CECELIA AHERN

THE GIFT

Rocco and Jay;

The greatest gifts,

Both, at the same time

All my love to my family for your friendship,

encouragement and love; Mim, Dad, Georgina,

Nicky, Rocco and Jay. David, Thank You.

Huge thanks to all my friends for making life a joy;

to Yo Yo and Leoni for the Rantaramas.

Thanks Ahoy McCoy for sharing your boating knowledge.

Thank you to the HarperCollins team for such support and belief

which I find endlessly encouraging and motivating;

thank you Amanda Ridout and my editors

Lynne Drew and Claire Bord.

Thank you Fiona McIntosh and Moira Reilly.

Thank you Marianne Gunn O’ Connor for being You.

Thank you Pat Lynch and Vicki Satlow.

Thank you to all who read my books, I’m eternally grateful for

your support.

Table of Contents

1. AN ARMY OF SECRETS

2. A MORNING OF HALF-SMILES

3. THE TURKEY BOY

4. THE SHOE WATCHER

5. THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR

6. A DEAL SEALED

7. ON REFLECTION

8. PUDDIN’ AND PIE

9. THE TURKEY BOY 2

10. THE MORNING AFTER

11. THE JUGGLER

12. THE FAST LANE

14. THE TURKEY BOY 3

15. HOME SWEET HOME

16. THE WAKE-UP CALL

17. BUMP IN THE NIGHT

18. GRANTED

19. LOU MEETS LOU

20. THE TURKEY BOY 4

21. MAN OF THE MOMENT

22. ’TIS THE SEASON …

23. SURPRISE!

24. THE SOUL CATCHES UP

25. THE BEST DAY

26. IT ALL STARTED WITH A MOUSE

27. CHRISTMAS EVE

28. FOR OLD TIME’S SAKE

29. THE TURKEY BOY 5

1. An Army of Secrets

If you were to stroll down the candy-cane façade of a surburban housing estate early on Christmas morning, you couldn’t help but observe how the houses in all their tinselled glory are akin to the wrapped parcels that lie beneath the Christmas trees within. For each holds their secrets inside. The temptation of poking and prodding at the packaging is the equivalent of peeping through a crack in the curtains to get a glimpse of a family in Christmas-morning action; a captured moment that’s kept away from all prying eyes. For the outside world, in a calming yet eerie silence that exists only on this morning every year, homes stand shoulder to shoulder like painted toy soldiers: chests pushed out, stomachs tucked in, proud and protective of all within.

Houses on Christmas morning are treasure chests of hidden truths. A wreath on a door like a finger upon a lip; blinds down like closed eyelids. Then, at some unspecific time, beyond the pulled blinds and drawn curtains, a warm glow will appear, the smallest hint of something happening inside. Like stars in the night sky which appear to the naked eye one by one, and like tiny pieces of gold revealed as they’re sieved from a stream, lights go on behind the blinds and curtains in the half-light of dawn. As the sky becomes star-filled and as millionaires are made, room by room, house by house, the street begins to awaken.

On Christmas morning an air of calm settles outside. The emptiness on the streets doesn’t instil fear; in fact it has the opposite effect. It’s a picture of safety, and, despite the seasonal chill, there’s warmth. For varying reasons, for every household this day of every year is just better spent inside. While outside is sombre, inside is a world of bright frenzied colour, a hysteria of ripping wrapping paper and flying coloured ribbons. Christmas music and festive fragrances of cinnamon and spice and all things nice fill the air. Exclamations of glee, of hugs and thanks, explode like party streamers. These Christmas days are indoor days; not a sinner lingering outside, for even they have a roof over their heads.

Only those in transit from one home to another dot the streets. Cars pull up and presents are unloaded. Sounds of greetings waft out to the cold air from open doorways, teasers as to what is happening inside. Then, while you’re right there with them, soaking it up and sharing the invitation – ready to stroll over the threshold a common stranger but feeling a welcomed guest – the front door closes and traps the rest of the day away, as a reminder that it’s not your moment to take.

In this particular neighbourhood of toy houses, one soul wanders the streets. This soul doesn’t quite see the beauty in the secretive world of houses. This soul is intent on a war, wants to unravel the bow and rip open the paper to reveal what’s inside door number twenty-four.

It is not of any importance to us what the occupants of door number twenty-four are doing, though, if you must know, a ten-month-old, confused as to the reason for the large green flashing prickly object in the corner of the room, is beginning to reach for the shiny red bauble that so comically reflects a familiar podgy hand and gummy mouth. This, while a two-year-old rolls around in wrapping paper, bathing herself in glitter like a hippo in muck. Beside them, He wraps a new necklace of diamonds around Her neck, as she gasps, hand flying to her chest, and shakes her head in disbelief, just as she’s seen women in the black and white movies do.

None of this is important to our story, though it means a great deal to the individual that stands in the front garden of house number twenty-four looking at the living room’s drawn curtains. Fourteen years old and with a dagger through his heart, he can’t see what’s going on, but his imagination was well nurtured by his mother’s daytime weeping, and he can guess.

And so he raises his arms above his head, pulls back, and with all his strength pushes forward and releases the object in his hands. He stands back to watch, with bitter joy, as a fifteen-pound frozen turkey smashes through the window of the living room of number twenty-four. The drawn curtains act once again as a barrier between him and them, slowing the bird’s flight through the air. With no life left to stop itself now, it – and its giblets – descend rapidly to the wooden floor, where it’s sent, spinning and skidding, along to its final resting place beneath the Christmas tree. His gift to them.

People, like houses, hold their secrets. Sometimes the secrets inhabit them, sometimes they inhabit their secrets. They wrap their arms tight to hug them close, twist their tongues around the truth. But after time truth prevails, rises above all else. It squirms and wriggles inside, grows until the swollen tongue can’t wrap itself around the lie any longer, until the time comes when it needs to spit the words out and send truth flying through the air and crashing into the world. Truth and time always work alongside one another.

This story is about people, secrets and time. About people who, not unlike parcels, hide secrets, who cover themselves with layers until they present themselves to the right ones who can unwrap them and see inside. Sometimes you have to give yourself to somebody in order to see who you are. Sometimes you have to unravel things to get to the core.

This is a story about a person who finds out who they are. About a person who is unravelled and whose core is revealed to all that count. And all that count are revealed to them. Just in time.

2. A Morning of Half-Smiles

Sergeant Raphael O’Reilly moved slowly and methodically about the cramped staff kitchen of Howth Garda Station, his mind going over and over the revelations of the morning. Known to others as Raphie, pronounced Ray-fee, at fifty-nine years old he had one more year to go until his retirement. He’d never thought he’d be looking forward to that day until the events of this morning had grabbed him by the shoulders, turned him upside down like a snow-shaker, and he’d been forced to watch all his preconceptions sprinkle to the ground. With every step he took he heard the crackle of his once-solid tight beliefs under his boots. Of all the mornings and moments he had experienced in his forty-year career, what a morning this one had been.

He spooned two heaps of instant coffee into his mug. The mug, shaped like an NYPD squad car, had been brought back from New York by one of the boys at the station, as his Christmas gift. He pretended the sight of it offended him, but secretly he found it comforting. Gripping it in his hands during that morning’s Kris Kringle reveal, he’d time-travelled back over fifty years to when he’d received a toy police car one Christmas from his parents. It was a gift he’d cherished until he’d abandoned it outside overnight and the rain had done enough rust damage to force his men into early retirement. He held the mug in his hands now, feeling that he should run it along the countertop making siren noises with his mouth before crashing it into the bag of sugar, which – if nobody was around to see – would consequently tip over and spill onto the car.

Instead of doing that, he checked around the kitchen to ensure he was alone, then added half a teaspoon of sugar to his mug. A little more confident, he coughed to disguise the crinkling sound of the sugar bag as the spoon once again pushed down and then quickly fired a heaped teaspoon into the mug. Having gotten away with two spoons, he became cocky and reached into the bag one more time.

‘Drop your weapon, sir,’ a female voice from the doorway called with authority.

Startled by the sudden presence, Raphie jumped, the sugar from his spoon spilling over the counter. It was a mug-on-sugar-bag pile-up. Time to call for back-up.

‘Caught in the act, Raphie.’ His colleague Jessica joined him at the counter and whipped the spoon from his hand.

She took a mug from the cupboard – a Jessica Rabbit novelty mug, compliments of Kris Kringle – and slid it across the counter to him. Porcelain Jessica’s voluptuous breasts brushed against his car, and the boy in Raphie thought about how happy his men inside would be.

‘I’ll have one too.’ She broke into his thoughts of his men playing pat-a-cake with Jessica Rabbit.

‘Please,’ Raphie corrected her.

‘Please,’ she imitated him, rolling her eyes.

Jessica was a new recruit. She’d just joined the station six months ago, and already Raphie had grown more than fond of her. He had a soft spot for the twenty-six-year-old, five-foot-four athletic blonde who always seemed willing and able, no matter what her task was. He also felt she brought a much-needed feminine energy to the all-male team at the station. Many of the other men agreed, but not quite for the same reasons as Raphie. He saw her as the daughter that he’d never had. Or that he’d had, but lost. He shook that thought out of his head and watched Jessica cleaning the spilled sugar from the counter.

Despite her energy, her eyes – almond-shaped and such a dark brown they were almost black – buried something beneath. As though a top-layer of soil had been freshly added, and pretty soon the weeds or whatever was decaying beneath would begin to show. Her eyes held a mystery that he didn’t much want to explore, but he knew that whatever it was, it drove her forward during those stand-out times when most sensible people would go the opposite way.

‘Half a spoon is hardly going to kill me,’ he added grumpily after tasting his coffee, knowing that just one more spoon would have made it perfect.

‘If pulling that Porsche over almost killed you last week, then half a spoon of sugar most certainly will. Are you actually trying to give yourself another heart attack?’

Raphie reddened. ‘It was a heart murmur, Jessica, nothing more, and keep your voice down,’ he hissed.

‘You should be resting,’ she said more quietly.

‘The doctor said I was perfectly normal.’

‘Then the doctor needs his head checked, you’ve never been perfectly normal.’

‘You’ve only known me six months,’ he grumbled, handing her the mug.

‘Longest six months of my life,’ she scoffed. ‘Okay then, have the brown,’ she said, feeling guilty, shovelling the spoon into the brown sugar bag and emptying a heaped spoon into his coffee.

‘Brown bread, brown rice, brown this, brown that. I remember a time when my life was in Technicolor.’

‘I bet you can remember a time when you could see your feet when you looked down too,’ she said without a second’s thought.

In an effort to dissolve the sugar in his mug completely, she stirred the spoon so hard that a portal of spinning liquid appeared in the centre. Raphie watched it and wondered: If he dived into that mug, where would it bring him.

‘If you die drinking this, don’t blame me,’ she said, passing it to him.

‘If I do, I’ll haunt you until the day you die.’

She smiled but it never reached her eyes, fading somewhere between her lips and the bridge of her nose.

He watched the portal in his mug begin to die down, his chance of leaping into another world disappearing fast along with the steam that escaped the liquid. Yes, it had been one hell of a morning. Not much of a morning for smiles. Or maybe it was. A morning for half-smiles, perhaps. He couldn’t decide.

Raphie handed Jessica a mug of steaming coffee – black with no sugar, just as she liked – and they both leaned against the countertop, facing one another, their lips blowing on their coffee, their feet touching the ground, their minds in the clouds.

He studied Jessica, hands wrapped around the mug and staring intently into her coffee as though it were a crystal ball. How he wished it was; how he wished they had the gift of foresight to stop so many of the things they witnessed. Her cheeks were pale, a light red rim around her eyes the only give-away to the morning they’d had.

‘Some morning, eh, kiddo?’

Those almond-shaped eyes glistened but she stopped herself and hardened. She nodded and swallowed the coffee in response. He could tell by her attempt to hide the grimace that it burned, but she took another sip as if in defiance. Standing up even against the coffee.

‘My first Christmas Day on duty, I played chess with the sergeant for the entire shift.’

She finally spoke. ‘Lucky you.’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded, remembering back. ‘Didn’t see it that way at the time, though. Was hoping for plenty of action.’

Forty years later he’d gotten what he’d hoped for and now he wanted to give it back. Return the gift. Get his time refunded.

‘You win?’

He snapped out of his trance. ‘Win what?’

‘The chess game.’

‘No,’ he chuckled. ‘Let the sergeant win.’

She ruffled her nose. ‘You wouldn’t see me letting you win.’

‘I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.’

Guessing the hot drink had reached the right temperature, Raphie finally took a sip of coffee. He immediately clutched at his throat, coughing and spluttering, feigning death and knowing immediately that despite his best efforts to lift the mood, it was in poor taste.

Jessica merely raised an eyebrow and continued sipping.

He laughed and then the silence continued.

‘You’ll be okay,’ he assured her.

She nodded again and responded curtly as though she already knew. ‘Yep. You call Mary?’

He nodded. ‘Straight away. She’s with her sister.’ A seasonal lie; a white lie for a white Christmas. ‘You call anyone?’

She nodded but averted her gaze, not offering more, never offering more. ‘Did you, em … did you tell her?’

‘No. No.’

‘Will you?’

He gazed into the distance again. ‘I don’t know. Will you tell anyone?’

She shrugged, her look as unreadable as always. She nodded down the hall at the holding room. ‘The Turkey Boy is still waiting in there.’

Raphie sighed. ‘What a waste.’ Of a life or of his own time, he didn’t make clear. ‘He’s one that could do with knowing.’

Jessica paused just before taking a sip, and fixed those near-black almond-shaped eyes on him from above the rim of the mug. Her voice was as solid as faith in a nunnery, so firm and devoid of all doubt that he didn’t have to question her certainty.

‘Tell him,’ she said firmly. ‘If we never tell anybody else in our lives, at least let’s tell him.’

3. The Turkey Boy

Raphie entered the interrogation room as though he was entering his living room and was about to settle himself on his couch with his feet up for the day. There was nothing threatening about his demeanour whatsoever. Despite his height of six foot two, he fell short of filling the space his physical body took up. His head was, as usual, bent over in contemplation, his eyebrows mirroring the angle by dropping to cover his pea-sized eyes. The top of his back was slightly hunched, as though he carried a small shell as shelter. On his belly was an even bigger shell. In one hand was a Styrofoam cup, in the other his half-drunk NYPD mug of coffee.

The Turkey Boy glanced at the mug in Raphie’s hand. ‘Cool. Not.’

‘So is throwing a turkey through a window.’

The boy smirked at the sentence and started chewing on the end of the string on his hooded top.

‘What made you do that?’

‘My dad’s a prick.’

‘I gathered it wasn’t a Christmas gift for being father of the year. What made you think of the turkey?’

He shrugged. ‘My mam told me to take it out of the freezer,’ he offered, as if by way of explanation.

‘So how did it get from the freezer to the floor of your dad’s house?’

‘I carried it most of the way, then it flew the rest.’ He smirked again.

‘When were you planning on having dinner?’

‘At three.’

‘I meant what day. It takes a minimum of twenty-four hours of defrosting time for every five pounds of turkey. Your turkey was fifteen pounds. You should have taken the turkey out of the freezer three days ago if you intended on eating it today.’

‘Whatever, Ratatouille.’ He looked at Raphie like he was crazy. ‘If I’d stuffed it with bananas too would I be in less trouble?’

‘The reason I mention it, is because if you had taken it out when you should have, it wouldn’t have been hard enough to go through a window. That may sound like planning to a jury, and no, bananas and turkey isn’t a clever recipe.’

‘I didn’t plan it!’ he squealed, and his age showed.

Raphie drank his coffee and watched the young teenager.

The boy looked at the cup before him and ruffled his nose. ‘I don’t drink coffee.’

‘Okay.’ Raphie lifted the Styrofoam cup from the table and emptied the contents into his mug. ‘Still warm. Thanks. So, tell me about this morning. What were you thinking, son?’

‘Unless you’re the other fat bastard whose window I threw a bird through, then I’m not your son. And what’s this, a therapy session or interrogation? Are you charging me with something or what?’

‘We’re waiting to hear whether your dad is going to press charges.’

‘He won’t.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘He can’t. I’m under sixteen. So if you just let me go now, you won’t waste any of your time.’

‘You’ve already wasted a considerable amount of it.’

‘It’s Christmas Day, I doubt there’s much else for you to do around here.’ He eyed Raphie’s stomach. ‘Other than eat doughnuts.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Try me.’

‘Some idiot kid threw a turkey through a window this morning.’

He rolled his eyes and looked at the clock on the wall, ticking away. ‘Where are my parents?’

‘Wiping grease off their floor.’

‘They’re not my parents,’ he spat. ‘At least, she’s not my mother. If she comes with him to collect me, I’m not going.’

‘Oh, I doubt very much that they’ll come to take you home with them.’ Raphie reached into his pocket and took out a chocolate sweet. He unwrapped it slowly, the wrapper rustling in the quiet room. ‘Did you ever notice the strawberry ones are always the last ones left over in the tin?’ He smiled before popping it in his mouth.

‘I bet nothing’s ever left in the tin when you’re around.’

‘Your father and his partner –’

‘Who, for the record,’ Turkey Boy interrupted Raphie and leaned close to the recording device, ‘is a whore.’

‘They may pay us a visit to press charges.’

‘Dad wouldn’t do that.’ He swallowed, his eyes puffy with frustration.

‘He’s thinking about it.’

‘No he’s not,’ the boy whined. ‘If he is it’s probably because she’s making him. Bitch.’

‘It’s more probable that he’ll do it because it’s now snowing in his living room.’

‘Is it snowing?’ He looked like a child again, eyes wide with hope.

Raphie sucked on his sweet. ‘Some people just bite right into chocolate; I much prefer to suck it.’

‘Suck on this.’ The Turkey Boy grabbed his crotch.

‘You’ll have to get your boyfriend to do that.’

‘I’m not gay,’ he huffed, then leaned forward and the child returned. ‘Ah, come on, is it snowing? Let me out to see it, will you? I’ll just look out the window.’

Raphie swallowed his sweet and leaned his elbows on the table. He spoke firmly. ‘Glass from the window landed on the ten-month-old baby.’

‘So?’ the boy snarled, bouncing back in his chair, but he looked concerned. He began pulling at a piece of skin around his nail.

‘He was beside the Christmas tree, where the turkey landed. Luckily he wasn’t cut. The baby, that is, not the turkey. The turkey sustained quite a few injuries. We don’t think he’ll make it.’

The boy looked relieved and confused all at the same time.

‘When’s my mam coming to get me?’

‘She’s on her way.’

‘The girl with the’, he cupped his hands over his chest, ‘big jugs told me that two hours ago. What happened to her face by the way? You two have a lovers’ tiff?’

Raphie bristled over how the boy spoke about Jessica, but kept his calm. He wasn’t worth it. Was he even worth sharing the story with at all?

‘Maybe your mother is driving very slowly. The roads are very slippy.’

The Turkey Boy thought about that and looked a little worried. He continued pulling at the skin around his nail.

‘The turkey was too big,’ he added, after a long pause. He clenched and unclenched his fists on the table. ‘She bought the same-sized turkey she used to buy when he was home. She thought he’d be coming back.’

‘Your mother thought this about your dad,’ Raphie confirmed, rather than asked.

He nodded. ‘When I took it out of the freezer it just made me crazy. It was too big.’

Silence again.

‘I didn’t think the turkey would break the glass,’ he said, quieter now and looking away. ‘Who knew a turkey could break a window?’

He looked up at Raphie with such desperation that, despite the seriousness of the situation, Raphie had to fight a smile at the boy’s misfortune.

‘I just meant to give them a fright. I knew they’d all be in there playing happy families.’

‘Well, they’re definitely not any more.’

The boy didn’t say anything but seemed less happy about it than when Raphie had entered.

‘A fifteen-pound turkey seems very big for just three people.’

‘Yeah, well, my dad’s a fat bastard, what can I say.’

Raphie decided he was wasting his time. Fed up, he stood up to leave.

‘Dad’s family used to come for dinner every year,’ the boy caved in, calling out to Raphie in an effort to keep him in the room. ‘But they decided not to come this year either. The turkey was just too bloody big for the two of us,’ he repeated, shaking his head. Dropping the bravado act, his tone changed. ‘When will my mam be here?’

Raphie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Probably when you’ve learned your lesson.’

‘But it’s Christmas Day.’

‘As good a day as any to learn a lesson.’

‘Lessons are for kids.’

Raphie smiled at that.

‘What?’ the boy spat defensively.

‘I learned one today.’

‘Oh, I forgot to add retards to that too.’

Raphie made his way to the door.

‘So what lesson did you learn then?’ the boy asked quickly, and Raphie could sense in his voice that he didn’t want to be left alone.

Raphie stopped and turned, feeling sad, looking sad.

‘It must have been a pretty shit lesson.’

‘You’ll find that most lessons are.’

The Turkey Boy sat slumped over the table, his unzipped hooded top hanging off one shoulder, small pink ears peeping out from his greasy hair that sat on his shoulders, his cheeks covered in pink pimples, his eyes a crystal blue. He was only a child.

Raphie sighed. Surely he’d be forced into early retirement for telling this story. He pulled out the chair and sat down.

‘Just for the record,’ Raphie said, ‘you asked me to tell you this.’

The Beginning of the Story

4. The Shoe Watcher

Lou Suffern always had two places to be at the one time. When asleep, he dreamed. In between dreams, he ran through the events of that day while making plans for the next, so that when he was awakened by his alarm at six a.m. every morning, he found himself to be very poorly rested. When in the shower, he rehearsed presentations and, on occasion, with one hand outside of the shower curtain he responded to emails on his BlackBerry. While eating breakfast he read the newspaper, and when being told rambling stories by his five-year-old daughter, he listened to the morning news. When his thirteen-month-old son demonstrated new skills each day, Lou’s face displayed interest while at the same time the inner workings of his brain were analysing why he felt the exact opposite. When kissing his wife goodbye, he was thinking of another.

Every action, movement, appointment, a doing or thought of any kind, was layered by another. Driving to work was also a conference call by speakerphone. Breakfasts ran into lunches, lunches into pre-dinner drinks, drinks into dinners, dinners into after-dinner drinks, after-dinner drinks into … well, that depended on how lucky he got. On those lucky nights at whatever house, apartment, hotel room or office that he felt himself appreciating his luck and the company of another, he of course would convince those who wouldn’t share his appreciation – namely his wife – that he was in another place. To them, he was stuck in a meeting, at an airport, finishing up some important paperwork, or buried in the maddening Christmas traffic. Two places, quite magically, at once.

Everything overlapped, he was always moving, always had someplace else to be, always wished that he was elsewhere or that, thanks to some divine intervention, he could be in both places at the same time. He’d spend as little time as possible with each person and leave them feeling that it was enough. He wasn’t a tardy man, he was precise, always on time. In business he was a master timekeeper; in life he was a broken pocket watch. He strove for perfection and possessed boundless energy in his quest for success. However, it was these bounds – so eager to attain his fast-growing list of desires and so full of ambition to reach new dizzying heights – that caused him to soar above the heads of the most important. There was no appointed time in his schedule for those whom, given the time of day, could lift him higher in more ways than any new deal could possibly accomplish.

On one particular cold Tuesday morning along the continuously developing dockland of Dublin city, Lou’s black leather shoes, polished to perfection, strolled confidently across the eyeline of one particular man. This man watched the shoes in movement that morning, as he had yesterday and as he assumed he would tomorrow. There was no best foot forward, for both were equal in their abilities. Each stride was equal in length, the heel-to-toe combination so precise; his shoes pointing forward, heels striking first and then pushing off from the big toe, flexing at the ankle. Perfect each time. The sound rhythmic as they hit the pavement. There was no heavy pounding to shake the ground beneath him, as was the case with the decapitated others who raced by at this hour with their heads still on their pillows despite their bodies being out in the fresh air. No, his shoes made a tapping sound as intrusive and unwelcome as raindrops on a conservatory roof, the hem of his trousers flapping slightly like a flag in a light breeze on an eighteenth hole.

The watcher half-expected the slabs of pavement to light up as he stepped on each, and for the owner of the shoes to break out into a tap dance about how swell and dandy the day was turning out to be. For the watcher, a swell and dandy day it was most certainly going to be.

Usually the shiny black shoes beneath the impeccable black suits would float stylishly by the watcher, through the revolving doors and into the grand marble entrance of the latest modern glass building to be squeezed through the cracks of the quays and launched up into the Dublin sky. But that morning the shoes stopped directly before the watcher. And then they turned, making a gravelly noise as they pivoted on the cold concrete. The watcher had no choice but to lift his gaze from the shoes.

‘Here you go,’ Lou said, handing him a coffee. ‘It’s an Americano, hope you don’t mind, they were having problems with the machine so they couldn’t make a latte.’

‘Take it back then,’ the watcher said, turning his nose up at the cup of steaming coffee offered to him.

This was greeted by a stunned silence.

‘Only joking.’ He laughed at the startled look, and very quickly – in case the joke was unappreciated and the gesture was rethought and withdrawn – reached for the cup and cradled it with his numb fingers. ‘Do I look like I care about steamed milk?’ he grinned, before his expression changed to a look of pure ecstasy. ‘Mmmm.’ He pushed his nose up against the rim of the cup to smell the coffee beans. He closed his eyes and savoured it, not wanting the sense of sight to take away from this divine smell. The cardboard-like cup was so hot, or his hands so cold, that it burned right through them, sending torpedoes of heat and shivers through his body. He hadn’t known how cold he was until he’d felt the heat.

‘Thanks very much indeed.’

‘No problem. I heard on the radio that today’s going to be the coldest day of the year.’ The shiny shoes stamped the concrete slabs and his leather gloves rubbed together as proof of his word.

‘Well, I’d believe them all right. Never mind the brass monkeys, it’s cold enough to freeze my own balls off. But this will help.’ The watcher blew on the drink slightly, preparing to take his first sip.

‘There’s no sugar in it,’ Lou apologised.

‘Ah well then.’ The watcher rolled his eyes and quickly pulled the cup away from his lips, as though in it there was contained a deadly disease. ‘I can let you off the steamed milk, but forgetting to add sugar is a step too far.’ He offered it back to Lou.

Getting the message, and the joke this time, Lou laughed. ‘Okay, okay, I get the point.’

‘Beggars can’t be choosers, isn’t that what they say? Is that to say choosers can be beggars?’ The watcher raised an eyebrow, smiled, and finally took his first sip. So engrossed in the sensation of heat and caffeine travelling through his cold body, he hadn’t noticed that suddenly the watcher became the watched.

‘Oh. I’m Gabe.’ He reached out his hand. ‘Gabriel, but everyone who knows me calls me Gabe.’

Lou reached out and shook his hand. Warm leather to cold skin. ‘I’m Lou, but everyone who knows me calls me a prick.’

Gabe laughed. ‘Well, that’s honesty for you. How’s about I call you Lou until I know you better.’

They smiled at one another and then were quiet in the sudden sliver of awkwardness. Two little boys trying to make friends in a schoolyard. The shiny shoes began to fidget slightly, tip-tap, tap-tip, Lou’s side-to-side steps a combination of trying to keep warm and trying to figure out whether to leave or stay. They twisted around slowly to face the building next door. He would soon follow in the direction of his feet.

‘Busy this morning, isn’t it?’ Gabe said easily, bringing the shoes back to face him again.

‘Christmas is only a few weeks away, always a hectic time,’ Lou agreed.

‘The more people around, the better it is for me,’ Gabe said as a twenty cent went flying into his cup. ‘Thank you,’ he called to the lady who’d barely paused to drop the coin. From her body language one would almost think it had fallen through a hole in her pocket rather than being a gift. He looked up at Lou with big eyes and an even bigger grin. ‘See? Coffee’s on me tomorrow,’ he chuckled.

Lou tried to lean over as inconspicuously as possible to steal a look at the contents of the cup. The twenty-cent piece sat alone at the bottom.

‘Oh, don’t worry. I empty it now and then. Don’t want people thinking I’m doing too well for myself,’ he laughed. ‘You know how it is.’

Lou agreed, but at the same time didn’t.

‘Can’t have people knowing I own the penthouse right across the water,’ Gabe added, nodding across the river.

Lou turned around and gazed across the Liffey at Dublin quay’s newest skyscraper, which Gabe was referring to. With its mirrored glass it was almost as if the building was the Looking Glass of Dublin city centre. From the re-created Viking longship that was moored along the quays, to the many cranes and new corporate and commercial buildings that framed the Liffey, to the stormy, cloud-filled sky that filled the higher floors, the building captured it all and played it back to the city like a giant plasma. Shaped like a sail, at night the building was illuminated in blue and was the talk of the town, or at least had been in the months following its launch. The next best thing never lasted for too long.

‘I was only joking about owning the penthouse, you know,’ Gabe said, seeming a little concerned that his possible pay-off had been sabotaged.

‘You like that building?’ Lou asked, still staring at it in a trance.

‘It’s my favourite one, especially at night-time. That’s one of the main reasons I sit here. That and because it’s busy along here, of course. A view alone won’t buy me my dinner.’

‘We built that,’ Lou said, finally turning back around to face him.

‘Really?’ Gabe took him in a bit more. Mid to late thirties, dapper suit, his face cleanly shaven, smooth as a baby’s behind, his groomed hair with even speckles of grey throughout, as though someone had taken a salt canister to it and, along with grey, sprinkled charm at a ratio of 1:10. Lou reminded him of an old-style movie star, emanating suaveness and sophistication and all packaged in a full-length black cashmere coat.

‘I bet it bought you dinner,’ Gabe laughed, feeling a slight twinge of jealousy at that moment, which bothered him as he hadn’t known any amount of jealousy until he’d studied Lou. Since meeting him he’d learned two things that were of no help, for there he was, all of a sudden cold and envious when previously he had been warm and content. Bearing that in mind, despite always being happy with his own company, he foresaw that as soon as this gentleman and he were to part ways, he would experience a loneliness he had never been previously aware of. He would then be envious, cold and lonely. The perfect ingredients for a nice homemade bitter pie.

The building had bought Lou more than dinner. It had gotten the company a few awards, and for him personally, a house in Howth and an upgrade from his present Porsche to the new model – the latter after Christmas, to be precise, but Lou knew not to announce that to the man sitting on the freezing cold pavement, swaddled in a flea-infested blanket. Instead, Lou smiled politely and flashed his porcelain veneers, as usual doing two things at once. Thinking one thing and saying another. But it was the in-between part that Gabe could clearly read, and this introduced a new level of awkwardness that neither of them was comfortable with.

‘Well, I’d better get to work. I just work –’

‘Next door, I know. I recognise the shoes. More on my level,’ Gabe smiled. ‘Though you didn’t wear those yesterday. Tan leather, if I’m correct.’

Lou’s neatly tweezed eyebrows went up a notch. Like a pebble dropped in a pool, they caused a series of ripples to rise on his as yet un-botoxed forehead.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker.’ Gabe allowed one hand to unwrap itself from the hot cup so he could hold it up in defence. ‘I’ve just been here a while. If anything, you people keep turning up at my place.’

Lou laughed, then self-consciously looked down at his shoes, which were the subject of conversation. ‘Incredible.’

‘I’ve never noticed you here before,’ Lou thought aloud, and at the same time as saying it he was mentally reliving each morning he’d walked this route to work.

‘All day, every day,’ Gabe said, with false perkiness in his voice.

‘Sorry, I never noticed you …’ Lou shook his head. ‘I’m always running around the place, on the phone to someone or late for someone else. Always two places to be at the same time, my wife says. Sometimes I wish I could be cloned, I get so busy,’ he laughed.

Gabe gave him a curious smile at that. ‘Speaking of running around, this is the first time I haven’t seen those boys racing by.’ Gabe nodded towards Lou’s feet. ‘Almost don’t recognise them standing still. No fire inside today?’

Lou laughed. ‘Always a fire inside there, believe you me.’ He made a swift movement with his arm and, like the unveiling of a masterpiece, his coat sleeve slipped down just far enough to reveal his gold Rolex. ‘I’m always the first into the office so there’s no great rush now.’ He observed the time with great concentration, in his head already leading an afternoon meeting.

‘You’re not the first in this morning,’ Gabe said.

‘What?’ Lou’s meeting was disturbed and he was back on the cold street again, outside his office, the cold Atlantic wind whipping at their faces, the crowds of people all bundled up and marching in their armies to work.

Gabe scrunched his eyes shut tight. ‘Brown loafers. I’ve seen you walk in with him a few times. He’s in already.’

‘Brown loafers?’ Lou laughed, first confused, then impressed and quickly concerned as to who had made it to the office before him.

‘You know him – a pretentious walk. The little suede tassels kick with every step, like a mini can-can, it’s like he throws them up there purposely. They’ve got soft soles but they’re heavy on the ground. Small wide feet, and he walks on the outsides of his feet. Soles are always worn away on the outside.’

Lou’s brow furrowed in concentration.

‘On Saturdays he wears shoes like he’s just stepped off a yacht.’

‘Alfred!’ Lou laughed, recognising the description. ‘That’s because he probably has just stepped off his ya—’ but he stopped himself. ‘He’s in already?’

‘About a half-hour ago. Plodded in, in a kind of a rush by the looks of it, accompanied by another pair of black slip-ons.’

‘Black slip-ons?’

‘Black shoes. Male shoes. A little shine but no design. Simple and to the point, they just did what shoes do. Can’t say much else about them apart from the fact they move slower than the other shoes.’

‘You’re very observant.’ Lou examined him, wondering who this man had been in his previous life, before landing on cold ground in a doorway, and at the same time his mind was on overdrive in its attempt to figure out who all these people were. Alfred showing up to work so early had him flummoxed. A colleague of theirs – Cliff – had suffered a nervous breakdown and this had left them excited, yes, excited, about the opening up of a new position. Providing Cliff didn’t get better, which Lou secretly hoped for, major shifts were about to take place in the company, and any unusual behaviour by Alfred was questionable. In fact, any of Alfred’s behaviour at any stage was questionable.

Gabe winked. ‘Don’t happen to need an observant person in there for anything, do you?’

Lou parted his gloved hands. ‘Sorry.’

‘No problem, you know where I am if you need me. I’m the fella in the Doc Martens.’ He laughed, lifting the blankets to reveal his high black boots.

‘I wonder why they’re in so early.’ Lou looked at Gabe as though he had special powers.

‘Can’t help you out there, I’m afraid, but they had lunch last week. Or at least, they left the building at what’s considered the average joe’s lunchtime, and came back together when that time was over. What they did in between is just a matter of clever guesswork,’ he chuckled. ‘No flies on me. Not today anyway,’ he added. ‘Far too cold for flies.’

‘What day was that lunch?’

Gabe closed his eyes again. ‘Friday, I’d say. He’s your rival, is he, brown loafers?’

‘No, he’s my friend. Kind of. More of an acquaintance really.’ On hearing this news Lou, for the first time, showed signs of being rattled. ‘He’s my colleague, but with Cliff having a breakdown it’s a great opportunity for either of us to, well, you know …’

‘Steal your sick friend’s job,’ Gabe finished for him with a smile. ‘Sweet. The slow-moving shoes? The black ones?’ Gabe continued. ‘They left the office the other night with a pair of Louboutins.’

‘Lou— Loub— what are they?’

‘Identifiable by their lacquered red sole. These particular ones had one-hundred-and-twenty-millimetre heels.’

‘Millimetres?’ Lou questioned, then, ‘Red sole, okay,’ he nodded, absorbing it all.

‘You could always just ask your friend-slash-acquaintance-slash-colleague who he was meeting,’ Gabe suggested with a glint in his eye.

Lou didn’t respond directly to that. ‘Right, I’d better run. Things to see, people to do, and both at the same time, would you believe,’ he winked. ‘Thanks for your help, Gabe.’ He slipped a ten-euro note into Gabe’s cup.

‘Cheers, man,’ Gabe beamed, immediately grabbing it from the cup and tucking it into his pocket. He tapped his finger. ‘Can’t let them know, remember?’

‘Right,’ Lou agreed.

But, at the exact same time, didn’t agree at all.

5. The Thirteenth Floor

‘Going up?’

There was a universal grunt and nodding of heads from inside the crammed elevator as the enquiring gentleman on the second floor looked at sleepy faces with hope. All but Lou responded, that was, for Lou was too preoccupied with studying the gentleman’s shoes, which stepped over the narrow gap that led to the cold black drop below, and into the confined space. Brown brogues shuffled around one hundred and eighty degrees, in order to face the front. Lou was looking for red soles and black shoes. Alfred had arrived early and had lunch with black shoes. Black shoes left the office with red soles. If he could find out who owned the red soles, then he’d know who she worked with, and then he’d know who Alfred was secretly meeting. This process made more sense to Lou than simply asking Alfred, which said a lot about the nature of Alfred’s honesty. This, he thought about at the exact same time as sharing the uncomfortable silence that only an elevator of strangers could bring.

‘What floor do you want?’ a muffled voice came from the corner of the elevator, where a man was well-hidden – possibly squashed – and, as the only person with access to the buttons, was forced to deal with the responsibility of commandeering the elevator stops.

‘Thirteen, please,’ the new arrival said.

There were a few sighs and one person tutted.

‘There is no thirteenth floor,’ the body-less man replied.

The elevator doors closed and it ascended quickly.

‘You’d better be quick,’ the body-less man urged.

‘Em …’ The man fumbled in his briefcase for his schedule.

‘You either want the twelfth floor or the fourteenth floor,’ the muffled voice offered. ‘There’s no thirteen.’

‘Surely he needs to get off on the fourteenth floor,’ somebody else offered. ‘The fourteenth floor is technically the thirteenth floor.’

‘Do you want me to press fourteen?’ the voice asked a little more tetchily.

‘Em …’ The man continued to fumble with papers.

Lou couldn’t concentrate on the unusual conversation in the usually quiet elevator, as he was preoccupied with studying the shoes around him. Lots of black shoes. Some with detail, some scuffed, some polished, some slip-ons, some untied. No obvious red soles. He noticed the feet around him beginning to twitch and shift from foot to foot. One pair moved away from him ever so slightly. His head shot up immediately as the elevator pinged.

‘Going up?’ the young woman asked.

There was a more helpful chorus of male yeses this time.

She stepped in front of Lou and he checked out her shoes while the men around him checked out other areas of her body in that heavy silence that only women feel in an elevator of men. The elevator moved up again. Six … seven … eight …

Finally, the man with the brown brogues emerged from his briefcase empty-handed, and with an air of defeat announced, ‘Patterson Developments.’

Lou pondered the confusion with irritation. It had been his suggestion that there be no number thirteen on the elevator panel, but of course there was a thirteenth floor. There wasn’t a gap with nothing before getting to the fourteenth floor; the fourteenth didn’t hover on some invisible bricks. The fourteenth was the thirteenth, and his offices were on the thirteenth. But it was known as the fourteenth. Why it confused everybody, he had no idea: it was as clear as day to him. He exited on the fourteenth and stepped out, his feet sinking into the spongy plush carpet.

‘Good morning, Mr Suffern.’ His secretary greeted him without looking up from her papers.

He stopped at her desk and looked at her with a puzzled expression. ‘Alison, call me Lou, like you always do, please.’

‘Of course, Mr Suffern,’ she said perkily, refusing to look him in the eye.

While Alison moved about, Lou tried to get a glimpse of the soles of her shoes. He was still standing at her desk when she returned and once again refused to meet his eye as she sat down and began typing. As inconspicuously as possible, he bent down to tie his shoelaces and peeked through the gap in her desk.

She frowned and crossed her long legs. ‘Is everything okay, Mr Suffern?’

‘Call me Lou,’ he repeated, still puzzled.

‘No,’ she said rather moodily and looked away. She grabbed the diary from her desk. ‘Shall we go through today’s appointments?’ She stood and made her way around the desk.

Tight silk blouse, tight skirt, his eyes scanned her body before getting to her shoes.

