2003
When she spoke with adults who didnāt know her, they usually asked Lissa what she did. And how about you? Theyād turn to her, and in that small moment where the question hung in the air, she would feel the rush of panic, as though some lie she hadnāt actually told them was about to be revealed. The tightly wound spool of her persona unravelled around her ankles like a length of ribbon. People often wore these looks on their faces when in conversation with her, like they expected answers to impress them.
And she could go the route of honestyāsay she was still in secondary school, and only worked her hotel job on the side. She could brag on about how she ran the restaurant floor like a military operation, and knew everything there was to know. Adults twice her age listened when she spoke, and she had become confident enough since turning seventeen to ignore the resentment on her colleaguesā faces, which, at that point in her life was still easier for her to mistake for mere jealousy than admit something more unsavory about herself.
But she wanted to impress strangers. Shame of herself and her age and maturity, left her falling back on a default response. āHospitality,ā sheād say, in a voice she hoped was adult and mysterious. People heard a word like that and nodded without asking questions, which she liked. Liked to picture herself through the lens of other people.Ā
On the patio on a bright midsummerās day, her stepmotherās arty mates heard the word. Nodded. Shuffled their feet, pretended to be distracted by a passing plate of hors dāoeuvres, and a sharp laugh from another conversation. One that had not been poisoned by such a boring thing. Hospitality. Lissa burned with embarrassment. āIn a restaurant, like,ā she clarified. āmanagement, sometimes. Sort of.ā Which made things worse. There was no duller job than floor manager in a hotel restaurant. The most thrilling event that had happened that year was when a marmalade cake split in two, and all the staff were allowed to take a slice home each.
She employed great effort to hold her pleasant expression in place. Someone asked her a halfhearted question for the sake of politeness, then moved on to talking about something else. A magazine article she hadnāt read, which wasnāt surprising. She didnāt see value in that type of literatureācelebrities, where they were going on holidays, wearing to the beach, et cetera. She understood too late who she was talking to. Trendy people. The fact she was delusional enough to believe would like her was astounding now, and as she glanced around for an exit route, she spotted one. Her brother, stalking through a crowd toward her with a scowl that might have turned a person to stone.Ā
āThey want me to be in the pictures,ā Alexander muttered. He was fourteen and mid growth-spurt, all ankles and wrists, with the tailored trousers that fitted him last month hovering absurdly over his shoes. āAnd Iāve said I donāt want to, but theyāre all like, āYou have to.ā I donāt have to, do I? Like, they canāt force me.ā
He absolutely had to. Family photographs and family weddings went together. āYouāll stand for one,ā she said in a clipped voice. āFor mum. Then you can go.ā
āShe wouldnāt want a picture.ā
Lissa knew that. āJust one.ā
He kicked some loose stones about and grumbled, but didnāt argue. Lissa wasnāt worth arguing with. Their mum had left a space behind her that Lissa had naturally filled. If there were no parent with authority in the house, she would become a surrogateāto make plans, keep things in order, give permission and take it away. Alexander would stand for a photograph, and it would go on the wall in the hallway, where it belonged.
