The Marble Collector Part 16

'My, my, you have quite the collection,' Sonya says as we sit down at a table in a bedroom. People swirl around us, talk, swap, play, even watch her at work, but they're not registering in my mind. I keep my eye on her. She's huge, so big her a.r.s.e sticks out on both sides of the chair. She thinks I'm Hamish O'Neill, winner of the World Championship of 1994, individual best player in the same year. She wants to talk about that for a while and I don't mind reliving my glory days when there are very few people I can tell the story to. I tell her all about it in detail, how we beat the Germans' ten-in-a-row run and the bar fight that broke out afterwards between Spud on my team and one of the German teammates, and USA having to act as peacemakers. We laugh about it and I can tell that she's impressed and we return to the marbles.

'I bought your book to value them myself but I quickly learned there's an art to it, one that I couldn't master,' I say. 'I learned there are more reproductions out there than I thought.'

She looks at me intently. 'I wouldn't worry about reproductions as much as people want you to worry, Hamish. When it comes to the collectable world, reproductions are not a new thing. Sparklers and sunbursts were an attempt to mimic onionskins, cat's eyes an attempt to mimic swirls. Bricks, slags, Akro and carnelian agates and 'ades were an attempt to mimic hand-cut stones, but despite this, all these marbles except of course cat's eyes are highly collectable today.'

I smile, thinking of my joke with Cat about her not being collectable at all, though she is the most valuable thing in my life, and Sonya looks at me over her gla.s.ses which are low on her nose. She watches me, as if evaluating me and not the marbles, twirls them around with the 10x loupe in her thick fat fingers, gold rings squished down on most fingers, with fat gathering around them. Those suckers are never coming off. 'But usually everyone and everything is mimicking something or other.'

I swallow, thinking it's a direct evaluation of me. As if she knows I'm not Hamish O'Neill, but she couldn't possibly.

After a time studying, during which I've downed too much whisky, she speaks, 'You've got some reproductions here and this, this has been repaired to fix a fracture, see the tiny creases and the cloudiness in the marble?'

I nod.

'That's from re-heating the gla.s.s. And you've a few fantasies,' she says, moving everything around. 'Items that never existed in original form. Polyvinyl bags with old labels,' she looks disgusted. 'But no, you're generally looking good here. You obviously have a good eye.'

'I hope so. We'll see, won't we?'

'Yes, we will.' She looks at the collection and laughs wheezily. 'Hope you've got time, because this will take all night.'

It is four a.m. when somebody called Bear drops me back at the inn in a pickup truck and speeds off. I can barely see straight after downing a bottle of whisky with Sonya. I try to concentrate on the path ahead of me and fall with my bag of marbles into the vines. Laughing, I pull myself out and stumble to the room.

As the pickup truck pa.s.sed the vineyard I saw to my surprise that the wedding had wrapped up and there wasn't a guest in sight, not even my Cat. Unusual for an Irish wedding, though I suppose we aren't in Ireland and I should have known that it would be over early, with such a conservative bunch. I stumble into the inn, receiving angry glares from the owner who had to let me in at such an hour, and I bang into everything, door frames, furniture, on the way to the stairs. When I reach the bedroom, as if by magic Cat pulls the door open, hurt written all over her face.

'Where the h.e.l.l have you been?'

I know I've done it again. No matter what I think about myself, how I think I can change, I always slip back into hurting people. The Hamish in me comes out, but I can't blame him any more, I never really could. It's me. It's always been me.

I wait in my car for Lea as she gets ready for the party. I blare the heating, trying to dry my jeans, which stick to my legs. I take the inventory out of my bag again and flick through it. Scanning his lifetime of memories, all catalogued in a neat script. I look through the photographs I took of the newspaper article on the Marble Cat wall. It's grainy and Dad is hiding in the back row, but it's him all right. For the first time I notice the date on the newspaper.

I call Mam, who answers quickly for so late at night.

'Mam, hi, I hope I didn't wake you.'

'Not at all, we're still up drinking wine Robert is drunk-tweeting NASA,' she giggles as I hear Robert in the background shouting about aliens waving at him from the moon. 'We're out on the balcony watching the moon, isn't it marvellous? I should have known you'd be awake, you know you could never sleep as a little girl when there was a full moon? You used to sneak into our bed. I remember Fergus brought you downstairs for a hot chocolate one night, I found you both sitting in the dark at the kitchen table, him asleep, you looking outside.'

The moon made us do it.

I smile at the image. 'I haven't changed much.'

'Did the boys have a great day?' she asks.

'The best.'

She laughs. 'And I'm sure you have too. Nice to have the day to yourself. You don't get that much.'

Silence.

'Everything okay?'

'Do you remember my thirteenth birthday party? We had a marquee in the back garden, didn't we?'

'Yes, about thirty people, catering, the works.'

'Was Dad there? I can't really remember.'

'Yes, he was.'