‘How high are they?’

‘Why?’

‘Are they one hundred and twenty millimetres?’

‘I’ve no idea. Who measures heels in millimetres?’

‘I don’t know. Some people. Gabe,’ he smiled, following her as they made their way into his office, trying to get a glimpse of her soles.

‘Who the hell is Gabe?’ she muttered.

‘Gabe is a homeless man,’ he laughed.

As she turned around to question him, she caught him with his head tilted, studying her. ‘You’re looking at me the same way you look at the art on these walls,’ she said smartly.

Modern impressionism. He’d never been a fan of it. Regularly throughout the days he’d find himself stopping to stare at the blobs of nothing that covered the walls of the corridors of these offices. Splashes and lines scraped into the canvas that somebody considered something, and which could easily be hung upside down or back to front with nobody being any the wiser. He’d contemplate the money that had been spent on them too – and then he’d compare them to the pictures lining his refrigerator door at home; home art by his daughter Lucy. And as he’d tilt his head from side to side, as he was doing with Alison now, he knew there was a playschool teacher out there somewhere with millions of euro lining her pockets, while four-year-olds with paint on their hands, their tongues dangling from their mouths in concentration, received gummy bears instead of a percentage of the takings.

‘Do you have red soles?’ he asked Alison, making his way to his gigantic leather chair that a family of four could live in.

‘Why, did I step in something?’ She stood on one foot and hopped around lightly, trying to keep her balance while checking her soles, appearing to Lou like a dog trying to chase its tail.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He sat down at his desk wearily.

She viewed him with suspicion before returning her attention to her schedule. ‘At eight thirty you have a phone call with Aonghus O’Sullibháin about needing to become a fluent Irish speaker in order to buy that plot in Connemara. However, I have arranged for your benefit for the conversation to be as Béarla …’ She smirked and threw back her head, like a horse would, pushing her mane of highlighted hair off her face. ‘At eight forty-five you have a meeting with Barry Brennan about the slugs they found on the Cork site –’

‘Cross your fingers they’re not rare,’ he groaned.

‘Well, you never know, sir, they could be relatives of yours. You have some family in Cork, don’t you?’ She still wouldn’t look at him. ‘At nine thirty –’

‘Hold on a minute.’ Despite knowing he was alone with her in the room, Lou looked around hoping for back-up. ‘Why are you calling me sir? What’s gotten into you today?’

She looked away, mumbling what Lou thought sounded like, ‘Not you, that’s for sure.’

‘What did you say?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve a busy day, I could do without the sarcasm, thank you. And since when did the day’s schedule become a morning announcement?’

‘I thought that if you heard how packed your day is, aloud, then you might decide to give me the go-ahead to make less appointments in future.’

‘Do you want less work to do, Alison, is that what this is all about?’

‘No,’ she blushed. ‘Not at all. I just thought that you could change your work routine a little. Instead of these manic days spent darting around, you could spend more time with fewer clients. Happier clients.’

‘Yes, then me and Jerry Maguire will live together happily ever after. Alison, you’re new to the company so I’ll let this go by, but this is how I like to do business, okay? I like to be busy, I don’t need two-hour lunchbreaks and schoolwork at the kitchen table with the kids.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘You mentioned happier clients; have you had any complaints?’

‘Your mother. Your wife,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘Your brother. Your sister. Your daughter.’

‘My daughter is five years old.’

‘Well, she called when you forgot to pick her up from Irish dancing lessons last Thursday.’

‘That doesn’t count,’ he rolled his eyes, ‘because my five-year-old daughter isn’t going to lose the company hundreds of millions of euro, is she?’ Once again he didn’t wait for a response. ‘Have you received any complaints from people who do not share my surname?’

Alison thought hard. ‘Did your sister change her name back after the separation?’

He glared at her.

‘Well then, no, sir.’

‘What’s with the sir thing?’

‘I just thought,’ her face flushed, ‘that if you’re going to treat me like a stranger, then that’s what I’ll do too.’

‘How am I treating you like a stranger?’

She looked away. ‘Not something He lowered his voice. ‘Alison, we’re at the office, what do you want me to do? Tell you how much I enjoyed screwing your brains out in the middle of discussing our appointments?’

‘You didn’t screw my brains out, we just kissed.’

‘Whatever.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘What’s this about?’

She had no answer to that but her cheeks were on fire. ‘Perhaps Alfred mentioned something to me.’

Lou’s heart did an unusual thing then, that he hadn’t experienced before. A fluttering of some sort. ‘What did he mention?’

She looked away, began fidgeting with the corner of the page. ‘Well, he mentioned something about you missing that meeting last week –’

‘Not something, I want specifics here, please.’

She bristled. ‘Okay, em, well, after the meeting last week with Mr O’Sullivan, he – as in Alfred –’ she swallowed, ‘suggested that I try to stay on top of you a bit more. He knew that I was new to the job and his advice to me was not to allow you to miss an important meeting again.’

Lou’s blood boiled and his mind raced. He’d never felt such confusion. Lou spent his life running from one thing to another, missing half of the first in order just to make it to the end of the other. He did this all day every day, always feeling like he was catching up in order to get ahead. It was long and hard and tiring work. He had made huge sacrifices to get where he was. He loved his work, was totally and utterly professional and dedicated to every aspect of it. To be pulled up on missing one meeting that had not yet been scheduled when he had taken the morning off, angered him. It also angered him that it was family that had caused this. If it was another meeting he had sacrificed it for, he would feel better about it, but he felt a sudden anger at his mother. It was her that he had collected from hospital after a hip replacement, the morning of the meeting. He felt angry at his wife for talking him into doing it when his suggestion to arrange a car to collect his mother had sent her into a rage. He felt anger at his sister Marcia and his older brother Quentin for not doing it instead. He was a busy man, and the one time he chose family over work, he had to pay the price. He stood up and paced by the window, biting down hard on his lip and feeling such anger he wanted to pick up the phone and call his entire family and tell them, ‘See? See, this is why I can’t always be there. See? Now look what you’ve done!’

‘Did you not tell him that I had to collect my mother from the hospital?’ He said it quietly because he hated saying it. He hated hearing those words that he despised other colleagues using. Hated the excuses, their personal lives being brought into the office. To him, it was a lack of professionalism. You either did the job, or you didn’t.

‘Well, no, because it was my first week and Mr Patterson was standing with him and I didn’t know what you would like me to say –’

‘Mr Patterson was with him?’ Lou asked, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

She nodded up and down, wide-eyed, like one of those toys with a loose neck.

‘Right.’ His heart began to slow down, now realising what was going on. His dear friend Alfred was up to his tricks. Tricks that Lou had assumed up until now that he was exempt from. Alfred could never get by a day doing things by the book. He looked at things from an awkward angle, came at conversations from an unusual perspective too; always trying to figure out the best way he could come out of any situation.

Lou’s eyes searched his desk. ‘Where’s my post?’

‘It’s on the twelfth floor. The work-experience boy got confused by the missing thirteenth floor.’

‘The thirteenth floor isn’t missing! We are on it! What is with everyone today?’

‘We are on the fourteenth floor, and having no thirteenth floor was a terrible design flaw.’

‘It’s not a design flaw,’ he said defensively. ‘Some of the greatest buildings in the world have no thirteenth floor.’

‘Or roofs.’

‘What?’

‘The Colosseum has no roof.’

‘What?!’ he snapped again, getting confused. ‘Tell the work-experience boy to take the stairs from now on and count his way up. That way he won’t get confused by a missing number. Why is a work-experience person handling the mail anyway?’

‘Harry says they’re short-staffed.’

‘Short-staffed? It only takes one person to get in the elevator and bring my bloody post up. How can they be short-staffed?’ His voice went up a few octaves. ‘A monkey could do his job. There are people out there on the streets who’d die to work in a place like …’

‘In a place like what?’ Alison asked, but she was asking the back of Lou’s head because he’d turned around and was looking out of his floor-to-ceiling windows at the pavement below, a peculiar expression on his face reflected in the glass for her to see.

She slowly began to walk away, for the first moment in the past few weeks feeling a light relief that their fling, albeit a fumble in the dark, was going no further, for perhaps she’d misjudged him, perhaps there was something wrong with him. She was new to the company and hadn’t quite sussed him out yet. All she knew of him was that he reminded her of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, always seeming late, late, late for a very important date but managing to get to every appointment just in the nick of time. He was a kind man to everybody he met and was successful at his job. Plus he was handsome and charming and drove a Porsche, and those things she valued more than anything else. Sure, she felt a slight twinge of guilt about what had happened last week with Lou, when she had spoken to his wife on the phone, but then it was quickly erased by, in Alison’s opinion, his wife’s absolute naiveté when it came to her husband’s infidelities. Besides, everybody had a weak spot, and any man could be forgiven if their Achilles heel just happened to be her.

‘What shoes does Alfred wear?’ Lou called out, just before she closed the door.

She stepped back inside. ‘Alfred who?’

‘Berkeley.’

‘I don’t know.’ Her face flushed. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘For a Christmas present.’

‘Shoes? You want to get Alfred a pair of shoes? But I’ve already ordered the Brown Thomas hampers for everyone, like you asked.’

‘Just find out for me. But don’t make it obvious. Just casually enquire, I want to surprise him.’

She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. ‘Sure.’

‘Oh, and that new girl in accounts. What’s her name … Sandra, Sarah?’

‘Deirdre.’

‘Check her shoes too. Let me know if they’ve got red soles.’

‘They don’t. They’re from Top Shop. Black ankle boots, suede with water marks. I bought a pair of them last year. When they were in fashion.’

With that, she left.

Lou sighed, collapsed into his oversized chair and held his fingers to the bridge of his nose, hoping to stop the migraine that loomed. Maybe he was coming down with something. He’d already wasted fifteen minutes of his morning talking to a homeless man, which was totally out of character for him, but he’d felt compelled to stop. Something about the young man demanded he stop and offer him his coffee.

Unable to concentrate on his schedule, Lou once again turned to look out at the city below. Gigantic Christmas decorations adorned the quays and bridges; giant mistletoe and bells that swayed from one side to the other thanks to the festive magic of neon. The river Liffey was at full capacity and gushed by his window and out to Dublin Bay. The pavements were aflow with people charging to work, keeping in time with the currents, following the same direction as the tide. They pounded the pavement as they powerwalked by the gaunt copper figures dressed in rags, which had been constructed to commemorate those during the famine forced to walk these very quays to emigrate. Instead of small parcels of belongings in their hands, the Irish people of this district now carried Starbucks coffee in one hand, briefcases in the other. Women walked to the office wearing trainers with their skirts, their high heels tucked away in their bags. A whole different destiny and endless opportunities awaiting them.

The only thing that was static was Gabe, tucked away in a doorway, near the entrance, wrapped up on the ground and watching the shoes march by, the opportunities for him still not quite as equal as for those that trampled by. Though only slightly bigger than a dot on the pavement thirteen floors down, Lou could see Gabe’s arm rise and fall as he sipped on his coffee, making every mouthful last, even if by now it was surely cold. Gabe intrigued him. Not least because of his talent for recalling every pair of shoes that belonged in the building as though they were a maths timetable, but, more alarmingly, because the person behind those crystal-blue eyes was remarkably familiar. In fact, Gabe reminded Lou of himself. The two men were similar in age and, given the right grooming, Gabe could very easily have been mistaken for Lou. He seemed a personable, friendly, capable man. It could so easily be Lou sitting on the pavement outside, watching the world go by, yet how different their lives were.

At that very instant, as though feeling Lou’s eyes on him, Gabe looked up. Thirteen floors up and Lou felt like Gabe was staring straight at his soul, his eyes searing into him.

This confused Lou. His involvement in the development of this building entitled him to the knowledge that, beyond any reasonable doubt, from the outside the glass was reflective. Gabe couldn’t possibly have been able to see him as he stared up, his chin to the air, with a hand across his forehead to block out the light, almost in salute. He could only have been looking at a reflection of some kind, Lou reasoned, a bird perhaps had swooped and caught his eye. That’s right, a reflection was all it could be. But so intent was Gabe’s gaze, which reached up the full thirteen floors to Lou’s office window and all the way into Lou’s eyes, that it caused Lou to put aside his water-tight belief. He lifted up his hand, smiled tightly and gave a small salute. Before he could wait for a reaction from Gabe, he wheeled his chair away from the window and spun around, his pulse rate quickening, as though he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.

The phone rang. It was Alison and she didn’t sound happy.

‘Before I tell you what I’m about to tell you, I just want to let you know that I qualified from UCD with a business degree.’

‘Congratulations,’ Lou said.

She cleared her throat. ‘Here you go. Alfred wears size eight brown loafers. Apparently he’s got ten pairs of the same shoes and he wears them every day, so I don’t think the idea of another pair as a Christmas gift would go down too well. I don’t know what make they are but the sad thing is I can find out for you.’ She took a breath. ‘As for the shoes with the red soles, Louise bought a new pair and wore them last week but they cut the ankle off her so she took them back, but the shop wouldn’t take them back because it was obvious she’d worn them because the red sole had begun to wear off.’

‘Who’s Louise?’

‘Mr Patterson’s secretary.’

‘I’ll need you to find out from her who she left work with every day last week.’

‘No way, that’s not in my job description!’

‘You can leave work early if you find out for me.’

‘Okay.’

‘Thank you for cracking under such pressure.’

‘No problem, I can get started on my Christmas shopping.’

‘Don’t forget my list.’

So, despite Lou learning very little, the same odd feeling rushed into his heart, something others would identify as panic. But Gabe had been right about the shoes and so wasn’t a lunatic, as Lou had secretly suspected. Earlier, Gabe had asked if Lou needed an observant eye around the building, and so, picking up the phone, Lou rethought his earlier decision.

‘Can you get me Harry from the mailroom on the phone, and then get one of my spare shirts, a tie and trousers from the closet and take them downstairs to the guy sitting at the door. Take him to the men’s room first, make sure he’s tidied up, and then take him down to the mailroom. His name is Gabe and Harry will be expecting him. I’m going to cure his little short-staffing problem.’

‘What?’

‘Gabe. It’s short for Gabriel. But call him Gabe.’

‘No, I meant –’

‘Just do it. Oh, and Alison?’

‘What?’

‘I really enjoyed our kiss last week and I look forward to screwing your brains out in the future.’

He heard a light laugh slip from her throat before the phone went dead.

He’d done it again. While in the process of telling the truth, he had the almost admirable quality of telling a total and utter lie. And through helping somebody else – Gabe – Lou was also helping himself; a good deed was indeed a triumph for the soul. Despite that, Lou knew that somewhere beneath his plotting and soul-saving there lay another plot, which was the beginning of a saving of a very different kind. That of his own skin. And even deeper in this onion man’s complexities, he knew that this outreach was prompted by fear. Not just by the very fear that – had all reason and luck failed him – Lou could so easily be in Gabe’s position at this very moment, but in a layer so deeply buried from the surface that it almost wasn’t felt and certainly wasn’t seen, there lay the fear of a reported crack – a blip in Lou’s engineering of his own career. As much as he wanted to ignore it, it niggled. The fear was there, it was there all the time, but it was merely disguised as something else for others to see.

Just like the thirteenth floor.

6. A Deal Sealed

While Lou’s meeting with Mr Brennan about the – thankfully not rare but still problematic – slugs on the development site in County Cork was close to being wrapped up, Alison appeared at his office door, looking anxious, and with the pile of clothes for Gabe still draped in her outstretched arms.

‘Sorry, Barry, we’ll have to wrap it up now,’ Lou rushed. ‘I have to run, I’ve two places to be right now, both of them across town, and you know what the traffic is like.’ And just like that, with a porcelain smile and a firm warm handshake, Mr Brennan found himself back in the elevator descending to the ground floor, with his winter coat draped over one arm and his paperwork stuffed into his briefcase and tucked under the other. Yet, at the same time, it had been a pleasant meeting.

‘Did he say no?’ Lou asked Alison.

‘Who?’

‘Gabe? Did he not want the job?’

‘There was no one there.’ She looked confused. ‘I stood at reception calling and calling his name – God it was so embarrassing – and nobody came. Was this part of a joke, Lou? I can’t believe that after you made me show the Romanian rose-seller into Alfred’s office that I’d fall for this again.’

‘It’s not a joke.’ He took her arm and dragged her over to his window.

‘But there was no man there,’ she said with exasperation.

He looked out the window and saw Gabe still in the same place on the ground. A light rain was starting to fall, spitting against the window at first and then quickly making a tapping sound as it turned to hailstones. Gabe pushed himself back further into the doorway, tucking his feet in closer to his chest and away from the wet ground. He lifted the hood from his sweater over his head and pulled the drawstrings tightly, which from all the way up on the thirteenth floor seemed to be attached to Lou’s heartstrings.

‘Is that not a man?’ he asked, pointing out the window.

Alison squinted and moved her nose closer to the glass. ‘Yes, but –’

He grabbed the clothes from her arms. ‘I’ll do it myself,’ he said.

As soon as Lou stepped through the lobby’s revolving doors, the icy air whipped at his face. His breath was momentarily taken away by a great gush and the rain alone felt like ice-cubes hitting his skin. Gabe was concentrating intently on the shoes that passed him, focusing his mind on something else, no doubt to try to ignore the elements that were thrashing around him. In his mind he was elsewhere, anywhere but there. On a beach where it was warm, where the sand was like velvet and the Liffey before him was the endless sea. While in this other world he felt a kind of bliss that a man in his position shouldn’t.

His face, however, didn’t reflect that. Gone was the look of warm contentment of that morning. His blue eyes were colder than the heated pools of earlier as they followed Lou’s shoes from the revolving doors all the way to the edge of his blanket.

As Gabe watched the shoes, he was imagining them to be the feet of a local man working at the beach he was currently lounging on. The local was approaching him with a cocktail balanced dangerously in the centre of a tray, the tray held out and high from his body like the arms of a candelabra. Gabe had ordered this drink quite some time ago but he’d let the man away with the small delay. It was a hotter day than usual, the sand was crammed with glistening coconut-scented bodies and so he would forgive this local his shortcomings. The muggy air was slowing everybody down. The flipflop-clad feet that approached him sank into the sand, spraying grains of sand into the air with each step. As they neared him, the grains of sand became splashes of raindrops, and the flipflops became a familiar pair of shiny shoes. Gabe looked up, hoping to see a multicoloured cocktail filled with fruit and umbrellas on a tray. Instead, he saw Lou with a pile of clothes over his arm, and it took him a moment to adjust once again to the cold, the noise of the traffic and the hustle and bustle that had replaced his tropical paradise.

Lou’s appearance of earlier that morning had also altered. His hair had lost its Cary Grant-like sheen and neatly combed quiff, and the shoulders of his suit appeared to be covered in dandruff as the little white balls of ice falling from the sky nested in his expensive suit and took their time to melt. When they did, they left dark patches on the fabric. He was uncharacteristically windswept and his usually relaxed shoulders were instead hunched high in an effort to shield his ears from the cold. His body trembled, missing his cashmere coat like a sheep who’d just been sheared and now stood knobbly-kneed and naked.

‘You want a job?’ Lou asked confidently, but it came out quiet and meek as half of his volume was taken away by the wind and the question asked instead to a stranger further down the pavement.

Gabe simply smiled. ‘You’re sure?’

Confused by his reaction, Lou nodded. He wasn’t expecting a hug and a kiss but his offer seemed almost expected. This he didn’t like. He was more atuned to a song and a dance, an ooh and an ahh, a thank you and a declaration of indebtedness. But he didn’t get this from Gabe. What he did get was a quiet smile and, after Gabe had thrown off the blanket from his body and raised himself to his full height, a firm, thankful – and, in spite of the temperature, a surprisingly warm – handshake. Without Gabe hearing another word, it was as though they were already sealing a deal Lou couldn’t recall negotiating.

Standing at exactly the same height, their blue eyes gazed directly into one another’s, Gabe’s from under the hood that was pulled down low over his eyes, monk-like, boring into Lou’s with such intensity that Lou blinked and looked away. At the same time as that blink occurred, a doubt entered Lou’s mind, now that the mere thought of a good deed was becoming a reality. The doubt came breezing through like a stubborn guest through a hotel lobby with no booking, and Lou stood there, confused as to what decision to make. Where to put this doubt. Keep it or turn it away. He had many questions to ask Gabe, many questions he probably should have asked, but there was only one that he could think of right then.

‘Can I trust you?’ Lou asked.

He had wanted to be convinced, for his mind to be put at ease, but he did not count on receiving the kind of response he was given.

Gabe barely blinked. ‘With your life.’

The Presidential Suite for the gentleman and his word.

7. On Reflection

Gabe and Lou left the icy air and entered the warmth of the marble entrance hall. With walls, floors and pillars of granite covered by swirls of creams, caramels and Cadbury-chocolate colours, Gabe was just short of licking the surfaces. He had known he was cold, but until he felt this warmth he’d had no idea of the extent. Lou felt all eyes on him as he led the rugged-looking man through reception and into the Gents on the ground floor. Unsure of why, Lou took it upon himself to check each toilet cubicle before talking.

‘Here, I brought you these.’ Lou handed Gabe the pile of clothes, which were slightly damp now. ‘You can keep them.’

He turned to face the mirror to comb his hair back into its perfect position, wiped away the hailstones and raindrops from his shoulders and tried his best to return to normality, physically and mentally, as Gabe slowly sifted through the belongings. Grey Gucci trousers, a white shirt, a grey and white striped tie. He fingered them all delicately as though a single touch would reduce them to shreds.

While Gabe discarded his blanket in the sink and then went into one of the cubicles to dress, Lou paced up and down the urinals responding to phone calls and emails. He was so busy with his work that when he looked up from his device, he didn’t recognise the man before him and returned his attention to his BlackBerry. But then he slowly reared his head again, realising with a start that it was Gabe.

The only thing to show that this was the same man were the dirty pair of Doc Martens beneath the Gucci trousers. Everything fitted perfectly, and Gabe stood before the mirror, looking himself up and down as though in a trance. The woollen hat that had covered Gabe’s head now revealed a thick head of black hair, similar to Lou’s, though far more tousled. The warmth had replaced the coldness in his body and his lips were now full and red, his cheeks a nice rosy instead of the frozen pallid colour of before.

Lou didn’t quite know what to say but, sensing a moment that was far deeper than he was comfortable with, he splashed around in the shallow end instead.

‘That stuff you told me about the shoes, earlier?’

Gabe nodded.

‘That was good. I wouldn’t mind if you kept your eyes open for more of that kind of thing. Let me know now and then about what you see.’

Gabe nodded.

‘Have you somewhere to stay?’

‘Yes.’ Gabe looked back at his reflection in the mirror. His voice was quiet.

‘So you’ve an address to give Harry? He’s your boss.’

‘You won’t be my boss?’

‘No.’ Lou took his BlackBerry out of his pocket and began scrolling for nothing in particular. ‘No, you’ll be in another … department.’

‘Oh, of course.’ Gabe straightened up, seeming a little embarrassed for thinking otherwise. ‘Right. Great. Thanks so much, Lou, really.’

Lou nodded it off, feeling embarrassed. ‘Here.’ He handed Gabe his comb while looking the other way.

‘Thanks.’ Gabe took it, held the comb under the tap and then began to shape his messed hair. Lou hurried him on and led him back out of the Gents and through the marble lobby to the elevators.

Gabe offered the comb back to Lou.

Lou shook his head and waved his hand dismissively, looking around to make sure nobody waiting with them by the elevators had seen the gesture. ‘Keep it. You have an employer number, PRSI number, things like that?’ he rattled off at Gabe.

Gabe shook his head, looking concerned. His fingers ran up and down the silk tie, as though it were a pet and he was afraid it would run off.

‘Don’t worry, we’ll sort that out. Okay,’ Lou started to move away as his phone began ringing, ‘I’d better run, I’ve so many places to be right now.’

‘Of course. Thanks again. Where do I –?’

But Gabe was cut off as Lou wandered around the lobby, his movements jittery as he spoke on the mobile in that half-walk, half-dance that people on mobile phones do. His left hand was jingling the loose change in his pocket, his right hand glued to his ear. ‘Okay, gotta run, Michael.’ Lou snapped the phone shut and tutted when he found an even bigger crowd still waiting at the elevators. ‘These things really need to be fixed,’ he said aloud.

Gabe fixed him with a look that Lou couldn’t quite read.

‘What?’

‘Where do I go?’ Gabe asked again.

‘Oh, sorry, you’re going down a floor. The mailroom.’

‘Oh.’ Gabe looked taken aback at first, and then his pleasant face returned again. ‘Okay, great, thanks,’ he nodded.

‘Ever worked in one before? I bet they’re, um … exciting places to be.’ Lou knew that offering Gabe a job was a great gesture, and that there was nothing wrong with the job he was being offered, but somehow he felt that it wasn’t enough, that the young man standing before him was not only capable but expectant of much more. There was no reasonable explanation for why on earth he felt this, as Gabe was as soft, friendly and appreciative as he had been the very first moment Lou had met him, but there was something about the way he … there was just something.

‘Do you want to meet for lunch or anything?’ Gabe asked hopefully.

‘No can do,’ Lou replied, his phone starting to ring again in his pocket. ‘I’ve such a busy day ahead and I’ve …’ He trailed off as the elevator doors opened and people began filing in. Gabe moved to step in with Lou.

‘This one’s going up,’ Lou said quietly, his words a barrier to Gabe’s entrance.

‘Oh, okay.’ Gabe took a few steps back. Before the doors closed and a few last people ran to scurry in, Gabe asked, ‘Why are you doing this for me?’

Lou swallowed hard and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Consider it a gift.’ And the doors closed.

When Lou finally reached the fourteenth floor, he was more than surprised to enter his office area and see Gabe pushing a mail cart around the floor, depositing packages and envelopes on people’s desks.

Unable to think of what to say but running through the time in which it had taken him to get to his floor, he merely stared at Gabe open-mouthed.

‘Eh,’ Gabe looked left and right with uncertainty, ‘this is the thirteenth floor, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the fourteenth,’ Lou replied breathlessly, speaking the words more out of habit and barely noticing what he was saying. ‘Of course you should be here, it’s just that …’ He held his hand to his forehead, which was hot. He hoped his moments in the rain without his coat hadn’t made him ill. ‘You got here so quickly that I just … never mind.’ He shook his head. ‘Those bloody lifts,’ he mumbled to himself, making his way to his office.

Alison jumped up from her chair and blocked him from entering his office. ‘Marcia’s on the phone,’ she called loudly. ‘Again.’

Gabe pushed his cart down to the end of the plush corridor to another office, one of the wheels squeaking loudly. Lou watched him for a moment in wonder, and then snapped out of it.

‘I don’t have time, Alison, really, I’ve somewhere else to be right now and I have a meeting before I can even leave. Where are my keys?’ He searched through the pockets of his coat, which was hanging from the coat stand in the corner.

‘She’s called three times this morning,’ Alison hissed, blocking the receiver and holding it away from her body as though it were poison. ‘I don’t think she believes that I’m passing on her messages.’

‘Messages?’ Lou teased. ‘I don’t remember any messages.’

Alison squeaked with panic, moving the receiver high up in the air, further from Lou’s grasp. ‘Don’t you dare do that to me, don’t blame me! There are three messages already on your desk from this morning alone! And besides, your family hate me as it is.’

‘They’re right to, aren’t they?’ He stood close against her, backing her into her desk. Giving her a look that withered every part of her insides, he allowed two of his fingers to slowly crawl up her arm and to her hand, where he took the phone from her grasp. He heard a cough coming from behind him and he quickly moved away and pulled the phone to his ear. Pretending he didn’t care, he casually spun around to check out who had interrupted them.

Gabe. With the squeaking mail cart that had miraculously failed to alert Lou this time.

‘Yes, Marcia,’ he said down the phone to his sister. ‘Yes, of course I received your ten thousand messages. Alison very kindly passed them all on.’ He smiled sweetly at Alison, who stuck her tongue out at him before leading Gabe into Lou’s office. Lou stood up a little taller then and watched Gabe.

Following Alison into Lou’s office, Gabe looked around the huge room like a child at the zoo. Lou noticed him take in the large en suite to the right, the floor-to-ceiling windows that displayed the city, the giant oak desk that took up more room than necessary, the couch area in the left-hand corner, the boardroom table to seat ten, the fifty-inch plasma on the wall. It was as big or bigger than any Dublin city apartment.

Gabe’s head moved around the room, his eyes taking in everything. His expression was curiously unreadable and then their eyes met and Gabe smiled. It was an equally curious smile. It wasn’t quite the face of admiration that Lou was hoping for, it most certainly wasn’t of jealousy. More a look of amusement. Whatever it was, it immediately killed the pride and satisfaction that were lined up in the queue of emotions Lou planned to experience next. It was a smile that seemed only for Lou, but the problem was, Lou wasn’t sure whether the joke was on him or if he and Gabe were sharing it. Feeling a lack of confidence he wasn’t used to, he nodded back at Gabe in acknowledgement.

Meanwhile, over the phone, Marcia continued her mindless chat, and Lou felt as though his head was getting hotter and hotter.

‘Lou? Lou, are you listening?’ she asked in her soft voice.

‘Absolutely, Marcia, but I really can’t stay on right now because I’ve two places to be and neither of them are here,’ he said, then, after a pause, added a laugh to soften the blow.

‘Yes, I know you’re so busy,’ she said, and without any jibes intended she added, ‘I wouldn’t disturb you at work if we saw you on a Sunday once in a while.’

‘Oh, here we go.’ He rolled his eyes and waited for the usual rant.

‘No, I’m not going there, please, just listen. Lou, I really need your help on this. Usually I wouldn’t bother you, but Rick and I are going through the divorce papers and …’ she sighed. ‘Anyway, I want to get this right and I can’t do it alone.’

‘I’m sure you can’t.’ He wasn’t sure of what it was she could or could not do as he had no idea what she was talking about, and he was so preoccupied with his growing paranoia over Gabe’s movements around his office.

He stretched the phone cord to the corner of the room so that he could reach for his coat. In a messy twist of trying to get his coat on while keeping the phone tucked between his ear and shoulder, he dropped the receiver. He fixed his coat before swooping down to retrieve the receiver. Marcia was still talking.

‘So can you at least answer my one question about the venue?’

‘The venue,’ he repeated. His phone rang in his pocket and he covered the speaker to silence the ring tone, wanting nothing more than to answer it.

She was quiet for a moment. ‘Yes. The venue,’ she said, her voice so quiet now he had to strain his ear to hear.

‘Ah, yes, the venue for the …’ He looked at Alison with his best look of alarm and she abandoned her study of Gabe to charge out from his office towards him with a bright yellow Post-it.

‘A-ha!’ Lou exclaimed, plucking it from her hand, saying the words as though clearly reading them. ‘For your dad’s – that would be my dad’s – birthday party. You want a venue for Dad’s birthday party.’

Lou felt a presence behind his back once again.

‘Yes,’ Marcia said, relieved. ‘But I don’t need a venue, we already have two, remember, I told you this? I just need you to help me choose one. Quentin thinks one and I think the other, and Mum just really wants to stay out of it, and –’

‘Can you call my mobile, Marcia, I really have to run. I’m going to be late for a lunch meeting.’

‘No, Lou! Just tell me where –’

‘Look, I’ve got a great venue,’ he interrupted her again, looking at his watch. ‘Dad will love it and everyone will have a great time,’ he rushed her off the phone.

‘I don’t want to introduce somewhere new at this point. You know what Dad’s like. Just a small, intimate family gathering somewhere he feels comfort—’

‘Intimate and comfortable. Got it.’ Lou grabbed a pen from Alison’s fingers and made a note of the party he was entrusting her to start organising. ‘Great. What date are we having it?’

‘On his birthday.’ Marcia’s voice was quieter with each response.

‘Right, his birthday.’ Lou looked up at Alison questioningly, who dove for her diary and began flicking at top speed. ‘I thought we’d want to have it on a weekend so that everybody could really let themselves go. You know, let Uncle Leo really go for it on the dancefloor,’ he smirked.

‘He’s just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.’

‘Not really my point. So what date is the nearest weekend?’ he improvised.

‘Daddy’s birthday falls on a Friday,’ she said, tired now. ‘It’s December twenty-first, Lou. The same as it was last year and every year before that.’

‘December twenty-first, right.’ He looked at Alison accusingly, who wilted for not getting there first. ‘That’s next weekend, Marcia, why have you left it so late?’

‘I haven’t, I told you, everything’s arranged. Both venues are ready to go.’

Lou stopped listening to her response once again, grabbed the diary from Alison and started flicking through it. ‘Ah, no can do, would you believe. That’s the date of the office party, and I really have to be here. We’re having some important clients over. Dad’s party can be on the Saturday, I’ll have to move some things around,’ he thought aloud, ‘but the Saturday could work.’

‘It’s your father’s seventieth, you can’t change the date because of an office party,’ she said disbelievingly. ‘Besides, the music, the food, everything has already been decided on for that date. All we need is to decide which one of the two venues –’

‘Well, cancel all that,’ Lou said, hopping off the corner of the desk and getting ready to hang up. ‘The venue I have in mind does its own catering and music, you won’t have to lift a finger, okay? So that’s all sorted. Great. I’ll put you back on to Alison so she can take all the details.’ He put the phone down on the desk and grabbed his briefcase.

Despite feeling Gabe’s presence behind him, he didn’t turn around. ‘Everything okay, Gabe?’ he asked, lifting files from Alison’s desk and arranging them into his open briefcase.

‘Yep, great. I just thought I’d ride down in the elevator with you, seeing as we’re going the same way.’

‘Oh.’ Lou snapped the case closed, turned and didn’t slow in his walk to the elevator, suddenly afraid that he’d made a big mistake and that he’d now have to show Gabe that his intentions behind getting him a job were not to find a playdate. He pressed the elevator button and, while waiting for the floor numbers to climb up, busied himself with his phone.

‘So you have a sister?’ Gabe asked softly.

‘Yep,’ Lou replied, still texting, feeling like he was back at school and trying to shake off the nerd he’d once been nice to. Of all the times his phone decided not to ring.

‘That’s great.’

‘Mmm.’

‘What was that?’

Gabe had responded so curtly that Lou’s head snapped up.

‘I didn’t hear you,’ Gabe said, like a schoolteacher.

Then, for some unknown reason, guilt overcame Lou and he placed his phone into his pocket. ‘Sorry, Gabe,’ he wiped his brow, ‘it’s been a funny day. I’m not myself today.’

‘Who are you then?’

Lou looked at him with confusion but Gabe just smiled.

‘You were saying about your sister.’

‘I was? Well, she’s just being the usual Marcia.’ Lou sighed. ‘She’s driving me crazy about organising my dad’s seventieth party. Unfortunately it’s on the same day as the office party, which causes some problems, you know. Always a good night here.’ He looked at Gabe and winked. ‘You’ll see what I mean. But I’m taking the whole organisation off her hands now, to give her a break,’ he said.

‘You don’t think she’s enjoying organising it?’ Gabe asked.

Lou looked away. Marcia loved organising the party, she’d been planning it for the past year. In taking it out of her hands he was in fact making it easier on himself. He couldn’t stand the twenty calls a day about cake-tasting and whether or not he’d allow three of their decrepit aunts to stay overnight in his house or if he’d lend a few of his serving spoons for the buffet. Ever since her marriage had ended she’d focused on this party. If she’d given her marriage as much attention as she did the bloody party, she wouldn’t find herself crying to her friends at Curves every day, he thought. Taking this off her hands was a favour for her and a favour for him. Two things accomplished at once. Just what he liked.

‘You will go to your dad’s party, though, won’t you?’ Gabe asked. ‘Your dad turning seventy,’ he whistled. ‘That’s not one you want to miss.’

Irritation and uneasiness settled in on Lou again. Unsure if Gabe was preaching or was just trying to be friendly, he quickly stole a glance at him to judge, but Gabe was just looking through the envelopes on his trolley, figuring out which floor to go to next.

‘Oh, of course I’ll go.’ Lou plastered a fake smile on his face. ‘I’ll drop in for a while, at some stage. That was always the plan.’ Lou’s voice sounded forced. Why the hell was he explaining himself?

Gabe didn’t respond and, after a few loaded seconds of silence, Lou punched the elevator call button a few times in a row.

‘These things are so bloody slow,’ he grumbled.

Finally, the doors opened and the crammed lift revealed room for only one person.

Gabe and Lou looked at one another.

‘Well, one of you get in,’ a crank barked from the lift.

‘Go ahead,’ Gabe said. ‘I’ve got to bring this down.’ He nodded at the cart. ‘I’ll get the next one.’

‘You sure?’

‘Just kiss already,’ one man called, and the rest laughed.

Lou rushed in and couldn’t take his eyes away from Gabe’s cool stare as the doors closed and the lift slowly lowered.

After only two stoppages, they reached ground level and, finding himself crammed at the back, Lou waited for everybody to unload. He watched the workers rush to the doors of the lobby for lunch, bundled up and ready for the elements.

The crowd cleared and his heart skipped a beat as he caught sight of Gabe standing by the security desk with the trolley beside him, searching the crowds for Lou.

Lou slowly disembarked and made his way towards him.

‘I forgot to leave this on your desk.’ Gabe handed him a thin envelope. ‘It was hidden beneath someone else’s stack.’

Lou took the envelope and didn’t even look at it before crushing it into his coat pocket.

‘Is something wrong?’ Gabe asked, but there was no concern detectable in his voice.

‘No. Nothing’s wrong.’ Lou didn’t move his eyes away from Gabe’s face once. ‘How did you get down here so quickly?’

‘Here?’ Gabe pointed at the floor.

‘Yeah, here,’ Lou said sarcastically. ‘The ground level. You were going to wait for the next elevator. From the fourteenth floor. Just less than thirty seconds ago.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Gabe agreed, and he smiled. ‘I wouldn’t say it was quite thirty seconds ago, though.’

‘And?’

‘And …’ he stalled. ‘I guess I got here quicker than you.’ He shrugged, then unlatched the brake at the wheel of the trolley with his foot, and prepared to move. At the same time, Lou’s phone started ringing and his BlackBerry signalled a new email.

‘You’d better run,’ Gabe said, moving away. ‘Things to see, people to do,’ he echoed Lou’s words. Then he flashed a porcelain smile that had the opposite effect to the warm fuzzy feeling it had given Lou that same morning. Instead, it sent torpedoes of fear and worry right to his heart and straight into his gut. Those two places. Right at the same time.

8. Puddin’ and Pie

It was ten thirty at night by the time the city spat Lou out and waved him off to the coast road that led him home to his house in Howth, County Dublin. Bordering the sea, a row of houses lined the coast, like an ornate frame to the perfect watercolour. Windswept and eroded from a lifetime of salty air, they got into the great American spirit of housing giant Santas and reindeers on twinkling rooftops. Every window with open curtains twinkled with the lights of Christmas trees, and Lou recalled, as a boy, trying to count as many trees on show as possible to pass the time while travelling. To Lou’s right he could see across the bay to Dalkey and Killiney. The lights of Dublin city twinkled beyond the oily black of the sea, like electric eels flashing beneath the blackness of a well.

Howth had been the dream destination for as long as Lou could remember. Quite literally, his first memory began there, his first feeling of desire, of wanting to belong and then of belonging. The fishing and yachting port in north County Dublin was a popular suburban resort on the north side of Howth Head, fifteen kilometres from Dublin city. It was a village with history; cliff paths that led past Howth village and its ruined abbey, an inland fifteenth-century castle with rhododendron gardens, and many lighthouses that dotted the coastline. It was a busy, popular village filled with pubs, hotels and fine fish restaurants. It had breathtaking views of Dublin Bay and the Wicklow Mountains or Boyne Valley beyond. Howth was a peninsular island with only a sliver of land to attach it to the rest of the country. Only a sliver of land to connect Lou from his daily life to that of his family. A mere shred, so that when the stormy days attacked, Lou would watch the raging Liffey from the window of his office and imagine the grey ferocious waves crashing over that sliver, licking at the land like flames, threatening to cut his family off from the rest of the country. Sometimes in those daydreams he was away from his family, cut off from them forever. In the nicer moments he was with them, wrapping himself around them to shield them from the elements.

