘It’s five to two.’ And they all said ‘Jesus!’ and, as they stubbed out their cigarettes and slugged back their tea, jumped to their feet. Good-naturedly they said things like ‘Off to be humbled’ and ‘My turn to be hauled over red-hot coals this afternoon’ and ‘I’d rather be taken out into the yard and flayed alive with a cat o’nine tails.’
‘Come on,’ said Mike to me.
10
Mike grabbed me by the wrist and rushed me down a corridor and into a room.
‘This is the Abbot’s Quarter?’ I asked doubtfully, looking round the draughty room that had nothing in it but a circle of threadbare chairs.
‘Yes.’ Mike sounded in a panic. ‘You sit there. Quick, Rachel, quick!’
I sat down and so did Mike.
‘Listen to me,’ he said in an urgent tone. ‘I’m going to give you some advice. The most important thing you’ll probably learn in your whole time here.’
I drew nearer, nervous and excited.
‘Never!’ he declared, then took a deep breath. ‘Never!’
Another deep breath. I drew even nearer to him.
‘Never,’ he pointed, ‘sit in that chair, that chair, that chair or that chair. Group lasts for at least two hours at a time and your arse will be in rag order if you have the misfortune to be sitting on any of them. Now look and I’ll point them out to you again…’
As he was doing so, the door burst open and a handful of the other inmates ran in and loudly set up a clamour of complaint that all the good seats were gone. I instantly felt guilty because they all had terrible things wrong with them and should at least have been afforded comfortable seats while they were being fixed.