'So he wasn't away that day?' The newspaper report is dated the day of my birthday, though it refers to the championships being held the day before.

She sighs. 'It was a long time ago, Sabrina.'

'I know, but can you remember?'

'Of course he was there, he was there in all the photographs, remember?'

I remember now. Me in my short skirt and high heels, looking like a tart. I can't believe Mum let me dress like that, though I know I didn't give her much choice.

'And what about the day before?'

'What did you find out, Sabrina? Just spit it out,' she snaps.

I'm taken aback by her coldness.

'I suspected,' she fills my silence, 'which is probably what you're about to tell me, that he was having an affair, away with somebody. He said he was in London for a conference, but when I called the hotel they had no record of him. I suspected something, he'd been doing his usual secretive thing leading up to that, heading off to places I knew he wasn't going to. He did that a lot. He came home the day of your birthday. I confronted him, I can't remember now, but he managed to weasel his way out of it as usual. Made me feel like I was going crazy, as usual. Why? What did you find out? Who was she? Was it that Regina woman? G.o.d knows there were many others, but he never admitted to her. I always thought they were together before we split.'

'I don't think he was with another woman, Mum. He was having a love affair all right, but not the one you think.' I take a deep breath. 'He was at the World Marble Championships in England. His team of six men, the Electric Slags, won. A newspaper published a photograph and an article about it on the day of my birthday. He's hiding in the back, but I know that it's him.'

'What! Marble championships? What on earth are you talking about?' She slurs as she talks and I don't think this is the best time to discuss it with her. I was wrong, I should have waited, but I couldn't.

'I told you about them, Mum, he's been playing marbles all his life, compet.i.tively. Secretly. He's been collecting them too.'

She's silent. So much to take in, I'm sure.

'It's him in the photograph, but he used a different name. Hamish O'Neill.'

I can hear her intake of breath. 'Sweet Jesus! Hamish was his brother, his older brother who died when Fergus was young. He wouldn't talk much about him, but I learned a few things about him over the years. Fergus thought the world of him. O'Neill was his mother's maiden name.'

So Mattie was right. This was all about Hamish. Hamish died using Dad's name, Dad in turn took Hamish's name. I don't know if I'll ever truly know why. I don't know if I need to.

'There was a best individual player trophy for a Hamish O'Neill. I met with his team, they say that Dad is Hamish.'

Mum is quiet. Food for thought, I can't even imagine the memories she is accessing as she tries to understand it and piece it all together.

'Mum?'

'And he won this the day before your thirteenth birthday?'

'Yes.'

'But why didn't he tell me?'

'He didn't tell anyone,' I say. 'Not his family, not his friends.'

'But why?'

'I think he was trying to breathe life back into his brother. Honour him in some way. I think he didn't think anybody else would understand. That they'd think it was weird.'

'It is weird,' she snaps, then sighs and goes quiet. Then, as if she's feeling guilty, she adds, 'Nice though. To honour him.' Silence. 'Who on earth was I married to?' she asks quietly.

I don't know how to answer that, but I do know that I no longer want my husband asking the same thing of me.

Lea slowly lowers herself into the front seat wearing a neutral-coloured bandage dress, black leather jacket, smelling of perfume, caked in make-up and almost unrecognisable as the girl-next-door nurse I see most days.

'Too much?' she says anxiously.

The colour of the dress makes her look naked. 'No,' I say, starting up the engine. 'So tell me about where we're going.'

'You know just about as much as I do.'

I throw her a warning look. 'Lea.'

'What?' she giggles. 'I met him online. His name is Dara. He's delicious. We haven't met in person, but you know ...' She shrugs.

'No, I don't know, tell me.'

'Well we met on an online dating site. We've Skyped a few times. You know,' she repeats, like I should know something.

'No, I don't know. What?'

She keeps on staring at me, jerking her head at me as if it will spark the answer, which it in fact does.

'Oh!' I say suddenly.

'Yes, now you've got it.' She faces front again. 'So we're pretty much well acquainted, but we haven't actually met yet.'

'You've had Skype s.e.x and you're nervous about meeting him?' I laugh.

'My camera had a filter,' she explains. 'I don't.'

'And what does this mysterious Dara do that he knows where we can find marbles at eleven o'clock at night?'

'He does wood carvings. For chairs, tables, furniture. The party is at his office. I remember him saying there is a gla.s.s artist.'

I'm dubious.

We find the address of the full moon party that Dara gave her. We stare at it from across the river in silence, both deep in thought, probably thinking the same thing. We've been duped.

The address is a multistorey car park. It is on the graveyard site of a ripped-down old shopping centre which was to make way for a new 70 million state-of-the-art shopping centre and cinema yet never was and so the multistorey car park stands alone in the wilderness far from any businesses which can utilise its parking. The moon sits above it, big and full, guiding us to it like the North Star, keeping a watchful maternal eye over our progress. But I can't help but think she's laughing at us now.