Behind their large landscaped garden was land, wild and rugged, of purple heather and waist-high uncultivated grasses and hay that looked out over Dublin Bay. To the front they could see Ireland’s Eye, and on a clear day the view was so stunning it was almost as though a green screen had been hung from the clouds and rolled down to the ocean floor. Stretching out from the harbour was a pier, that Lou loved to take walks along, though he walked alone. He hadn’t always; his love for the pier had begun when he was a child when his parents brought him, Marcia and his elder brother Quentin to Howth every Sunday, come rain or shine, for a walk along the pier. Those days were either made up of a sun so hot he could still taste the ice-cream as soon as he set foot on the pier, or were so stormy that the wind whipped with such strength they would hang on to one another to avoid being whisked off land and lost to the sea.

On those family days, Lou would disappear into his own world. For on those days he was a pirate on the high seas. He was a lifeguard. He was a soldier. He was a whale. He was anything he wanted to be. He was everything he wasn’t. For the first few moments of every walk along the pier, he would begin by walking backwards, looking at their car in the car park until the bright red colour was no longer visible and the people had turned into penguins; dark dots that waddled about the place without any defined movements.

Lou still loved walking that pier; his runway to tranquillity. He loved watching the cars and the houses perched along the cliff edges fade away as he moved further and further from land. He would stand shoulder to shoulder with the lighthouse, both of them looking out. Here, after a long week at work, he could throw all of his concerns and worries out to the water and watch them land with a plop on the waves and float down to the floor below.

But the night Lou drove home after first meeting Gabe, it was too late to walk the pier. The power button on his view was off, all he could see was blackness and the occasional standby light flashing on a lighthouse. Despite the hour and the fact it was midweek, the village wasn’t its usual quiet hideaway. So close to Christmas, every restaurant was throbbing with diners, Christmas parties and annual meetings and celebrations. All the boats would be in for the night, the seals gone from the pier, their bellies full with the mackerel purchased and thrown to them by visitors. The winding road that led uphill to the summit was black and quiet now, and, sensing that home was near and that nobody else was around, he put his foot down on the accelerator of his Porsche 911. He lowered his window and felt the ice-cold air blow through his hair, and he listened to the sound of the engine reverberating through the hills and trees as he made his way to Howth summit. Below him, the city twinkled with a million lights, spying him winding his way up the wooded mountain like a spider among the grass.

As icing on the cake to the day he had just had, he heard a whoop, and then, looking in his rear-view mirror, cursed loudly at the garda car that came up behind him, lights ablazing. He eased his foot off the accelerator, hoping he’d be overtaken, but to no avail, the emergency was indeed him. He indicated and pulled in, sat with his hands on the steering wheel and watched the familiar figure climbing out of the garda car. The man slowly made his way to Lou’s side of the vehicle, looking around at the night as though taking a leisurely stroll, giving Lou enough time to rack his brain for the sergeant’s name. Lou turned off the music he’d been blaring and took a closer look at the man in the wing mirror, hoping it would trigger the memory of his name.

The man parked himself outside Lou’s door and leaned down to look into the open window.

‘Mr Suffern,’ he said, without a note of sarcasm, much to Lou’s relief.

‘Sergeant O’Reilly.’ He remembered the name right on cue and threw the man a smile, showing so many teeth he resembled a tense chimpanzee.

‘We find ourselves in a familiar situation,’ Sergeant O’Reilly said with a grimace. ‘Unfortunately for you, we both head home at the same hour.’

‘Yes, indeed, sir. My apologies, the roads were quiet, I thought it would be okay. There’s not a sinner around.’

‘Just a few innocents. That’s always the problem.’

‘And I’m one of them, your honour,’ Lou laughed, holding his hands up in defence. ‘It’s the last stretch of road before getting home, trust me, I only put the foot down seconds before you pulled me over. Dying to get home to the family. No pun intended.’

‘I could hear your engine from Sutton Cross, way down the road.’

‘It’s a quiet night.’

‘And it’s a noisy engine, I know that, but you just never know, Mr Suffern. You just never know.’

‘Don’t suppose you’d let me off with another warning,’ Lou smiled, trying to work sincerity and apology into his best winning smile. Both at the same time.

‘You know the speed limit, I assume?’

‘Sixty kilometres.’

‘Not one hundred and …’

The sergeant suddenly stopped talking and bolted up to stand upright, causing Lou to lose eye contact with him and instead be faced with his belt buckle. Unsure of what the sergeant was up to, he stayed seated and looked out the window to the stretch of road before him, hoping he wasn’t about to gain more points on his licence. With twelve as the maximum before losing his licence altogether, he was perched dangerously close with eight points already. He peeked at the sergeant and saw him grasping at his left pocket.

‘You looking for a pen?’ Lou called, reaching his hand into his inside pocket.

The sergeant winced and turned his back on Lou.

‘Hey, are you okay?’ Lou asked with concern. He reached for the door handle and then thought better of it.

The sergeant grunted something inaudible, the tone suggesting a warning of some sort. Through the wing mirror, Lou watched him walk slowly back to his car. He had an unusual gait. He seemed to be dragging his left leg slightly as he walked. Was he drunk? Then the sergeant opened his car door, got back inside, started up the engine, did a u-turn and was gone. Lou frowned, his day – even in its twilight hours – becoming increasingly more bizarre by the moment.

Lou pulled up to the driveway feeling the same sense of pride and satisfaction he felt every night when he arrived home. To most average people, size didn’t matter, but Lou didn’t want to be average and he saw the things that he owned as being a measure of the man that he was. He wanted the best of everything and, to him, size and quantity were a measure of that. Despite being in a safe cul-de-sac of only a few houses on Howth summit, he’d arranged for the existing boundary walls to be built up higher and for oversized electronic gates, with cameras, at the entrance.

The lights were out in the children’s bedrooms at the front of the house, and Lou instantly felt an inexplicable relief.

‘I’m home,’ he called to the quiet house.

There was a faint sound of a breathless and rather hysterical woman calling out movements from the television room down the hallway. Ruth’s exercise DVD.

He loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt, kicked off his shoes, felt the warmth of the underfloor heating soothe his feet through the marble, and started to sort through the mail on the hall table. His mind slowly began to unwind, the conversations of various meetings and telephone calls all beginning to slow. Though they were still there, the voices seemed a little quieter now. Each time he took off a layer of his clothes – his overcoat flung over the chair, his suit jacket on the table, his shoes kicked across the floor, his tie onto the table but slithering to the floor, his case here, loose change and keys there – he felt the events of the day fall away.

‘Hello,’ he called again, louder this second time, realising that nobody – i.e. his wife – had come to greet him. Perhaps she was busy breathing to the count of four, as the hysterical woman in the television room was doing.

‘Sssh,’ he heard, coming from the second level of the house, followed by the creak of floorboards as his wife made her way across the landing.

This bothered him. Not the creaking, for it was an old house and not much could be done about that, but the being silenced was a problem. After a day of non-stop talking, of clever words of jargon, persuasion and intelligent conversation, deal opening, deal development and deal closing, not one person he had met with had at any point told him to Sssh. This was the language of teachers and of librarians. Not of adults in their own homes. He felt like he’d left the real world and entered a crèche. After only one minute of stepping through his front door, he felt irritated. That had been happening a lot lately.

‘I’ve just put Pud down again. He’s not having a good night,’ Ruth explained from the top of the stairs, in a loud whisper. This kind of speech, though Lou understood, he did not like. Like the Sssh language, this adult-whispering was for children in class or teenagers sneaking out of or into their homes. He didn’t like limitations, particularly in his own home. So that irritated him too.

The ‘Pud’ she referred to was their son Ross. A little over a year old now, he still held on to his baby fat, his flesh resembling the uncooked dough of a croissant or that of a pudding. Hence the nickname Pud, which, unfortunately for the already christened Ross, seemed to be sticking around.

‘What’s new?’ he mumbled, referring to Pud’s lack of desire to sleep, while searching through the mail for something that didn’t resemble a bill. He opened a few and discarded them on the hall table. Pieces of ripped paper drifted from the surface and onto the floor.

Ruth made her way downstairs, dressed in a velour tracksuit-cum-pyjamas outfit, he couldn’t quite tell the difference between what she wore these days. Her long brown chocolate hair was tied back in a high ponytail and she shuffled towards him in a pair of slippers – the noise grating on his ears, worse than the sound of a vacuum cleaner, which, until that point, had been his least loved.

‘Hi,’ she smiled, and the tired face disappeared and there was a glimpse, a tiny flicker, of the woman he had married. Then, as quickly as he saw it, it disappeared again, leaving him to wonder if it was he who had imagined it, or if that part of her was there at all. The face of the woman he saw every day stepped up to kiss him on the lips.

‘Good day?’ she asked.

‘Busy.’

‘But good?’

The contents of a particular envelope took his interest. After a long moment he felt the intensity of a stare.

‘Hmm?’ He looked up.

‘I just asked if you had a good day.’

‘Yeah, and I said, “busy”.’

‘Yes, and I said, “but good”? All your days are busy, but all your days aren’t good. I hope it was good,’ she said, in a strained voice.

‘You don’t sound like you hope it was good,’ he replied, eyes down, reading the rest of the letter.

‘Well, I sound like I did the first time I asked.’ She kept an easiness in her voice.

‘Ruth, I’m reading my post!’

‘I can see that,’ she mumbled, bending over to pick up the empty ripped envelopes that lay on the ground and on the hall table.

‘So what happened around here today?’ he asked, opening another envelope. The paper fluttered to the floor.

‘The usual madness. And then I tidied the house just before you got back, for the millionth time,’ she said, making a point as she bent down to pick up another crumpled ball of paper. ‘Marcia called a few times today, looking for you. When I could finally find the phone. Pud hid the handset again, it took me ages to find it. Anyway, she needs help with deciding a venue for your dad’s party. She liked the idea of the marquee here, and Quentin, of course, didn’t. He wants it in the yacht club. I think your dad would like either of them – no, that’s a lie, I think your father would prefer none of them, but seeing as it’s going ahead without his say-so, he’d be happy with either. Your mum is staying out of it. So what did you tell her?’

Silence. She patiently watched him reading the last page of the document and waited for an answer. When he had folded it and dropped it on the hall table, he reached for another.

‘Honey?’

‘Hmmm?’

‘I asked you about Marcia,’ she said, through gritted teeth, and proceeded to pick up the scraps of new paper that had fallen to the ground.

‘Oh yeah.’ He unfolded another document. ‘She was just, eh …’ He became distracted by the contents.

‘Yes?’ she said loudly.

He looked up and gazed at her, as though noticing for the first time that she was there. ‘She was calling about the party.’ He made a face.

‘I know.’

‘How do you know?’ He started reading again.

‘Because she – never mind.’ Start again. ‘She’s so excited about this party, isn’t she? It’s great seeing her really getting her teeth into something after the year she’s had. She’s been talking a mile a minute about food and the music …’ She trailed off.

Silence.

‘Hmm?’

‘Marcia,’ she said, rubbing her tired eyes. ‘We’re talking about Marcia, but you’re busy so …’ She began making her way to the kitchen.

‘Oh, that. I’m taking the party off her hands. Alison’s going to organise it.’

Ruth stopped. ‘Alison?’

‘Yes, my secretary. She’s new. Have you met her?’

‘Not yet.’ She slowly made her way towards him. ‘Honey, Marcia was really excited about organising the party.’

‘And now Alison is,’ he smiled. ‘Not.’ Then he laughed.

She smiled patiently at the in-house joke, wanting to strangle him for taking the party out of Marcia’s hands and putting it into those of a woman who knew nothing of the man who was celebrating seventy years in this life, with the people he loved and who loved him.

She took a deep breath, her shoulders relaxing as she exhaled. Started again. ‘Your dinner’s ready.’ She began to move towards the kitchen again. ‘It’ll just take a minute to heat up. And I bought that apple pie you like.’

‘I’ve eaten,’ he said, folding the letter and ripping it into pieces. A few pieces of paper fluttered to the ground. It was either the sound of the paper hitting the marble or his words that stopped her on her way, but either way she froze.

‘I’ll pick the bloody things up,’ he said with irritation.

She slowly turned around and asked in a quiet voice, ‘Where did you eat?’

‘Shanahans. Rib-eye steak. I’m stuffed.’ He absent-mindedly rubbed his stomach.

‘With who?’

‘Work people.’

‘Who?’

‘What’s this, the Spanish inquisition?’

‘No, just a wife asking a husband who he had dinner with.’

‘A few guys from the office. You don’t know them.’

‘I wish you would have told me.’

‘It wasn’t a social thing. Nobody else’s wives were there.’

‘I didn’t mean – I’d like to have known so I wouldn’t have bothered cooking for you.’

‘Christ, Ruth, I’m sorry you cooked and bought a bloody pie,’ he exploded.

‘Sssh,’ she said closing her eyes and hoping his raised voice wouldn’t wake the baby.

‘No! I won’t sssh!’ he boomed. ‘Okay?’ He made his way into the parlour, leaving his shoes in the middle of the hallway and his papers and envelopes strewn across the hall table.

Ruth took another deep breath, turned away from his mess and made her way to the opposite side of the house.

When Lou rejoined his wife, she was sitting at the kitchen table eating lasagne and salad, the pie next in line to be eaten, watching women in spandex jump around on the large plasma in the attached informal living room.

‘I thought you’d eaten with the kids,’ he remarked, after watching her for a while.

‘I did,’ she said, through a full mouth.

‘So why are you eating again?’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’s almost eleven. A bit late to eat, don’t you think?’

‘You eat at this hour,’ she frowned.

‘Yes, but I’m not the one who complains that I’m fat and then eats two dinners and a pie,’ he laughed.

She swallowed the food, feeling like a rock was going down her throat. He hadn’t noticed his words, hadn’t intended to hurt her. He never intended to hurt her; he just did. After a long silence in which Ruth had lost the anger and built up the appetite to eat again, Lou joined her at the kitchen table, in the conservatory. On the other side of the window the blackness clung to the cold pane, eager to get inside. Beyond it were the millions of lights of the city across the bay, like Christmas lights dangling from the blackness.

‘It’s been a weird day today,’ Lou finally said.

‘How?’

‘I don’t know,’ he sighed. ‘It just felt funny. I felt funny.’

‘I feel like that most days,’ Ruth smiled.

‘I must be coming down with something. I just feel … out of sorts.’

She felt his forehead. ‘You’re not hot.’

‘I’m not?’ He looked at her in surprise and then felt it himself. ‘I feel hot. It’s this guy at work.’ He shook his head. ‘So odd.’

Ruth frowned and studied him, not used to seeing him so inarticulate.

‘It started out well.’ He swirled his wine around his glass. ‘I met a man called Gabe outside the office. A homeless guy – well, I don’t know if he was homeless, he says he has a place to stay, but he was begging on the streets anyway.’

At that stage the baby monitor began crackling as Pud started to cry softly. Just a gentle sleepy moaning at first. Knife and fork down and with the unfinished plate pushed away, Ruth prayed for him to stop.

‘Anyway,’ Lou continued, not even noticing, ‘I bought him a coffee and we got talking.’

‘That was nice of you,’ Ruth said. Her maternal instincts were kicking in and the only voice she could now hear was that of her child, as his sleepy moans turned to full-blown cries.

‘He reminded me of me,’ Lou said, confused now. ‘He was exactly like me and we had the funniest conversation about shoes.’ He laughed, thinking back over it. ‘He could remember every single pair of shoes that walked into the building, so I hired him. Well, I didn’t, I called Harry –’

‘Lou, honey,’ she cut in, ‘do you not hear that?’

He looked at her blankly, irritated at first that she’d butted in, and then cocked his head to listen. Finally, the cries penetrated his thoughts.

‘Fine, go on,’ he sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘But as long as you remember that I was telling you about my day, because you’re always giving out that I don’t,’ he mumbled.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’ She raised her voice. ‘Your son is crying. Do I have to sit here all night while he wails for help until you’ve finished your story about a homeless man who likes shoes, or would you ever go and check on him of your own accord, do you think?’

‘I’ll do it,’ he said angrily, though not making a move from his chair.

‘No, I’ll do it.’ She stood up from the table. ‘I want you to do it without being reminded. You don’t do it for brownie points, Lou, you’re supposed to want to do it.’

‘You don’t seem too eager to do it yourself now,’ he grumbled, fiddling with his cufflinks.

Halfway from the table to the kitchen door, she stopped. ‘You know you haven’t taken Ross for one single day by yourself?’

‘You must be serious, you’re actually using his real name. Where has all that come from?’

It was all coming out of her now that she was frustrated. ‘You haven’t changed his nappy, you haven’t fed him.’

‘I’ve fed him,’ he protested.

The wails got louder.

‘You haven’t prepared one bottle, made him one meal, dressed him, played with him. You haven’t spent any time with him alone, without me being here to run in every five minutes to take him from you while you send an email or answer a phone call. The child has been living in the world for over a year now, Lou. It’s been over a year.’

‘Hold on.’ He ran his hand through his hair and held it there, clenching a handful of hair with a tight fist, a sign of his anger. ‘How have we gotten from talking about my day, which you always want to know so much about – second for second – to this attack?’

‘You were so busy talking about you that you didn’t hear your child,’ she said tiredly, knowing this conversation was going the same place as every other similar argument they’d had. Nowhere.

Lou looked around the room and held out his hands dramatically, emphasising the house. ‘Do you think I sit at my desk all day twiddling my thumbs? No, I work my hardest trying to juggle everything so that you and the kids can have all this, so that I can feed Ross, so excuse me if I don’t fill his mouth every morning with mashed banana.’

‘You don’t juggle anything, Lou. You choose one thing over another. There’s a difference.’

‘I can’t be in two places at once, Ruth! If you need help around here, I’ve already told you, just say the word and we could have a nanny here any day you want.’

He knew he’d walked himself into a bigger argument, and as Pud’s wails grew louder on the baby monitor, he prepared for the inevitable onslaught. Just to avoid the same dreaded argument, he almost added, ‘And I promise not to sleep with this one.’

But the argument never came. Instead, her shoulders shrank, her entire demeanour altered, as she gave up the fight and instead went to tend to her son.

Lou reached for the remote control and held it towards the TV like a gun. He pressed the trigger angrily and powered off the TV. The sweating spandexed women diminished into a small circle of light in the centre of the screen before disappearing completely.

He reached for the plate of apple pie on the table and began picking at it, wondering how on earth this had all started from the second he walked in the door. It would end as it did so many other nights: he would go to bed and she would be asleep, or at least pretend to be. A few hours later he would wake up, work out, get showered and go to work.

He sighed, then on hearing his exhale only then noticed that the baby monitor had become silent of Pud’s cries, but it still crackled. As he walked towards it to turn it off, he heard other noises that made him reach for the volume dial. Turning it up, his heart broke as the sounds of Ruth’s quiet sobs filled the kitchen.

9. The Turkey Boy 2

‘So you let him get away?’ A young voice broke into Raphie’s thoughts.

‘What’s that?’ Raphie snapped out of his trance and turned his attention back to the young teen who was sitting across the desk from him.

‘I said, you let him get away.’

‘Who?’

‘The rich guy in the flash Porsche. He was speeding and you let him get away.’

‘No, I didn’t let him get away.’

‘Yeah you did, you didn’t give him any points or a ticket or anything. You just let him off. That’s the problem with you lot, you’re always on the rich people’s sides. If that was me, I’d be locked up for life. I only threw a bloody turkey and I’m stuck here all day. And it’s Christmas Day, and all.’

‘Shut your whining, we’re waiting for your mother, you know that, and I wouldn’t blame her if she does decide to leave you here all day.’

The Turkey Boy sulked for a while at that.

‘So you’re new to the area. You and your mother moved here recently?’ Raphie asked.

The boy nodded.

‘Where from?’

‘The Republic of Your Arse.’

‘Very clever,’ Raphie said sarcastically.

‘So why did you leave the Porsche guy so quickly?’ he finally asked, curiosity getting the better of him. ‘Did you chicken out or something?’

‘Don’t be daft, son, I gave him a warning,’ Raphie said, straightening up defensively in his chair.

‘But that’s illegal, you should have given him a ticket. He could kill someone speeding around like that.’

Raphie’s eyes darkened and the Turkey Boy knew to stop his goading.

‘Are you going to listen to the rest of the story or what?’

‘Yeah, I am. Go on.’ The boy leaned forward on the table and rested his hand under his chin. ‘I’ve got all day,’ he smiled cheekily.

10. The Morning After

At 5.59 a.m., Lou awoke. The previous evening had gone exactly as predicted: by the time he had made it to bed, Ruth’s back had been firmly turned with the bedclothes tightly tucked around her, leaving her as accessible as a fig in a roll. The message was loud and clear.

Lou couldn’t find it within himself to comfort her, to cross over that line that separated them in bed, and in life, to make things okay. Even as students, broke and staying in the worst accommodations he had ever experienced, with the temperamental heating and bathrooms they had had to share with dozens of others, things had never been like this. They’d shared a single bed in a box-bedroom so small that they had to walk outside for a change of mind, but they didn’t mind, in fact they loved being so close to each other. Now they had a giant six-foot-six bed, so big that even when they both lay on their backs their fingers just about brushed when they stretched out. A monstrosity of space and cold spots covered the sheets that couldn’t be reached to be warmed.

Lou thought back to the beginning, when he and Ruth had first met – two young nineteen-year-olds, carefree and drunk, celebrating the end of first-year university Christmas exams. With a few weeks’ break ahead of them and concerns about results far from their minds, they had met on comedy night in the International Bar on Wicklow Street. After that night, Lou had thought about her every day while back home with his parents for the holidays. With every slice of turkey, every sweet wrapper he unravelled, every family fight over Monopoly, she was in his mind. Because of her he’d even lost his title in the Count the Stuffing competition he’d had with Marcia and Quentin. Lou stared at the ceiling and smiled, remembering how each year he and his siblings – paper crowns on their heads and tongues dangling from their mouths – would get down to counting every crumb of stuffing on their plate, long after his parents had left the table. Every year, Marcia and Quentin would join together to beat him, but they couldn’t sustain the desire, and his dedication – some would say obsession – could never be matched. But it was matched that year, and then beaten by Quentin, because the phone had rung and it had been her, and that had been it for Lou. Childish ways were put behind. Or that was supposed to be the theory of when he became a man. Perhaps he wasn’t one yet.

The nineteen-year-old of that Christmas would have longed for this moment right now. He would have grabbed the opportunity with both hands, to be transported to the future just to have her right beside him in a fine bed, in a fine house, with two beautiful children sleeping in the next rooms. He looked at Ruth beside him in bed. She had rolled onto her back, her mouth slightly parted, her hair like a haystack on top of her head. He smiled.

She’d done better than him in those Christmas exams, which was no hard task, but she had repeated that performance the following three years too. Study had always come so easily to her, while he, on the other hand, seemed to have to burn the candle at both ends in order just to scrape by. He didn’t know where she ever found the time to think, let alone study, she was so busy leading the way through their adventurous nights on the town. They’d crashed parties on a weekly basis, then been thrown out, slept on fire escapes, and Ruth still made it into college for the first lecture with her assignments completed. She could do it all at once. Ruth had led the way for everybody, always bored with sitting around. She’d needed adventure, she’d needed outrageous situations and anything that wasn’t ordinary. He was the life and she had been the soul of every party and every day.

Any time he’d failed an exam and had been forced to repeat, she’d been there, writing out essays for him to learn. She’d spend the summers turning study into quiz-show games, introducing prizes and buzzers, quick-fire rounds and punishments. She’d dress up in her finery, acting as quiz-show host, assistant, model, displaying all the fine things he could win if he answered all the questions correctly. She made score cards, wrote out questions, included tacky music and fake applause into every quiz they had. Food shopping was a game; with her controlling the list of treats like a game-show host. For a box of popcorn answer her this.

‘Pass,’ he’d say, frustrated, trying to grab the box anyway.

‘No passing, Lou, you know this one,’ she’d say firmly, blocking the shelves.

He wouldn’t know the answer but she’d make him know it. Somehow she’d push him until he reached deep into a part of his brain that he didn’t know existed and he’d find the answer he never knew that he knew. Just before making love, she’d stall and pull away from him.

‘Answer me this.’

Despite his protests and wrestling to get what he wanted, she’d hold back. ‘Come on, Lou, you know this one.’

If he didn’t know it, he’d make himself know it.

They planned to go to Australia together after university. A year’s adventure away from Ireland before life started. Determined to succeed and follow friends over there, they spent the year saving for the flights; him working behind a bar in Temple Bar while she tended tables. They saved for the dream together, but he failed his final exams and Ruth didn’t. He would have packed it all in there and then, but she wouldn’t let him, influencing his decision and convincing him he could do it, as she did everything. So while he began the first few months of the same year again, Ruth celebrated passing with flying colours, receiving an honours degree at a graduation ceremony that Lou couldn’t bring himself to attend. He’d attended the afters, though, had a few too many drinks and made the night miserable for her. He could at least do that for her.

In the year waiting for him to finish, Ruth completed a Business Masters Degree. Just for something to do. She never once pushed it in his face, never made him feel a failure, never celebrated any wonderful achievement of her own in order not to make him feel any less. She was always the friend, the girlfriend, the life and soul of every party, the A student and achiever.

Was that when he started resenting her? All the way back then? He didn’t know if it was because he never felt good enough, whether it was a way of punishing her, or whether there was no psychology behind it and he was just too weak and too selfish to say no when an attractive woman so much as looked his way – never mind when they’d grab their handbags, their coats and then his hand. Because when that happened, he forgot all sense of himself. He knew right from wrong, of course he did, but on those occasions he didn’t particularly care. He was invincible, there would be no consequences and no repercussions.

Ruth had caught him with the nanny six months previously. There had only been a few incidences with her in particular, but he knew that if there were levels of fairness for having affairs, which in his opinion there were, sex with the nanny was somewhere close to the bottom. There had been nobody since then, apart from a fumble with Alison, which had been a mistake. If there were levels of acceptable excuses for having affairs, and there were for Lou, then that would have been at the top. He’d been drunk, she was attractive, and it had happened but he regretted it deeply. It didn’t count.

‘Lou,’ Ruth snapped, breaking into his thoughts and giving him a fright.

He looked at her. ‘Morning,’ he smiled. ‘You’ll never guess what I was just thinking ab—’

‘Do you not hear that?’ she interrupted him. ‘You’re wide awake, staring at the ceiling.’

‘Huh?’ He turned to his left and noticed the clock had struck six. ‘Oh, sorry.’ He leaned across and switched off the beeping alarm.

He’d clearly done something wrong because her face went a deep red and she fired herself out of bed as though she had been released from a catapult, then charged out of the room, her hair firing out in all directions as though she’d stuck her fingers in a socket. It was only then that he heard Pud’s cries again.

‘Shit.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

‘You said a bad wud,’ said a little voice from behind the door.

‘Morning, Lucy,’ he smiled.

Her figure appeared then, a pink-sleeping-suited five-year-old, dragging her blanket along the ground behind her, her chocolate-brown hair and fringe tousled from her sleep. Her big brown eyes were the picture of concern. She stood at the end of the bed and Lou waited for her to say something.

‘You’re coming tonight, aren’t you, Daddy?’

‘What’s on tonight?’

‘My school play.’

‘Oh yeah, that, sweetie; you don’t really want me to go to that, do you?’

She nodded.

‘But why?’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly. ‘You know how busy Daddy is, it’s very hard for me to get there.’

‘But I’ve been practising.’

‘Why don’t you show me now, and then I won’t have to see you later.’

‘But I’m not wearing my costume.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll use my imagination. Mum always says it’s good to do that, doesn’t she?’ He kept an eye on the door to make sure Ruth wasn’t listening. ‘And you can do it for me while I get dressed, okay?’

He threw the covers off and, as Lucy started prancing around, he rushed about the room, throwing on shorts and a vest for the gym.

‘Daddy, you’re not looking!’

‘I am, sweetheart, come downstairs to the gym with me. There are lots of mirrors there for you to practise in front of, that’ll be fun, won’t it?’

Once on the treadmill, he turned on the plasma and started watching Sky News.

‘Daddy, you’re not looking.’

‘I am, sweetie.’ He glanced at her once. ‘What are you?’

‘A leaf. It’s a windy day and I fall off the tree and I have to go like this.’ She twirled around the gym again and Lou looked away and back at the TV.

‘What’s a leaf got to do with Jesus?’

‘The singer?’ She stopped spinning and held on to the weights bench, slightly dizzy now.

He frowned. ‘No, not the singer. What’s the play about?’

She took a deep breath and then spoke as though she had memorised the story by heart. ‘The three wise men have to find a star.’

‘Follow a star,’ he corrected her, picking up the pace now and breaking out into a jog.

‘No, they find a star. So they are judges on the Find a Star show, and then Pontius Pilate sings and everybody boos and then Judas sings and everybody boos and then Jesus sings and then he wins because he has the X-factor.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ Lou rolled his eyes.

‘Yes, “Jesus Christ the Superstar” it’s called.’ She danced around some more.

‘So why are you a leaf?’

She shrugged and he had to laugh.

‘Will you come to see me, pleeeease?’

‘Yep,’ he said, wiping his face on a towel.

‘Promise?’

‘Absolutely,’ he said dismissively. ‘Okay, you go back up to your mum now, I’ve to take a shower.’

Twenty minutes later and already in work mode, Lou went into the kitchen to say a quick goodbye. Pud was in his highchair, rubbing banana and Liga into his hair; Lucy was sucking on a spoon and watching cartoons at top volume; and Ruth was in her dressing gown making Lucy’s school lunch. She looked exhausted.

‘Bye.’ He kissed Lucy on the head; she didn’t budge she was so engrossed in her cartoon. He hovered above Pud, trying to find a place on his face that wasn’t filled with food. ‘Eh, bye.’ He pecked him awkwardly on the top of his head. He made his way around to Ruth.

‘Do you want to meet me there at six or go together from here?’

‘Where?’

‘The school.’

‘Oh. About that.’ He lowered his voice.

‘You have to go, you promised.’ She stopped buttering the bread to look at him with instant anger.

‘Lucy showed me the dance downstairs and we had a talk, so she’s fine about me not being there.’ He picked at a slice of ham. ‘Do you know why the hell she’s a leaf in a nativity play?’

Ruth laughed. ‘Lou, I know you’re playing with me. I told you to put this in your diary last month. And then I reminded you last week, and I called that woman Tracey at the office –’

‘Ah, that’s what happened.’ He clicked his fingers in a gosh, darn-it kind of way. ‘Wires crossed. Tracey’s gone. Alison replaced her. So maybe there was a problem when they switched over.’ He tried to say it playfully, but Ruth’s happy face was slowly dissolving to disappointment, hatred, disgust, all rolled into one and all directed at him.

‘I mentioned it twice last week. I mentioned it yesterday morning, I’m like a frigging parrot with you and you still don’t remember. The school play and then dinner with your mum, dad, Alexandra and Quentin. And Marcia might be coming, if she can move around her therapy session.’

‘No, she really shouldn’t miss that.’ Lou rolled his eyes. ‘Ruthy, please, I would rather stick pins in my eyes than have dinner with them.’

‘They’re your family, Lou.’

‘All Quentin talks about are boats. Boats, boats, and more bloody boats. It is totally beyond him to think of any other conversation that doesn’t involve the words boom and cleat.’

‘You used to love sailing with Quentin.’

‘I used to love sailing. Not necessarily with Quentin, and that was years ago, I’d hardly know my boom from my cleat at this stage.’ He groaned. ‘Marcia … it’s not therapy she needs, it’s a good kick up the arse. Alexandra’s fine.’ He trailed off, lost in thought.

‘The boat or his wife,’ Ruth asked sarcastically, giving him a long sidelong look.

Lou didn’t hear her or ignored her. ‘I don’t know what she sees in Quentin, I can never figure it out. She’s in a totally different league to him.’

‘Your league, you mean?’ Ruth snapped.

‘It’s just that she’s a model, Ruth.’

‘So?’

‘The only thing Quentin has in common with a model is the fact he collects model boats.’ He laughed, then moved on, irritation quickly setting in. ‘Mum and Dad are coming too?’ he asked. ‘No way.’

‘Tough,’ she said, continuing with her lunch-making. ‘Lucy is expecting you at the play, your parents are excited, and I need you here. I can’t do the dinner and play host all on my own.’

‘Mum will help you.’

‘Your mother just had a hip replacement.’ Ruth tried her best not to shriek.

‘Don’t I know it, I collected her from hospital and got into trouble for it, like I said I would,’ he grumbled. ‘While Quentin was off on his boat.’

‘He was racing, Lou!’ She dropped the knife and turned to him, softening. ‘Please.’ She kissed him softly on the lips and he closed his eyes, lingering in the rare moment.

‘But I’ve so much to do at work,’ he said softly amid their kiss. ‘It’s important to me.’

Ruth pulled away. ‘Well, I’m glad something is, Lou, because for a moment there I almost thought you weren’t human.’ She was silent as she buttered the bread fiercely, the knife hitting the brown bread so roughly that it made holes. She slapped down slices of ham, tossed a slice of cheese at it then pushed down on the bread and sliced it diagonally with a sharp knife. She moved about the kitchen, slamming presses and violently ripping tin foil from the teeth of the packaging.

‘Okay, what’s up?’

‘What’s up? We’re not in this life just to work, we’re in it to live. We have to start doing things together, and that means you doing things for me even when you don’t want to, and vice versa. Otherwise, what’s the point?’

‘What do you mean vice versa, when do I ever make you do anything you don’t want to?’

‘Lou,’ she gritted her teeth, ‘they’re your bloody family, not mine.’

‘So cancel it! I don’t care.’

‘You have family responsibilities.’

‘But I have more work responsibilities, family can’t fire me if I don’t turn up to a bloody dinner, can they?’

‘Yes, they can, Lou,’ she said quietly, ‘they just don’t call it being fired.’

‘Is that a threat?’ He lowered his voice angrily. ‘You can’t throw comments like that at me, Ruth, it’s not fair.’

She opened a Barbie lunch box, slammed it down on the counter, threw in the sandwich, pineapple rings and kidney beans in Tupperware, a Barbie napkin was laid on top and she banged it closed. Despite being tossed around, Barbie didn’t blink once.

Ruth just looked at him and said nothing, allowing her stare to speak for her.

‘Okay, fine, I’ll do my best to be there,’ Lou said, both to please her and to get out of the house at the very same time, yet not meaning a word of it. On her look, he rephrased it with more meaning. ‘I’ll be there.’

Lou arrived at his office at eight a.m. A full hour before another soul would arrive, it was important for him to be the first in, it made him feel efficient, ahead of the pack. Pacing the small empty space of the elevator and wishing it was like that every day, he revelled in not having to stop at any other floors before getting to the fourteenth. He stepped out of the elevator into the quiet corridor. He could smell the products left behind from the cleaning staff last night. The carpet shampoo, furniture polish and air-fresheners still lingered, as yet untainted by morning coffee and body smells. Outside the glistening windows it was still pitch black at the early winter hour, and the windows seemed cold and hard. The wind whipped outside and he looked forward to leaving the eerily empty corridors and getting to his office for his morning routine.

En route to his office he stopped suddenly in his tracks. He could see that, as usual for this hour, Alison’s desk was empty, but his office door was ajar and the lights were on. He walked briskly towards the door and his heart began pounding with anger as, through the open door, he saw Gabe moving around his office. He yelled, then ran and fired his fist at the door, punching it open and watching it swing violently. He opened his mouth to yell again, but before he could get his words out he heard another voice coming from behind the door.

‘My goodness, who’s that?’ came the startled voice of his boss.

‘Oh, Mr Patterson. I’m sorry,’ Lou said breathlessly, quickly stopping the door from slamming against his face, ‘I didn’t realise you were in here.’ He rubbed his hand, his fist stinging and beginning to throb from punching the door.

‘Lou,’ the man said, catching his breath after taking a leap away from the door, ‘call me Laurence, for Christ’s sake, I keep telling you that. You’re full of … energy today, aren’t you?’ He tried to get his bearings after the shock.

‘Good morning, sir.’ Lou looked from Mr Patterson to Gabe uncertainly. ‘I’m sorry to have frightened you. I just thought that there was somebody in here who shouldn’t be.’ His eyes landed on Gabe.

‘Good morning, Lou,’ Gabe said politely.

‘Gabe.’ Lou slowly nodded at him in acknowledgement, wanting nothing more right then than an explanation as to why exactly Gabe and his boss were standing in his office at eight a.m.

He looked down at Gabe’s empty mail cart and then at the unfamiliar files lying on his desk. He thought back to the previous night, replayed finishing up his paperwork and filing them away, as always, unable to leave his desk with unfinished work. Knowing that neither he nor Alison, who’d finished work at four, had left the files there, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Gabe.

Gabe stared back unblinkingly.

‘I was just chatting to young Gabe here,’ Mr Patterson explained. ‘He told me that he started the job yesterday, and isn’t he just wonderful being the first into the office? That shows such dedication to the job.’

‘First in? Really?’ Lou faked a smile. ‘Wow. Looks like you beat me to it this morning because I’m usually the first in.’ Lou turned to Mr Patterson and offered his big white smile. ‘But you already knew that, didn’t you, Gabe?’

Gabe returned the smile with an equal sincerity. ‘You know what they say, the early bird catches the worm.’

‘Yes it does. It catches it indeed.’ Lou glared at him with a grin. A glare and a grin. Both at the same time.

Mr Patterson watched the exchange with growing discomfort. ‘Well, it’s just after eight, I should leave.’

‘After eight, you say. That’s funny,’ Lou perked up. ‘The mail hasn’t even arrived yet. What, em, what exactly are you doing in my office, Gabe?’ His voice had an edge to it that was clearly recognisable, as Mr Patterson looked uncomfortable and Gabe took on a peculiar smile.

‘Well, I came in early to familiarise myself with the building. There are so many floors for me to get through in such a short period of time, I wanted to figure out who was where.’

‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ Mr Patterson said, breaking the silence.

‘Yes, it is, but you already knew where my office was,’ Lou said tightly. ‘You had familiarised yourself with it yesterday … so what, may I ask, are you doing inside my office?’

‘Now, now, Lou, I fear I must jump in here,’ Mr Patterson said awkwardly. ‘I met young Gabe in the hallway and we got talking. As a favour for me, I’d asked him to bring some files to your office. He was delivering them to the desk when I realised I’d left one in my briefcase. Though he moved very quickly, I have to say that I’d just turned around when he was gone. Poof! Just like that!’ Mr Patterson chuckled.

‘Poof!’ Gabe grinned at Lou. ‘That’s me all right.’

‘I like fast workers, I must say, but I prefer fast and efficient, and my goodness you certainly are that.’

Lou almost said thank you, but Gabe jumped in.

‘Thank you, Mr Patterson, and if there’s anything else at all you’d like me to do for you, please let me know. I finish my shift at lunchtime and would be only too happy to help out around here for the rest of the afternoon. I’m keen to work.’

Lou’s stomach tightened.

‘That’s wonderful, Gabe, thank you, I’ll keep that in mind. Right Lou,’ Mr Patterson turned to face him and Lou expected Gabe, no longer a part of this conversation, to leave. But he didn’t. ‘I wonder if you’d be able to meet with Bruce Archer this evening, you remember him.’

Lou nodded, his heart sinking.

‘I was supposed to meet him, but I was reminded this morning of something else I have to attend.’

‘This evening?’ Lou asked, his mind racing.

