Beneath the Earth Read online

  Archie made no reference to the disappearance of Mrs Crossley and Agatha thought to bring it up one day, to ask why he thought Mrs Crossley had dropped them so suddenly, but in the end she decided against it. She didn’t want to hear his answer.

  But now, this morning, it was almost impossible not to suspect the worst. She turned away from her observation of the progress of the bridge and went around to Archie’s side of the bed, burying her face in his pillow, trying to define by scent whether or not he had slept there the night before.

  It was an extraordinary thing, of course, for a husband and wife not to retire together from a party – it was not the sort of thing that would ever happen in London – but it was exactly what had taken place the previous night. They had been invited to the home of the Forsters, a couple who lived only a short walk from their apartment, and had strolled down together in the late evening to join a very jolly party. Agatha was having a wonderful time, particularly because Archie was being so solicitous of her, but then they had both turned at the same moment and caught the eye of Mrs Crossley across the room. The lady froze visibly for a moment, her expression set in stone, before relaxing her features and adopting what Agatha defined as a practised expression. Archie, holding Agatha’s elbow, tensed, swallowed and said nothing. The tableau was quite extraordinary, Agatha felt. The three of them locked together in some ridiculous way, no one willing to be the first to say or do anything.

  ‘Look,’ said Agatha finally, the word catching in her throat. ‘Look who it is.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Archie, and now Mrs Crossley advanced towards them both, wrapping them up in a flurry of kisses and self-admonishments for not seeing them more frequently.

  ‘I’ve just been so busy of late,’ she explained. ‘I intended to write but never found an opportunity. My brother came to visit, you see, from Canberra.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a brother,’ said Agatha coolly.

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  Mrs Crossley stared at her, her expression fixed, but then she smiled a little. ‘His name is John,’ she said. ‘He’s the member for Darwin so splits his time between the Northern Territories and the capital. You can look him up in the Members’ Directory if you don’t believe me.’

  Agatha flushed scarlet. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Naturally I didn’t mean—’

  ‘And how are you, Archie?’ said Mrs Crossley, turning her attentions to Agatha’s husband. ‘You have quite a colour these days. Been spending a lot of time outdoors, have you? You always seemed more the indoors type to me.’

  ‘Well, yes, a bit, I suppose,’ muttered Archie.

  ‘You promised to lend me that book, didn’t you? The history of the Indian subcontinent that you praised so highly. But you never did. I should be very cross with you.’

  ‘I do apologize,’ said Archie, and Agatha noticed how he was unable to meet her eye. ‘I could get a boy to bring it over tomorrow if you like.’

  ‘A boy?’ she said, staring at him and waiting for so long before continuing that Agatha hoped the ground would open and swallow them all up. ‘How terribly thoughtful,’ she said finally. ‘Agatha, you have a terribly thoughtful husband, do you know that?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Agatha miserably.

  ‘A man of real integrity and honour. He’d never let a lady down. Would you, Archie?’

  ‘Now look here, Sarah,’ began Archie, and Agatha started, for she had never heard him use her Christian name before.

  ‘Oh but look, here come Mr Zéla and his nephew,’ said Mrs Crossley, her voice raising in delight as she looked towards the doorway. ‘I must go over and say hello.’ She nodded at them both politely and moved off, leaving husband and wife alone together, a phrase that until now Agatha had always considered to be oxymoronic.

  The rest of the evening passed in some sort of nightmare. They couldn’t look at each other, couldn’t speak. They made conversation with other couples and pretended that they were not suffering. And then, quite late in the evening, Agatha emerged from the ladies’ room, took a wrong turn on to an unexpected corridor and in the gloom ahead saw Archie and Mrs Crossley standing there, locked in some position of combat, he holding on to her arm as she pulled away from him, pointing her finger at his face before turning and disappearing out of sight, a direction in which he followed her, away from Agatha’s viewpoint. She didn’t know what to do. Should she stay where she was? Return to the party? Follow them wherever they had gone and cause a scene?

  In the end, she did nothing at all, simply lost herself in the back and forth of the guests once again, and when Archie finally reappeared she told him that she had a sick headache and wanted to go home.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind walking?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s only two minutes away.’

  ‘I might stay a little longer,’ he said, looking directly at her now as if he was challenging her to accuse him of something. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Why should I mind?’ she replied. ‘Of course you must stay. I’ll see you later.’

  And with that she had said goodnight to her hosts and returned to their apartment, stripped naked and thrown herself on to the bed, where she wept like a child and finally fell asleep in a tangle of sheets.

  But now it was the next day. And she didn’t know whether he had come back at all. But he must have, mustn’t he? He couldn’t have stayed away all night. It was entirely possible that he had climbed into bed and she had simply failed to hear him. This had happened before, after all. Many times. But would he really have risen early too? That seemed unlikely.

  The door opened and there he was, wearing his day clothes. She glanced towards the wardrobe; last night’s suit must be in there.