By the willow trees in the garden, beneath a tangle of bulb lights, her father and Jade stood together as a white cage sprung open, and doves burst into the sky, flat and blue like silk, their wings flashing in the sunlight. A press photographer rushed forward as Jade laughed, throwing her head back and fluffing her dress around her with the intention of a woman who knew sheād be in a tabloid special in a week, looking like a confection on Jarlathās arm.Ā
Lissaās father wore his linen jacket open, and the first few buttons of his shirt undone just enough to display his thatch of chest hair. It was a shame, the chest hair, but she couldnāt disparage him for it when he looked so happy. He was happy in a way that was strikingly unguarded. Loose, real, and not solely for the photographs. As much as Lissa privately resented him for, despite her best efforts, going through with this wedding, she felt that old familiar tug of loyalty towards him. His daughter, whether she liked it or not, and no matter the viciousness of the thoughts she had about him inside her head, she lacked the fortitude to actually hate him.Ā
āOh, wow. I love an understated wedding,ā a voice said beside her.Ā
She startled. Turned. He was her age. Tall and narrow, with a sharpness to his features that tugged her memory. Cheekbones, a narrow nose, shiny from the heat. Her brain ticked for moments, deciding whether they had met before.Ā
āThatās funny,ā she said, eyeing his smart little suit. āRumour has it Bono is stopping by later.ā
āOh, Christ, Bono again. How unexpected. They always cart him out at these fancy bloody weddings to make themselves look relevant, donāt they? Iām floored.ā
Lissa bristled, but tried to cover it up with what she hoped was bracing wit. āHere's a suggestion. Maybe you should be aware of who youāre talking to. Itās my fatherās wedding.ā
āAh,ā a shrug, unbothered. She thought he was going in for a handshake, but he reached behind her to the table of glasses. He glanced dismissively at her outstretched palm. āSo youāre the Mansfieldās daughter.ā
āBouchard-Mansfield,ā she said. āLissa.ā
He seemed to enjoy that she said this. A private joke with himself. āA double-barreler.ā He sipped his champagne, and his face twitched. āWhy not just choose one name? Youāll have to eventually.ā
āI wonāt,ā she said. āAnd I suppose even if I did, Iād choose my motherās. Bouchard.ā
āSurely Mansfield is the name that matters,ā he said, and she ignored him. On the surface of her champagne, her face frowned back at her. She had been developing a line on her forehead that made her look stricken in repose. She forced herself to relax, satisfied when her brow smoothed.
āAnd your name, by the way?ā
āNick Lynott.āĀ
She was, absurdly, disappointed by its mundanity.Ā
āOur dads know each other,ā he went on. He had a smooth, charismatic voice. āMineās Ben Lynott. A TV exec.ā
āRight.ā Yes, of course he was. She remembered now. Actually, Lissa was sure this boy had visited the house at least a decade prior, in the days when people visited constantly. Sheād become an expert host at about seven years old, giving the tour of the snooker table, the garden, showing off all the toys she had. But heād refused to play with her. He sat around saying deliberately cute things for the adults to coo at, while she studded the garage door with the tennis balls sheād hauled out. Renewed bitterness swelled toward him, both for rejecting her in childhood, and then forgetting all about it. Here he was again, Nick Lynott, with his smug face and a hand inside his pocket, already looking over her head for someone more interesting to speak to.Ā
āSo,ā Nick said. āWhere are you living at the moment?āĀ
āDublin.ā
A snort. āWell, yes. I hardly thought you lived in the country.ā He peered at the pastoral fantasy of rural Ireland around the manor, the tracks from a haybine running up and down fields in braids of spun gold, and wrinkled his nose like it was an offense to him. āCould you be more specific?ā
āRight. Sandymount.ā
āAh, I walk there with my parents. I assume youāre on the seafront or something, are you?ā
āNo,ā she said. āFurther in. Close to the station. Itāsā¦ā She broke off with a sigh. āYouād know it if you saw it. Itās a Georgian place with a very⦠noticeable extension.ā
Lissa resented the extension so much she got hot and agitated when she thought about it. A gleaming modern rectangular block, all reinforced concrete and floor-to-ceiling windows, had followed her stepmother, Jade Nolan, and all her interior design aspirations. Jade was not a talented person, Lissa thought, just a lucky one, now with access to enough money to fund her delusion.Ā
Itād been four months since workmen had broken ground in the garden, flattened the beds of pampas grass and torn down the games room and the orangery where she and her brother used to languish with their mother, breakfasts that stretched into the afternoon. Track marks ripped over her winter garden, and the tennis court she played matches with the neighbour ladies, in one afternoon, was reduced to chunks of fractured tarmac and twisted metal in a skip
āOh, I know it. Fantastic,ā Nick said, and went on this voice that begged to sound like an authority on property, parroting the adults who actually knew what they were saying. āYouād be mad not to build in this economy though, wouldnāt you? And itās much better to be somewhere modern, where at least the heat isnāt flying out through cracks in the window frames. I just donāt care about ācharmā or whatever people say. Clean and functional is always better.ā
She wondered whether she shared her sense that the conversation was not going well. Considered agreeing with him to be polite, but couldnāt bring herself to. āSome people prefer to live somewhere comfortable and traditional. Nothing wrong at all with that. Maybe to some, all that glass and steel is cold and uncomfortable. Do you really want the entire world looking in your windows as you lie on the couch?ā
āWell, I say move on, dinosaurs. Reject tradition. Embrace the new millennium, already.ā What a worldly thing to say. He spoke with complete authority, as though there was no point even coming up with a retort. To conclude, he tilted his head back and drained his glass.Ā
Lissa intended to respond anyway. The captain of her debating team at school, she was no stranger to annoying, arrogant boys, but before she could respond, Alexander was hauled towards them by Angela, a family friend wielding a digital camera. Sheād forgotten about her brotherāevidently having wandered off in hopes he could hide from the lens.