While thinking about the offer he was picturing Lucy twirling around the gym in her sleeping suit and Ruth’s face when he’d opened his eyes prematurely from that kiss and caught her looking as beautiful and serene as he’d ever remembered her.

He realised they were both staring at him, Gabe’s eyes in particular searing into him.

‘Yes, this evening. Only if you’re free. I can ask Alfred to do it otherwise, so please don’t worry.’ Mr Patterson waved his hand dismissively.

‘No, no,’ Lou jumped in quickly. ‘This evening is no problem. That’s no problem.’

In his mind, Lucy, dizzy from the twirling, fell to the ground, and Ruth opened her eyes and pulled away from their kiss, his promise of less than an hour ago having broken the spell.

‘Great. Great. Well, Melissa can fill you in on the details, time and venue, etc. I have a big night tonight,’ he winked at Gabe. ‘It’s my little one’s Christmas play, I’d forgotten about it until he came running to me dressed as star, would you believe. But I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Mr Patterson smiled.

‘Right, yeah.’ Lou felt a lump in his throat. ‘That’s important, all right.’

‘Right, so, enjoy tonight and well done for finding this lad.’ Mr Patterson patted Gabe on the back.

While Lou turned to glare at Gabe, he heard a familiar cheery call behind him.

‘Morning, Laurence.’

‘Ah, Alfred,’ Mr Patterson said.

Alfred was a tall man, six foot with white-blond hair, kind of like an oversized Milky Bar kid who had melted and been moulded back together by the hands of a child. He always spoke with a smirk on his face and in the kind of accent that came with being privately schooled in England, despite spending the summers in Ireland, where he was from. His nose was disjointed from his rugby days and he swanned around the office, as Gabe had observed the previous day, kicking the tassels of his boat shoes in the air, one hand in his pocket, with the air of someone – a naughty schoolboy – who was up to tricks.

Alfred’s eyes fell upon Gabe, then quite obviously looked him up and down in silence and waited to be introduced. Gabe imitated him, confidently giving Alfred the once-over.

‘Nice shoes,’ Gabe finally said, and Lou looked down at the brown loafers Gabe had described yesterday.

‘Thank you.’ Alfred was a little put out.

‘I also like your shoes, Mr Patterson,’ Gabe commented, looking across.

In a slightly awkward moment, all eyes looked down at the men’s feet. A peculiar thing for most, apart from Lou, whose heart was pumping at a ridiculous rate at the sight of the black slip-ons and the brown loafers. The exact shoes Gabe had described to Lou the previous morning. So Alfred was meeting with Mr Patterson. Lou looked from Alfred to Mr Patterson, feeling a sense of betrayal. It wasn’t official that Cliff ’s job was up for grabs, but if it was, Lou was hellbent on making sure it would be his, not Alfred’s.

Mr Patterson bid farewell and took off down the corridor, swinging his briefcase jollily in his hand.

‘Who are you?’ Alfred asked Gabe, bringing Lou back into the room.

‘I’m Gabriel.’ Gabe held out his hand. ‘Friends call me Gabe, but you can call me Gabriel,’ he smiled.

‘Charming. Alfred.’ Alfred reached out his hand.

Their shake was cold and limp and their hands quickly fell by their sides. Alfred even wiped his on his trouser leg, whether it was consciously done or not.

‘Do I know you?’ Alfred narrowed his eyes.

‘No, we’ve never actually met, but you may recognise me.’

‘Why’s that, were you in a reality show or something?’ Alfred studied him again, with a smirk but a less confident one.

‘You used to pass by me every day, just outside this building.’

Alfred narrowed his eyes, studying Gabe, and he looked back at Lou with a slightly nervous smile. ‘Help me out here, pal.’

‘I used to sit at the doorway next door. Lou gave me a job.’

Alfred’s face broke into a smile, the relief more than obvious on his arrogant face. His demeanour shifted and he became the big man of the fraternity again, knowing that his position wasn’t threatened by a homeless man.

He laughed as he turned to Lou, making a face and using a tone that he didn’t even attempt to disguise in Gabe’s company. ‘You gave him a job, Lou?’ he said, turning his back on Gabe. ‘Well isn’t it the season to be jolly, indeed. What the hell is going on with you?’

‘Alfred, just leave it,’ Lou replied, embarrassed.

‘Okay.’ Alfred held his hands up in defence and chuckled to himself. ‘Stress affects us all in different ways, I suppose. Hey, can I use your bathroom?’

‘What? No, not here, Alfred, just use the restrooms.’

‘Come on, don’t be a dick.’ His tongue sounded too big for his mouth as it rolled around his words. ‘I’ll just be a second. See you around, Gabe, I’ll try to aim my coins at your cart when you pass by,’ Alfred joked, giving Gabe the once-over again. He smirked and winked at Lou before making his way to the toilet.

From the office, Lou and Gabe could hear loud sniffing.

‘There seems to be a nasty cold going around this district,’ Gabe smiled.

Lou rolled his eyes. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Gabe – he’s, you know, don’t take him seriously.’

‘Oh, nobody should ever take anybody seriously really, you can’t control anything but what’s inside this circle.’ Gabe’s arms made a movement around his body. ‘Until we all do that, nobody can be taken seriously. Here, I got you this.’ He leaned down to the bottom tray of the cart and lifted up a Styrofoam cup of coffee. ‘I owe you from yesterday. It’s a latte, the machine was back working again.’

‘Oh, thanks.’ Lou felt even worse, now totally conflicted as to how he felt about this man.

‘So, you’re going for dinner tonight?’ Gabe undid the brake on the cart and started to move away, one of the wheels squeaking as he pushed it.

‘No, just a coffee. Not dinner.’ Lou was unsure if Gabe wanted to be invited. ‘It’s no big deal really. I’ll be in and out in an hour at most.’

‘Oh, come on, Lou,’ Gabe smiled, and he sounded alarmingly like Ruth. Oh, come on, Lou, you know this one. But he didn’t finish the sentence in quite the same way. ‘You know these things always turn into dinner,’ Gabe continued. ‘Then drinks and then whatever,’ he winked. ‘You’ll be in trouble at home, won’t you, Aloysius,’ he said, in a sing-song voice that chilled Lou to the bone.

Gabe exited the office and made his way towards the elevator, the squeaking of the wheel loud in the empty hallway.

‘Hey!’ Lou called after him, but he didn’t turn around. ‘Hey!’ he repeated. ‘How did you know that? Nobody knows that!’

Even though he was alone in the office, Lou quickly looked around to make sure no one had heard.

‘Relax! I won’t tell anyone,’ Gabe called back to him in a voice that made Lou feel far from reassured. Lou watched as Gabe pressed the call button for the elevator and lingered by the doors, while the elevator began to rise from the ground floor.

The bathroom door opened and Alfred exited, rubbing at his nose and sniffing. ‘What’s all the shouting about? Hey, where did you get the coffee?’

‘Gabe,’ Lou replied, distracted.

‘Who? Oh, the homeless guy,’ Alfred said with disinterest. ‘Really, Lou, what the hell were you thinking, he could wipe you out.’

‘What do you mean, wipe me out?’

‘Come on, were you born yesterday? You’ve taken a man who has nothing and put him in a place where there is everything. Ever heard of a thing called temptation? Actually, forget I asked, it’s you I’m talking to,’ he winked. ‘You give in to that every time. Perhaps you and the homeless man aren’t so different,’ he added. ‘You look alike, that’s for sure. Maybe sing “Feed the Birds”, or something, and we’ll see,’ he laughed, his chest wheezing, the result of a forty-a-day habit.

‘Well, that says a lot about your upbringing, Alfred, that your only reference to a homeless person would be something from Mary Poppins,’ Lou snapped.

Alfred’s wheezing broke out into a cough. ‘Sorry, pal. Did I hit a sore point?’

‘We’re nothing alike,’ Lou spat, looking back down at the elevators to Gabe.

But Gabe was gone. The elevator pinged and the doors opened, revealing nobody inside, and with nobody to step in. In the reflection in the mirror that lined the back wall of the elevator, Lou could see the confusion written all over his face.

11. The Juggler

At five p.m., at exactly the same time that Lou should have been leaving the building in order to get home for Lucy’s school play, he instead paced the floor of his office. From the door to the desk, from the desk to the door, and back again. Over and over again. The door was wide open, prepared for Lou’s eventual catapult launch down the corridor and into Mr Patterson’s office, where he would announce he was unable to meet Bruce Archer for coffee. Not unlike Mr Patterson, he too had family commitments. Tonight, Laurence, his daughter was going to be a leaf. For some reason it made him weaken at the knees. Each time he reached the doorway he stopped short, and instead he’d turn around and continue his pace around his desk.

Alison eyed him curiously from her desk, looking up from her typing each time he reached the doorway. Finally, the sounds of her acrylic nails against the keys stopped.

‘Lou, is there something I can do for you?’

He’d looked at her then, as though realising for the first time that he was in an office; that Alison had been there all along. He straightened himself up, fixed his tie, and cleared his throat.

‘Eh … no, thank you, Alison,’ he said, more formally than he’d meant, so intent on convincing her of his sanity that he came across as a drunken man trying to appear sober.

He began pacing towards his desk again but then stopped himself and poked his head outside the door. ‘Actually, Alison, this coffee meeting …’

‘With Bruce Archer, yes.’

‘It’s just coffee, isn’t it?’

‘So Mr Patterson said.’

‘And he knows that it’s me that’s going to meet him?’

‘Mr Patterson?’

‘No, Bruce Archer.’

‘Mr Patterson called him earlier to explain that he wouldn’t be able to make it but that a colleague of his would be more than happy to meet him instead.’

‘Right. So he might not be expecting me?’

‘Would you like me to confirm that for you? Again?’

‘Eh … no. I mean yes.’ He thought about that while Alison’s hand hovered over the receiver. ‘No,’ he said, then headed back into his office. Seconds later he poked his head out the door again. ‘Yes. Confirm.’ And then he quickly ducked inside again.

While he was pacing, he heard Alison call cheerily, ‘Hi Gabe.’

Lou froze, and then for reasons unknown found himself rushing to the door, where he stood with his back to the wall and listened to their conversation through the open door.

‘Hi Alison.’

‘You look smart today.’

‘Thanks. Mr Patterson has asked me to do a few jobs for him around here, so I thought it would be a good idea to look a bit more respectable.’

Lou peeked through the gap in the hinges of the door and spied Gabe, his new haircut combed neatly like Lou’s. A new dark suit, similar to one that Lou owned, was draped over his shoulder and covered in plastic.

‘Is the new suit for up here too?’ Alison asked.

‘Oh, this? This is just for me to have. You never know when a suit will come in handy,’ he gave what Lou considered a very curious answer. ‘Anyway, I’m here to give you these. I think they’re plans. I believe Lou wanted to see them.’

‘Where did you get these from?’

‘I collected them from the architect.’

‘But he was working from home today,’ Alison said, looking inside the manila envelope with confusion.

‘Yes, I collected them from his home.’

‘But Lou just asked Mr Patterson for these five minutes ago. How did you get them so quickly?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, I just, you know …’ Lou could see Gabe’s shoulders shrugging.

‘No, I don’t know,’ Alison laughed. ‘But I wish I did. Keep working like this and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Patterson gives you Lou’s job.’

They laughed and Lou bristled, making a note to make Alison’s life hell right after this conversation.

‘Is Lou in right now?’

‘Yes, he is. Why?’

‘Is he going to meet with Bruce Archer today?’

‘Yes. At least, I think so. Why?’

‘Oh, no reason. Just wondering. Is Alfred free this evening?’

‘Lou asked me the very same thing earlier, that’s funny. Yes, Alfred’s free, I checked with his secretary. That’s Louise, you’d like her.’ She giggled flirtatiously.

‘So let me get this straight. Lou knows that Alfred is available to meet with Bruce, if Lou decides to back out.’

‘Yes, I already told him. Why, what’s going on?’ She lowered her voice. ‘What’s the big deal about this evening? Lou’s been acting funny about it.’

‘He has? Hmm.’

That was it. Lou couldn’t take it any more. He closed his office door, no doubt startling them both. He sat down at his desk and picked up the phone.

‘Yes?’ Alison answered.

‘Get me Harry from the mailroom on the phone, and after that call Ronan Pearson and check with him if Gabe collected the plans from him personally. Do this without Gabe knowing.’

‘Yes, of course, just one moment please,’ she said professionally in her best telephone voice.

The phone rang and Lou adjusted his tie once again, cleared his throat and spun around in his oversized leather chair to face the window. The day was cold but crisp, there wasn’t a breeze as shoppers rushed to and fro worshipping the new religion this season, their arms laden down with bags amid flashing primary colours of the numerous neon signs.

‘Yello,’ Harry barked down the phone.

‘Harry, it’s Lou.’

‘What?’ Harry asked loudly, the sounds of machines and voices loud behind him, and Lou had no choice but to speak up. He looked behind him to make sure he had the all-clear before speaking. ‘It’s Lou, Harry.’

‘Lou who?’

‘Suffern.’

‘Oh, Lou, hi, how can I can help you? Your post end up on twelve again?’

‘No, no, I got it, thanks.’

‘Good. That new boy you sent my way is genius, isn’t he?’

‘He is?’

‘Gabe? Absolutely. Everyone’s calling me with nothing but good reviews. It’s like he fell from the stars. I’m telling you that he couldn’t have come at a better time, that’s no word of a lie. We were struggling, you know that. In all of my years in this job, this Christmas season is the wildest. Everything’s getting faster and faster it seems. Well it must be because it’s not me that’s getting slower, that’s for sure. You picked a good one, Lou, I owe you. How can I help you today?’

‘Well, about Gabe,’ he said slowly, his heart pounding in his chest. ‘You know he’s taken on some other commitments in the building. Other work outside of the mailroom.’

‘I heard that all right. He was as excited as anything this morning. Got a new suit, and all, on his break. I don’t know where he found the time to get it, some of them in here can’t even light their cigarette in the time given. He’s quick, that boy. I’d say it won’t be long before he’s out of here and up there with you. Mr Patterson seems to have taken a shine to him. I’m happy for him, he’s a good kid.’

‘Yeah … anyway, I was just calling to let you know. I didn’t want it to conflict with his work with you.’ Lou tried one more time. ‘You wouldn’t want him to be distracted, with his mind on other things that he’s doing on these floors. You know? It gets so manic up here and distraction can so easily happen.’

‘I appreciate that, Lou, but what he does after one p.m. is his own business. To be honest with you, I’m glad he’s found something else. He gets the job done so quickly it’s a struggle to keep him busy till the first break.’

‘Right. Okay. So, if he acts up in any way you just go ahead and do what you have to do, Harry. I don’t want you to feel in any way obligated to keep him on for me. You know?’

‘I know that, Lou, I do. He’s a good lad, you’ve nothing to worry about.’

‘Okay. Thanks. Take care, Harry.’

The phone went dead. Lou sighed and slowly spun around in his chair to replace the receiver. As he turned he came face-to-face with Gabe, who was standing behind his desk, watching him intently.

Lou jumped, dropping the receiver, and let out a yelp.

‘Jesus Christ.’ He held his hand over his pounding heart.

‘No. It’s just me,’ Gabe said, blue eyes searing into Lou’s.

‘Have you ever heard of knocking? Where’s Alison?’ Lou leaned sideways to check her station and saw that it was empty. ‘How long have you been there?’

‘Long enough.’ Gabe’s voice was soft, and it was that which unnerved Lou most. ‘Trying to get me in trouble, Lou?’

‘What?’ Lou’s heart pounded wildly, still unrecovered from the surprise, and also alarmingly discomfited by Alison’s absence and Gabe’s proximity. The man’s very presence disconcerted him.

‘No,’ he swallowed, and he hated himself for his sudden weakness. ‘I just called Harry to see if he was happy with you. That’s all.’ He was aware of the fact he sounded like a schoolboy defending himself.

‘And is he?’

‘As it turns out, yes. But you must understand how I feel a responsibility to him for finding you.’

‘Finding me,’ Gabe smiled, and said the words as though he’d never heard them or pronounced them before.

‘What’s so funny about that?’

‘Nothing,’ Gabe continued the smile, and began looking around Lou’s office, hands in his pockets, with that same patronising look that was neither jealousy nor admiration.

‘It’s five twenty-two p.m. and thirty-three seconds now,’ Gabe said, not even looking at his watch. ‘Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six …’ He turned and smiled at Lou. ‘You get the idea.’

‘So?’ Lou put his suit jacket on and secretly tried to get a glimpse at his watch to make sure. It was spot-on five twenty-two.

‘You have to leave now, don’t you?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing?’

Gabe wandered over to the meeting table and picked up three pieces of fruit from the bowl – two oranges and an apple – which he inspected closely, one by one. ‘Decisions, decisions,’ he said. He held the three pieces of fruit in his hand.

‘Hungry?’ Lou asked, agitated.

‘No,’ Gabe laughed again. ‘You any good at juggling?’

That same feeling struck Lou’s heart, and he remembered exactly what it was that he didn’t like about Gabe. It was questions like that, statements and comments that pierced Lou somewhere other than where they should.

‘You’d better get that,’ Gabe added.

‘Get what?’

Before Gabe could respond, the phone rang and, despite preferring having Alison screen his calls, he dove for it.

It was Ruth.

‘Hi honey.’ He motioned to Gabe for privacy, but Gabe began juggling the fruit in response. Lou turned his back, and then, feeling uncomfortable with Gabe behind him, he faced front to keep an eye on Gabe. He lowered his voice.

‘Em, yeah, about tonight, something’s come up and –’

‘Lou, don’t do this to me,’ Ruth said. ‘Lucy’s heart will be broken.’

‘It’s just the play I won’t make, sweetheart, and Lucy won’t even notice I’m not there, the place will be so dark. You can tell her I was there. The rest of the night is fine. Mr Patterson asked me to meet with a client of ours. It’s a big deal, and it could help me with getting Cliff ’s job, you know?’

‘I know, I know. And then if you do get a promotion, you’ll be away from us even more.’

‘No, no, I won’t be. I just have to really slog for these months to prove myself.’

‘Who are you trying to prove yourself to? Laurence already knows your capabilities, you’ve been with the company five years. Anyway, I don’t want to get into this conversation now. Will you make the play or not?’

‘The play?’ Lou bit his lip and looked at his watch. ‘No, no, I won’t make it.’

Gabe dropped the apple, which rolled across the carpet towards Lou’s desk, and continued juggling with the oranges. Lou felt a childish sense of satisfaction that Gabe had failed.

‘So you’ll make it home for dinner? With your parents and Alexandra and Quentin? Your mum has just been on the phone saying how much she’s looking forward to it. You know, it’s a month since you’ve called to see them.’

‘It’s not been a month since I’ve seen them. I saw Dad just,’ he went quiet while calculating the time in his head, ‘well, you know, maybe it’s almost a month.’ A month? How the time had flown.

For Lou, visiting his parents was a chore, like making the bed. After not doing it for some time, the sight of the untidy blankets would play on his mind until he’d do it to get it over and done with. He’d instantly feel a satisfaction that it had been completed, and just when he thought it was over with and out of the way, he’d wake up and know he had to go and do it all over again. The thought of his father complaining to him about how it had been so long since he’d seen him made Lou want to run in the other direction. It was the same one whinging sentence that drove him insane. Though partly it made him feel guilty, it mostly made him want to stay away longer to avoid hearing those words. He needed to be in the mood to hear it, to detach the sentiments from his head so that he wouldn’t bark back and rattle off the hours he’d been working and the deals he’d negotiated, just to shut his father up. He was most certainly not in the mood today. Maybe if he got home when they’d all had a few drinks it would be easier.

‘I might not make dinner but I’ll be there for dessert. You have my word on that.’

Gabe dropped an orange and Lou felt like punching the ceiling with celebration. Instead he pursed his lips and continued to make excuses to Ruth for everything, refusing to apologise for something that was totally out of his control. Lou finally hung up the phone and folded his arms across his chest.

‘What’s so funny?’ Gabe asked, throwing the one remaining orange up and down in his hand, the other hand in his pocket.

‘Not such a good juggler, are you?’ he smirked.

‘Touché,’ Gabe smiled. ‘You’re very observant. Indeed, I’m not a good juggler, but it’s not really juggling if I’d already chosen to drop those two and keep this one in my hand, is it?’

Lou frowned at the peculiar response and busied himself at his desk, putting on his overcoat and preparing to leave.

‘No, Gabe, it’s certainly not juggling if you choose …’ He stopped suddenly, realising what he was saying and hearing Ruth’s voice in his head. His head snapped up, feeling that cold chill again, but Gabe was gone and the orange was before him on his desk.

‘Alison,’ Lou marched out of his office with the orange in his hand, ‘did Gabe just walk out of here?’

Alison lifted a finger up to signal for him to wait, while she took notes on a notepad and listened to the voice at the other end of the phone.

‘Alison,’ he interrupted her again, and she panicked slightly, writing faster, nodding quickly and holding up her full hand this time.

‘Alison,’ he snapped, holding his hand down over the receiver to end her call. ‘I don’t have all day.’

She stared at him with her mouth open, receiver dangling from her hand. ‘I can’t believe you just –’

‘Yeah, well, I did, get over it. Did Gabe walk by?’ he asked. His voice was rushed, running along, skipping and jumping to keep up with his heart.

‘Em …’ she thought slowly, ‘he came up to my desk about twenty minutes ago and –’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know all that. He was in my office a second ago and then he was gone. Just now. Did he walk by?’

‘Well, he must have, but –’

‘Did you see him?’

‘No, I was on the phone and –’

‘Jesus.’ He punched the desk with his already sore fist. ‘Ah, crap.’ He cradled it close to him.

‘What’s wrong, Lou? Calm down.’ Alison stood up and reached her hand out towards him.

Lou pulled away. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he dropped his voice and leaned closer again, ‘does any of my post ever come to me under a different name?’

‘What do you mean?’ she frowned.

‘You know –’ He looked left and right and barely moved his lips as he spoke. ‘Aloysius,’ he mumbled.

‘Aloysius?’ she said loudly.

He threw his eyes up. ‘Keep it down,’ he mumbled.

‘No.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’ve never seen the name Aloysius on any of the mail.’ As though there were a time delay from her voice to her ears, she smiled, then snorted, and then started laughing. ‘Why the hell would there be Aloy—’ On his look, her words disappeared and her smile faded. ‘Oh. Oh dear. That’s a –’ her voice went an octave higher, ‘lovely name.’

Lou walked across the newly constructed Seán O’Casey pedestrian bridge that linked the two rejuvenated north and south quays, the North Wall Quay to Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. One hundred metres across the bridge brought him to his destination, The Ferryman, the only authentic pub left on this stretch of quays. It wasn’t a place for cappuccinos or ciabattas, and because of that the clientele was specific. The bar contained a handful of Christmas shoppers who’d wandered off the beaten track to take a break and to wrap purple-fingered hands around their heated glasses. Apart from the few shoppers it was filled with workers, young and old, winding down after their day’s work. Suits filled the seats, pints and shorts filled the surfaces. Just after six p.m. and already people had escaped the business district and into their nearest place of solace to worship at the altar of beers on tap.

Bruce Archer was one such person, propped at the bar, Guinness in hand, roaring with laughter over something somebody beside him had said. Another suit. And then there was another. Shoulder pads to shoulder pads. Pin-striped suits and diamond socks. More polished shoes and briefcases containing spreadsheets, pie charts and forward-looking market predictions. None of them were drinking coffee after all. He should have known. He hadn’t known, but as he watched them backslapping and laughing loudly, he wasn’t in the least bit surprised, and so, at the very same time, he had known all along.

Bruce turned around and spotted him. ‘Lou!’ he shouted across the room in his heavy Boston accent, which caused heads to turn, not at Bruce but at the handsome and quite pristine man that he was shouting at. ‘Lou Suffern! Good to see ya!’ He stood from the stool, walked towards Lou with his hand extended, and then, gripping Lou’s hand firmly, he pumped it up and down while thumping him enthusiastically on the back. ‘Let me introduce you to the guys. Guys, this is Lou, Lou Suffern, works at Patterson Developments. We worked together on the Manhattan Building I was telling you about and had a real wild experience one night together, wait till we tell you about it, you’ll never believe it. Lou, this is Derek from …’ And so Lou was lost in a sea of introductions, forgetting each name the second they were introduced and pushing the image of his wife and daughter out of his head each time he shook a hand that either squeezed his too hard, was too clammy, limp, or pumped his shoulder up and down. He tried to forget that he had forsaken his family for this. He tried to forget as they poo-poohed his order of coffee and instead filled him with beer, as they ignored his attempt to leave after one pint. Then after the second. And after the third. Tired of a discussion each time a round came around, he let them change his order to a Jack Daniel’s, and as his mobile phone rang he also let their adolescent jeers convince him not to answer. And then, after all that, they needed to convince him no more. He was there with them for the long haul, with his phone on silent and vibrating every ten minutes with a call from Ruth. He knew at this point that Ruth would understand; if she didn’t then she was an extremely unreasonable person.

There was a girl catching his eye across the bar; there was another whisky and Coke on the counter. All sense and reason had gone outside with the smokers, and it was shivering outside, half thinking of hailing a taxi, the other half looking around for someone to take it home and love it. And then, too cold and frustrated, sense turned on reason and resorted to fisticuffs outside the bar, while Lou turned his back and took sole care of his ambition.

12. The Fast Lane

Lou realised he was far too drunk to chat up the attractive woman in the bar who had been giving him eyelashes all night when, in the process of joining her table, he stumbled over his own feet and without noticing managed to knock over her friend’s drink into her lap. Not the pretty one’s lap, just her friend’s. And while he mumbled something he regarded as highly smooth and clever, it seemed to her to come across as rather sleazy and offensive. For there was a fine line between sleazy and offensive and a sexy chat-up line when you’d had as much to drink as Lou Suffern. He appeared to have lost the swagger of charm and sophistication that he’d possessed in heaps when he had first walked in. The droplets of whisky and Coke that stained his crisp white shirt and tie appeared to be more of a fashion don’t for these sophisticated businesswomen, and his blue eyes, which usually caused women to feel like they were falling from a height directly into his aqua pools, were now bloodshot and glassy and so didn’t have the desired effect. When intending to undress her with his eyes, he’d instead appeared shifty, and so, too drunk to get anywhere with her – or her friend, whom he’d also tried to come on to after bumping into her coming back from the toilet, where she was trying to clean the red wine he’d spilled on her suit – the more sensible option seemed to be to walk back to his car. And drive home.

When he reached the cold and dark basement car park underneath his office building – a walk that took twenty minutes longer than it should have – he realised he had forgotten where he’d parked his car. He circled the centre of the car park, pressing the button on his key and hoping the sound of the alarm or the flashing lights would give it away. Unfortunately he was enjoying the spinning so much, he kept forgetting to study the cars. Finally, a light caught his eye, and when he spotted his car in his allocated car space, he closed one eye and focused on making his way to his Porsche.

‘Hello baby,’ he purred, rubbing up alongside of it – though not deliberately out of love but because he’d lost his footing. He kissed the bonnet and climbed inside. Then, finding himself in the passenger seat, where there was no steering wheel, he got back out and made his way around to the driver’s side. He climbed to the right-hand side and, once settled, he focused on the columns of cement that held the roof up and watched them swaying. He hoped they wouldn’t sway on top of his car as he was driving home. That would be both irresponsible of them and an expensive misfortune for him.

After a few moments of trying to get the key into the ignition and scraping the metal around it with the tip of the key, he finally turned it around the right way and it slotted inside. At the sound of the engine he cheered, then pushed his foot on the accelerator to the floor. Finally remembering to look up at where he was going, he screamed with fright. At the bonnet of the car stood a motionless Gabe.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Lou shouted, taking his foot off the accelerator and banging on the windscreen with his bruised right hand. ‘Are you crazy? You’re going to get yourself killed!’

Gabe’s face blurred then, but Lou would have bet his life that he was smiling. He heard a knock, he jumped, and when he looked up he saw Gabe peering in the driver’s window at him. The engine was still running and so Lou lowered the window a slit.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi Gabe,’ he replied sleepily.

‘You want to turn the engine off, Lou?’

‘No. No, I’m driving home.’

‘You won’t get very far if you don’t take it out of neutral. I don’t think it’s such a good idea to drive home. Why don’t you get out and we’ll get you a taxi home?’

‘No, can’t leave the Porsche here. Some crazy will steal it. Some looney tune. Some homeless vagabond.’ He started laughing at that, quite hysterically. ‘Oh, I know. Why don’t you drive me home?’

‘No, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea, Lou. Come on out and we’ll get you a taxi,’ Gabe said, opening the door of the car.

‘Nope. No taxi,’ Lou slurred, moving the clutch from neutral to drive. He pushed his foot down on the accelerator and the car jumped forward with the door wide open, then it stopped, then lurched forward again and stopped. Gabe rolled his eyes and hung on to the passenger door as it jumped forward like a cricket with an anxiety disorder.

‘Okay, fine,’ Gabe said finally after Lou had driven – although driven not being the operative word – all the way to the exit slope. ‘Fine, I said.’ He raised his voice as Lou lurched forward again. ‘I’ll drive you home.’

Lou climbed over the gear stick into the passenger seat and Gabe sat in the driver’s seat with trepidation. He didn’t need to adjust the seat or mirrors as he and Lou, it seemed, were exactly the same height.

‘You know how to drive?’ Lou asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Have you driven one of these before?’ Lou asked, and then began laughing hysterically. ‘Maybe there’s one parked beneath your penthouse,’ he laughed.

‘Buckle up, Lou.’ Gabe ignored his comments and concentrated on getting Lou home alive. That task was very important at this point, very important indeed.

14. The Turkey Boy 3

‘So, you caught him speeding again in the car?’ The Turkey Boy lifted his head from where his chin was resting on his hands on the table. ‘I hope you arrested him this time. He could have almost killed somebody again. And what are you doing hanging around the same place in your car all the time? Sounds to me like you’re stalking him.’

‘I didn’t catch him speeding,’ Raphie explained, ignoring the last question. ‘They went through a red light is all.’

‘Is all? I hope you arrested the flashy bastard.’

‘Well, how could I arrest Lou, now, really, come on,’ Raphie explained, sounding like a teacher. ‘You’re not listening. Stop jumping the gun here.’

‘But you’re so bloody slow at telling the story. Just get to the point.’

‘I am, and I won’t tell you the story at all if that’s going to be your attitude.’ Raphie glared at the Turkey Boy, who didn’t snap back this time, and so he continued the story. ‘It wasn’t Lou that ran the red light because it wasn’t Lou that was driving, I told you that.’

‘Gabe wouldn’t have run the red light. He wouldn’t do that,’ Turkey Boy piped up.

‘Well, how was I to know that? I hadn’t met the chap before, had I?’

‘They must have swapped over on the way home.’

‘Gabe was behind the wheel. Mind you, they were so similar they could easily have swapped, but no, I know it was Lou in the passenger seat, totally blazooed with both eyes in one socket.’

‘How come you just happened to catch him in the same place again?’

‘I was just keeping an eye on someone’s house, is all.’

‘A murderer?’ The Turkey Boy’s eyes lit up.

‘No, not a bloody murderer, somebody I know, is all.’

‘Were you following your wife?’ the boy perked up again.

Raphie shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘What do you mean?’

‘To see if she’s having an affair.’

Raphie rolled his eyes. ‘Son, you watch far too much television.’

‘Oh.’ The Turkey Boy was disappointed. ‘So what did you do when you caught them?’

15. Home Sweet Home

‘Hello Sergeant,’ Gabe said, big blue eyes wide and honest. Taken aback by the man’s knowledge of his position, Raphie changed his mind on his tone of approach. ‘You broke a red light there, you know.’

‘I know, Sergeant, I apologise profusely, it was a total accident on my behalf, I promise you that. It was amber and I thought I’d make it …’

‘You broke it well after it was amber.’

‘Well.’ Gabe looked to his left at Lou, who was pretending to sleep, snoring loudly and laughing between snores. In his hand was a long umbrella.

Raphie examined the umbrella in Lou’s hand and then followed Gabe’s gaze to the accelerator.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered, under his breath.

‘No, I’m Gabe,’ Gabe responded. ‘I’m a colleague of Mr Suffern’s, I was just trying to get him home safely, he’s had a bit to drink.’

On cue, Lou snored loudly and made a whistling noise. Then he laughed.

‘You don’t say.’

‘I feel like I’m a dad on duty tonight,’ Gabe said. ‘Making sure my child is safe. That’s important, isn’t it?’

‘What do you mean?’ Raphie narrowed his eyes.

‘Oh, I think you know what I mean,’ Gabe smiled innocently.

Raphie fixed his gaze on Gabe and toughened his tone, unsure if he had a smart arse on his hands. ‘Show me your driver’s licence please.’ He held out his hand.

‘Oh, I, em, I don’t have it on me.’

‘Do you have a driver’s licence?’

‘Not on me.’

‘So you said.’ Raphie took out a notepad and pen. ‘What’s your name then?’

‘My name is Gabe, sir.’

‘Gabe what?’ Raphie straightened himself a little.

‘Are you okay?’ Gabe asked.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘You look a little uncomfortable. Is there something wrong?’

‘I’m fine.’ Raphie started to back away from the car.

‘You should get that looked at,’ Gabe said, voice heavy with concern.

‘You mind your own business,’ Raphie barked, looking around to make sure nobody heard.

Gabe looked in the rear-view mirror at the garda car. There was no one else in it. No back-up. No witness.

‘Make sure you drop into the Howth Garda Station this week, Gabe, bring your licence with you then and report to me. We’ll deal with you then. Get that boy home safely.’ He nodded at Lou and then made his way back to his car.

‘S’e drunk again?’ Lou asked, opening his bleary eyes and turning around to watch Raphie walk to the car.

‘No, he’s not drunk,’ Gabe said, watching Raphie’s slow walk back to the car in the rear-view mirror.

‘Then what is he?’ Lou snarled.

‘He’s something else.’

‘No, you’re somethin’ else. Now drive me home.’ He clicked his fingers and laughed. ‘Actually, let me drive,’ he said grumpily, and started squirming in his seat to get out. ‘I don’t like people thinking this is your car.’

‘It’s dangerous to drink and drive, Lou. You could crash.’

‘So,’ he huffed childishly. ‘That’s my problem, isn’t it?’

‘A friend of mine died not so long ago,’ Gabe said, eyes still on the garda car that was slowly driving back down the road. ‘And believe me, when you die, it’s everybody else’s but your problem. He left behind a right mess. I’d buckle up if I were you, Lou.’

‘Who died?’ Lou closed his eyes, ignoring the advice, and leaned his head back on the rest, giving up on his idea to drive.

‘I don’t think you know him,’ Gabe said, indicating as soon as the garda car was out of sight and moving out onto the road again.

‘How’d he die?’

‘Car crash,’ Gabe said, pushing his foot down on the accelerator. It jerked forward quickly, the engine loud and powerful all of a sudden in the quiet night.

Lou’s eyes opened slightly and he looked at Gabe warily. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yep. Sad really. He was a young guy. Young family. Lovely wife. Was successful.’ He pressed his foot down harder on the speed.

Lou’s eyes were fully open now.

‘But that’s not the sad thing. The saddest thing was that he didn’t sort out his will on time. Not that he’s to blame, he was a young man and didn’t plan on leaving so soon, but it just shows you never know.’

The speedometer neared one hundred kilometres in the fifty-kilometre zone and Lou grabbed the door handle and held on tightly. He moved from his slouched position, pushing his buttocks firmly to the back of the seat. He was sitting up poker-straight now, watching the speedometer, and the blurred lights of the city across the bay whizzing by.

He began to reach for his seat belt, but all of a sudden, as quickly as Gabe had sped up, he took his foot off the accelerator, checked his wing mirror, indicated, and turned the wheel steadily to the left. He looked at Lou’s face, which had turned an interesting shade of green, and he smiled.

‘Home sweet home, Lou.’

It was only over the next few days, as the hangover haze had begun to lift, that Lou realised he didn’t recall once giving Gabe any directions to his home that night.

‘Mum, Dad, Marcia, Quentin, Alexandra!’ Lou announced at full boom, as soon as the door had been pulled open by his startled-looking mother. ‘I’m ho-ome,’ he sang, embracing his mother and planting a smacker on her cheek. ‘I’m so sorry I missed dinner, it was such a busy evening at the office. Busy, busy, busy.’

Even Lou couldn’t keep a straight face for that excuse, and so he stood in the dining room, his shoulders moving up and down, his chest wheezing in a near silent laugh, watched by startled and unimpressed faces. Ruth froze, watching her husband with mixed feelings of anger, hurt and embarrassment. Somewhere inside her there was jealousy too. She’d had a day of dealing with Lucy’s uncontrollable excitement that had been channelled in all the positive and negative ways a child could possibly behave, and then later dealt with her nerves and tears as she wouldn’t go on stage until her father had arrived. After returning from the school play, she’d put the kids to bed and run around the house all evening in order to get the dinner ready and bedrooms ready for guests. Her face was now bright red from the hot kitchen and her fingers burned from carrying hot dishes. She was flushed and tired, too, physically and mentally drained from trying to stimulate her children in all the ways a parent should; from being on her knees on the floor with Pud, to wiping the tears and offering advice to a disappointed Lucy, who’d failed to find her father in the audience despite Ruth’s attempts to convince her otherwise.

Ruth looked at Lou swaying at the doorway, his eyes bloodshot, his cheeks rosy, and she wished that that could be her, throwing caution to the wind and acting the eejit in front of their guests. But he’d never stand for it – and she’d never do it – and that was the difference between them. But there he was, swaying and happy, and there she was, static and deeply dissatisfied, wondering why on earth she had chosen to be the glue holding it all together.

‘Dad!’ Lou announced. ‘I haven’t seen you for ages! It’s been so long, hasn’t it?’ He smiled, walking towards his father with an extended hand. He sat down in the chair beside him, pulling it closer and scraping the floor so that their elbows were almost touching. ‘Tell me what you’ve been up to. Oh, and I wouldn’t mind some of that red wine, thanks so much. My favourite, honey, well done.’ He winked at Ruth, then proceeded to spill most of it on the white linen as with an unsteady arm he poured it into an unused glass.

‘Steady there now, son,’ his father said quietly, reaching out to help him steady his hand.

‘Dad, I’m fine.’ Lou pulled away from him, splashing wine over his father’s shirt sleeves.

‘Ah, Aloysius,’ his mother said, and Lou rolled his eyes.

‘It’s fine, love, I’m fine,’ his father said, trying to make light of it.

‘That’s your good shirt,’ she continued, reaching for her napkin, dunking it in her water glass and dabbing at her husband’s white sleeves.

‘Mum,’ Lou looked around the table, laughing, ‘I haven’t killed the man, I just splashed wine.’

His mother threw him a look of scorn and looked away again, continuing to help her husband.

‘Maybe this will help.’ Lou reached for the salt and began shaking it over his father’s arms.

‘Lou!’ Quentin raised his voice. ‘Stop it!’

Lou stopped, then looked at Alexandra with a childish sheepish grin.

‘Ah, Quentin,’ Lou nodded at his brother, ‘I didn’t notice you there. How’s the boat? Got any new sails? Any new equipment? Won any competitions lately?’

Quentin cleared his throat, and tried to calm himself. ‘We’re actually in the final in two wee—’

‘Alexandra!’ Lou exploded, mid Quentin’s sentence. ‘How can I not have kissed the lovely Alexandra?’ He stood up and, bumping against the backs of everybody’s chairs, he made his way over to her. ‘How is the beautiful Alexandra tonight? Looking ravishing, as always.’ He reached down and hugged her tight, kissing her neck.

‘Hi Lou,’ she smiled. ‘Good night?’