  ‘All right, old girl?’ he asked, barely glancing at her, despite the fact that not only had she omitted to put her nightdress on before going to bed but she hadn’t bothered to wear it this morning either and was standing bare by the window as the sun poured in behind her. Mrs Blenchley’s face with Mrs Christie’s body, the Major had said. But then Sydney, this magnificent city of Sydney, was always so damned hot that Agatha wondered why anyone bothered with clothes at all. It was a miracle that more of the natives didn’t simply pass out as they made their way to and from their places of business. It was astonishing that the dogs in the street didn’t lay down on the scorching pavements and beg for the whole miserable business of existence to come to an end once and for all.

  Australia. The fact was that if they went any further west they would be on their way home again. There was that to look forward to. There was that much at least.

  Haystack Girl

  Auntie Dolly phoned to say that Lizzie had turned up out of the blue a few hours earlier, seeking sanctuary. That was the exact phrase she used, as if my sister was a deposed queen in a Tudor novel. I felt a hot rage burning inside me when I thought about how much she must have spent to get across there. Flights don’t come cheap and then there’s the cost of the bus up to Dublin Airport, the Tube from Heathrow to Colliers Wood and a taxi over to Auntie Dolly’s flat after that. I’d been over there myself the previous summer and my wallet was nearly empty by the time I fell in the door. Mam had said it was best if I spent a few weeks in London as she couldn’t stand the sight of me. She and Lizzie blamed me for everything that had happened, which was not a bit fair. Anyway, over I went but Auntie Dolly sent me home after five days. She said there was something wrong with me, that I was a peculiar article.

  An old man winked at me on the Tube while I was there, somewhere between Balham and Tooting Bec. I was wearing short trousers and he was looking at my legs. I winked right back and made kissy faces at him. That fairly silenced him, the old perv. He stood up and walked further down the carriage to interfere with someone else. I followed him along and sat down next to him, grinning like a mad thing and putting on my sexy voice. ‘Was there something you wanted?’ I asked. ‘Or do you just h
ave a funny eye?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking down at his ratty old runners. ‘Leave me alone, please.’ Anyway, I left him alone.

  Lizzie’s flit only bothered me because she owed me twenty euros. She’d owed it to me for more than a month because I, in my generosity, had lent it to her on the understanding that I’d get twenty-two back within the week but I hadn’t seen a penny since then. She claimed poverty every time I demanded payment and yet somehow she’d managed to get herself all the way from Wexford to London without any trouble. I wasn’t too happy about that, I can tell you.

  Mam threw a conniption fit when she got the call.

  ‘She’s what? She’s where? She can’t be! Well how did she get there? What do you mean she took a plane, what kind of a plane? Is she all right? Does she have money? How long is she staying? Did she remember her warm cardigan?’

  This went on and on. I was sitting at the top of the stairs, eating a Curly Wurly and having a great laugh over it. This was before I remembered the twenty euros that Lizzie owed me; I laughed no more after that. Mam took the name of the Lord our God in vain about fifty times and started crying. Then she started screaming. Then she started crying again. Then she said something in Irish that I didn’t understand. And then she said something that sounded a bit like Russian.

  ‘My children will be the death of me,’ she declared finally. ‘As if it’s not hard enough being left alone with the pair of them, now they are literally trying to drive me into my grave. I should just take a breadknife and stab myself through my heart. It’s the only thing that would make either of them happy.’

  The dramatics.

  To be honest, I thought it was probably for the best that Lizzie had skipped off across the water. It would give things a chance to blow over. I was surprised that Mam had even answered the phone when it rang. She’d said the previous night that she wasn’t going anywhere near it from now on as it was only scumbag journalists on the other end wanting a quote and what could she say that would satisfy any of them? ‘They’re describing a girl I don’t know,’ she told me, sitting at the kitchen table with mascara running down her cheeks as she made solid headway through a Superquinn Banoffee. ‘I don’t recognize this creature they’re talking about, do you?’

  I did, certainly. Sure I know what my sister is like.

  After the phone call, I went into Lizzie’s room, opened her wardrobe and had a good snoop around. I’d never have done anything like this if she’d been in the house. She’d have murdered me. There were still a lot of clothes in there, all the slutty stuff that she’d bought after Dad left, so I assumed that she’d decided to go classy from now on. Either that or she thought she could buy even sluttier things in London. Her laptop was still there, sitting on the desk. It made sense that she’d left that behind. The last thing she needed was to go online and see what people were saying about her. I couldn’t find her phone but she probably threw that away. A life disconnected from the Internet, that was what lay in store for her if she wanted to maintain her sanity. Imagine it! I can’t. I like to know what’s going on in the world.

  I picked up one of her soft toys, some sort of hybrid of a bear and a dog, and had a sniff of it. It smelled of her perfume and, for a moment, I felt bad. But that moment passed quick enough.

  ‘No, I don’t want to speak to her.’