āCome on,ā Angela said. āJust one. For your mum. Lissa, tell him.ā
Lissa said nothing, just stood there with him while he scowled. She smiled until her face ached.
āOh, you look smashing, the both of you,ā Angela cooed. āDiane is going to love these.ā
Lissa was not convinced. Sheād gone through an intense period of questioning while preparing for the weddingāthe way sheād done her hair, whether the colour of dress complimented her skin, her makeup, which, the more she caught sight of herself, the more clownish it seemed. The makeup artist had done it at some ungodly hour that morning and kept saying it looked so natural, while glueing strip lashes around her eyes. Lissa had been too tired to protest. It was fine. Who was going to care?
But now, staring into the lens that would immortalise this look, she realised her mother would. She was so good at dressing them both. Choosing things from little French boutiques that had things nobody at home could get, and then theyād put them on and spin around the living room while she applauded and told them they were the most elegant children in town.Ā
Looking bad was a new and terrifying possibility for Lissa. Those pastel striped boutique bags from Diane, tied up with satin ribbon, had disappeared with her, replaced within the year with new things from Jade. Things with cut-outs and zips, snakeskin bags and sequined tops. Sure, Jade said she looked good, but what Jade thought was good was meaningless, and often, in Lissaās opinion, blatantly wrong.
āAnd whereās mum today?ā Nick said, and Lissa was surprised he was still standing there.Ā
āOh,ā she said. āFrance.ā
āAh, yeah, I remember hearing something about her moving.ā
āYes, Provence.ā
āAnd I suppose her being here would be awkward, would it? It was an acrimonious divorce, right?ā
Lissa frowned. āDo you always go around asking highly personal questions to strangers?ā
And he shrugged. āWell, I wasnāt really asking. I was just repeating what I heard around the place. Whatever. Itās a pity sheās not here to see you doā¦ā he waved his hand at her. āWhatever you were doing. Were you a flower girl? No, not flower girl. That sort of thing.āĀ
She felt a prickle. āNo, I think itās obvious I was not the flower girl. Iām too old for that.ā
āOh, well,ā He flattened his mouth and pulled this silly, careless face that pissed her off. āDunno.ā
āWeāre the same age.ā
He squinted at something in the distance. The fact he wasnāt even bothering to look at her was making her angrier. Already one foot out of the conversation, while casually annihilating her confidence. āOh, thatās funny,ā he said. āI thought you were maybe fifteen, sixteen at a push.āĀ
She couldnāt think of what to say, or focus on anything but her boiling face, surely turning a ferocious shade of puce. āRight, well, um, good for you.ā She wished sheād come up with something better, that she were quick, clever enough to handle such situations, but it hardly mattered, because she was already walking away from him, mumbling about a photographer waiting for her.Ā
It didnāt matter what Nick Lynottās opinion was, she reminded herself. After today, she would surely never see him again. And if she did, it wasnāt as though heād remember.
Still, she could feel exactly where his words had landed, like a thumb pressed into a bruise she hadnāt known was there. As she moved back toward the noise of the party, she kept her shoulders stiff and high, as if he might be watching, though she never once looked back to check.
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