‘Oh, you know, busy, busy, lots of paperwork to get through.’ He threw his head back and laughed again, loud like a machine gun. ‘Ah dear. Oh, what’s the problem in here? You all look like somebody’s died. You could do with rockets shoved up your arses, come on.’ He shouted a little too aggressively and clapped his hands in front of their faces. ‘Boring.’ He turned to look at his sister Marcia. ‘Marcia,’ he said, followed by a sigh. ‘Marcia,’ he repeated. ‘Hi,’ he simply said, before making his way back to his chair, smiling childishly to himself.

Gabe hovered awkwardly by the dining-room door in the long heavy silence that followed.

‘Who have you brought with you, Lou?’ his brother Quentin interrupted, holding out his hand and moving towards Gabe. ‘Sorry, we weren’t introduced. I’m his brother, Quentin, and this is my wife, Alexandra.’

Lou wolf-whistled, then laughed.

‘Hello, I’m Gabe.’ Gabe shook Quentin’s hand and entered the dining room. He made his way around the table, shaking hands with all the family.

‘Lou,’ Ruth said quietly, ‘perhaps you should have some water or coffee, I’m about to make some coffee.’

Lou sighed loudly. ‘Am I an embarrassment, Ruth, am I?’ he snapped. ‘You told me to come home. I’m home!’

There was a silence around the table as people awkwardly tried to avoid each other’s gazes. Lou’s father looked at him angrily, the colour rising in his face, his lips trembling slightly as though the words were rushing out of them yet weren’t making any sound.

Gabe continued to make his way around the table.

‘Hello, Ruth, I’m very pleased to finally meet you.’

She would barely look him in the eye as she limply took his hand.

‘Hi,’ she said quietly. ‘Please excuse me while I just take all this away.’ She stood up from the table and began carrying the leftover cheese plates and coffee cups into the kitchen.

‘I’ll help you,’ Gabe offered.

‘No, no, please, sit down.’ She rushed into the kitchen with a load in her arms.

Gabe disobeyed and followed her anyway. She was leaning against the counter where she had placed the crockery, her back to him. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched, all life and soul of the woman gone at that very moment. He made a noise placing the plates beside the sink so that she knew he was there.

She jumped now, alert to his presence, composed herself, life and soul returning from their time-out, and she turned around to face him.

‘Gabe,’ she smiled tightly, ‘I told you not to bother.’

‘I wanted to help,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sorry about Lou. I wasn’t out with him tonight.’

‘No?’ She folded her arms and looked embarrassed for not knowing.

‘No. I work with him at the office. I was there late when he got back from the … well, from his coffee meeting.’

‘When he got back to the office? Why would he …’ She looked at him with confusion and then, ever so slowly, a shadow fell across her face as realisation dawned. ‘Oh, I see. He was trying to drive home.’

It wasn’t a question, more a thought aloud, and so Gabe didn’t respond, but she softened towards him.

‘Right. Well, thank you for bringing him home safely, Gabe. I’m sorry I was rude to you but I’m just, you know …’ The emotion entered her voice and she stopped talking and instead busied herself scraping food from the plates into the bin.

‘I know. You don’t have to explain.’

From the dining room they heard Lou let out a ‘Whoa’ and then there was the sound of a glass smashing, and his laughter again.

She stopped scraping the plates and closed her eyes, sighing.

‘Lou’s a good man, you know,’ Gabe said softly.

‘Thank you, Gabe. Believe it or not, that is exactly what I need to hear right now, but I was rather hoping it wouldn’t come from one of his work buddies. I’d like for his mother to be able to say it,’ she looked up at him, eyes glassy, ‘or his father, or it would be nice to hear it from his daughter. But no, at work, Lou is the man.’ She scraped the plates angrily.

‘I’m not a work buddy, believe me. Lou can’t stand me.’

She looked at him curiously.

‘He got me a job yesterday. I used to sit outside his building every morning, and yesterday, totally out of the blue, he stopped and gave me a coffee and offered me a job.’

‘He mentioned something like that last night.’ Ruth searched her brain. ‘Lou really did that?’

‘You sound surprised.’

‘No, I’m not. Well, I am. I mean … what job did he give you?’

‘A job in the mailroom.’

‘How does that help him out?’ she frowned.

Gabe laughed. ‘You think he did it for his own good?’

‘Oh, that’s a terrible thing for me to say.’ She bit her lip to hide her smile. ‘I didn’t mean it that way. I know Lou is a good man, but lately he’s just been very … busy. Or more distracted; there’s nothing wrong with being busy, as long as you’re not distracted.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘But he’s not all here. It’s like he’s in two places at once. His body with us, his mind constantly elsewhere. The decisions he makes lately are all to do with work, how to help his work, how to get him from one meeting to the other meeting in the quickest time possible, yada, yada, yada … so him offering you the job, I just thought that … God, listen to me.’ She composed herself. ‘You obviously brought out the good side in him, Gabe.’

‘He’s a good man,’ Gabe repeated.

Ruth didn’t answer, but it was almost as though Gabe read her mind when he said, ‘But you want him to become a better one, don’t you?’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘Don’t worry.’ He placed his hand over hers and it was immediately comforting. ‘He will be.’

When Ruth told her sister the next day about the exchange, and her sister ruffled her nose thinking it all very weird and suspicious as she did most things in life, Ruth only then wondered why on earth she hadn’t questioned Gabe, why she hadn’t felt it all so very odd at that moment. But it was the moments that counted, being in the moment, and in that moment she hadn’t felt compelled to ask. She believed him, or at least she had wanted to believe him. A kind man had told her that her husband would be a better man. What good was an afterthought?

16. The Wake-Up Call

Lou awoke the morning after to a woodpecker sitting on his head and hammering away consistently with great gregariousness at the top of his skull. The pain worked its way from his frontal lobe, through both his temples, and down to the base of his head. Somewhere outside, a car horn beeped, ridiculous for this hour, and an engine was running. He closed his eyes again and tried to disappear into the world of sleep, but responsibilities, the woodpecker, and what sounded like the front door slamming, wouldn’t allow him safe haven in his sweet dreams.

His mouth was so dry, he found himself smacking his gums together and thrashing his tongue around in order to gather the smallest amount of moisture to give him the honour of avoiding the loathful task of dry-retching. And then the saliva came, and he found himself in that awful place – between his bed and the toilet bowl – where his body temperature went up, his mind dizzied and the moisture came to his mouth in waves. He kicked off his bedclothes, ran for the toilet and fell to his knees in a heavy, heaving, worshipping of the toilet bowl. It was only when he no longer had any energy, or anything left inside his stomach, for that matter, that he sat on the heated tiles in physical and mental exhaustion, and noticed that the skylight was bright. Unlike the darkness of his usual morning rises at this time of the year, the sky was a bright blue. And then panic overcame him, far worse than the dash he’d just encountered, but more like the panic that a child would experience on learning they’re late for school.

Lou dragged himself up from the floor, and returned to the bedroom with the desire to grab the alarm clock and strangle the nine a.m. that flashed boldly in red. They’d all slept it out. They’d missed their wake-up call. Only they hadn’t, because Ruth wasn’t in bed, and it was only then he noticed the smell of a fry drifting upstairs, almost mockingly doing the can-can under his nose. He heard the clattering and clinking of cups and saucers. A baby’s babbles. Morning sounds. Long, lazy sounds that he shouldn’t be hearing. He should be hearing the hum of the fax machine and photocopier, the noise of the elevator as it moved up and down the shaft and every now and then pinged as though the people inside had been cooked. He should be hearing Alison’s acrylic nails on the keyboard. He should be hearing the squeaking of the mail cart as Gabe made his way down the hallways …

Gabe.

He pulled on a robe and rushed downstairs, almost falling over the shoes and briefcase he’d left at the bottom step, before bursting through the door into the kitchen. There they were, the three usual suspects: Ruth, his mother and his father. Gabe wasn’t anywhere to be seen, thankfully. Egg was dribbling down his father’s grey stubbled chin, his mother was reading the newspaper, and both she and Ruth were still in their dressing gowns. Pud was the only one to make a sound as he sang and babbled, his eyebrows moving up and down with such expression it was as though his sentences actually meant something. Lou took this scene in, but at the very same time failed to appreciate a single pixel of it.

‘What the hell, Ruth?’ he said loudly, causing all heads to look up and turn to him.

‘Excuse me?’ She looked at him with widened eyes.

‘It’s nine a.m. Nine o-fucking-clock.’

‘Now, Aloysius,’ his father said angrily. His mother looked at him in shock.

‘Why the hell didn’t you wake me?’ He came closer to her.

‘Lou, why are you talking like this?’ Ruth frowned, then turned to her son. ‘Come on, Pud, a few more spoons, honey.’

‘Because you’re trying to get me fired is what you’re doing. Isn’t it? Why the hell didn’t you wake me?’

‘Well, I was going to wake you but Gabe said not to. He said to let you rest until about ten o’clock, that a rest would do you good, and I agreed,’ she said matter-of-factly, appearing unaffected by his attack in his parents’ presence.

‘Gabe?’ He looked at her as though she were the most ludicrous thing on the planet. ‘GABE?’ he shouted now.

‘Lou,’ his mother gasped. ‘Don’t you dare shout like that.’

‘Gabe the mailboy? The fucking MAILBOY?’ He ignored his mother. ‘You listened to him? He’s an imbecile!’

‘Lou!’ his mother said once again. ‘Fred, do something.’ She nudged her husband.

‘Well, that imbecile,’ Ruth fought to stay calm, ‘drove you home last night instead of leaving you to drive to your death.’

As though just remembering that Gabe had driven him home, Lou rushed outside to the driveway. He made his way around the perimeter of the car, hopping from foot to foot on the pebbles, his concern for his vehicle so great that he couldn’t feel the occasional sharp corner breaking through his flesh. He examined his Porsche from all angles, running his fingers along the surface to make sure there weren’t any scratches or dents. Finding nothing wrong, he calmed a little, though he still couldn’t understand what had made Ruth value Gabe’s opinion so highly. What was going on in the world that had everybody eating out of Gabe’s palm?

He made his way back inside, where his mother and father threw him such a look, he couldn’t for once think of anything to say to them. He turned away from them and returned to the kitchen, where Ruth was still sitting at the table feeding Pud.

‘Ruthy,’ he cleared his throat and made an attempt at a Lou-style apology, the kind of apology that never involved the word sorry, ‘it’s just that Gabe is after my job, you see. You didn’t understand that, I know, but he is. So when he left bright and early this morning to get to work –’

‘He left five minutes ago.’ She cut him off straight away, not turning around, not looking at him. ‘He stayed in one of the spare rooms because I’m not too sure if he’s got anywhere else to go. He got up and made us all breakfast and then I called him a taxi, which I paid for so that he could get to work. He just left five minutes ago and so he, too, is late for work. So you can take your accusations and your behaviour and follow him in there, where you can act the bully-boy.’

‘Ruthy, I –’

‘You’re right, Lou, and I’m wrong. It’s clear from this morning’s behaviour that you’re totally in control of things and not in the least bit stressed,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I was such a fool to think you needed an extra hour’s sleep. Now, Pud,’ Ruth lifted the baby from his chair and kissed his food-stained face, ‘let’s go give you a bath,’ she smiled.

Pud clapped his hands and turned to jelly under her raspberry kisses. Ruth walked towards Lou with Pud in her arms, and for a moment Lou softened at the look on his son’s face, his smile so big it could light up the world if ever the moon lost its beam. He prepared to take Pud in his arms but it didn’t happen. Ruth walked right on by, cuddling Pud tight while he laughed uproariously as though her kisses were the funniest thing that had happened in his short life. Lou acknowledged the rejection. For about five seconds. And then he realised that was five seconds out of the time needed for him to get to work. And so he dashed.

In record time, and thankfully due to Sergeant O’Reilly not being present when Lou put his foot down and fired his way to work, Lou arrived at the office at ten fifteen a.m.; the latest he had ever arrived at the office. He still had a few minutes before the meeting ended, and so, spitting on his hand and smoothing down his hair, which hadn’t been washed, and running his hands across his face, which hadn’t been shaved, he shook off the waves of dizziness that his hangover had brought, took a deep breath and then entered the boardroom.

There was an intake of breath at the sight of him. It wasn’t that he looked so bad, it was just that, for Lou, he wasn’t perfect. He was always perfect. He took a seat opposite Alfred, who beamed with astonishment and absolute delight at his friend’s apparent breakdown.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late,’ Lou addressed the table of twelve more calmly than he felt, ‘I was up all night with one of those tummy bugs, but I’m okay now, I think.’

Faces nodded in sympathy and understanding.

‘Bruce Archer has that very same bug,’ Alfred smirked, and he winked at Mr Patterson.

The switch was flicked and Lou’s blood began to boil, expecting any minute for a loud whistling to drift from his nose as he reached boiling point. He sat through the meeting, fighting flushes and nausea, while the vein in his forehead pulsated at full force.

‘And so, tonight is an important night, lads.’ Mr Patterson turned to Lou, and Lou zoned in on the conversation.

‘Yes, I have the audio-visual conference call with Arthur Lynch,’ Lou spoke up. ‘That’s at seven thirty, and I’m sure it will all go without a hitch. I’ve come up with a great number of responses to his concerns, which we went through during the week. I don’t think we need to go through them again –’

‘Hold on, hold on.’ Mr Patterson lifted a finger to stall him and it was only then that Lou noticed that Alfred’s cheeks had lifted into a great big smile.

Lou stared at Alfred to catch his eye, hoping for a hint, a give-away, but Alfred avoided him.

‘No, Lou, you and Alfred have a dinner with Thomas Crooke and his partner, this is the meeting we’ve been trying to get all year,’ Mr Patterson laughed nervously.

Crumble, crumble, crumble. It was all coming tumbling down. Lou shuffled through his schedule, ran shaky fingers through his hair and wiped the beads of sweat on his forehead. He ran his finger along the freshly printed schedule, his tired eyes finding it hard to focus, his clammy forefinger smudging the words as he moved it along the page. There it was, the visual conference call with Arthur Lynch. No mention of a dinner. No damn mention of a damn dinner.

‘Mr Patterson, I’m well aware of the long-hoped-for meeting with Thomas Crooke,’ Lou cleared his throat and looked at Alfred with confusion, ‘but nobody confirmed any dinner with me, and I made it known to Alfred last week that I have a meeting with Arthur Lynch at seven thirty p.m. tonight,’ he repeated with some urgency. ‘Alfred? Do you know about this dinner meeting?’

‘Well, yeah, Lou,’ Alfred said in a ridiculing tone, with a shrug that went with it. ‘Of course I do. I cleared my schedule as soon as they confirmed it. It’s the biggest chance we’ve got to make the Manhattan development work. We’ve all been talking about this for months.’

The others around the table squirmed uncomfortably in their seats, though there were some, Lou was certain, who would be enjoying this moment profusely, documenting every sigh, look and word to rehash it to others as soon as they were out of the room.

‘Everybody, you can all get back to work,’ Mr Patterson said with concern. ‘We need to deal with this rather urgently, I fear.’

The room emptied and all that were left at the table were Lou, Alfred and Mr Patterson; and Lou instantly knew by Alfred’s stance and the look on his face, by his stubby fingers pressed together in prayer below his chin, that Alfred had already taken the higher moral ground on this one. Alfred was in his favourite mode, his most comfortable position of attack.

‘Alfred, how long have you known about this dinner and why didn’t you tell me?’ Lou immediately went on the offensive.

‘I told you, Lou.’ Alfred addressed him as though he were slow and unable to comprehend.

With Lou a sweaty, unshaven mess and Alfred so cool, he knew he wasn’t coming out of this looking the best. He removed his shaky fingers from the schedule and clasped his hands together.

‘It’s a mess, a bloody mess.’ Mr Patterson rubbed his chin roughly with his hands. ‘I needed both of you at that dinner, but I can’t have you missing the call with Arthur. The dinner can’t be changed, it took us too long to get it in the first place. How about the call with Arthur?’

Lou swallowed. ‘I’ll work on it.’

‘If not, there’s nothing we can do, except for Alfred to begin things, and Lou, as soon as you’ve finished your meeting, you make your way as quickly as you can to Alfred.’

‘Lou has serious negotiations to discuss, so he’ll be lucky if he makes it to the restaurant for after-dinner mints. I’ll be well able to manage it, Laurence.’ Alfred spoke from the side of his mouth with the same smirk that made Lou want to pick up the water jug from the middle of the table and bash it against Alfred’s head. ‘I’m capable of doing it alone.’

‘Yes, well, let’s hope Lou negotiates fast and that he’s successful, otherwise this entire day will have been a waste of time,’ Mr Patterson snapped, gathering his papers and standing up. Meeting dismissed.

Lou felt like he was in the middle of a nightmare; everything was falling apart, all his good work was being sabotaged.

‘Well, that was a disappointing meeting. I thought he was going to tell us about who was taking over when he leaves,’ Alfred said lazily. ‘Not a word out of him, would you believe. I really think he owes it to us to let us know, but I have been in the company longer than you, so …’

‘Alfred?’ Lou stared at him with amazement.

‘What?’ Alfred took a packet of chewing gum out of his pocket and threw one into his mouth. He offered one to Lou, who shook his head wildly.

‘I feel like I’m in the twilight zone. What the hell is going on here?’

‘You’re hungover is what’s going on. You look more like the homeless man than the homeless man himself,’ Alfred laughed. ‘And you should really take one of these,’ he offered the mint gum again, ‘your breath stinks of vomit.’

Lou waved them away again.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the dinner, Alfred?’ he said angrily.

‘I told you,’ Alfred said, smacking the gum in his mouth. ‘I definitely told you. Or I told Alison. Or was it Alison? Maybe it was the other one, the one with the really big boobs. You know, the one you were banging?’

Lou stormed off on him then and headed straight to Alison’s desk, where he threw the details of that evening’s dinner on her keyboard, stopping the acrylic nails from tapping.

She narrowed her eyes and read the brief.

‘What’s this?’

‘A dinner tonight. A very important one. At eight p.m. That I have to be at.’ He paced the area before her while she read it.

‘But you can’t, you have the conference call.’

‘I know, Alison,’ he snapped. ‘But I need to be at this.’ He stabbed a finger on the page. ‘Make it happen.’ He rushed into his office and slammed the door. He froze before he got to his desk. On the surface his mail was laid out.

He backtracked and opened his office door again.

Alison, who had snapped to it quickly, hung up the phone and looked up at him. ‘Yes?’ she said eagerly.

‘The mail.’

‘Yes?’

‘When did it get here?’

‘First thing this morning. Gabe delivered it the same time as always.’

‘He can’t have,’ Lou objected. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Yes,’ she said, concern on her face. ‘He brought me a coffee too. Just before nine, I think.’

‘But he can’t have. He was at my house,’ Lou said, more to himself.

‘Em, Lou, just one thing before you go … Is this a bad time to go over some details for your dad’s party?’

She’d barely finished her sentence before he’d gone back into his office and slammed the door behind him.

There are many types of wake-up calls in the world. For Lou Suffern, a wake-up call was a duty for his devoted BlackBerry to perform on a daily basis. At six a.m. every morning, when he was in bed both sleeping and dreaming at the same time, thinking of yesterday and planning tomorrow, his BlackBerry would dutifully and loudly ring in an alarming and screeching tone purposely uneasy on the ear. It would reach out from the bedside table and prod him right in the subconscious, taking him away from his slumber and dragging him into the world of the awakened. When this happened, Lou would wake up; eyes closed, then open. Body in bed, then out of bed; naked, then clothed. This, for Lou, was what waking up was about. It was the transition period from sleep to work.

For other people wake-up calls took a different form. For Alison at the office it was the pregnancy scare at sixteen that had forced her to make some choices; for Mr Patterson it was the birth of his first child that had made him see the world in a different light and affected every single decision he made. For Alfred it was his father’s loss of their millions when Alfred was twelve years of age that forced him to attend state school for a year, and although they had returned to their wealthy state without anybody of importance knowing about the family hiccup, this experience changed how he saw life and people forever. For Ruth, her wake-up call was when, on their summer holidays, she walked in on her husband in their bed with their twenty-six-year-old Polish nanny. For little Lucy at only five years old, it was when she looked out at the audience of her school play and saw an empty seat beside her mother. There are many types of wake-up calls, but only one that holds any real importance.

Today, though, Lou was experiencing a very different kind of wake-up call. Lou Suffern, you see, wasn’t aware that a person could be awakened when their eyes were already open. He didn’t realise that a person could be awakened when they were already out of their bed, dressed in a smart suit, doing deals and overseeing meetings. He didn’t realise a person could be awakened when they considered themselves to be calm, composed and collected, able to deal with life and all it had to throw at them. The alarm bells were ringing, louder and louder in his ear, and nobody but his subconscious could hear them. He was trying to knock it off, to hit the snooze button so that he could nestle down in the lifestyle he felt cosy with, but it wasn’t working. He didn’t know that he couldn’t tell life when he was ready to learn, but that life would teach him when it was good and ready. He didn’t know that he couldn’t press buttons and suddenly know it all; that it was the buttons in him that would be pressed.

Lou Suffern thought he knew it all.

But he was only about to scratch the surface.

17. Bump in the Night

At seven p.m. that evening, when the rest of his colleagues had been spat out of the office building and then sucked in by the spreading Christmas mania outside, Lou Suffern remained inside at his desk, feeling less like the dapper businessman and more like Aloysius, the schoolboy on detention, whom he’d fought so hard over the years to leave behind. Aloysius stared at the files on the desk before him with all the same excitement as being faced with a plate of veg, their very green existence presiding over his freedom. On discovering there was absolutely no possibility for Lou to cancel or rearrange the conference call, a seemingly genuinely disappointed Alfred had given Lou his best puppy eyes and gone into damage-limitation mode, sucking up any hint of involvement in the cock-up with all the strength of a Dyson, and worked on the best methods to approach the deal. As convincing as always, Alfred left Lou unable to remember what his issue had been with him in the first place, wondering why he’d blamed him for this mess at all. Alfred had this effect on people time and time again, taking the same course as a boomerang that had been dragged through shit yet still managed to find its way back to the same pair of open hands.

Outside was black and cold. Lines of traffic filled every bridge and quay as people made their way home, counting down the days of this mad rush to Christmas. Harry was right, it was all moving too quickly, the build-up feeling more of an occasion than the moment itself. Lou’s head pulsated more than it had that morning, and his left eye throbbed as the migraine worsened. He lowered the lamp on his desk, feeling sensitive to the light. He could barely think, let alone string a sentence together, and so he wrapped himself up in his cashmere coat and scarf and left his office to get to the nearest shop or pharmacy for some headache pills. He knew he was hungover but he was also sure he was coming down with something; the last few days he’d felt extraordinarily unlike himself. Disorganised, unsure of himself; traits that were surely due to illness.

The office corridors were dark; lights were out in all the private offices apart from a few emergency lights that were lowly lit for security guards doing their rounds. He pressed the elevator call button and waited for the start-up sound of the ropes pulling the elevator up the shaft. All was silent. He pressed the button again and looked up at the displayed levels. The ground floor was lit up but there was no movement. He pressed the button again. Nothing happened. He pressed it a few more times until the anger could no longer be suppressed and so he began punching. Out of service. Typical.

He moved away from the elevator in search of the fire escape and his head continued to pound. With thirty minutes until his meeting, he had just enough time to run up and down thirteen floors with the pills. Leaving the familiarity of the main office corridor, he pushed through a few doors he’d never really noticed before, and found himself in corridors that had narrowed and where the plush carpets disappeared. The thick walnut doors and wall panelling of his section were replaced by white paint and chipboard and the office sizes were reduced to box rooms. Instead of the fine art collection he studied each day in the corridors of his office, photocopiers and fax machines lined the halls.

Turning the corner, he stalled and chuckled to himself, Gabe’s secrets of speed revealed. Before him was a service elevator, and it all made sense. The doors were wide open, a ghastly white light of a long fluorescent strip illuminating the small grey cube. He stepped inside, his eyes aching from the light, and before he could even reach for the buttons on the panel, the doors closed and the elevator descended speedily. Its speed was twice as fast as the regular elevators, and again Lou was satisfied to have caught on to how Gabe had managed to make it from one place to another so quickly.

While the elevator continued to move downward he pressed the ground-floor button but it failed to light up. He thumped it a few times and, with growing concern, watched as the light moved from each floor number. Twelve, eleven, ten … The elevator picked up speed as it descended. Nine, eight, seven … It showed no signs of slowing. The elevator was rattling now as it sped along the ropes, and with growing fear and anxiety Lou began to press all of the buttons he could find, alarm included, but it was to no avail. The elevator continued to fall through the shaft on a course of its own choosing.

Only floors away from the ground level, Lou moved away from the doors quickly and hunched down, huddling in the corner of the elevator. He tucked his head between his knees, crossed his fingers and braced himself for the crash position.

Seconds later, the elevator slowed and suddenly stopped. Inside the elevator shaft, the cube bounced on the end of the ropes and shuddered from its sudden halt. When Lou opened his eyes, which had been scrunched shut, he saw that he’d stopped on the basement floor. As though the elevator had functioned normally the entire time, it omitted a cheery ping and the doors slid open. He shuddered at the sight, it was hardly the welcoming committee that greeted him each time he stepped off on the fourteenth floor. The basement was cold and dark, and the ground concrete and dusty. Not wanting to get off on this floor, he pressed the ground-floor button again to quickly get back to marble surfaces and carpets, to creamy toffee swirls and chromes, but again the button failed to light up, the elevator failed to respond and its doors stayed open. He had no choice but to step out and try to find the fire escape so that he could climb up a level to the ground floor. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator and placed both feet on the basement floor, the doors slid closed and the elevator ascended.

The basement was lowly lit. At the end of the corridor a fluorescent strip of light on the blink flashed on and off, which didn’t help his headache and made him lose his footing a few times. There was the loud hum of machines around, the ceilings hadn’t been filled in and so all the electrics and wiring were revealed. The floor was cold and hard beneath his leather shoes and dustmites bounced up to cover his polished tips. As he moved along the narrow hallway, searching for the escape exit, he heard the sound of music drifting out from under the door at the end of a hallway that veered off to the right. ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ by Chris Rea. Along the hallway on the opposite side, he saw the green escape sign of a man running out a door, illuminated above a metal door. He looked from the exit, back to the room at the end of the hall where music and light seeped from under the door. He looked at his watch. He still had time to make his way to the pharmacy and – providing the elevators worked – back to his office in time for the conference call. Curiosity got the better of him, and so he made his way down the hall and drummed his knuckles against the door. The music was so loud he could barely hear his own knock, and so slowly he opened the door and tucked his head around the corner.

The sight stole words from his mouth and ran off with them under its arm, cackling.

Inside was a small stock room, the walls lined with metal shelves, from floor to ceiling filled with everything from light bulbs to toilet rolls. There were two aisles, both of them no more than ten feet in length, and it was the second aisle that caught Lou’s attention. Through the shelving units, light came from the ground. Walking closer to the aisle, he could see the familiar sleeping bag laid out from the wall, reaching down the aisle and stopping short of the shelving unit. On the sleeping bag was Gabe, reading a book, so engrossed that he didn’t look up as Lou approached. On the lower shelves, a row of candles were lit, the scented kind that were dotted around the bathrooms of the offices, and a small shadeless lamp sent out a small amount of orange light in the corner of the room. Gabe was wrapped up in the same dirty blanket that Lou recognised from Gabe’s days out on the pathway. A kettle was on a shelf and a plastic sandwich packet was half-empty beside him. His new suit hung from a shelf, still covered in plastic and never worn. The image of the immaculate suit hanging from the metal shelf of a small stock room reminded Lou of his grandmother’s parlour, something precious and saved for the big occasion that never came, or that came and was never recognised.

Gabe looked up then and his book went flying from his hands, just missing a candle, as he sat up straight and alert.

‘Lou,’ he said, with fright.

‘Gabe,’ Lou said, and he didn’t feel the satisfaction he thought he should. The sight before him was sad. No wonder the man had been first at the office every morning and last there. This small store room piled high with shelves of miscellaneous junk had become Gabe’s home.

‘What’s the suit for?’ Lou asked, eyeing it up. It looked out of place in the dusty room. Everything was tired and used, left behind and forgotten, yet hanging from a wooden hanger was a clean, expensive suit. It didn’t fit in.

‘Oh, you never know when you’ll need a good suit,’ Gabe replied, watching Lou warily. ‘Are you going to tell?’ he asked, though he didn’t sound concerned, just interested.

Lou looked back at him and felt pity. ‘Does Harry know you’re here?’

Gabe shook his head.

Lou thought about it. ‘I won’t say a word.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’ve been staying here all week?’

Gabe nodded.

‘It’s cold in here.’

‘Yeah. Heat goes off down here when everyone leaves.’

‘I can get you a few blankets or, em, an electric heater or something, if you want,’ Lou said, feeling foolish as soon as the words were out.

‘Yeah, thanks, that would be good. Sit down.’ Gabe pointed to a crate that was on the bottom shelf. ‘Please.’

Lou rolled up his sleeves as he reached for the crate, not wanting the dust and dirt to spoil his suit, and he slowly sat down.

‘Do you want a coffee? It’s black, I’m afraid, the latte machine isn’t working.’

‘No thanks. I just stepped out to get a few headache pills,’ Lou replied, missing the joke while looking around in distraction. ‘I appreciate you driving me home last night.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘You handled the Porsche well.’ Lou studied him. ‘You driven one before?’

‘Yeah, sure, I have one out the back.’ Gabe rolled his eyes.

‘Yeah, sorry … how did you know where I lived?’

‘I guessed,’ Gabe said sarcastically, pouring himself a coffee. On Lou’s look he added, ‘Your house was the only one on the street with a bad taste in gates. Bad tasting gates at that. They had a bird on top. A bird?’ He looked at Lou as though the very thought of a metal bird caused a bad smell in the room, which it could very well have done had the scented candles not covered it.

‘It’s an eagle,’ Lou said defensively. ‘You know, last night I was …’ Lou began to apologise, or at least to explain his behaviour last night, then rethought it, not in the mood to have to explain himself to anybody, particularly to Gabe, who was sleeping on the floor of a basement stock room and still had the audacity to raise himself above Lou. ‘Why did you tell Ruth to let me sleep until ten?’

Gabe fixed those blue eyes on him, and despite the fact Lou had a six-figure salary and a multi-million-euro house in one of the most affluent areas in Dublin and all Gabe had was this, he once again felt like the underdog, like he was being judged.

‘Figured you needed the rest,’ Gabe responded.

‘Who are you to decide that?’

Gabe simply smiled.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘You don’t like me, do you, Lou?’

Well, it was direct. It was to the point, no beating around the bush, and Lou appreciated that.

‘I wouldn’t say I don’t like you,’ he said.

‘You’re worried about my presence in this building,’ Gabe continued.

‘Worried? No. You can sleep where you like. This doesn’t bother me.’

‘That’s not what I mean. Do I threaten you, Lou?’

Lou threw his head back and laughed. It was exaggerated and he knew it, but he didn’t care. It had the desired effect. It filled the room and echoed in the small concrete cell and open ceiling of revealed wires, and his very presence sounded larger than Gabe’s space. ‘Intimidated by you? Well, let’s see …’ He held his hands out to display the room Gabe was living in. ‘Do I really need to say any more?’ he said pompously.

‘Oh, I get it,’ Gabe smiled broadly, as though guessing the winning answer to a quiz. ‘I have fewer things than you. I forgot that meant something to you.’ He laughed lightly and clicked his fingers, leaving Lou feeling stupid.

‘Things aren’t important to me,’ Lou defended himself weakly. ‘I’m involved in lots of charities. I give things away all the time.’

‘Yes,’ Gabe nodded solemnly, ‘even your word.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You don’t keep that either.’ He moved on quickly and started rooting in a shoe box on the second shelf. ‘Your head still at you?’

Lou nodded and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

‘Here.’ Gabe stopped rooting and retrieved a small container of pills. ‘You always wonder how I get from place to place? Take one of these.’ He threw them across to Lou.

Lou studied them. There was no label on the container.

‘What are they?’

‘They’re a little bit of magic,’ he laughed. ‘When taken, everything becomes clear.’

‘I don’t do drugs.’ Lou handed them back, placing them on the end of the sleeping bag.

‘They’re not drugs.’ Gabe rolled his eyes.

‘Then what’s in them?’

‘I’m not a pharmacist, just take them, all I know is that they work.’

‘No thanks.’ Lou stood and prepared to leave.

‘They’d help you a lot, you know, Lou.’

‘Who says I need help?’ Lou turned around. ‘You know what, Gabe, you asked me if I don’t like you. That’s not true, I don’t really mind you. I’m a busy man, I’m not much bothered by you, but this, this is what I don’t like about you, patronising statements like that. I’m fine, thank you very much. My life is fine. All I have is a headache, and that’s all. Okay?’

Gabe simply nodded, and Lou turned around and made his way towards the door again.

Gabe started again. ‘People like you are –’

‘Like what, Gabe?’ Lou turned around and snapped, his voice rising with each sentence. ‘People like me are what? Hard working? Like to provide for their families? Don’t sit on their arses on the ground all day waiting for hand-outs? People like me who help people like you, who go out of their way to give you a job and make your life better …’

Had Lou waited to hear the end of Gabe’s sentence, he would have learned that Gabe wasn’t implying anything of the sort. Gabe was referring to people like Lou who were competitive. Ambitious people, with their eye on the prize instead of the task at hand. People who wanted to be the best for all the wrong reasons and who’d take almost any path to get to that place. Being the best was as equal as being in the middle, which was as equal as being the worst. All were merely a state of being. It was how a person felt in that state and why they were in that state that was the important thing.

Gabe wanted to explain to Lou that people like him were constantly looking over their shoulders, always looking at what the next person was doing, comparing themselves, looking to achieve greater things, always wanting to be better. And the entire point of Gabe telling Lou Suffern about people like Lou Suffern, was to warn him that people who constantly looked over their shoulders bumped into things.

Paths are so much clearer when people stop looking at what everyone else is doing and instead concentrate on themselves. Lou couldn’t afford to bump into things around about this point in the story. If he had, it would have surely ruined the ending, of which we’ve yet to get to. Yes, Lou had much to do.

But Lou didn’t stick around to hear any of that. He left the store room/Gabe’s bedroom, shaking his head with disbelief at Gabe’s cheek as he walked back down the corridor with the dodgy fluorescent lighting that flashed from brightness to darkness. He found his way to the escape exit and ran up the stairs to the ground floor.

The ground floor was immediately brown and warm and Lou was back in his comfort zone. The security guard looked up at him from his desk as Lou emerged from the emergency exit and frowned.

‘There’s something wrong with the elevators,’ Lou called out to him, not enough time now for him to get to a pharmacy and back in time for the conference call. He’d have to go straight up looking like this, feeling like this, head hot and mushy, with the ridiculous words of Gabe ringing in his ears.

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of it.’ The security guard made his way over to Lou. He leaned over and pressed the call button, which lit up immediately and the lift door opened.

He looked at Lou oddly.

‘Oh. Never mind. Thanks.’ Lou got back in the lift and made his way up to the fourteenth floor. He leaned his head against the mirror and closed his eyes and dreamed of being at home in bed with Ruth, cosied up beside him, wrapping her arm and leg around him as she always did – or used to do – as she slept.

When the elevator pinged on the fourteenth floor and the doors opened, Lou opened his eyes and jumped and screamed with fright.

Gabe stood directly before him in the hall – looking solemn – his nose almost touching the doors as they slid open. He rattled the container of pills in Lou’s face.

‘SHIT! GABE!’

‘You forgot these.’

‘I didn’t forget them.’

‘They’ll get rid of that headache for you.’

Lou snatched the container of pills from Gabe’s hand and stuffed them deep into his trouser pocket.

‘Enjoy.’ Gabe smiled with satisfaction.

‘I told you, I don’t do drugs.’ Lou kept his voice low, even though he knew he was alone on the floor.

‘And I told you they’re not drugs. Think of them as a herbal remedy.’

‘A remedy for what, exactly?’

‘For your problems, of which there are many. I believe I listed them out to you already.’

‘Says you, who’s sleeping on the floor of a bloody basement stock room,’ Lou hissed. ‘How’s about you take a pill and go about fixing your own life? Or is that what got you in this mess in the first place? You know, I’m getting tired of you judging me, Gabe, when I’m up here and you’re the one down there.’

Gabe’s expression was curious at that statement, which made Lou feel guilty. ‘Sorry,’ he sighed.

Gabe simply nodded.

Lou examined the pills as his head pounded, heavier now. ‘Why should I trust you?’

‘Think of it as a gift.’ Gabe repeated the words Lou had spoken only days before.

Along with it, Gabe’s gift brought chills down Lou Suffern’s spine.

18. Granted

Alone in his office, Lou took the pills from his pocket and placed them on his desk. He laid his head down and finally closed his eyes.

‘Christ, you’re a mess,’ he heard a voice say close to his ear and he jumped up.

‘Alfred,’ he rubbed his eyes, ‘what time is it?’

‘Seven twenty-five. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed your meeting. Thanks to me,’ he smirked, running his chubby, nicotine-stained, nail-bitten fingers along Lou’s desk, his one touch enough to tarnish everything and leave his dirty mark, which annoyed Lou. The term ‘grubby little mitts’ applied here.

‘Hey, what are these?’ Alfred picked up the pills and popped open the lid.

‘Give them to me.’ Lou reached out for them but Alfred pulled away. He emptied a few into his open clammy palm.

‘Alfred, give them to me,’ Lou said sternly, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice as Alfred moved about the room waving the container in the air, teasing him with the same air and issues of a school bully.

‘Naughty, naughty, Lou, what are you up to?’ Alfred asked in an accusing sing-song tone that chilled Lou to the core.

Knowing that Alfred was most likely to try to use these against him, Lou thought fast.

‘Looks like you’re concocting a story,’ Alfred smiled. ‘I know it when you’re bluffing, I’ve seen you in every meeting, remember? Don’t you trust me with the truth?’

Lou smiled and kept his tone easy, almost joking, but both were deadly serious. ‘Honestly? Lately, no. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hatched a plan to use that little container against me.’

Alfred laughed. ‘Now, really. Is that any way to treat an old friend?’

Lou’s smile faded. ‘I don’t know, Alfred, you tell me.’

They had a moment’s staring match. Alfred broke it.

‘Something on your mind, Lou?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Look,’ Alfred’s shoulders dropped, the bravado act over with and the new humble Alfred act begun, ‘if this is about the meeting tonight, be rest assured that I did not meddle with your appointments in any way. Talk to Louise. With Tracey leaving and Alison taking over, a lot of stuff got lost in the mix,’ he shrugged, ‘though between you and me, Alison seems a little flakey.’

‘Don’t blame it on Alison.’ Lou folded his arms.

‘Indeed,’ Alfred smiled and nodded slowly to himself, ‘I forgot that you two have a thing.’

‘We have no thing. For Christ’s sake, Alfred.’

‘Right, sorry.’ Alfred zipped his lips closed. ‘Ruth will never know, I promise.’

The very fact that he’d mentioned that unnerved Lou. ‘What’s gotten into you?’ Lou asked him, serious now. ‘What’s up with you? Is it stress? Is it the crap you’re putting up your nose? What the hell is up? Are you worried about the changes –’

‘The changes,’ Alfred snorted. ‘You make me sound like a menopausal woman.’

Lou stared at him.

‘I’m fine, Lou,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m the same as I’ve always been. It’s you that’s acting a little funny around here. Everyone’s talking about it, even Mr Patterson. Maybe it’s these.’ He shook the pills in Lou’s face, just as Gabe had done.

‘They’re headache pills.’

‘I don’t see a label.’

‘The kids scratched it off, now can you please stop mauling them and give them back?’ Lou held an open hand out towards Alfred.