  This was Mam again, back on the phone to Auntie Dolly.

  ‘Listen, I didn’t throw her out but if she wants to go, there’s nothing I can do about it.’

  Still Mam.

  ‘Sure I haven’t left the house in four days, Dolly. I have to get the food delivered. What? The Murphy lad brings it. No, of course not, I have to give him three euros. I doubt I’ll ever be able to go outside again. And Danny’s been off school ever since it started.’

  True enough. But this was a Sunday and Mam had already told me that I was going back the next day, no arguments. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I knew everyone would be laughing at me. I was usually good at brazening things out but this was something different. They’d be on my back, every last one of them. There was a chance that I’d even start crying and make a holy show of myself. If that happened, I thought, then I’d just go and drown myself in the Slaney. That’d learn them.

  I only know one other set of twins, also brother and sister, but they’re freaks, the pair of them. Their father runs the funeral parlour in town and I call them The Smileys on account of how they’re always going around with big stupid grins on their faces, as if the world is a wonderful place and no one lies or cheats. They’re the same age as Lizzie and me – sixteen – and all the lads in my class say they do it with each other because they hold hands when they’re walking into school together and she looks a bit like a boy and he looks a bit like a girl. And I’ve seen them kissing too. On the cheek, now, not the lips, but still and all. I wouldn’t kiss Lizzie if my life depended on it. I’d rather kiss my granny and my granny’s dead.

  I’ve known The Smileys all my life. Lizzie and I used to play with them when we were little kids, before we realized that they were freaks, and then we refused to go over there any more. Once, one of The Smileys – they’re indistinguishable to me – asked could s/he see my mickey and I ran away and hid in a cardboard box and Lizzie had to come and get me to bring me home. Dad said I had to be nice to them because Daddy Smiley was his best friend but I said did it not look a bit mad that the only two sets of twins in town were going over to each other’s houses all the time and Dad said that he’d never heard such nonsense in all his life and I was to stop calling them The Smileys anyway as it was rude.

  But the thing I hated most about them was that whenever Lizzie and I were there, we got stuck playing games in the room above the funeral parlour with all the dead people staring up at us through the floorboards. I’m squeamish that way. I always closed my eyes when I was running up to the Smiley twins’ bedroom but then Jimmy Halpin, who was a great pal of mine when we were eight, was laid out downstairs after he got a hit of his father’s tractor and I made the mistake of going in to take a look at him in his box and passed out in fright. People always say that the dead look peaceful but Jimmy Halpin looked exactly like a lad who’d had a hit of his father’s tractor. And seen it coming too. I’ll never forget the expression on his face. The old rigor must have set in before they could tidy him up. Anyway, Lizzie had to come down then too and bring me outside, where she kept calling my name and shaking me till I woke up.

  I thought Mammy and Daddy Smiley were a right pair of knobs for calling the twins Joseph and Josephine. At least our parents had the sense to give us completely different names. Joseph and Josephine always wore similar clothes when they were kids, masculine and feminine versions of the same outfit, although it was anyone’s guess who would wear which one. And even now they seem to coordinate with each other every morning. I imagine them getting dressed for school, probably in the same room having climbed out of the bed together where they’d been kissing and doing it all night long, and Joseph saying, ‘Wear the blue skirt, Josephine, it’ll go great with this gorgeous shirt that I’m wearing’, and Josephine saying, ‘I will, Joseph, you sexy beast, now get over here till I molest you.’ And then the pair of them going at it like hammer and tongs. The lad who sits next to me in class, Geoffrey Jones, who is a complete legend these days and a hero for a whole generation of Irish boys, says that he saw The Smileys doing it behind the pub one afternoon, over where they keep the recycled bottles in the big green skip, and I said I didn’t believe that for a moment because there was no way that either Joseph or Josephine Smiley had any genitalia at all. For some reason he thought this was only riotous and he laughed till there were tears coming down his face and I felt as good about myself as I’ve ever felt in my life. They probably do have genitalia though. Everyone does, as far as I know.

  Sometimes I think that I’m mean about The Smileys because they actually like each other and I’m just jealous. On account of how much Lizzie and I hate each ot
her. Or rather how much she hates me, for personally I never had any great problem with her until after Dad left and she turned into a slut and started being nasty to me all the time, blaming me for everything that had happened when none of it was my fault, no matter what anyone says. She says I’m a selfish little bastard and that if I’d only kept my nose out, then Mam and Dad would still be together and how would I like it if someone took my mobile phone and started spreading all my secrets about. ‘Sure I don’t have any secrets,’ I told her, and she laughed like she knew every single one of them. Mam blames me too. She blames me even more than she blames Dad, which doesn’t make any sense to me at all. That’s why she sent me over to London that time. She says she’d rather have known nothing and have kept her family together, and I told her that if she wanted to live as an ignoramus, that was fine, but I wouldn’t be a party to such witlessness. And then she looked like she wanted to hit me.