I watched Chris as he skipped. Ungainly and awkward, but very cute. His face was a picture of concentration as he tried hard to get it right.
I sat there feeling miserable, listening to them all chanting the skipping song, when I heard Chris singing the words ‘… And I caaallll Rachel in.’
Joyfully, I jumped up. I loved being called in and I never was. Never. It was always the bigger girls.
Or the smaller ones.
I leapt into the turning rope and skipped along with Chris for a few seconds, smiling shyly with the joy of being picked. Then Chris’s lovely lizard-skin chelsea boots got tangled up in the rope, and I tripped and the pair of us fell sprawling onto the floor. There was a delicious second of lying next to him and then John Joe threw a little fit and said he was sick of turning the rope. In a surge of unexpected magnanimity, I found myself turning the rope with glassy-eyed Nancy. She was so lost in the tranquillizer wilderness she terrified me.
After John Joe had almost broken every bone in his own and the bodies around him, it was time for musical chairs. Initially, I was afraid of being rough and pushing others off the chairs and onto the floor. Except for when it was Misty, of course. But, when I realized the whole idea was to be as vicious as possible, I really began to have a good time. Laughing and gasping, tussling and fighting, I felt I’d never enjoyed myself so much before. Without drugs, I mean.
And it wasn’t until I was going to bed, and I thought of Luke in New York, probably just about to go out, that my happiness evaporated.
On Sunday morning every man in the Cloisters, including Chris, I was sorry to say, approached me and said ‘Will that sister of yours be coming today?’
‘I don’t know,’ I had to tell them. But, when visiting time rolled around, Helen appeared with Mum and Dad. No sign of Anna, unfortunately. Dad was still talking in his Oklahoma voice.
When I got Helen on her own – Mum and Dad were deep into a conversation with Chris’s parents, I dreaded to think what they were talking about – I slipped her the letter requesting Anna to visit me bearing narcotics.
I said to Helen ‘Would you give that to Anna?’
‘But I won’t see her,’ said Helen. ‘I’ve a job.’
‘You’ve a job?’ I was very surprised. Not only was Helen notoriously lazy, but, like me, she couldn’t actually do anything. ‘Since when?’
‘Wednesday night.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Waitress.’
‘Where?’
‘In a fucking…’ She paused as she searched for the right word. ‘… A fucking abattoir in Temple Bar called Club Mexxx.’
‘That’s with three xs,’ she added. ‘That should tell you something about it.’
‘Well, er, congratulations,’ I said. Although I wasn’t at all sure they were appropriate. Like saying congratulations to your friend when she’s just found out she’s pregnant, but has no boyfriend to speak of.
‘Look, it’s not my fault that I was too short to be an air hostess!’ she suddenly exclaimed.
‘I didn’t know you’d applied to be a trolley dolly,’ I said, in surprise.
‘Well, I did,’ she said moodily. ‘And I wouldn’t mind, but it wasn’t even a proper airline, it was one of those crappy charter ones, Air Paella, that’d employ anyone. Except me.’
I was in shock because her disappointment was so tangible. She’d always got exactly what she wanted. She put her face in her hands in a gesture of despair that frightened me. ‘I wouldn’t mind, Rachel, but I had everything else perfect, I looked just the part.’
‘How d’you mean?’
‘You know, the inch-thick tangerine foundation, the white neck, the scary, pretend smile, the visible panty line. Not to mention the selective deafness. I would have been brilliant!
‘I practised very hard, Rachel,’ she said, her bottom lip trembling. ‘I really did. I was horrible to every woman I met and slimed all over every man. I practised opening the freezer door and standing beside it and nodding and giving a fake smile and saying, “Thanksbyebyethanks-thanksbyebye thanksthanksbye thanksthanks byebyebye”, for hours, but they said I was too short. “What do I need to be tall for?” I asked them. And they said to put things in the overhead lockers. Well, that’s a load of shite as anyone knows, because if you’re an air hostess it’s your job to ignore all the women and let them do everything themselves. And if it’s a man who needs help, you just flash him your jugs and get him to do it himself too. And he’ll be glad to do it. Thrilled.’
‘Why the freezer door?’
‘Because where they stand when the people are getting off is always cold, see?’
‘Well, er, it was a good idea to practise,’ I said awkwardly.
‘Practise!’ Mum had reappeared. ‘I’ll give her practise. She defrosted a freezer load of Magnums and crispy pancakes on me with her “Thanksbyebyethanks”. Practise, indeed!’
‘They were only mint Magnums,’ said Helen. ‘Not worth the space they took up, it was a mercy killing, the humane thing to do.’
Mum continued to make tutty, disapproving noises as if she was Skippy the bush kangaroo trying to convey that Bruce had fallen out of the seaplane, had fractured his arm in three places and needed rescuing from a swamp full of crocodiles.
‘Anyway, yeah, like, thanks for all the support, Mum,’ Helen burst out, as though she was twelve. ‘I suppose you just wish I never got a job.’
I waited for her to explode ‘I never asked to be born,’ and slam from the room.
But then we all remembered where we were and put a lid on it.
Mum moved away again. This time to bond with Misty O’Malley’s parents. Dad was still knee-deep in conversation with Chris’s father.
‘So have you any stamps?’ I turned to Helen. If she wouldn’t give the letter to Anna, then I’d try and post the bloody thing. Slip it into the outgoing post without anyone knowing.
‘Me?’ Helen demanded. ‘Stamps? Do I look like I’m married?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Only married people carry stamps around with them, everyone knows that.’
‘Well, never mind,’ I said. It had just occurred to me – how could I have ever forgotten? – that in five days, the three weeks I’d contracted to stay for would be up. I could freely leave. No bloody way would I elect to stay for the full two months like the rest of them. I’d be off like a shot. Then I could take as many drugs as I liked.