‘Oh, headache pills. I see.’ Alfred studied the container again. ‘Is that what they are? Because I thought I heard the homeless guy saying that they were herbal?’

Lou swallowed. ‘Were you spying on me, Alfred? Is that what you’re up to?’

‘No,’ Alfred laughed easily, ‘I wouldn’t do that. I’ll have some of these checked out for you, to make sure they’re nothing stronger than headache pills.’ He took a pill, pocketed it, and handed back the container. ‘It’s nice to be able to find out a few things for myself when my friends are lying to me.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Lou agreed, glad to have the container back in his possession. ‘Like my finding out about the meeting you and Mr Patterson had a few mornings ago and the lunch you had last Friday.’

Unusually for Alfred, he looked genuinely shocked.

‘Oh,’ Lou said softly, ‘you didn’t know that I knew, did you? Sorry about that. Well, you’d better get to dinner or you’ll miss your appetiser. All work and no caviar makes Alfred a dull boy.’ He led a silent Alfred to his door, opened it and winked at him before closing it quietly in his face.

Seven thirty p.m. came and went without Arthur Lynch appearing on the fifty-inch plasma before Lou at the boardroom table. Aware that at any moment he could be seen by whoever would be present at the meeting, he attempted to relax in his chair, and tried not to sleep. At seven forty p.m., Mr Lynch’s secretary informed him that Mr Lynch would be a few more minutes.

While waiting, the increasingly sleepy Lou pictured Alfred in the restaurant, brash as could be, the centre of attention, loud and doing his best to entertain; stealing the glory, making or breaking a deal that Lou wouldn’t be associated with unless Alfred failed. In missing that – the most important meeting of the year – Lou was losing the biggest chance to prove himself to Mr Patterson. Cliff’s job and the empty office that came with it was dangled at him day in and day out like a carrot on a string. Cliff’s old office was down the hall next to Mr Patterson’s, blinds open and vacant. A larger office, with better light. It called to him. It had been six months since the memorable morning Cliff had had his breakdown – after a long process of unusual behaviour. Lou had finally found Cliff crouched under his desk, his body trembling, with the keyboard held tightly and close to his chest. Occasionally his fingers tapped away in some sort of panicked Morse code. They were coming to get him, he kept repeating, wide-eyed and terrified.

Who exactly they were, Lou had been unable to ascertain. He’d tried to gently coax Cliff out from under the desk, to make him put his shoes and socks back on, but Cliff had lashed out as Lou neared and hit him across the face with the attached mouse, swinging the wire around like a cowboy rope. The force of the small plastic mouse hadn’t hurt nearly as much as the sight of this young successful man falling apart. The office had lain empty for all those months and, as rumours of Cliff’s further demise drifted through offices, the sympathy for him lessened as the competition for his job increased. Lou had recently heard that Cliff had started seeing people again, and he had all the best intentions to visit. He knew he should, and he would at some point, but he just couldn’t seem to find the time …

Lou’s frustration grew as he stared at the black plasma still yet to come alive. His head pounded and he could barely think as his migraine spread from the base of his head to his eyes. Feeling desperate, he retrieved the pills from his pocket and stared at them.

He thought of Gabe’s knowledge of Mr Patterson and Alfred’s meeting and of how Gabe had correctly judged the shoe situation, of how Gabe had provided him with coffee the previous morning, driven him home and somehow won Ruth over. Convincing himself that on every occasion Gabe had never let him down, and that he could trust him now, Lou shook the open container and one small white glossy pill rolled out onto the palm of his sweaty hand. He played with it for a while, rolling it around in his fingers, licked it; and when nothing drastic happened, he popped it into his mouth and quickly downed it with a glass of water.

Lou held on to the boardroom table with both hands, gripping it so hard that his sweaty prints were visible on the glass surface laid to protect the solid walnut. He waited. Nothing happened. He lifted his hands from the table and studied them as though the effects would be seen on his sweaty palms. Still nothing out of the ordinary happened, no unusual trip, nothing life-threatening apart from his head, which continued to pound.

At seven forty-five p.m. there was still no sign of Arthur Lynch on the plasma. Lou tapped his pen against the glass impatiently, no longer caring about how he’d appear to the people on the other side of the camera. Already paranoid beyond reasoning, Lou began to convince himself that there was no meeting at all, that Alfred had somehow orchestrated this staged meeting so that he could have dinner by himself and negotiate the deal. But Lou wouldn’t allow Alfred to sabotage any more of his hard work. He stood quickly, grabbed his overcoat and charged for the door. He pulled it open and had one foot over the threshold when he heard a voice coming from the plasma behind him.

‘I’m very sorry for keeping you waiting, Mr Suffern.’

The voice stalled Lou in his march. He closed his eyes and sighed, kissing his dream of the top office with the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of Dublin goodbye. He quickly thought about what to do: run and make it in time for dinner or turn around and face the music. Before he had time to make the decision, the sound of another voice in the office almost stopped his heart.

‘No problem, Mr Lynch, and please call me Lou. I understand how things can run over time so there are no apologies needed. Let’s get down to business, shall we? We have a lot to discuss.’

‘Certainly, Lou. And call me Arthur, please. We do have rather a lot to get through, but before I introduce you to these two gentlemen beside me, would you like to finish your business up there? I see you have company?’

‘No, Arthur, it’s just me here in the office,’ Lou heard himself say. ‘Everyone else has deserted me.’

‘That man there by the door, I can see him on our screen.’

Spotted, Lou slowly turned around and came face to face with himself. He was still seated at the boardroom table, in the same place as he had been waiting before he had planned his escape, grabbed his coat and made for the door. The face that greeted him was also a picture of shock. The ground swirled beneath Lou and he held on to the door frame to stop himself from falling.

‘Lou? Are you there?’ Arthur asked, and both heads in the office turned to face the plasma.

‘Erm, yes, I’m here,’ Lou at the board table stammered. ‘I’m sorry, Arthur, that gentleman is a … a colleague of mine. He’s just leaving, I believe he has an important dinner meeting to get to.’ Lou turned around and threw Lou at the door a warning look. ‘Don’t you?’

Lou simply nodded and left the room, his knees and legs shaking with his every step. At the elevators, he held on to the wall as he tried to catch his breath and let the dizziness subside. The elevator doors opened and he fell inside, thumping the ground-floor button and hunkering down in the corner of the space, moving farther and farther away from himself on the fourteenth floor.

At eight p.m., as Lou was in the boardroom of Patterson Development offices negotiating with Arthur Lynch, at the same time as Alfred and the team of men were being led to their table, Lou entered the restaurant. He offered his cashmere coat to the host, adjusted his tie, smoothed down his hair and made his way over, one hand in his pocket with the other swinging by his side. His body was loose again, nothing rigid, nothing contained. In order to function he needed to feel the swing of his body, the casual motion of a man who personally doesn’t care about the decision either way, but who will do his best to convince you otherwise, because his only concern is the client.

‘Pardon me, gentlemen, for being a little delayed,’ he said smoothly to the men whose noses were buried deep in their menus.

They all looked up and Lou was exceptionally happy to see the expression on Alfred’s face: a Mexican wave of revealing emotions, from surprise, to disappointment, to resentment, to anger. Each look told Lou that this cock-up had indeed been caused deliberately by Alfred. Lou made his way around the table greeting his dinner guests, and by the time he reached Alfred, his friend’s smug face had sent his former look of shock whimpering away into the corner.

‘Patterson is going to kill you.’ He spoke quietly from the side of his mouth. ‘But at least one deal will be done tonight. Welcome, my friend.’ He shook Lou’s hand, his deliriousness in sensing Lou’s sacking tomorrow lighting up his face.

‘It’s all been taken care of,’ Lou simply replied, turning to take his place a few seats away.

‘What do you mean?’ Alfred asked, in a tone that revealed he had forgotten where he was. Lou felt Alfred’s tight grip around his arm preventing him from moving away.

Lou looked around at the table and smiled, and then turned his back. He discreetly removed each of Alfred’s fingers from his arm. ‘I said, it’s all been taken care of,’ Lou repeated.

‘You cancelled the conference call? I don’t get it.’ Alfred smiled nervously. ‘Let me in on it.’

‘No, no, it’s not cancelled. Don’t worry, Alfred, let’s pay our guests some attention now, shall we?’ Lou flashed his pearly whites and finally extricated himself from Alfred’s grip so he could move to his chair. ‘Now, gentlemen, what looks good on this menu? I can recommend the foie gras, I’ve had it here before, it’s a treat.’ He smiled at the team and immersed himself in the pleasure of deal-making.

At nine twenty p.m., after the visual conference call with Arthur Lynch, an exhausted yet exhilarated and triumphant Lou stood outside the window of The Saddle Room restaurant. He was wrapped up in his coat as the December wind picked up, his scarf tight around his neck, yet he didn’t feel the cold as he watched himself through the window, suave and sophisticated and holding everyone’s attention as he told a story. Everybody’s face was interested, all but Alfred, and after five minutes of his animated hand gestures and facial expressions, all the men started laughing. Lou could tell from his body movements that he was telling the story of how he and his colleagues had wandered into a gay bar in London instead of the lapdancing bar they had thought it was. Looking at himself telling the story, he decided then and there never to tell it again. He looked like a prat.

He felt a presence beside him, and he didn’t need to look around to know who it was.

‘You’re following me?’ he asked, still watching through the window.

‘Nah, just figured you’d come here,’ Gabe responded, shivering and stuffing his hands into his pockets. ‘How are you doing in there? Entertaining the crowd as usual, I see.’

‘What’s going on, Gabe?’

‘Busy man like you? You got what you wished for. Now you can do everything. Mind you, it’ll wear off by the morning so watch out for that.’

‘Which one of us is the real me?’

‘Neither of you, if you ask me.’

Lou looked at him then and frowned. ‘Enough of the deep insights, please. They don’t work on me.’

Gabe sighed. ‘Both of you are real. You both function as you always do. You’ll merge back into one and be as right as rain again.’

‘And who are you?’

Gabe rolled his eyes. ‘You’ve been watching too many movies. I’m Gabe. The same guy you dragged off the streets.’

‘What’s in these?’ Lou took the pills out of his pocket. ‘Are they dangerous?’

‘A little bit of insight. And that never killed anyone.’

‘But these things, you could really make some money from these. Who knows about them?’

‘All the right people – the people who made them – and don’t you go trying to make a fortune from them or you’ll have a few people to answer to.’

Lou backed off for the moment. ‘Gabe, you can’t just double me up and then expect me to accept it without question. This could have dire medical consequences for me, not to mention life-changing psychological reactions. And the rest of the world really needs to know about this, this is insane! We really need to sit down and talk about it.’

‘Sure we will.’ Gabe studied him. ‘And then, when you tell the world, you’ll either be locked up in a padded cell or become a freakshow act, and every day you can read about yourself in exactly the same amount of column inches as Dolly the cloned sheep. If I were you I’d just keep quiet about it all and make the best of a very fortunate situation. You’re very pale. Are you okay?’

Lou laughed hysterically. ‘No! I’m not okay. This is not normal, why are you behaving like this is normal?!’

Gabe just shrugged. ‘I’m used to it, I guess.’

‘Used to it?’ Lou gritted his teeth. ‘Well, where do I go now?’

‘Well, you’ve taken care of business at the office, and it looks like your other half is taking care of business here.’ Gabe smiled. ‘That would leave one special place for you to go.’

Lou thought about that and then slowly a smile crawled onto his face and light entered his eyes as he finally understood Gabe for the first time that evening. ‘Okay, let’s go.’

‘What?’ Gabe seemed taken aback. ‘Let’s go where?’

‘The pub. First drink is on me. Christ, the look on your face! Why, where else were you expecting me to go?’

‘Home, Lou.’

‘Home?’ Lou scrunched up his face. ‘Why would I do that?’ He turned back to watch himself at the dinner table, launching into yet another story. ‘Oh, that’s the one about the time I was stranded in Boston airport. There was this woman on the same flight as me …’ He smiled, turning around to Gabe to tell the story, but Gabe was gone.

‘Suit yourself,’ Lou mumbled. He watched himself for a little bit longer, in shock and unsure whether he was really experiencing this night. He definitely deserved a pint, and if the other half of him was heading home after the dinner, that meant he could stay out all night and nobody would notice – nobody, that was, but the person he was with. Happy days.

19. Lou Meets Lou

A triumphant Lou rolled up to his home, gratified by the sound of the gravel beneath his wheels and the sight of his electronic gates closing behind him. The dinner meeting had been a success: he had commanded the conversation, had done some of the best convincing, negotiating and entertaining that he’d ever done. They’d laughed at his jokes, all his best ones, they’d hung on his every word. All gentlemen had left the table in agreement and content. He’d shared a final drink with an equally jubilant Alfred before driving home.

The lights in the downstairs rooms were all out, but upstairs, despite this late hour, all were on, bright enough to help land a plane.

He stepped inside, into the blackness. Usually, Ruth left the entrance-hall lamp on, and he felt around the walls for the lights. There was an ominous smell.

‘Hello?’ he called. His voice echoed three flights up to the skylight in the roof.

The house was a mess, not the usual tidiness that greeted him when he came home. Toys were scattered around the floor. He tutted.

‘Hello?’ He made his way upstairs. ‘Ruth?’

He waited for her shushing to break the silence, but it didn’t.

Instead, once he reached the landing, Ruth ran from Lucy’s bedroom, dashing by him, hand over her mouth, eyes wide and bulging. She hurried into their bathroom and closed the door. This was followed by the sound of her vomiting.

Down the hall, Lucy started to cry and call for her mother.

Lou stood in the middle of the landing, looking from one room to the other, frozen on the spot, unsure what to do.

‘Go to her, Lou,’ Ruth just about managed to say, before another encounter with the toilet bowl.

He was hesitant and Lucy’s cries got louder.

‘Lou!’ Ruth yelled, more urgently this time.

He jumped, startled by her tone, and made his way to Lucy’s room. He slowly pushed open the door, peeking inside, feeling like an intruder as he entered a world he had rarely ventured into before. Dora the Explorer welcomed him inside. The smell of vomit was pungent in his daughter’s room. Her bed was empty, but her sheets and pink duvet unkempt from where she’d slept. He followed her sounds into the bathroom and found her on the tiles, bunny slippers on her feet and throwing up into the toilet. She was crying, weeping quietly as she did so. Spitting and crying, crying and spitting, her sounds echoing in the base of the toilet.

Lou stood there, looking around, briefcase still in hand, unsure of what to do. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and covered his nose and mouth, to block the smell and to prevent the infection from spreading to him.

Ruth returned, much to his relief, and noted him just idly standing by watching his five-year-old daughter being ill, and then barged by him to tend to her.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart.’ Ruth fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around her daughter. ‘Lou, I need you to get me two damp facecloths.’

‘Damp?’

‘Run them under some cold water and rinse them out so they’re not dripping wet,’ she explained calmly.

‘Of course, yes.’ He shook his head at himself. He wandered slowly out of the bedroom, then froze once again on the landing. Looked left, looked right. He returned to the bedroom. ‘Facecloths are in the …’

‘Hotpress,’ Ruth said.

‘Of course.’ He made his way to the hotpress and, still with his briefcase in hand and his coat on, with one hand he fingered the various colours of facecloths. Brown, beige or white. He couldn’t decide. Choosing brown, he returned to Lucy and Ruth, ran them under the tap and handed them to her, hoping what he’d done was correct.

‘Not just yet,’ Ruth explained, rubbing Lucy’s back as her daughter took a break.

‘Okay, erm, where will I put them?’

‘Beside her bed. And can you change her sheets? She had an accident.’

Lucy started to weep again, tiredly nuzzling into her mother’s chest. Ruth’s face was pale, her hair tied back harshly, her eyes tired, red and swollen. It seemed it had already been a hectic night.

‘The sheets are in the hotpress too. And the Deoralite is in the medicine cabinet in the utility room.’

‘The what?’

‘Deoralite. Lucy likes blackcurrant. Oh God,’ she said, jumping up, hand over her mouth again, and running down the hall to their own en suite.

Lou was left in the bathroom alone with Lucy, whose eyes were closed as she leaned up against the bath. Then she looked at him sleepily. He backed out of the bathroom and started to remove the soiled sheets from her bed. As he was doing so, he heard Pud’s cries from the next room. He sighed, finally put down his briefcase, took off his coat and suit jacket, and threw them out of the way, into Dora’s tent. He opened the top button of his shirt, loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves.

Lou stared deep into his Jack Daniel’s and ice and ignored the barman, who was leaning over the counter and speaking aggressively into his ear.

‘Do you hear me?’ the barman growled.

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’ Lou’s tongue stumbled over his words, like a five-year-old walking with untied shoelaces, already unable to remember what he’d done wrong. He waved a limp hand dismissively through the air as though wafting away a fly.

‘No, not whatever, buddy. Leave her alone, okay? She doesn’t want you to talk to her, she doesn’t want to hear your story, she is not interested in you. Okay?’

‘Okay, okay,’ Lou grumbled then, remembering the rude blonde who’d kept ignoring him. He’d happily not talk to her, he wasn’t getting much conversation out of her anyway and the journalist he’d spoken to earlier didn’t seem much interested in the amazing story that was his life. He kept his eyes down into his whisky. A phenomenon had occurred tonight, and nobody was interested in hearing his story. Had the world gone mad? Had they all become so used to new inventions and scientific discoveries that the very thought of a man being cloned no longer had shock value? No, the young occupants of this trendy bar would rather sip away at their cocktails, the young women swanning about in the middle of December with their tanned legs, short skirts and highlighted hair, designer handbags hooked over extended brown arms like candelabras, each one looking as exotic and as at home as a coconut in the north pole. This they cared more about than the greater events of the country. A man had been cloned. There were two Lou Sufferns in the city tonight. Bilocation was a reality. He laughed to himself and shook his head at the hilarity of it all. He alone knew the great depths of the universe’s abilities, and nobody was interested in learning.

He felt the barman’s stare searing into him and so he stopped his solo chortling and instead concentrated again on his ice. He watched it shifting in the glass as it squirmed around trying to get comfortable, falling deeper and deeper into the liquid. It made his eyes droop just watching it. The barman finally left him to his own devices and tended to the others crowded around the bar. Around the lonesome Lou, the noise continued, the sound of people being with other people: after-work flirting, after-work fighting, tables of girls huddled together with eyes locked in as they caught up, circles of young men standing with eyes locked outwards and shifty movements. Tables were dominated by drinks covered with beer mats, the empty seats around them a sign that the people belonging to the glasses were outside striking up matches and new relationships in the smokers’ quarters.

Lou looked around to catch somebody’s eye. He was fussy at first about his chosen confidant, preferring somebody good looking to share his story with for the second time, but then he decided to settle on anybody. Surely somebody would care about the miracle that had occurred.

The only eye he succeeded in meeting was that of the barman again.

‘Gimme me nuther one,’ Lou slurred when the barman neared him. ‘A neat Jack on th’rocks.’

‘I just gave you another one,’ the barman responded, a little amused this time, ‘and you haven’t even touched that.’

‘So?’ Lou closed one eye to focus on him.

‘So, what good is there in having two at the same time?’

At that, Lou started laughing, a chesty wheezy laugh with the presence of the bitter December breeze that had darted into his chest for warmth as soon as it had seen his coat open and his chest revealed, moving quick like a frazzled cat through a doorflap at the sound of a firework.

‘I think I missed the joke,’ the barman smiled. Now that the bar counter was quiet, he may have had no drink to give to pass the time, but he’d time to give the drunk.

‘Ah, nobody here cares.’ Lou got angry again, waving his hand dismissively at the crowd around him. ‘All they care about is Sex on the Beach, thirty-year mortgages and St Tropez. I’ve been listenin’ and that’s all they’re sayin’.’

The barman laughed. ‘Just keep your voice down. What don’t they care about?’

Lou turned serious now and fixed the barman with his best serious stare. ‘Cloning.’

The barman’s face changed, interest lighting up his eyes, finally something different for him to hear about rather than the usual woes. ‘Cloning? Right, you have an interest in that, do you?’

‘An interest? I have more than an interest.’ Lou laughed patronisingly and then winked at the barman. He took another sip of his whisky and prepared to tell the story. ‘This may be hard for you to believe, but I’, he took a deep breath, ‘have been cloned,’ he began. ‘This guy gave me pills and I took them,’ he said, then hiccuped. ‘You probably don’t believe me but it happened. Saw it with my own two eyes.’ He pointed at his eye, misjudged his proximity and poked himself. Moments later, after the sting was gone and he had rubbed away the tears, he continued chatting. ‘There’s two of me,’ he continued, holding up four fingers, then three, then one, then finally two.

‘Is that so?’ the barman asked, picking up a pint glass and beginning to pour a Guinness. ‘Where’s the other one of you? I bet he’s as sober as a judge.’

Lou laughed, wheezy again. ‘He’s at home with my wife,’ he chuckled. ‘And with my kids. And I’m here, with her.’ He directed his thumb to the left of him.

‘Who?’

Lou looked to the side and almost toppled off his bar stool in the process. ‘Oh, she’s – where is she?’ He turned around to the barman again. ‘Maybe she’s in the toilet – she’s gorgeous, we were having a good chat. She’s a journalist, she’s going to write about this. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m here having all the fun, and he’s,’ he laughed again, ‘he’s at home with my wife and kids. And tomorrow, when I wake up, I’m going to take a pill – not drugs, they’re herbal, for my headache.’ He pointed to his head seriously. ‘And I’m going to stay in bed and he can go to work. Ha! All the things that I am going to do, like,’ he thought hard but failed to come up with anything, ‘like, oh, so, so many things. All the places I’m going to go. It’s a fucking mir’cle. D’ya know when I last had a day off?’

‘When was that?’

Lou thought hard. ‘Last Christmas. No phone calls, no computer. Last Christmas.’

The barman was dubious. ‘You didn’t take a holiday this year?’

‘Took a week. With the kids.’ He ruffled up his nose. ‘Fucking sand everywhere. On my laptop, in my phone. And this.’ He reached into his pocket and took out his BlackBerry and slammed it on the bar counter.

‘Careful.’

‘This thing. Follows me everywhere; sand in it and it still works. The drug of the nation. This thing.’ He poked it, mistakenly pressing some buttons, which lit up the screen. Ruth and the kids smiled back at him. Pud with his big silly toothless grin, Lucy’s big brown eyes peeping out from under her fringe, Ruth holding them both. Holding them all together. He studied it momentarily with a smile on his face. The light went out, the picture faded to black and the device sat staring at him. ‘In the B’hamas,’ he continued, ‘and beep-beep, they got me. Beep-beep, beep-beep, they get me,’ he laughed again. ‘And the red light. I see it in my sleep, in the shower, every time I close my eyes, the red light and the beep-beep. I hate the fucking beep-beep.’

‘So take a day off,’ the barman said.

‘Can’t. Too much to do.’

‘Well, now that you’re cloned, you can take all the days off that you want,’ the barman joked, looking around so that nobody else could hear him.

‘Yeah,’ Lou smiled dreamily, ‘there’s so much I want to do.’

‘Like what? What do you want to do now, more than anything in the world?’

Lou closed his eyes and, taking advantage of his closed eyelids, the dizziness swept in to knock him off his stool. ‘Whoa –’ He opened his eyes quickly. ‘I want to go home, but I can’t. He won’t let me. I called him earlier and said I was tired and wanted to go home. He wouldn’t let me,’ he snorted. ‘Mr High Almighty said no.’

‘Who said?’

‘The other me.’

‘The other you told you to stay out?’ The barman tried not to laugh.

‘He’s at home, so there can’t be two of us. But I’m tired now.’ His eyelids drooped. They opened wide again as he thought of something. He leaned in close to the barman, dropped his voice. ‘I watched him from the window, you know.’

‘The other you?’

‘Now you’re getting it. I went home and watched him from outside. He was in there, moving about with his sheets and his towels, running upstairs, running downstairs, running from room to room like he thought he was something special.’ He snorted. ‘One minute I’m watching him tell his stupid jokes at dinner and then the next he’s making beds at home. Thinks he can do both.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘So I came back in here.’

‘So maybe he can,’ the barman smiled.

‘Maybe he can what?’

‘Maybe he can do both,’ the barman winked. ‘Go home,’ he said, taking Lou’s empty glass before moving down the end of the bar to serve another customer.

As the young customer rattled off his order, Lou thought long and hard about that. If he couldn’t go home, he had nowhere else to go.

* * *

‘It’s okay, sweetie, it’s okay, Daddy’s here,’ Lou said, holding Lucy’s hair back from her face and rubbing her back as she leaned over the toilet and vomited for the twentieth time that night. He sat on the cold bathroom tiles, in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, and leaned against the bath as her tiny body convulsed one more time and expelled more vomit.

‘Daddy …’ Her voice was tiny through her tears.

‘It’s okay, sweetie, I’m here,’ he repeated sleepily. ‘It’s almost over.’ It had to be, how much more could her tiny body get rid of?

Every twenty minutes he’d gone from sleeping in Lucy’s bed to assisting her in the bathroom, where she’d thrown up, her body going from freezing to boiling and back again in a matter of minutes. Usually it was Ruth’s duty to stay up all night with the children, sick or otherwise, but unfortunately for Lou, and for Ruth, she was having the same experience as Lucy in their own bathroom down the hall. Gastroenteritis, always an end-of-year gift brought around the Christmas season for those whose systems were ready to wave goodbye to the year before the calendar was.

Lou carried Lucy to her bed again, her small hands clinging around his neck. Already she was asleep, exhausted by what the night had brought her. As he laid her down on the bed, he wrapped her now cold body in blankets and tucked her favourite bear close to her face, as Ruth had shown him before running for the toilet again. His mobile vibrated again on the pink princess bedside locker. At four a.m., it was the fifth time he’d received a phone call from himself. Glancing at the caller display, his own face flashed up on the screen.

‘What now?’ he whispered into the phone, trying to keep his voice and anger at a low.

‘Lou! It’s me, Lou!’ came the drunken voice at the other end, followed by a raucous laugh.

‘Stop calling me,’ he said, a little louder now.

In the background there was music thumping, voices loud and a gabble of non-specific words. He could hear glasses clinking, various levels of shouts and laughter exploding every few moments from different corners of the room. Alcohol fumes almost drifted down the phone and penetrated the peaceful innocent world of his daughter. Subconsciously, he blocked the receiver with his hand, to protect her from the intrusion of the adult world seeping into her sleeping world.

‘Where are you?’

‘Leeson Street. Somewhere,’ he shouted back. ‘I met this girl, Lou,’ came the voice. ‘Fucking amazing! You’ll be proud of me. No, you’ll be proud of you!’ Raucous laughter again.

‘What?!’ Lou barked loudly. ‘No! Don’t do anything!’ he shouted, and Lucy’s eyes fluttered open momentarily like two little butterflies, big brown eyes glancing at him with fright, but then on seeing him – her daddy – the alerted look disappeared, a small smile crept onto her lips and her eyes closed again with exhaustion. That look of trust, the faith she had put in him in that one simple look, did something to him right then. He knew he was her protector, the one that could take away the fright and put a smile on her face, and it gave him a better feeling than he’d ever felt in his life. Better than the deal at dinner; better than seeing the look on Alfred’s face when he’d arrived. It made him hate the man at the end of the phone, loathe him so much that he felt like knocking him out. His daughter was at home, throwing her guts up, so much so that her entire body was so exhausted she could barely keep her eyes open or stand, and there he was, out getting drunk, chasing skirts, expecting Ruth to do all this without him. He hated the man at the end of the phone.

‘But she’s hot, if you could just see her,’ he slurred.

‘Don’t you even think about it,’ he said threateningly, his voice low and mean. ‘I swear to God, if you do anything, I will …’

‘You’ll what? Kill me?’ More raucous laughter. ‘Sounds like you’d be cutting off your nose to spite your face, my friend. Well, where the hell am I supposed to go, huh? Tell me that? I can’t go home, I can’t go to work?’

The door to the bedroom opened then and an equally exhausted Ruth appeared.

‘I’ll call you back.’ He hung up quickly.

‘Who was on the phone at this hour?’ she asked quietly. She was dressed in her robe, her arms hugging her body protectively. Her eyes were bleary and puffed, her hair pulled back in a ponytail; she looked so fragile, a raised voice might blow her over and break her. For the second time that night his heart melted again and he moved towards her, arms open.

‘It was just a guy I know,’ he whispered, stroking her hair. ‘He’s out drunk, I wish he’d stop calling. He’s a loser,’ he added quietly. He snapped the phone shut and tossed it aside into a pile of teddybears. ‘How are you?’ He pulled away and examined her face closely. Her head was boiling hot, but she shivered in his arms.

‘I’m fine.’ She gave him a wobbly smile.

‘No, you’re not fine, go back to bed and I’ll get you a face-cloth.’ He kissed her affectionately on the forehead. Her eyes closed and her body relaxed in his arms.

He almost broke their embrace to punch the air and holler with celebration, because for the first time in a long time he felt her give up the fight with him. For the past six months, when he held her she had been rigid and taut, as though she felt by doing that she was showing him she wasn’t accepting his ways, she was protesting and refusing to validate his behaviour. He revelled in the moment of feeling her relax against him; a silent but huge victory for their marriage.

Among the pile of teddies his phone vibrated again, bouncing around in Paddington Bear’s arms. His face flashed up again on screen and he had to look away, not able to stand the sight of himself. He could understand how Ruth felt now.

‘There’s your friend again,’ Ruth said, pulling away slightly, allowing him to reach for his phone.

‘No, leave him.’ He ignored it, bringing her closer to him again. ‘Ruth,’ he said gently, lifting her chin so she could look at him. ‘I’m sorry.’

Ruth looked up at him in shock, and then examined him curiously for the catch. There had to be a catch. Lou Suffern had said he was sorry. Sorry was not a word in his vocabulary.

From the corner of Lou’s eye, the phone vibrated, hopping around and falling out of Paddington Bear’s paws and onto Winnie the Pooh’s head, being passed around teddy to teddy like a hot potato. Each time the phone stopped, it quickly started again, his face lighting up on screen, smiling at him, laughing at him, telling him he was weak for uttering those words. He fought that side of him, that drunken, foolish, childish, irrational side of him, and refused to answer the phone, refused to let go of his wife. He swallowed hard.

‘I love you, you know.’

It was as though it was the first time she’d ever heard it. It was as though they were back to the very first Christmas they’d spent together, sitting by the Christmas tree in her parents’ house in Galway, the cat curled in a ball on its favourite cushion by the fire, the crazy dog a few years too many in this world outside in the back garden, barking at everything that moved and didn’t move. Lou had told her then, by the fake white Christmas tree that had been fought over by Ruth’s parents only hours before – Mr O’Donnell wanting a real pine tree, Mrs O’Donnell not wanting to have to continuously vacuum the pine needles. The gaudy tree was slowly lit up by tiny green, red and blue bulbs, and then the lights would slowly fade again. This happened over and over, and, despite its ugliness, it was relaxing, like a chest heaving slowly up and down. It was the first moment they’d had together all day, the only moments they’d have before he’d have to sleep on the couch and Ruth would disappear to her room. He wasn’t planning on saying it, in fact he was planning on never saying it, but it had popped out, as naturally as a newborn. He’d struggled with it for a while, twisting the words around in his mouth, pushing, then withdrawing, not brave enough to say them. But then the words were out and his world had immediately changed. Twenty years later in their daughter’s bedroom, it felt like the same moment all over again, with that same look of pleasure, and surprise, on Ruth’s face.

‘Oh Lou,’ she said softly, closing her eyes and savouring the moment. Then suddenly her eyes flicked open, a flash of alarm in them that scared Lou to death about what she would say. What did she know? His past behaviour came gushing at him as he panicked, like a school of ghostly piranhas, coming back to haunt him and nipping him in the backside. He thought of the other part of him, out and drunk, possibly destroying this new relationship with his wife, destroying the repairs it had taken them both so much to achieve. He had a vision of the two Lous: one building a brick wall, the other moving behind him with a hammer and knocking down everything as soon as it was built. In reality that’s what Lou had been doing all along. Building his family up with one hand, while in the other his behaviour was shattering everything he’d strived so hard to create.

Ruth quickly let go of him, rushed away from him and into the bathroom, where he heard the toilet seat go up and the contents of her insides empty into the bowl. Hating anyone being with her during moments like this, Ruth, a multi-tasker as always, mid-vomit, managed to lift her leg to kick the bathroom door closed.

Lou sighed and collapsed to the floor in the pile of teddies. He picked up the phone that had begun to vibrate for the fifth time.

‘What now?’ he said in a dull voice, expecting to hear his own drunken voice on the other end. But he didn’t.

20. The Turkey Boy 4

‘Bullshit,’ the Turkey Boy said as Raphie paused for breath.

Raphie didn’t say anything, instead he chose to wait for something more constructive to come out of the Turkey Boy’s mouth.

‘Total bullshit,’ he said again.

‘Okay, that’s enough,’ Raphie said, standing up from the table and gathering the mug, Styrofoam cup and sweet-wrappers of the chocolates that he’d managed to munch through while he told his story. ‘I’ll leave you alone in peace now to wait for your mother.’

‘No, wait!’ Turkey Boy spoke up.

Raphie continued walking to the door.

‘You can’t just end the story there,’ he said incredulously. ‘You can’t leave me hanging.’

‘Ah, well, that’s what you get for being unappreciative,’ Raphie shrugged, ‘and for throwing turkeys through windows.’ He left the interrogation room.

Jessica was in the station’s tiny kitchen, having another coffee. Her eyes were red raw and the bags under them had blackened.

‘Coffee break already?’ He pretended not to notice her withering appearance.

‘You’ve been in there for ages.’ She blew and sipped, not moving the mug from her lips as she spoke, eyes on the notice-board in front of her.

‘Your face okay?’

She gave a single nod, the closest she’d ever get to commenting on the cuts and scrapes across her face. She changed the subject. ‘How far did you get in the story?’

‘Lou Suffern’s first doubling up.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I do believe “Bullshit” was the expression he used, which was then closely followed by “Total bullshit”.’

Jessica smiled lightly, blowing on her coffee and sipping again. ‘You got further than I thought. You should show him the tapes of that night.’

‘We got video surveillance of the pub he was in already?’ Raphie asked, flicking the switch on the kettle again. ‘Who the hell was working there on Christmas Day? Santa?’

‘No, we haven’t got that yet. But the recorded audio-visual conference call shows a guy who looks exactly like Lou walking out of his office. Certain people at Patterson Developments don’t seem to know how to take a day off.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Christmas Day, honestly.’

‘It could be the Gabe guy in the conference call. They look alike.’

‘Could be.’

‘Where is he anyway? He was supposed to be here an hour ago.’

Jessica shrugged.

‘Well, he’d better get his ass in here soon, and bring his driver’s licence like I told him to,’ Raphie fumed, ‘or I’ll …’

‘Or you’ll what?’

‘Or I’ll bring him in myself.’ She lowered the mug slowly from her lips and those intense, secretive eyes stared deep into his. ‘Bring him in for what, Raphie?’

Raphie ignored her and instead poured himself another coffee, adding two sugars, which Jessica – sensing his mood – did not protest to. He filled a Styrofoam cup with water and shuffled off down the corridor again.

‘Where are you going?’ she called after him.

‘To finish the story,’ he grumbled.

The Remainder of the Story

21. Man of the Moment

‘Wakey wakey,’ a sing-song voice penetrated Lou’s drunken dreams, where everything was being rerun a hundred times over: mopping Lucy’s brow, plugging Pud’s soother back into his mouth, holding back Lucy’s hair over the toilet, hugging his wife close, Ruth’s body relaxing against his, then back to Lucy’s heated brow again, Pud spitting out his soother, Ruth’s smile when he’d told her he loved her.

He smelled fresh coffee under his nose. He finally opened his eyes and jumped back with fright at the sight that greeted him, bumping his already throbbing head against the concrete wall.

Lou took a moment to adjust to his surroundings. Sometimes the visions that greeted his newly opened eyes of a morning were more comforting than others. As opposed to the mug of coffee that at that moment was thrust mere inches from his nose, he was more accustomed to the sound of a toilet flush acting as his wake-up call. Often, the wait for the mystery toilet-flusher to exit the bathroom and show her face in the bedroom was a long and unnerving one, and on some occasions, though rare, Lou had taken it upon himself to disappear from the bed, and the building – at exactly the same time – before the mystery woman had the opportunity to show her face.

On this particular morning after Lou Suffern had been doubled up for the very first time, he was faced with a new scenario: a man of similar age was before him thrusting a mug of coffee at him with a satisfied look on his face. This was certainly a new one for the books. Thankfully, the young man was Gabe, and Lou found, with much relief, that they were both fully dressed and that there was no toilet-flushing involved. With a throbbing head and the foul stench of rotting dead rats working his mouth, like a presidential candidate working a room on a campaign trail, he took in his surroundings.

He was on the ground. That he could tell by his proximity to the concrete and the longer distance to the open panelled ceiling with wires dripping down. The floor was hard despite the sleeping bag beneath him. He had a crick in his neck from the position his head had been rather unfortunately lodged in against the concrete wall. Above him, metal shelves towered to the ceiling: hard, grey, cold and depressing, they stood like the cranes that littered Dublin’s skyline, metal invaders umpiring a developing city. To the left, a shadeless lamp was the guilty party behind the unforgiving bright white light that wasn’t so much thrown around the room as it was aimed at Lou’s head, like a pistol in a steady hand. What was glaringly obvious was that he was in Gabe’s storage room, in the basement. Gabe stood over him, his hand thrust towards him, and in it a mug of steaming coffee. The sight was familiar, a mirror-image of only a week ago, when Lou had stopped on the street to offer Gabe a coffee. Only this time the image was as distorted and disturbing as a funfair mirror, because when Lou assessed the situation, it was him that was down here, and Gabe that was up there.

‘Thanks.’ He took the mug from Gabe, wrapping his cold hands around the porcelain. He shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here.’ His first words were a croak, and as he sat up he felt the weight of the world crashing down on his head as a hangover for the second morning running reminded him that although age had brought him much to celebrate – for example, the nose that as a boy had always been too big for his face, was finally, in his thirties, in proportion – this hangover was not one of them.

‘Yeah, someone promised to bring me an electric heater but I’m still waiting.’ Gabe grinned. ‘Don’t worry, I hear blue lips are in this season.’

‘Oh, sorry, I’ll get Alison on to that,’ Lou mumbled, and sipped on the black coffee. He had taken his initial wakening moment to figure out where he was, and once the confusion of his whereabouts had been cleared up and his position established, he relaxed and started drinking. But the one sip of caffeine that followed alerted him to another problem.

‘What the hell am I doing here?’ He sat up properly, attentive now, and studied himself for clues. He was dressed in yesterday’s suit, a crumpled, rumpled mess with some questionable, though mostly self-explanatory, stains on his shirt, tie and jacket. In fact there was dirt just about everywhere he looked. ‘What the hell is that smell?’

‘I think it’s you,’ Gabe smiled. ‘I found you around the back of the building last night throwing up into a skip.’

‘Oh God,’ Lou whispered, covering his face with his hands. Then he looked up, confused. ‘But last night I was home. Ruth and Lucy; they were sick. And as soon as they fell asleep, Pud woke up.’ He rubbed his face tiredly. ‘Did I just dream that?’

‘Nope,’ Gabe replied chirpily, pouring hot water into his instant coffee. ‘You did that too. You were very busy last night, don’t you remember?’

It took a moment for last night’s events to register with Lou, but the onslaught of memories of the previous night – the pill, doubling up – came to his mind and suddenly pennies were dropping all over the place like a malfunctioning coin dispenser.

‘That girl I met.’ He aborted the sentence, both wanting to know the answer and not wanting to know at exactly the same time. A part of him was sure of his innocence, while the other part of him wanted to take himself outside and beat himself up for possibly jeopardising his marriage again. His body broke out into a cold sweat, which added a new scent to the mix.