It's an enormous concrete monstrosity, but it's old school, ugly and red brick, tight and low ceilings, unlike the s.p.a.cious light-filled car parks of today. It climbs eight levels high, not a car in sight on any floor. Halfway up, on the fourth floor, a glow appears from the mesh-gridded openings.

'Looks like he's home,' Lea says, trying to make light of it.

'Do you smell smoke?' I ask.

She sniffs and nods.

'Do you hear music?'

It is faint but it drifts from the fourth floor, a calm rhythmic ba.s.s.

Neither of us make a move.

'So maybe this is a party,' I say. 'Do you think this is dangerous?' We're in a neglected part of town that should have been developed but wasn't and then was left for dead, invited by a man who's good with tools, who Lea met on the Internet. I wonder if goodwill has run out for the day.

The site is completely surrounded by fencing, the wooden construction kind, and it is too high to climb with no gaps to pa.s.s through. We circle the entire thing and find that it has been opened at one section, inviting us in. We slowly walk through the fence, pa.s.s the barrier where ghost cars collect their parking tickets, and into the darkness of the multistorey. The ground level has been completely covered by graffiti, every single inch of the concrete walls and supporting pillars have been sprayed. I don't concentrate too much on the darkened corners, I don't want to linger, I need to keep moving. We follow the signs for the stairs, choose to ignore the lifts, which I guess aren't working anyway, and even if they are, I'm not interested.

Every scary movie I've ever seen has told me to be wary of car parks on my own late at night or even during the day, and yet here I am, going against every single instinct in my body. The sound of music and laughter gets increasingly loud as we tread lightly up the steps, not wanting to make a sound to alert them. There is a hum of conversation and that relaxing ba.s.s keeps us going, there is some kind of civilisation up there, one which doesn't sound like murderous screaming, gunshots and violent gang dance-offs. I expect to happen upon a homeless community, with laptops on Skype; I have prepared myself to run, to give them my money, my phone, whatever, just in case they get angry at my intrusion.

Lea readies herself, checks her reflection in her pocket mirror and reapplies her thick lipstick that makes her look like she's had collagen injections, then with a flick of her hair, she pushes open the door. I am stunned when we peek around at the inside. Everywhere I look I see trees, beautiful large greenery covering the grey concrete. They sit in stunning pots, Spanish and Mexican in style with beautiful mosaic tiles. Fairy lights run from tree to tree and candles light the meandering pathway through the trees. It feels like we're in this wonderland in the middle of a concrete car park. Grey and green, dark and light, man-made and natural.

'Hi, guys,' a young man says beside us and we turn to him in surprise. 'Can I see your invitation please?'

Our mouths open and shut, we are visibly shocked.

'She's a guest of Dara's,' I finally say, when Lea doesn't say a word.

'Oh, cool!' He stands up. 'Follow me. Sorry about the invitation thing, it's Evelyn, she's pretty insistent after last year. Apparently the party got crashed and it all got a little crazy.'

We follow him through the winding path, through the trees, and I feel like I'm in a dream.

'You guys did all this?' I ask.

'Yeah. Cool isn't it? Evelyn just got back from Thailand where she had full moon parties all the time. Doesn't exactly feel like Thailand, but concrete jungle was the theme.'

The path ends as it opens up to what looks like a living room. An enormous chandelier of beautiful twisted gla.s.s hangs low from the concrete ceiling, large pillar candles sit in the chandelier, the wax dripping down over the sides. Below it is a large Oriental rug and copious brown battered leather couches where a dozen or more guests gather and chat like they're at a house party. Music plays, not too loud chill-out music that we could hear from across the river, and a nymph-like girl in a sequined cat suit dances on her own with her eyes closed, fingers running through invisible harp strings in the air. Some look up to see us, most don't, they're a friendly bunch just checking us out and smiling their welcomes. A bunch of all ages, the artsy kind, very cool, very edgy, not at all like me and Lea, the mother of three and Nurse Kardashian.

'There he is,' she says, pointing quickly. Lea skitters over to Dara and they embrace. A moment later, out of their scrum, she shouts, 'Marlow,' to me.

I nod. Marlow. I'm here to see Marlow.

'Marlow,' Dara calls, then whistles and nods at me. A stunning man looks up from the group on the sofas. He's dressed in tight black jeans, a charcoal T-shirt, workman's boots, perfect physique, toned arms, long black hair, one side behind one ear, the other falling down over his face. Johnny Depp twenty years ago. He has one eye squinted as he inhales on a cigarette, and he holds a bottle of beer in the other hand. He looks at me, his eyes running over me. I shiver under his intense stare, don't know where to look. Lea laughs.

'Good luck!' She throws me a thumbs up and heads towards the barrel of beer in ice.

I swallow hard. Marlow smiles and leaves the company of a cool b.u.t.terfly girl with body jewellery wrapped around her toned abs. He stops right in front of me, standing quite close for an absolute stranger.

'Hi.'