Gabe let him stew for a while, as he blew on his coffee and took tiny sips like a mouse nibbling on a hot piece of cheese.

‘You met a girl?’ he asked, wide-eyed and innocent.

‘I, erm, I met a – never mind – was I alone when you found me last night?’ Same question, different words. Both at the same time.

‘Indeed you were, very alone. Though not lonely, you were quite content to keep yourself company, mumbling about a girl,’ Gabe teased him. ‘Seemed as though you’d lost her and couldn’t remember where you’d put her. You didn’t find her at the bottom of the skip, anyway, though perhaps if we clear away the layer of vomit you deposited in the recycle bin, your cardboard cut-out woman may be revealed.’

‘What did I say? I mean, don’t tell me exactly, just tell me if I said anything about – you know – shit, if I’ve done something, Ruth will kill me.’ Tears sprang into his eyes. ‘I’m the biggest fucking asshole.’ He kicked away the crate that was at the end of the sleeping bag, with frustration.

Gabe’s smile faded, respecting this side of Lou. ‘You didn’t do anything with her.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I know.’

Lou studied him then, warily, curiously, distrustingly and then trusting all at the same time. Gabe seemed to be his everything right then: his one parent, the kidnapper he was growing to like, the only person who understood his situation, yet the one who had put him in that situation. A dangerous relationship.

‘Gabe, we really have to talk about these pills. I don’t want them any more.’ He took them out of his pocket. ‘I mean, last night was a revelation, it really was, in so many ways.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly, remembering the sound of his drunken voice at the end of the phone. ‘I mean, are there two of me now?’

‘No, you’re back to one again,’ Gabe explained. ‘Fig roll?’

‘But Ruth,’ Lou ignored him. ‘She’ll wake up and I’ll be gone. She’ll be worried. Did I just vanish?’

‘She’ll wake up and you’ll be gone to work, just like always.’

He absorbed that information and calmed a little. ‘But it’s not right, it doesn’t make sense. We really need to discuss where you got them from.’

‘You’re right, we do,’ Gabe said seriously, taking the container from Lou and stuffing it into his pocket. ‘But not yet. It’s not time yet.’

‘What do you mean, it’s not time? What are you waiting for?’

‘I mean it’s almost eight thirty and you’ve got a meeting to get to before Alfred sweeps in and steals the limelight.’

At that, Lou’s coffee was placed carelessly on a shelf, between an extension lead and a pile of mouse traps, and he jumped to his feet, instantly forgetting about his serious concerns about the peculiar pills, and also forgetting to wonder how on earth Gabe knew about his eight-thirty meeting.

‘You’re right, I’d better go, but we’ll talk later.’

‘You can’t go looking like that,’ Gabe laughed, looking Lou’s filthy rumpled suit up and down. ‘And you smell of vomit. And cat urine. Believe me, I know, I’ve a fine nose for it by now.’

‘I’ll be okay.’ Lou looked at his watch while taking off his suit jacket at the same time. ‘I’ll grab a quick shower in my office and change into my spare suit.’

‘You can’t. I’m wearing it, remember?’

Lou looked over at Gabe then, and remembered how he’d provided him with his spare clothes the first day he had employed him. He’d bet Alison hadn’t replaced the clothes yet, she was too new to know to do that.

‘Shit! Shit, shit, shit!’ He paced the small room, biting his manicured fingernails, pulling and spitting, pulling and spitting.

‘Don’t worry, my cleaner will see to them,’ Gabe said with amusement, watching as the chewed nails fell to the cemented floor.

Lou ignored him, pacing some more. ‘Shops don’t open till nine, where the hell can I get a suit?’

‘Never fear, I think I have something here in my walk-in wardrobe,’ Gabe said, disappearing down the first aisle and reappearing with the new suit draped in plastic. ‘Like I said, you never know when a new suit will come in handy. It’s your size and all, fancy that. It’s almost like it was made for you.’ He winked at Lou. ‘May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of your soul,’ Gabe said, handing the suit over to him.

‘Eh yeah, sure. Thanks,’ Lou said uncertainly, quickly lifting it from Gabe’s outstretched hands.

In the empty staff elevator, Lou looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was unrecognisable from the man who’d woken up on the floor half an hour earlier. The suit that Gabe had given him, despite being an unknown designer – something he wasn’t used to – was surprisingly the best-fitting suit he had ever owned. With the blue of the shirt and tie against the navy jacket and trousers, Lou’s eyes were popping out, innocent and cherub-like.

Things were very good for Lou Suffern that day. He was back to his groomed, handsome best, his shoes polished to perfection by Gabe and back to how they used to dance along the pavements. The swing was back in his step, his left hand casually placed in his pocket, his right arm swinging loosely by his side in rhythm with his step and available to answer the phone and/or shake a hand at every possible moment. He was the man of the moment. After a phone call with his wife and Lucy, he was father of the year according to Lucy, and the odds of him being in with the chance to be husband of the year in the next decade or two were improving. He was happy, so happy, in fact, that he whistled and didn’t stop even when Alison delivered the news that his sister was on the line. He happily reached for the phone and propped his behind on the corner of Alison’s desk.

‘Marcia, good morning,’ he said cheerily.

‘Well, you’re in a good mood today. I know you’re busy, Lou, I won’t keep you long. I just wanted to let you know that we all got Dad’s birthday invitations, they were … very nice … very sophisticated … not what I would have chosen but … anyway, I’ve had a few people on the phone to say they haven’t received theirs yet.’

‘Oh, they must have got lost in the post,’ Lou said, ‘we’ll send them out some more.’

‘But it’s tomorrow, Lou.’

‘What?’ He frowned and squinted his eyes to concentrate on the calendar on the wall.

‘Yes, his birthday’s tomorrow,’ she said, sounding slightly panicked. ‘They won’t get the invites if you send them out now. I just wanted to make sure that it would be okay for everyone just to turn up without an invite, it’s only a family party.’

‘Don’t worry, just email us through the list again and we’ll have a guest list on the door. It’s all under control.’

‘I might just bring a few things to –’

‘It’s all under control,’ he said more firmly.

He watched his colleagues walk down the hall and into the boardroom, Alfred lagging behind in his slacks and blazer with big gold buttons as though he was about to captain a cruise-liner.

‘What’s happening at the party, Lou?’ Marcia asked nervously.

‘What’s happening?’ Lou laughed. ‘Oh well, come on, Marcia, we want it to be a surprise for everyone.’

‘Do you know what’s happening?’

‘Do I know what’s happening? Are you worried about my organisational skills?’

‘I’m worried that you’ve repeated every single one of my questions just to give yourself more thinking time,’ she said easily.

‘Of course I know what’s going on, you think I’d just leave it up to Alison to do alone?’ He laughed. ‘She’s never even met Dad,’ he said, echoing what he’d heard a few family members mumble.

‘Well, it’s important for someone in the family to be involved, Lou – this Alison seems like a nice girl but she doesn’t really know Dad, does she? I’ve been calling her to help out but she hasn’t been very forthcoming. I want Dad to have the time of his life.’

‘He will, Marcia, he will.’ Lou’s stomach turned uneasily. ‘We’ll all have fun, I promise. Now, you know I won’t be there at the very beginning because I’ve got this office party. I have to be here for a little while but I’ll come straight over.’

‘I know, that’s perfectly understandable. Oh God, Lou, I just want Dad to be happy. He’s always busy making sure the rest of us are. I want him to finally relax and enjoy himself.’

‘Yeah,’ Lou swallowed, with the first hint of trepidation. ‘Me too. Okay, I’d better hurry, I’ve got to go to a meeting. I’ll see you all tomorrow, okay?’

He handed the phone back to Alison, his smile gone. ‘It’s all under control, isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘The party,’ he said firmly. ‘My dad’s party.’

‘Lou, I’ve been trying to ask you questions about it all we—’

‘Is it all under control? Because if it’s not, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’

‘Absolutely.’ Alison smiled nervously. ‘The place you picked is very, erm, cool, shall we say, and they have their own standardised events management team. I told you about this already,’ she said quickly, ‘a few times during the week. I also left some options of food and music on your desk for you to decide on, and when you didn’t do that, I had to decide it myse—’

‘Okay, Alison, a note for the future: when I ask if it’s all under control, I only want a yes or a no,’ he said, firmly but politely. ‘I don’t have time for questions and memos, really, all I need to know is if you can do it or not. If you can’t, then that’s fine, we just look at doing something else. Okay?’

She nodded quickly.

‘Great.’ He clapped his hands and hopped off the desk. ‘I’d better get to this meeting.’

‘Here,’ she handed him his files. ‘And congratulations on those two deals yesterday, everyone is talking about it.’

‘They are?’

‘Yes,’ she said, wide-eyed. ‘Some people are saying you’ll get Cliff’s job.’

That was like music to Lou’s ears, but he played it down. ‘Now, Alison, let’s not jump the gun. We’re all wishing a speedy recovery for Cliff.’

‘Of course we are, but … anyway,’ she smiled, ‘see you at the party tomorrow?’

‘Of course I will,’ he smiled back, and it was only as he was marching away and heading towards the meeting room that he really understood what she had meant.

When Lou entered the boardroom, all twelve around the table stood to applaud him, their big, white-toothed smiles beaming from ear to ear, not quite meeting their tired morning eyes, and with tiny chips evident on their stressed and in-dire-need-of-a-massage shoulders. This was what everybody he knew was faced with. Not enough hours of sleep; the inability to get away from work or work-related devices like laptops, PDAs and mobiles; distractions that each of their family members wanted to flush down the toilet. Of course they were happy for him, in a frazzled, too-much-access–to-electro-magneticenergy kind of way. They were all functioning to stay alive, to pay the mortgages, to do the presentations, to meet the quotas, to please the boss, to get in early enough to beat the traffic, hang around long enough in the evenings until it had gone. Everyone in that room was putting in all the hours under the sun trying to unload their work before Christmas, and, as they all did that, the pile of personal problems in their inboxes grew higher. That would all be dealt with over the Christmas break. Finally, time for festive family issues that had been sidelined all year.’ Twas the season for family folly.

The applause was led by a beaming Mr Patterson, and all joined in but Alfred, who was exceptionally slow to stand. While the others were on their feet, he was slowly pushing his chair back. When the others were clapping, he was adjusting his tie and fastening his gold buttons. He succeeded in clapping once before the applause died down, one single clap that sounded more like a balloon had burst.

Lou worked his way around the table, shaking hands, slapping backs, kissing cheeks. By the time he reached Alfred, his friend had already seated himself but offered Lou a limp clammy hand.

‘Ah, the man of the moment,’ Mr Patterson said happily, taking Lou’s hand warmly and placing his left hand firmly on Lou’s upper arm. He stood back and looked at Lou proudly, as a grandfather would his grandson on Communion Day, beaming with pride and admiration.

‘You and I will have a conversation after this,’ he said quietly as the others were still continuing their talk. ‘You know there’ll be changes after Christmas, that’s no secret around here,’ he said solemnly, maintaining respect for Cliff.

‘Yes,’ Lou nodded sagely, secretly loving being personally let in on the secret, despite the fact that everybody knew about it.

‘Well, we’ll talk, okay?’ Mr Patterson said firmly, and as the other conversations died down, he took his seat and the chat was ended.

Feeling like he was floating, Lou sat down and found it hard to keep up with the rest of the morning’s discussion. From the corner of his eye, Lou could see that Alfred had caught the end of Mr Patterson’s comment.

‘You look tired, Lou, were you out celebrating last night?’ a colleague asked.

‘I was up all night with my little girl. Vomiting bug. My wife had it too, so it was a busy night.’ He smiled, thinking of Lucy tucked in bed, her thick fringe hiding half her face.

Alfred laughed and his wheeze was loud in the room.

‘My son had that last week,’ Mr Patterson said, ignoring Alfred’s outburst. ‘It’s going around.’

‘It’s going around, all right,’ Alfred repeated, looking at Lou.

The aggression was emanating from Alfred in waves, almost like the heat visibly rising from a desert highway. It seeped from his soul, distorting the air around him, and Lou wondered if everybody could see it. Lou felt for him; he could see how lost and fearful he was.

‘It’s not just me you should be congratulating,’ Lou announced to the table, ‘Alfred was in on the New York deal too. And a fine job he did of it.’

‘Absolutely.’ Alfred brightened up, coming back to the room and fidgeting with his tie, which made Lou nervous. ‘It was nice of Lou to finally join me at the end, in time to see me wrap it all up.’

Everyone around the table laughed, but it hit Lou elsewhere; in a place that rather hurt. In that moment he was Aloysius again, eight years old on the local football team, taken off the field minutes before the final whistle of the football final because his own team-mate, jealous of Lou scoring more points than him, had landed a kick between his legs and sent him on his knees, gasping, red-faced, close to dizziness and vomit. Like Alfred’s comment, it wasn’t so much the kick to the groin that hurt as much as the person who’d delivered the blow and the reasoning behind it. He’d lain on the field, hands covering his groin, his face hot and sweaty, frustration seeping from his pores, while being crowded around by the rest of the team, who looked at him and wondered if he was faking it.

‘Yes, we have already commended Alfred,’ Mr Patterson said, not looking his way, ‘but two deals at once, Lou, how on earth did you manage it? We all know you’re a multi-tasker at the best of times, but what an extraordinary use of time management, and, of course, your negotiating skills.’

‘Yes, extraordinary,’ Alfred agreed, his tone playful, but underneath it there was venom. ‘Almost unbelievable. Perhaps unnatural. What was it Lou, speed?’

There were a few nervous laughs, a cough and then a silence. Mr Patterson broke the tension by getting the meeting started but the damage had already been done. Alfred had left something hanging in the air. A question replaced what had previously been admiration, a seed had been planted in each mind and, whether it was believed or not, each time Lou achieved anything or his name was mentioned in future, Alfred’s comment would be momentarily, perhaps subconsciously, entertained and that seed would grow, peep up from the dirty soil and then rear its ugly head.

After all his hard work, missing out on family occasions, running out of his home to reach the office, quick pecks on Ruth’s cheek for the sake of long handshakes with strangers at the office, he had finally had his moment. Two minutes of handshakes and applause. Followed by a seed of doubt.

‘You look happy,’ Gabe commented, placing a package on a desk nearby.

‘Gabe, my friend, I owe you big-time,’ Lou beamed as he left the meeting, just short of reaching out to hug him. He lowered his voice. ‘Can I have those … the container back, please? I was very tired and emotional this morning and I don’t know what got into me, of course I believe in the herbal remedy thingies.’

Gabe didn’t respond. He continued laying out envelopes and packages on the surrounding desks while Lou looked on after him with hope on his face, like a dog awaiting his walkies.

‘It’s just that I think I’m going to need a lot more from where they came from,’ Lou winked. ‘You know?’

Gabe looked confused.

‘Cliff’s not coming back.’ Lou kept his voice down and tried to hide the excitement. ‘He’s totally fried.’

‘Ah, the poor man who had the breakdown,’ Gabe said, still placing items on desks.

‘Yes,’ Lou almost squealed with excitement. ‘Don’t tell anyone I told you.’

‘That Cliff’s not coming back?’

‘Yes, that and … you know,’ he looked around, ‘other things. Maybe a new job, more than likely a promotion. Nice big pay rise.’ He grinned. ‘He’s going to talk to me about it soon.’ Lou cleared his throat. ‘So whatever it is that he has in store for me, I’m going to need those little herbal beauties because I can’t possibly sustain my previous work-rate without ending up either divorced or six feet under.’

‘Ah, yes. Them. Well, you can’t have them.’

Gabe continued pushing the trolley down the hall. Lou quickly followed, yapping at his heels like a Jack Russell after a postman.

‘Ah, come on, I’ll pay you whatever you want for them. How much do you want?’

‘I don’t want anything.’

‘Okay, you probably want to keep them for yourself, I get it. At least tell me where I can get them?’

‘You can’t get them anywhere. I threw them away. You were right about them, they’re not right. Psychologically. And who knows the physical side-effects? They’d probably just end up hurting people in the long run. I mean, I don’t think they were made to be used continuously, Lou. Maybe they were a scientific experiment that found their way out of a lab.’

‘You did what to them?’ Lou panicked, ignoring all that Gabe had said. ‘Where did you put them?’

‘In the skips.’

‘Well, get them for me. Climb in and get them back,’ Lou said angrily. ‘If you just put them there this morning, they will still be there now. Come on, hurry, Gabe.’ He prodded Gabe in the back.

‘They’re gone, Lou. I opened the container and emptied them into the skip, and considering what you deposited inside it last night, I’d steer clear.’

Lou grabbed him by the arm and led him to the staff elevator. ‘Show me.’

Once outside, Gabe pointed the skip out to Lou, large and filthy yellow. Lou charged over. Looking inside, he could see the container sitting on top, so close he could touch it, and then, beside it, the pile of pills lay among a greenish-brown ooze of some sort. The smell was dire and so he held his nose and tried not to retch. The pills were soaked in whatever the substance was and his heart sank. He took off his suit jacket and threw it at Gabe to catch. He rolled up his shirt-sleeves and prepared to shove his hands in the foul-smelling ooze. He paused before going in.

‘If I can’t get these pills, where can I get more?’

‘Nowhere,’ Gabe responded, standing by the back door and watching him, arms folded and sounding bored. ‘They don’t make them any more.’

‘What?’ Lou spun around. ‘Who made them? I’ll pay them to make more.’

This panic went on for a while, Lou interrogating Gabe as to how he could get his hands on more pills, until he realised the only way he could get his hands on them was by dealing with what was right in front of him. Once again distracted, he decided what needed to be dealt with was the skip, not his life.

‘Shit. Maybe I can wash them.’ He stepped closer and leaned in. The smell made him retch. ‘What the hell is that?’ He gagged again and had to step away from the skip. ‘Damn it.’ Lou kicked the skip and then regretted it when the pain hit.

‘Oh look,’ Gabe said in a bored tone. ‘It looks like I dropped one on the ground.’

‘What? Where?’ He instantly forgot the pain in his toe and raced back to the skip like a child racing for the last seat in musical chairs. He examined the ground around the bins. Between the cracks of the cobbles he saw something white peering up at him. Leaning closer, he noticed it was a pill.

‘A-ha! Found one!’

‘Yeah, I had to throw them from a distance, the smell was so bad,’ Gabe explained. ‘A few fell on the ground.’

‘A few? How many?’

Lou got down on his hands and knees and started searching.

‘Lou, you really should just go back inside. You’ve had a good day. Why don’t you just leave it at that? Learn from it and move on?’

‘I have learned from it,’ he said, nose close to the cobbles. ‘I’ve learned that I’m the hero around here with these things. Ah-ha – there’s another one.’ Satisfied that those two were all he could salvage from the skip, he put them in his handkerchief, back into his pocket, and he stood up and wiped his knees.

‘Two will do for now,’ he said, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘I can see two more under the skip but I’ll leave them for the time being.’

When Lou climbed up from his knees, which were by then black and dirty and his hair dishevelled, he turned around and found he had more company. Alfred was standing beside Gabe, his arms folded, a smug look on his face.

‘Drop something, Lou? Well, look at that. The man of the moment, indeed.’

22. ’Tis the Season …

‘You’ll be there, won’t you, Lou?’ Ruth asked, trying her best to hide the panic from her voice. She moved around their bedroom in her bare feet, the sound of her skin against the wooden floors like little feet splashing in water. Her long brown hair was up in rollers, her body was draped in a towel with beads of shower water glistening on her shoulders as they caught the light.

Lou watched his wife of ten years from their bed, his head moving back and forth as though a tennis-match spectator. They were going into the city centre in separate cars at separate times; he had his office party to get to before joining the rest of his family at a later stage for his father’s party. He wasn’t long home from work, had showered and dressed in the space of twenty minutes, but instead of his usual pacing downstairs and waiting for his wife impatiently, he had chosen to lie on the bed and watch her. He had just learned tonight that watching was so much more entertaining than pacing with a rising anger. Lucy had joined him on their bed only moments ago and was cuddling her blanket. Fresh out of the bath, she was dressed in her sleeping suit and smelled so freshly of strawberries that he almost wanted to eat her.

‘Of course I’ll be there.’ He smiled at Ruth.

‘It’s just that you should have left the house a half-hour ago and that puts you behind as it is.’ She rushed by him and disappeared into the walk-in wardrobe. The rest of her sentence disappeared along with her, as the muffled sounds drifted out into the bedroom, leaving the words behind in the wardrobe hanging on rails and folded neatly on the shelves. He lay back on the bed, rested his arms behind his head and laughed.

‘She’s talking fast,’ Lucy whispered.

‘She does that.’ Lou smiled, reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his daughter’s ear.

Ruth reappeared dressed in her underwear.

‘You look beautiful,’ he smiled.

‘Daddy!’ Lucy giggled outrageously. ‘She’s in her panties!’

‘Yes, well, she looks beautiful in her panties.’ He kept his eyes on Ruth while Lucy rolled around the bed laughing at this idea.

Ruth turned around and studied him quickly. Lou could see her swallow, her face curious, not used to the sudden attention, perhaps worrying that he was acting this way out of guilt, another part of her afraid to become hopeful, afraid that it was yet another build-up to a later let-down. She disappeared to the bathroom for a few moments, and when she re-entered the room she hopped around in her underwear.

Lucy and Lou started laughing while watching her.

‘What are you doing?’ Lou laughed.

‘I’m drying my moisturiser.’ She ran on the spot, smiling. Lucy hopped up and momentarily joined her, giggling and dancing, before deciding her mother was dry, and joining her father back on the bed again.

‘Why are you still here?’ Ruth asked gently. ‘You don’t want to be late for Mr Patterson.’

‘This is far more fun.’

‘Lou,’ she laughed, ‘while I appreciate the fact that you are not constantly moving for the first time in ten years, you really have to go. I know you say you’ll be there tonight, but –’

‘I will be there tonight,’ he replied, insulted.

‘Okay, but please don’t be too late,’ she continued, racing around the room. ‘Most people going to your dad’s party are over the age of seventy, they might have fallen asleep or have gone home by the time you consider your night to be just beginning.’ She darted back into the wardrobe.

‘I’ll be there,’ he replied, more to himself.

He heard her rooting around in the drawers, pushing closed presses. She bumped into something, swore, dropped something else, and when she reappeared in the bedroom she was dressed in a black cocktail dress.

Usually he would automatically tell her she was beautiful, hardly even looking at her while saying it. He felt it was his duty, that it was what she wanted to hear, that it would get them out of the house faster, that it would make her stop fidgeting all the way on the car journey, but tonight he found himself unable to speak. She was beautiful. It was as though all his life he had been told the sky was blue and for the first time he had actually looked up and seen it for himself. Why didn’t he look at it every day? He lay on his stomach and leaned his head on his hand. Lucy imitated him. They both watched the wonder that was Ruth. Ten years of this display and he’d been pacing downstairs all this time while barking up at her.

‘And remember,’ she zipped up her dress at the back, while shuffling by them again, ‘you got your father a cruise for his birthday.’

‘I thought we were getting him golf membership.’

‘Lou, he hates golf.’

‘He does?’

‘Granddad hates golf,’ Lucy said.

‘He’s always wanted to go to St Lucia – remember the story about Douglas and Ann and how they won the trip on the back of a cereal pack, blah, blah, blah?’

‘No,’ Lou frowned.

‘The cereal box competition.’ She stopped in her flight back to the wardrobe to stare at him with surprise.

‘Yeah, what about it?’

‘He tells this story all the time, Lou. About how Douglas entered the competition on the back of the cereal box and they won a trip to St Lucia … Anything?’ She looked at him for a glimmer of recognition.

Lou shook his head.

‘Wow, how could you not know that?’ She continued on her mission to get to the wardrobe. ‘It’s his favourite story. He’ll be emotional.’

‘Dad won’t be emotional,’ he smiled. ‘He doesn’t get emotional.’

Ruth disappeared inside and reappeared with one shoe on her foot and the other under her arm. Up, down, down and up, she made her way across the room to her dressing table.

Lucy giggled.

Ruth put her jewellery on, her earrings, her bracelet, and only then did she remove the shoe from under her arm to put it on.

Lou smiled again and watched her totter into the bathroom.

‘Oh,’ she raised her voice once inside. ‘When you see Mary Walsh, don’t mention Patrick.’ She stuck her head outside the bathroom. Half of her hair was covered in rollers, the other half loose and curled. Her face was sad. ‘He left her.’

‘Okay,’ he nodded, trying to remain as solemn as possible.

When she’d ducked her head back in again, Lou turned to Lucy. ‘Patrick left Mary Walsh,’ he said. ‘Did you know that?’

Lucy shook her head wildly.

‘Did you tell him to do that?’

She shook her head, laughing.

‘Who knew that would happen?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘Maybe Mary did.’

Lou laughed. ‘Maybe.’

‘Oh, and please don’t ask Laura if she’s lost weight. You always do that and she hates it.’

‘Isn’t that a nice thing to say?’ He frowned.

Ruth laughed. ‘Honey, she’s been putting on weight consistently for the past ten years. When you say it to her, it’s like you’re teasing.’

‘Laura’s a fatty,’ he whispered to Lucy, and she fell about on the bed laughing.

He took a deep breath as he noticed the time, and, strangely, dread filled his stomach. ‘Okay, I really have to go. See you tomorrow,’ he said to Lucy, kissing her on the head.

‘I like you much better now, Daddy,’ she said happily.

Lou froze, half on the bed, half off.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I like you much better now,’ she smiled, revealing a missing bottom tooth. ‘Me, Mummy and Pud are going ice-skating tomorrow, will you come?’

Still taken aback by her comment and how it had affected him, he simply said, ‘Yes. Sure.’

Ruth came back into the room again, bringing a wave of her perfume with her, her hair in loose waves down past her shoulders, her make-up flawless. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.

‘Mummy, Mummy!’ Lucy jumped up onto the bed and started bouncing up and down. ‘Daddy’s coming ice-skating tomorrow.’

‘Lucy, get down, you’re not allowed to jump on the bed. Get down, sweetheart, thank you. Remember I told you that Daddy is a very busy man, he doesn’t have time to be –’

‘I’m coming,’ Lou interrupted firmly.

Ruth’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh.’

‘Is that okay?’

‘Yes, sure, I just … Yes. Absolutely. Great.’ She nodded, then headed in the other direction, clearly taken aback. The bathroom door closed softly behind her.

He gave her five minutes alone but then couldn’t afford to wait any longer.

‘Ruth,’ Lou rapped gently on the bathroom door, ‘you okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’ She cleared her throat and sounded more perky than she intended. ‘I’m just … blowing my nose.’ There was a loud sound of her nose being blown.

‘Okay, I’ll see you later,’ he said, wanting to go inside and hug her goodbye, but knowing that the door would open if she wanted him to.

‘Okay,’ she said, a little less perky again. ‘See you at the party.’

The door remained closed, and so he left.

The offices of Patterson Developments were swarming with Lou Suffern’s colleagues in various states of disarray. It was only seven thirty p.m. and already some were set for the night. Unlike Lou, who’d gone home after work, most people had gone straight to the pub and returned to the party to continue. There were women he barely recognised in dresses revealing bodies he had never known existed beneath their suits; and there were some whose bodies were made only for their suits. The uniformity of the day had been broken down: there was an air of adolescence, of the desire to show off and prove to one another who they really were. It was a day for rule-breaking, for saying what they felt; it was a dangerous environment to be in. Mistletoe hung from almost every doorway – in fact, Lou had already received two kisses as soon as he’d stepped out of the elevator, from opportunists hanging out there.

Suit jackets were off; novelty musical ties, Santa hats and reindeer antlers were on. Christmas-tree decorations hung from women’s – and some men’s – ears. They all worked hard and they were all going to play hard.

‘Where’s Mr Patterson?’ Lou asked Alison, finding her sitting on the lap of the fifth Santa Claus he’d seen. Her eyes were glassy, the focus already gone. She was wearing a tight red dress that showed every single shape and curve of her body. He forced himself to look away.

‘And what do you want for Christmas, little boy?’ the voice beneath the costume bellowed.

‘Oh, hi James,’ Lou said politely.

‘He wants a promotion,’ somebody in the crowd yelled, which was followed by a few titters.

‘Not just a promotion, he wants Cliff’s job,’ somebody with reindeer antlers shouted, and the crowd laughed again.

Smiling to hide his frustration and minor embarrassment, Lou laughed along with them, then when the conversation turned to something else, he quietly slipped away. He retreated to his office, which was quiet and still, not a glimpse of tinsel or mistletoe in sight. He sat with his head in his hands, awaiting Mr Patterson’s call to his office, listening to ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer’ being half-sung and half-shouted by the crowd outside. Suddenly the music got louder as the door to his office opened, then it quietened as the door closed. He guessed who it was before he looked up.

Alison walked towards him, glass of red wine in one hand, a whisky in the other, her hips swinging in the slinky red dress and looking like the dangly thing at the back of a throat. Her ankles wobbled in her platform heels and the red wine jumped up a few times to splash her thumb.

‘Careful there.’ Lou’s eyes followed her every move, his head staying put, both sure and uncertain at the same time.

‘It’s okay.’ She put her glass down on the table and sensually sucked her thumb, licking the spilled wine from her skin, while looking at Lou seductively. ‘I brought you a whisky.’ She handed it to him and sidled up beside him at the desk. ‘Cheers.’ She clinked his glass, and then, her eyes once again not moving from his, she drank.

Lou cleared his throat, suddenly feeling crowded, and pushed his chair back. Alison misunderstood and slid her behind along the desk so that she was directly in front of him. Her chest was in his eyeline and he tore his eyes away and instead watched the door. His position was dangerous. It looked very bad. He felt extremely good.

‘We never got to finish up what we were doing before,’ she smiled. ‘Everybody’s talking about clearing their desks before Christmas.’ Her voice was low and sultry. ‘Thought I’d come in and give you a hand.’

She pushed away a few files from his desk; they slid down onto the floor, scattering everywhere.

‘Oops,’ she smiled, sitting on the desk before him, her short red dress rising even further up her thighs, revealing long, toned, tanned legs.

Beads of sweat broke out on Lou’s brow. His mind ran through every possibility. Go outside and search for Mr Patterson, or stay inside with Alison. He still had the two pills he found around the skip which were safely wrapped in a handkerchief and in his pocket. He could take a pill and do both. Remember his priorities: be with Alison, and go to his dad’s party. No, be with Mr Patterson, go to his dad’s party. Both at the same time.

Uncrossing her legs, Alison used her foot to pull his chair in closer to the table, red lace between her thighs greeting him as he was wheeled slowly closer to her. She inched her body to the edge of the desk, pushing her dress up even higher. So high there was nowhere else for him to look now. He could take a pill: be with Alison, and be with Ruth.

Ruth.

Alison reached out and pulled him closer, her hands on his face. He felt the acrylic nails. The tap-tap sound against the keyboard that drove him insane every day. There they were, on his face, on his chest, running down his body. Long fingers running down the fabric of his suit, the suit that was supposed to mirror his inner dignity.

‘I’m married,’ he spluttered as her hand reached his groin. His voice was panicked, sounding childlike. Weak and so easily convinced.

Alison threw her head back and laughed. ‘I know,’ she purred, and her hands continued roving.

‘That wasn’t a joke,’ he said firmly, and she stopped suddenly to look at him. He stared back at her solemnly and they held one another’s gaze, then the corner of Alison’s lips lifted in a smile despite trying to prevent it. Then, when she couldn’t keep it in any more, she exploded. Her long blonde hair reached down to tickle his desk top as she threw her head back to laugh.

‘Oh Lou,’ she sighed, finally wiping the corner of her eyes.

‘It’s not a joke,’ he said more firmly, with dignity, with confidence. More of a man now than he was five minutes ago.

Realising he wasn’t teasing now, her smile faded instantly.

‘Isn’t it a joke?’ She cocked an eyebrow, looked him dead in the eye. ‘Because you might have fooled her, Lou, but you haven’t fooled us.’

‘Us?’

She waved a hand behind her dismissively. ‘Us. Everyone. Whatever.’

He pushed his chair away from the desk.

‘Oh, okay, you want me to be specific? I’ll be specific. Gemma in accounts, Rebecca in the canteen, Louise on training, Tracey – your secretary before me – and I never did get the nanny’s name. Shall I continue?’ She smiled, then took a sip of wine, watching him. Her eyes watered slightly, her corneas reddened as though the wine was travelling directly to her eyes. ‘Remember all of them?’

‘They were,’ Lou swallowed, feeling breathless, ‘they were a long time ago. I’m different now.’

‘The nanny was six months ago,’ she laughed. ‘Christ, Lou, how much do you think a man like you can change in six months, if at all?’

Lou felt dizzy, sickened all of a sudden. He ran his sweaty hands through his hair, panic setting in. What had he done?

‘Just think about it,’ she perked up. ‘When you become Number Two around here, you can have whoever you want, but just remember I got you first,’ she laughed, putting down the wine and reaching out her foot to pull his chair towards her again. ‘But if you take me with you, I can tend to all your needs.’

She took the whisky glass from his hand and placed it on the desk. Then she took his hand, pulled him to his feet, and he followed, numb and lifeless like a dummy. She rubbed her hands across his chest, grabbed his lapels and pulled him closer. Just as their lips were about to meet, he stopped, went off course and moved his lips to her ear. Ever so softly, he whispered,

‘My marriage is not a joke, Alison. You are. And my wife is the kind of woman that you could only hope of being someday.’

With that, he pulled back and walked away from the desk.

Alison sat frozen on the desk. The only movement was her mouth, which had fallen open, and her hand, which fidgeted and tried to pull at the end of her skirt.

‘Yeah,’ he watched her fix herself, ‘you should cover that up. You can take a minute to gather your thoughts, but please replace the files on my desk before you leave,’ he said calmly. Placing his hands in his pockets to hide how much his body shook, he strode out of his office and into the middle of a karaoke, where Alex from accounts was drunkenly outing himself by singing Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas’. Around Lou, streamers popped, and drunken bearded men and women smothered him with kisses as he left his office.

‘I have to go,’ he said, to no one in particular, trying to make his way to the elevator. He pushed right through the crowd, some people grabbing him and trying to dance with him, others blocking his path and spilling drink. ‘I have to go,’ he said, a little more aggressively now. His head was pounding; he was nauseous; he felt as though he had just woken up in the body of a man who had taken over his life and ballsed it right up. ‘It’s my dad’s seventieth, I have to go,’ he said, trying to make his way to the elevator. Finally, he reached the lifts, pressed the call button and didn’t turn around, but kept his head down and waited.

‘Lou!’ He heard his name. He kept his head down, ignoring the voice. ‘Lou! I need a minute with you!’ He ignored it again, watching the floors rising on the elevator panel and shaking his leg anxiously, hoping he’d get inside before it was too late.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Lou! I’ve been calling you!’ a friendly voice said.

He turned around. ‘Ah, Mr Patterson, hello. Sorry.’ Lou was aware his voice was edgy but he needed to get out of there. He’d promised Ruth and so he pressed down on the elevator button quickly. ‘I’m in a bit of a rush, it’s my dad’s se—’

‘We won’t take long, I promise. Just a word.’ He felt Mr Patterson’s hand on his arm.

‘Okay.’ Lou turned around, biting down on his lip.

‘Well, I was rather hoping we could talk in my office, if you don’t mind,’ Mr Patterson smiled. ‘Are you okay, you look a little shaken up.’

‘I’m fine, I’m just, you know, in a rush.’ He allowed his boss to take him by the arm.

‘Of course you are,’ Mr Patterson laughed. ‘You always are.’ He led Lou down to his office and they sat down opposite one another on aged brown leather couches in the more informal part of Mr Patterson’s office. Lou’s forehead was sweating; he was aware that he could smell himself and hoped that Mr Patterson couldn’t too. He reached for the glass of water in front of him; his trembling hand brought it to his lips and Mr Patterson looked on while he gulped.

‘Would you like something stronger, Lou?’

‘No, thank you, Mr Patterson.’

‘Laurence, please.’ Mr Patterson shook his head again. ‘Honestly, Lou, you make me feel like a schoolteacher when you address me as such.’

‘Sorry, Mr Patter—’

‘Well, I’m going to have one, anyway.’ Mr Patterson stood up and made his way over to the drinks cabinet. He poured himself a brandy from a crystal decanter. ‘You sure you won’t have one?’ he offered again. ‘Rémy XO,’ he swirled it mid-air, tauntingly.

‘Okay, I will, thank you.’ Lou smiled and relaxed a little, his panic to get across the road to the party subsiding slightly.

‘Good.’ Mr Patterson smiled. ‘So, Lou, let’s talk about your future. How much time do you have?’

Lou took his first sip of the expensive brandy and he was brought back to the room, back to the present. He pulled his cuffs over his watch, taking away the distraction. He prepared for the big promotion, for his polished shoes to walk in Cliff’s footsteps – though not literally to the hospital he was currently housed in, but to the top office, with panoramic views of Dublin city. He took deep breaths and ignored the clock ticking away on the wall, trying to put his father’s party out of his head. It would all be worth it. They would all understand. They would all be too busy partying even to notice he wasn’t there.

‘I’ve all the time you need.’ Lou smiled nervously, ignoring the voice within him that shouted to be heard.

23. Surprise!

When Lou arrived at the venue for his father’s party – late – he was sweating profusely as though he’d broken out in a high fever, despite the December chill that had the power to run right through to a body’s bones; squeezing into the joints and whistling around the body. He was breathless and nauseous at the same time. Relieved and exhilarated. He was exhausted, all on its own.

He’d decided to host his father’s party in the famous building that Gabe had admired the very first day they’d met. Shaped like a sail, it was lit up in blue, their award-winning building, which was sure to impress his father and relatives from around the country. Directly in front of the building, the Viking longship’s tall mast was decorated in Christmas lights.

When he reached the door, Marcia was outside giving out to a large doorman dressed in black. Bundled in coats, hats and scarves, a crowd of twenty or so people were standing around, stamping their feet on the pavement in order to stay warm.

‘Hi Marcia,’ Lou said happily, trying to break up the argument. He was bursting to tell her about the promotion but he had to bite his lip; he had to find Ruth first to tell her.

Marcia turned to face him, her eyes red and blotchy, her mascara smudged. ‘Lou,’ she spat, the anger not disappearing but instead intensifying and being aimed at him.

His stomach did somersaults, which was rare. He never usually cared what his sister thought of him, but tonight he was caring more than usual.

‘What’s wrong?’

She left the crowd behind and came firing at him. ‘I’ve been trying to call you for an hour.’

‘I was at my work party, I told you that. What’s wrong?’

‘You are what’s wrong,’ she said shakily, her voice somewhere between anger and deep sadness. She inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled. ‘It’s Daddy’s birthday, and for his sake I won’t ruin it any more than it already has been, by causing an argument, so all I have to say is would you please tell this brute to let our family in. Our family –’ she raised her voice to that quivering screech, ‘who have travelled from all over the country to share in,’ her voice went weepy again, ‘in Dad’s special day. But instead of being with his family, he’s up there in a practically empty room, while everybody is out here being turned away. Five people have already gone home.’

‘What? What?’ Lou’s heart leapt into his throat. He rushed to the doormen. ‘Hi guys, Lou Suffern.’ He held out his hand and the doormen the two men shook it with all the life of a dead kipper. ‘I’m organising the party tonight.’ Behind him, Marcia huffed and mumbled. ‘What seems to be the problem here?’ He looked around at the crowd, instantly recognising all the faces. All were close family friends whose homes he’d grown up visiting, all were over the age of sixty, some the same age as his father, some older. They stood on the freezing cold pavement in December, elderly couples hanging on to one another, trembling with the cold, some leaning on crutches, one man in a wheelchair. In their hands were sparkly bags and cards, bottles of wine and champagne, gifts that had been wrapped neatly and thoughtfully for the big night. And now there they were on the pavement, being refused entry to their lifelong friend’s party.

‘No invites, no entry,’ one doorman explained.

One couple flagged down a taxi and slowly made their way to where it had pulled over, while Marcia chased after them, trying to convince them to stay.

Lou laughed angrily. ‘Gentlemen, do you think that these people are gatecrashing?’ He lowered his voice. ‘Come on, look at them. My father is celebrating his seventieth birthday, these are his friends. There was obviously a mistake with the invitations. I arranged with my secretary Alison for there to be a guest list.’

‘These people aren’t on the list. This building has strict guidelines as to who comes in and who –’

‘Fuck the guidelines,’ he said aggressively through gritted teeth, so that those behind him couldn’t hear. ‘It is my father’s birthday and these are his guests,’ he said firmly, angry now. ‘And as the person who is paying for this party, and as the man who got this building off the ground, I’m telling you to let these people in.’

Moments later the group were all shuffling inside, waiting in the grand lobby for the elevators up to the top floor, while trying to get the warmth into their old bodies.

‘You can relax now, Marcia, it’s all sorted out now.’ Lou tried to make amends with his sister as they stood together and alone in the elevator. Marcia had refused to look at him or even speak to him for the last ten minutes while they’d managed to get everyone into the lift and up to the penthouse.

‘Marcia, come on,’ he laughed lightly. ‘Don’t be like this.’

‘Lou,’ the look she gave him was enough to stop his smile and make him swallow hard, ‘I know you think I’m dramatic and I’m controlling and I’m annoying, and whatever else you think about me that I’m sure I don’t want to know about, but I’m not being dramatic now. I’m hurt. Not for me, but for Mummy and Daddy.’ Her eyes filled again and her voice, which was always so gentle and understanding, changed tone. ‘Of all the selfish things you’ve done, this is right up there as the most selfish of them all. I have sat back and bitten my tongue while you’ve taken Mummy and Daddy for granted, while you’ve screwed around on your wife, while you’ve jeered and teased your brother, flirted with his wife, ignored your kids, and while you’ve taunted me on every possible occasion. I have been – we all have been – as patient as pie with you, Lou, but not any more. You don’t deserve any of us. Tonight you have really done it for me. You have hurt Mummy and Daddy and you are no longer my brother.’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, come on, Marcia.’ Lou felt knocked for six. He had never been spoken to like that before and it had hit him, hurt him deeply. He swallowed hard. ‘I know that all those people shouldn’t have been stuck outside, but I fixed it. Where is all this coming from?’

Marcia laughed bitterly. ‘What you saw outside isn’t even the half of it,’ she sniffed. ‘Surprise,’ she said dully, as the elevators opened and as the sight of the room greeted him.

Looking out, Lou’s heart immediately sank, falling to his stomach where the acid began to burn it away. Around the room there were blackjack tables, roulette, scantily clad cocktail waitresses who paraded around with cocktails on trays. It was an impressive party, and one that Lou remembered being at when the building was opened, but he only realised now that it wasn’t for his seventy-year-old father. It wasn’t for his father, who hated celebrations for himself, who hated forcing friends and family to gather together just for him, whose idea of a good day out was alone fishing. A modest man, the very thought of a party embarrassed him, but the family had talked him into celebrating a birthday for the first time, a big occasion where his family and friends from all around the country would join in and celebrate with him. He hadn’t wanted it, but somewhere along the way he had warmed to it, and there he was, standing in the middle of a casino in his best suit, where the staff wore short skirts and red bow-ties, where the DJ played dance music and where a person needed €25 minimum to play on a casino table. In the centre of one table, a near-naked man was covered in cakes and fruit.

Standing together awkwardly at the side of the room were Lou’s family. His mother, with her hair freshly blow-dried, was wearing a new lilac trouser suit and a scarf tied neatly around her neck, her handbag draped over her shoulder, clasping it tight in both hands as she looked around uncertainly. His father stood with his remaining brother and sister – a nun and a priest – looking more lost in this environment than Lou had ever seen his father look. Each family member looked up at him and away again, freezing him out. The only person who smiled faintly at him was his father, who nodded and saluted him.

Lou looked around for Ruth. She stood on the far side of the room, making polite chat with the rest of the equally uncomfortable-looking partygoers. She caught his eye and her look was cold. There was an awkward tension in the room, and it was all Lou’s fault. He felt embarrassed, beyond ashamed. He wanted to make it up to them; he wanted to make it up to everybody.

‘Excuse me,’ Lou approached the man in the suit who was standing beside him looking over the crowd, ‘are you the person in charge?’

‘Yes, Jacob Morrison, manager.’ He held his hand out. ‘You’re Lou Suffern, we met at the opening night a few months ago. I recall it was a late one,’ he winked at him.

‘Yes, I remember,’ Lou replied, at the same time not remembering him at all. ‘I’m just wondering if you could help me with making some changes in here.’

‘Oh.’ Jacob looked taken aback. ‘I’m sure we’ll try to accommodate you in any way that we can. What were you thinking of?’

‘Chairs.’ Lou tried not to speak rudely. ‘This is my father’s seventieth, could we please get him and his guests some chairs?’

‘Oh,’ Jacob made a face, ‘I’m afraid this is a standing event only. We didn’t charge for –’

‘I’ll pay you for whatever, of course.’ Lou flashed his pearly whites. ‘As long as we can get those bums that aren’t already on wheelchairs on some seats.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Jacob began to leave when Lou called him back.

‘And the music,’ Lou said, ‘is there anything more traditional than this?’

‘Traditional?’ Jacob smiled questioningly.

‘Yes, traditional Irish music. For my seventy-year-old father.’ Lou spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Instead of this acid jazz funky house music that my seventy-year-old father isn’t so much into.’

‘I’ll see what we can do.’

The atmosphere between them was darkening.

‘And what about food? Did Alison arrange food? Apart from the near-naked man covered in cream that my mother is currently standing beside.’

‘Yes, of course. We have shepherd’s pies, lasagne, that kind of thing.’

Lou quietly celebrated.

‘You know, we discussed all of our concerns with Alison before,’ Jacob explained.

‘You did?’

‘Yes, sir, we don’t usually hold seventieth parties.’ He smiled, then it quickly faded. ‘It’s just that we have a standard set-up here, particularly for the Christmas period, and this is it.’ He gestured to the room proudly. ‘The casino theme is very successful for corporate events, that kind of thing,’ he explained.

‘I see. Well, it would have been nice to know that,’ Lou said politely.

‘You did sign off on it,’ Jacob assured him. ‘We have the paperwork explaining all of the details of the night. We made sure Alison had you sign the forms.’

‘Right.’ Lou swallowed and looked around the room. His fault. Of course. ‘Of course, it just obviously slipped my mind. Thank you.’

* * *

As Lou approached his family, they stepped away and separated themselves from him as though he were a bad smell. His father, of course, didn’t move with them but greeted his middle child with a smile.

‘Dad, happy birthday,’ Lou said quietly, reaching his hand out to his father.

‘Thank you.’ His father smiled, taking his son’s hand. Despite all this, despite what Lou had done, his father still smiled.

‘Let me get you a Guinness,’ Lou said, turning around to look for the bar.

‘Oh, they don’t have any.’

‘What?’

‘Beer, champagne, and some funny-looking green cocktail,’ his father said, sipping on his glass. ‘I’m on the water. Your mother’s happy, though, she likes champagne, though far from it she was reared,’ he laughed, trying to make light of the situation.

On hearing herself being mentioned, Lou’s mother turned around and threw Lou a look that withered him.

‘Ah now,’ his father said softly, ‘I can’t drink tonight anyway. I’m sailing with Quentin tomorrow in Howth,’ he said proudly. ‘He’s racing in the Brass Monkeys and he’s down a man, so yours truly is filling in.’ He thumbed himself in the chest.

‘You are not racing, Fred.’ Lou’s mother rolled her eyes. ‘You can barely stand upright on a windy day, never mind on a boat. It’s December, those waters are choppy.’

‘I’m seventy years old, I can do what I like.’

‘You’re seventy years old, you have to stop doing what you like, or you won’t see seventy-one,’ she snapped, and the family laughed, including Lou.

‘You’ll have to find someone else, dear.’ She looked at Quentin, whose face was crestfallen.

‘I’ll do it for you,’ Alexandra said to her husband, wrapping her arms around him, and Lou found himself having to look away, jealousy stirring.

‘You’ve never raced before,’ Quentin smiled. ‘No way.’

‘What time is the race?’ Lou asked.

Nobody answered.

‘Of course I can do it,’ Alexandra smiled. ‘Isn’t it just like normal? I’ll bring my bikini and I’ll let the rest of the crew bring the strawberries and champagne.’

The family laughed again.

‘What time is the race?’ Lou asked again.

‘Well, if she races in her bikini, then I’ll definitely let her take part,’ Quentin teased.

They all laughed again.

As though suddenly hearing his brother’s question, though still not looking him in the eye, Quentin responded, ‘Race starts at eleven a.m. Maybe I’ll give Stephen a quick call.’ He took his mobile out of his pocket.

‘I’ll do it,’ Lou said, and they all looked at him in shock.

‘I’ll do it,’ he repeated with a smile.

‘Maybe you could call Stephen first, love,’ Alexandra said gently.

‘Yes,’ Quentin responded, turning back to his phone. ‘Good idea. I’ll just go somewhere quiet.’ He brushed by Lou and left the room.

Lou felt the sting as the family turned away from him again and talked about places he’d never been, about people he’d never met. He stood by idly while they laughed at jokes he didn’t understand, inside jokes that tickled all but him. It was as though they were speaking a secret language, one that Lou was entirely unable to comprehend. Eventually he stopped bothering to ask the questions that were never answered, and eventually he stopped listening, realising nobody cared about that either. He was too detached from the family to start trying in one evening to check himself into a place where there was currently no vacancy.

24. The Soul Catches Up

Lou’s father was beside him, looking around the room like a lost child, no doubt feeling nervous and embarrassed that everyone had come for him and secretly hoping that somebody else would announce it was their birthday too so the attention would be taken from him and shared with someone else.

‘Where’s Ruth?’ his father asked.

‘Em,’ Lou looked around for the hundredth time, unable to find her, ‘she’s just chatting to guests.’

‘Right. Nice view from up here.’ He nodded out the window. ‘City’s come a long way in my time.’

‘Yeah, I thought you’d like it,’ Lou said, glad he’d got one thing right.

‘So which one is your office?’ He looked across the river Liffey at the office buildings, which remained lit up at this hour.

‘That one there, directly opposite.’ Lou pointed. ‘Thirteen floors up, on the fourteenth floor.’

Lou’s father glanced at him, obviously thinking it peculiar, and for the first time Lou felt it too, could see how it could be perceived odd and confusing. This rattled him. He had always been so sure.

‘It’s the one with all the lights are on,’ Lou explained more simply. ‘Office party.’

‘Ah, so that’s where it is.’ His father nodded. ‘That’s where it all happens.’

‘Yes,’ Lou said proudly. ‘I just got a promotion tonight, Dad.’ He smiled. ‘I haven’t told anybody yet, it’s your night, of course,’ he backtracked.

‘A promotion?’ His father’s bushy eyebrows rose.

‘Yes.’

‘More work?’

‘Bigger office, better light,’ he joked. When his dad didn’t laugh he became serious. ‘Yes, more work. More hours.’

‘I see.’ His father was silent.

Anger rose within Lou. Congratulations wouldn’t have gone astray.

‘You’re happy there?’ his father asked casually, still looking out the glass, the party behind them visible in the reflection. ‘No point in working hard on something if you’re not, because at the end of the day that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?’

Lou pondered that, both disappointed by the lack of praise and intrigued by his father’s thinking at the same time.

‘But you always told me to work hard,’ he said suddenly, feeling an anger he had never known was there. ‘You always taught us not to rest on our laurels for a second, if I recall the phrase exactly.’ He smiled, but it was tight and he felt tense.

‘I didn’t want you all to be lazy, by any means,’ his dad responded, and turned to look Lou in the eye suddenly. ‘In any aspect of your life, not just in your work. Any tightrope walker can walk in a straight line and hold a cane at the same time. It’s the balancing on the rope at those dizzying heights that they have to practise,’ he said simply.

A staff member, carrying a chair in her hand, broke the quiet tension. ‘Excuse me, who is this for?’ She looked around at the family. ‘My boss told me that someone in this party asked for a chair.’

‘Em, yes, I did,’ Lou laughed, angrily. ‘But I asked for chairs. Plural. For all the guests.’

‘Oh, well, we don’t have that amount of chairs on the premises,’ she apologised. ‘So who would like this chair?’

‘Your mother,’ Lou’s father said quickly, not wanting any fuss. ‘Let your mother sit down.’

‘No, I’m fine, Fred,’ Lou’s mother objected. ‘It’s your birthday, you have the chair.’

Lou closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He had paid twelve thousand euro for his family to fight over the use of a chair.

‘Also, the DJ said that the only traditional music he has is the Irish National Anthem. Would you like him to play it?’

‘What?’ Lou snapped.

‘It’s what he plays at the end of the night, but he has no other Irish songs with him,’ she apologised. ‘Shall I tell him to play it for you all now?’

‘No!’ Lou snapped. ‘That’s ludicrous. Tell him no.’

‘Can you please give him this?’ Marcia said politely, reaching into a cardboard box she had underneath the table. From it, party hats, streamers and banners overflowed. He even caught sight of a cake. She handed the waiter a collection of CDs. Their father’s favourite songs. She looked up at Lou briefly while handing them over. ‘In case you fucked up,’ she said, then looked away.

It was a short comment, small and delivered quietly, but it hit him harder than anything she’d said to him that evening. He’d thought he was the organised one, the one who knew how to throw a party, the one who knew to call in all the favours and throw the biggest bash. But while he was busy thinking he was all that, his family were busy preparing Plan B, in preparation for his failures. All in a cardboard box.

Suddenly the room cheered as Quentin stepped out of the elevator along with Gabe – whom Lou hadn’t known was invited – each appearing with a pile of chairs stacked up in their arms.

‘There are more on the way!’ Quentin announced to the crowd, and suddenly the atmosphere perked up as the familiar faces that had aged since Lou’s youth looked to one another with relief, slight pain and an innocent excitement.

‘Lou!’ Gabe’s face lit up when he saw him. ‘I’m so glad you came.’ He laid the chairs out for a few elderly people nearby and approached Lou, hand held out, leaving Lou confused as to whose party it was. Gabe leaned close to Lou’s ear. ‘Did you double up?’

‘What? No.’ Lou shook him off, frustrated.

‘Oh,’ Gabe said with surprise. ‘The last I saw of you, you and Alison were having a meeting in your office. I didn’t realise you left the work party.’

‘Yes, of course I did. Why do you have to assume the worst, that I had to take one of those pills to show up at my own father’s party?’ he feigned insult.

Gabe merely smiled. ‘Hey, it’s funny how life works, isn’t it?’ He nudged Lou.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, the way one minute you can be up here, and then the next minute all the way down there?’ On Lou’s aggressive look, he continued, ‘I just meant that when we met last week, I was down there, looking up and dreaming about being here. And now look at me. It’s funny how it all switches around. I’m up in the penthouse; Mr Patterson gave me a new job –’

‘He what?’

‘Yeah, he gave me a job.’ Gabe grinned and winked. ‘A promotion.’

Before Lou had the opportunity to respond, a female staff member approached them with a tray.

‘Would anybody like some food?’ she smiled.

‘Oh, no, thank you, I’ll wait for the shepherd’s pie,’ Lou’s mother smiled at her.

‘This is the shepherd’s pie.’ The lady pointed to a small mini blob of potato sitting in a minuscule cupcake holder.

There was a moment’s silence and Lou’s heart almost ripped through his skin from its hectic beating.

‘Is there more food coming later?’ Marcia asked.

‘Apart from the cake? No,’ she shook her head, ‘this is it for the evening. Trays of hors d’oeuvre.’ She smiled again as though not picking up on the hostility that was currently doing the rounds.

‘Oh,’ Lou’s father said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘You can leave the tray here so.’

‘The whole tray?’ She looked uncertainly around and then behind her to the manager for back-up.

‘Yes, we’ve a hungry family here,’ Fred said, taking it from her hands and placing it on the tall table so that

everybody had to stand up from their chairs in order to reach.

‘Oh, okay.’ She watched it being placed down and slowly backed away, trayless.

‘You mentioned a cake?’ Marcia asked, her voice high-pitched and screechy, possessed and distressed by the lack of control, by everything going wrong.

‘Yes.’

‘Let me see it please,’ she said, casting a look of terror at Lou. ‘What colour is it? What’s on it? Does it have raisins? Daddy hates raisins,’ they could hear her saying as she wandered off to the kitchen with the waitress, her cardboard box of damage-limitation items in her hand.

‘So, who invited you, Gabe?’ Lou felt tetchy, not wanting to discuss the promotion for fear he’d throw Gabe across the other side of the room.

‘Ruth did,’ Gabe said, reaching for a mini shepherd’s pie.

‘Oh, she did, did she? I don’t think so,’ Lou laughed.

‘Why wouldn’t you think so?’ Gabe shrugged. ‘She invited me the night I had dinner and stayed over at your house.’

‘Why do you say it like that? Don’t say it like that,’ Lou said childishly, squaring up to him. ‘You weren’t invited to dinner in my house. You dropped me home and ate leftovers.’

Gabe looked at him curiously. ‘Okay.’

‘Where is Ruth anyway? I haven’t seen her all night.’

‘Oh, we’ve been talking all evening on the balcony. I really like her,’ Gabe responded, mashed potato dribbling down his chin and landing on his borrowed tie. Lou’s tie.

At that, Lou’s jaw clenched. ‘You really like her? You really like my wife? Well, that’s funny, Gabe, because I really like my wife too. You and I have so fucking much in common, don’t we?’

‘Lou,’ Gabe smiled nervously, ‘you might want to keep your voice down just a little.’

Lou looked around and smiled at the attention they’d attracted and playfully wrapped his arm around Gabe’s shoulder to show all was good. When eyes looked away, he turned to face Gabe and dropped the smile.

‘You really want my life, don’t you, Gabe?’

Gabe seemed taken aback, but hadn’t the opportunity to respond as the elevator doors opened and out fell Alfred, Alison and a crowd from the office party, who – despite the noise of Lou’s father’s favourite songs blaring out through the speakers – managed to announce themselves to the room, loud and clear, while dressed in their Santa suits and their party hats, blowing their party blowers at anyone who so much as looked their way.

Lou darted from his family and ran up the steps to the elevator, blocking Alfred’s path. ‘What are you all doing here?’

‘We’re here to partaaay, my friend,’ Alfred announced, swaying and blowing a party horn in his face.

‘Alfred, you weren’t invited,’ Lou said loudly.

‘Alison invited me,’ Alfred laughed. ‘And I think you know better than anyone how hard it is to turn down an invitation from Alison,’ he smiled. ‘But I don’t mind being sloppy seconds,’ he laughed, wavering drunkenly on the spot. Suddenly his eyeline moved to above Lou’s shoulder and his face changed. ‘Ruth! How are you?’

Lou’s heart almost failed as he turned around and saw Ruth behind them.

‘Alfred.’ Ruth folded her arms and stared at her husband.

There was a tense silence.

‘Well, this is awkward,’ Alfred said uncertainly. ‘I think I’m going to go and join the party. I’ll leave you two to bludgeon each other in private.’

Alfred disappeared, leaving Lou alone with Ruth, and the hurt on her face was like a dagger through his heart. He’d gladly have anger anytime.

‘Ruth,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking for you all evening.’

‘I see the party planner, Alison, joined us too,’ she said, her voice shaking as she tried to remain strong.

Lou looked over his shoulder and saw Alison, little dress and long legs, dancing in the middle of the floor seductively with Santa.

Ruth looked at him questioningly.

‘I didn’t,’ he said, the fight going out of him, not wanting to be that man any more. ‘Hand on heart, I didn’t. She tried tonight, and I didn’t.’

Ruth laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, I bet she did.’

‘I swear I didn’t.’

‘Anything? Ever?’ She studied his face intently, clearly hating herself; embarrassed, angry at having to ask.

He swallowed. He didn’t want to lose her, but he didn’t want to lie. ‘A kiss. Once, is all. Nothing else,’ he spoke faster now, panicking. ‘But I’m different now, Ruth, I’m –’

She didn’t listen to the rest of it, she turned away from him, trying to hide her face and her tears from him. She opened the door to the balcony and cold air rushed in at Lou. The balcony was empty, the smokers inside eating as many mini shepherd’s pies as it took to fill a hole.

‘Ruth –’ He tried to grab her arm and pull her back inside.

‘Lou, let go of me, I swear to God, I’m not in the mood to talk to you now,’ she said angrily.

He followed her out to the balcony and they moved away from the window so that they couldn’t be seen by anyone inside. Ruth leaned on the edge and looked out at the city. Lou moved close behind her, wrapped his arms tightly around her body and refused to let go, despite her body going rigid as soon as he touched her.

‘Help me fix this,’ he whispered, close to tears. ‘Please, Ruth, help me fix this.’

She sighed, but her anger was still raw. ‘Lou, what the hell were you thinking? How many times did we all tell you how important this night was?’

‘I know, I know,’ he stuttered, thinking fast. ‘I was trying to prove to you all that I could –’

‘Don’t you dare lie to me again.’ She stopped him short. ‘Don’t you dare lie when you’ve just asked for my help. You weren’t trying to prove anything. You were fed up with Marcia ringing you, fed up with her trying to get it right for your father, you were too busy –’

‘Please, I don’t need to hear this right now,’ he winced, as though every word brought on a migraine.

‘This is exactly what you need to hear. You were too busy at work to care about your father, or about Marcia’s plans. You got a stranger who knew nothing of your father’s seventy years on this earth to plan the whole thing for you. Her?’ She pointed inside at Alison, who was doing the limbo underneath the chocolate fondue stand, revealing the red lace underwear to all that were looking. ‘A little tramp that you probably screwed while dictating the party guest list,’ she spat.

Lou thought better of informing Ruth that Alison was actually a well-qualified business graduate and, apart from party planning, a competent employee. It didn’t seem appropriate to defend her honour; Alison’s behaviour at the office and then at his father’s party was doing little to defend her own honour.

‘That didn’t happen, I swear. I know I messed everything up. I’m sorry.’ He was so used to saying that word now.

‘And what was it all for? For a promotion? A pay rise that you don’t even need? More work hours in a day that just aren’t humanly possible to achieve? When will you stop? When will it all be enough for you? How high do you want to climb, Lou? You know what, last week you said that only a job can fire you, but a family can’t. But I think you’re about to realise that the latter is possible after all.’

‘Ruth,’ he closed his eyes, ready to jump off the balcony then and there if she was going to leave him, ‘please don’t leave me.’

‘Not me, Lou,’ she said. ‘I’m talking about them.’

He turned around and watched his family join a convoy, as the room danced around in a train, kicking their legs every few steps. ‘I’m racing with Quentin tomorrow. On the boat.’ He looked at her for praise.

‘I thought Gabe was doing that?’ Ruth asked in confusion. ‘Gabe offered his time to Quentin right here in front of me. Quentin said yes.’

Anger rose as Lou’s blood boiled. ‘No, I’m definitely going to do it.’ He would see to it.

‘Oh, really? Is that before or after you’re coming ice-skating with me and the kids?’ she asked, before walking off and leaving him alone on the balcony, cursing himself for forgetting his promise to Lucy.

As Ruth opened the door to the balcony, music rushed out and cold air rushed in. Then the door closed again, but he felt a presence behind him. She hadn’t gone inside. She hadn’t left him.

‘I’m sorry about everything I’ve ever done. I want to fix it all,’ he said with exhaustion. ‘I’m tired now. I want to fix it. I want everyone to know that I’m sorry. I’d do anything for them to know that and to believe me. Please help me fix it,’ he repeated.

Had Lou turned around then he would have seen that his wife had indeed left him; that she’d rushed off to a quiet place to once again cry her tears of frustration for a man who had convinced her only hours previously in their bedroom that he had changed. No, it was Gabe that had stepped in when Ruth had rushed off, and it was Gabe who heard Lou’s confessions on the balcony.

Gabe knew that Lou Suffern was exhausted. Lou had spent so many years moving so quickly through the minutes, hours and days, through the moments, that he’d stopped noticing life. The looks, gestures and emotions of other people had long since stopped being important or visible to him. Passion had driven him at first, and then, while on his way to the somewhere he wanted to be, he’d left it behind. He’d moved so fast, he’d taken no pause for breath; his rhythm was too quick, his heart could barely keep up.

As Lou breathed in the cold December air and lifted his face up to the sky, to feel – and appreciate – the icy droplets of rain that fell onto his skin, he knew that his soul was coming to get him.

He could feel it.

25. The Best Day

At nine a.m. on Saturday morning, the day after his father’s seventieth birthday party, Lou Suffern sat out in his back garden and lifted his face and closed his eyes to the morning sun. He’d clambered over the fence that separated their two-acre landscaped garden – where pathways and pebbles, garden beds and giant pots signposted the way to walk – from the rugged and wild terrain that lay beyond human meddling. Splashes of yellow gorse were everywhere, as though somebody in Dalkey had taken a paintball gun and fired carelessly in the direction of the northside headland. Lou and Ruth’s house sat at the very top of the summit, their back garden looking out to the north with vast views of Howth village below, the harbour, and out further again to Ireland’s Eye. Often, Snowdon in Snowdonia National Park in Wales, 138 kilometres away, could be seen from the headland; though on this clear day it was forever that Lou Suffern had his eye on.

Lou sat on a rock and breathed in the fresh air. His numb nose dribbled, his cheeks were frozen stiff, and his ears ached from the nip in the wind. His fingers had turned a purplish blue, as though they were being strangled at the knuckles; not good weather for vital parts, but ideal weather for sailing. Unlike the carefully maintained gardens of his and his neighbours’ houses, the wild and rugged gorse had been even more lovingly left to grow as it wanted, like a second child who was given more space and less rules. It had roamed the mountainside and stamped its authority firmly around the headland. The land was hilly and uneven, it rose and fell without warning, apologised for nothing and offered no assistance to trekkers. It was the student in the back row in class, quiet but suggestive, sitting back to view the traps it had laid. Despite Howth’s wild streak in the mountains and the hustle and bustle of a fishing village, the town itself always had a sense of calm. It had a patient, grandparental feel about it: lighthouses that guided inhabitants of the waters safely to shore; cliffs that stood like a line of impenetrable Spartans with heaving chests and muscles that rippled through abdomens, fierce against the elements. There was the pier that acted as a mediator between land and sea and dutifully ferried people out as far as humanly possible; the Martello tower that stood like a lone ageing soldier who refused to leave his zone long after the trouble had ended. Despite the constant gusts that attacked the headland, the town was steady and stubborn.

Lou wasn’t alone as he pondered his life. Beside him sat himself. They were dressed differently: one ready for sailing with his brother, the other for ice-skating with the family. They stared out to sea, both watching the shimmer of the sun on the horizon, looking like a giant silver dime had been dropped in for luck and now glimmered under the waves. They’d been sitting there for a while, not saying anything, merely comfortable with their own company.

Lou on the mossy grass looked at Lou on the rock and smiled. ‘You know how happy I am right now? I’m beside myself,’ he chuckled.

Lou, sitting on the rock, fought his smile. ‘The more I hear myself joke, the more I realise I’m not funny.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ Lou pulled a long strand of wild grass from the ground and rolled it around his purple fingers. ‘But I also notice what a handsome bastard I am.’

They both laughed.

‘You talk over people a lot, though,’ Lou on the rock said, recalling witnessing his other self commanding conversations unnecessarily.

‘I noticed that. I really should –’

‘And you don’t really listen,’ he added, deep in thought. ‘And your stories are always too long. People don’t seem to be as interested as you think,’ he admitted. ‘You don’t ask people about what they’re doing. You should start doing that.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Lou on the grass said, unimpressed.

‘I am.’

They sat in silence again because Lou Suffern had recently learned that much ascended from silence and from being still. A gull swooped, squawked, eyed them suspiciously and then flew off.

‘He’s off to tell his mates about us,’ Lou on the rock said.

‘Let’s not take whatever they say to heart; they all look the same to me,’ the other Lou said.

They both laughed again.

‘I can’t believe I’m laughing at my own jokes.’ Lou on the grass rubbed his eyes. ‘Embarrassing.’

‘What’s going on here, do you think?’ Lou asked seriously, perched on his rock.

‘If you don’t know, I don’t know.’

‘Yes, but if I have theories, well then, so do you.’

They looked at one another, knowing exactly what the other was thinking.

Lou chose his words wisely, letting them roll around his mouth before saying, ‘I’m not superstitious, but I think we should keep those theories to ourselves, don’t you? It is what it is. Let’s keep it at that.’

‘I don’t want anybody to get hurt,’ Lou on the grass spoke up.

‘Did you just hear what I said?’ he said angrily. ‘I said don’t talk about it.’

‘Lou!’ Ruth was calling them from the garden and it broke the spell between them.

‘Coming!’ he yelled, peeping his head above the fence. He saw Pud, new to his feet, escaping to freedom through the kitchen door, racing around the grass unevenly like an egg that had prematurely hatched where legs alone had broken free. He shuffled along after the ball, trying to catch it but mistakenly kicking it with his running feet each time he got near. Finally learning, he stopped running before reaching the ball, and instead slowly sneaked up behind it as though it was going to take off again by itself. He lifted a foot. Not used to having to balance on one leg, he fell backwards onto the grass, landing safely on his padded behind. Lucy ran outside in her hat and scarf and helped to pull him up.

‘She’s so like Ruth.’ He heard a voice near his ear and realised Lou had joined him.

‘I know. See the way she makes that face.’ They watched Lucy giving out to Pud for being careless. They both laughed at exactly the same time she made the face.

Pud screeched at Lucy’s attempt to take him by the hand and lead him back into the house. He pulled away and threw his hand up in the air in a mini tantrum, then chose to waddle to the house by himself.

‘Who does he remind you of?’ Lou said.

‘Okay, we’d better get moving. You walk down to the harbour, I’ll drive Ruth and the kids into town. Make sure you’re there on time, won’t you? I practically had to bribe Quentin into saying yes about helping him today.’

‘Of course I’ll be there. Don’t you break a leg.’

‘Don’t you drown.’

‘We’ll enjoy the day.’ Lou reached out and shook hands with himself. Their handshake turned into an embrace, and Lou stood on the mountainside giving himself the biggest and warmest hug he’d received in a very long time.

Lou arrived down at the harbour two hours in advance of the race. He hadn’t raced for so many years, he wanted to get accustomed to the talk, get a feel for being on the boat again. He also needed to build up a relationship with the rest of the team: communication was key and he didn’t want to let anybody down. Not true – he didn’t want to let Quentin down. He found the beautiful Alexandra, the forty-foot sailboat Quentin had bought five years ago and that he had since spent every spare penny and every waking moment on. Already on board, Quentin and five others were in a tight group, going over the course and their tactics.

Lou did the math. There were only supposed to be six on the boat; Lou joining them made seven.

‘Hi there,’ he said, approaching them.

‘Lou!’ Quentin looked up in surprise and Lou realised then why there were already six people. Quentin hadn’t trusted him to show up.

‘Not late, am I? You did say nine thirty.’ He tried to hide his disappointment.

‘Yeah, sure, of course.’ Quentin tried to hide his surprise. ‘Absolutely, I just, eh …’ He turned around to the other men waiting and watching. ‘Let me introduce you to the rest of the team. Guys, this is my brother, Lou.’

Surprise flitted across a few faces.

‘We didn’t know you had a brother,’ one smiled, stepping forward to offer his hand. ‘I’m Geoff, welcome. I hope you know what you’re doing.’

‘It’s been a while,’ Lou looked uncertainly at Quentin, ‘but Quentin and I were sent on enough sailing courses over the years, it’d be hard for us ever to forget. It’s like riding a bike, isn’t it?’

They laughed and welcomed him aboard.

‘So where do you want me?’ He looked at his brother.

‘Are you really okay to do this?’ Quentin asked him quietly, away from the others.

‘Of course.’ Lou tried not to be offended. ‘Same positions as we used to?’

‘Foredeck man?’ Quentin asked.

‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ Lou smiled, saluting him.

Quentin laughed and turned back to the rest of the crew. ‘Okay, boys, I want us all working in harmony. Remember, let’s talk to each other, I want information flowing up and down the boat at all times. If you haven’t done what you should have done, then shout, we all need to know exactly what’s going on. If we win, I’ll buy the first round.’

They all cheered.

‘Right, Lou,’ he looked at his brother and winked, ‘I know you’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.’

Though untrue, Lou didn’t feel it was a good idea to object.

‘Finally you get your opportunity to see what Alexandra’s made of.’

Lou punched his brother playfully in the side.

Ruth pushed Pud’s buggy through Fusiliers Arch and they entered St Stephen’s Green, a park right in the centre of Dublin city. An ice rink had been set up in the grounds, attracting shoppers and people from all around the country to join in the unique experience. Passing the duck-filled lake and walking over O’Connell Bridge, they soon entered a wonderland. Instead of the usual manicured gardens, a Christmas market had been set up, lavishly decorated and looking like it had come straight out of a Christmas movie. Stalls selling hot chocolate with marshmallows, mince pies and fruit cakes lined the paths and the smell of cinnamon, cloves and marzipan oozed into the air. Each stall owner was dressed as an elf, while Christmas tunes blared out of the speakers, icicles dripped from the roof of every stall and machines blew fake snow through the air.

Santa’s Igloo was the centre of attention, a long queue forming outside, while elves dressed in green rags and pointy shoes did their best to entertain the waiting masses. Giant red and white striped candy canes formed an archway into the igloo, while bubbles blew from the chimneytop and floated up into the sky. On one patch of grass a group of children – umpired by an elf – played tug of war with an oversized Christmas cracker. A Christmas tree twenty feet tall had been erected and decorated in oversized baubles and tinsel. Hanging from the branches were giant water balloons, which a queue of children – but more daddies – threw holly-covered balls at in an attempt to burst the balloons and release the gifts inside. A red-faced elf, wet from the exploding balloons, ran around collecting gifts from the floor, while his accomplice filled more balloons and passed them to another team-mate to hang on the branches. There was no whistling while they worked.

Pud’s chubby little forefinger pointed in every direction as something new caught his eye. Lucy, who was usually all chat, had suddenly gone very quiet. Her chocolate-brown hair was cut bluntly at her chin, her fringe stopped above eyebrows that shaped big brown eyes. She was dressed in a bright red coat that went to her knees, double-breasted with oversized black buttons and a black fur collar, cream tights and shiny black shoes. She held on to Pud’s buggy with one hand and floated along beside them all, drifting away in a heaven of her own. Every now and then she’d see something and look up to Lou and Ruth with the biggest smile on her face. Nobody said anything. They didn’t need to. They all knew.

Further away from the Christmas market they found the ice rink, which was swarmed by hundreds of people young and old, the queue snaking alongside the rink so that those who crashed and fell could be viewed by spectators who chuckled at every comedy fall.

‘Why don’t you all go and watch the show?’ Lou said, referring to the mini-pantomime that was being performed in the bandstand. Dozens of children sat on deckchairs, entranced by the magical world before them. ‘I’ll queue for us.’

It was a generous gesture and a selfish one both at the same time, for Lou Suffern couldn’t possibly change overnight. He had made the attempt to spend the day with his family, but already his BlackBerry was burning a hole in his pocket and he needed time to check it before he quite simply exploded.

‘Okay, thanks,’ Ruth said, pushing Pud over to join Lou in the queue. ‘We shouldn’t be too long.’

‘What are you doing?’ Lou asked, panicked.

‘Going to watch the show.’

‘Aren’t you taking him?’

‘No. He is asleep. He’ll be fine with you.’

She headed off hand-in-hand with a skipping Lucy, while Lou looked at Pud with mild panic and full of prayer for him not to wake. He had one eye on his BlackBerry, the other on Pud, and a third eye that he had never known he had on the group of teenagers in front of him, who had suddenly started shouting and jumping around as their hormones got the better of them, each screech from their mouths and jerk of their gawky hand movements a threat to his sleeping child. He suddenly became aware of the level of ‘Jingle Bells’ being filtered through the speakers, of the feedback that sounded like a five-car pile-up when a voice cut in to announce a separated family member that was waiting by The Elf Centre. He was aware of every single solitary sound, every squeal of a child on the ice, every shout as their fathers fell on their arses, every crack of bones. On high alert, as though waiting for somebody to attack at any moment, the BlackBerry and its flashing red light went back in his pocket. The queue moved on and he ever so slowly pushed the buggy up the line.

In front of him, a greasy-haired adolescent telling a story to his friends through the use of serious explosion sounds and occasional epileptic-fit movements caught Lou’s eye. The boy, getting to the climax of the story, leapt back and landed against the buggy.

‘Sorry,’ the boy said, turning around and rubbing his arm, which he’d bumped. ‘Sorry, mister, is he okay?’

Lou nodded. Swallowed. He wanted to reach out and throttle the child, wanted to find the boy’s parents so that he could tell them about teaching their son the art of storytelling without grand gestures and spittle-flying explosions. He peeped in at Pud. The monster had been woken. Pud’s eyes, glassy, sleepy and tired, and not yet ready to come out of hibernation, opened slowly. They looked left, they looked right, and all around, while Lou held his breath. He and Pud looked at one another for a while in a tense silence, and then, deciding he didn’t like the horrified expression on his father’s face, Pud spat out his soother and began screaming. Scream. Ing.

‘Eh, shhhh,’ Lou said awkwardly, looking down at his son.

Pud screamed louder, thick tears forming in his tired eyes.

‘Em, come on, Pud.’ Lou smiled at him, giving him his best porcelain-toothed smile that usually worked on everyone in business.

Pud cried louder.

Lou looked around in embarrassment, apologising to anybody whose eye he caught, particularly the smug father who had a young baby in a pouch on his front and two other children holding each of his hands. He grumbled at the smug man and turned his back on him, trying to end the screech of terror by pushing the buggy back and forth quickly, deliberately clipping the heels of the greasy teen who’d put him in this predicament. He tried pushing the soother in Pud’s mouth, ten times over. He tried covering Pud’s eyes with his hand, hoping that the sight of darkness would make him want to sleep. That didn’t work. Pud’s body was contorting, bending backwards as he tried to break out of his straps like the Incredible Hulk from his clothes. He continued to wail, sounding like a cat who was being hung by the tail and then dunked head first in water, followed by a strangling. He fumbled with the baby bag and offered him toys, which were flung rather violently out of the buggy and around the ground.

Smug Family Man with the front pouch bent over to assist Lou in his gathering of dispersed toys. Lou grabbed them while failing to make eye contact, grunting his thanks. After most things from the baby bag lay scattered on the ground, Lou decided to release the dough monster. He struggled with the trickiness of the catch for quite some time while Pud’s screams intensified and they gathered more stares, and, just as someone was close to calling social services, he finally broke his son free. Pud didn’t stop crying and continued to yell with snot bubbling from his nostrils, his face as purple as a Ribena berry.

Ten minutes of pointing at trees, dogs, children, planes, birds, Christmas trees, presents, elves, things that moved, things that didn’t move, anything that Lou could lay his eye on, and Pud was still crying.

Ruth came running over with Lucy.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Woke up as soon as you left, he won’t stop crying.’ Lou was sweating.

Pud took one look at Ruth and reached his arms out towards her, almost jumping out of Lou’s arms. His cries stopped instantly, he clapped his hands, his face returned to a normal colour, he babbled. He looked at his mother, played with her necklace and acted as though nothing had happened to him at all. Lou was sure that when nobody else was looking, Pud smiled cheekily at him.

Feeling in his element, Lou’s stomach churned with anticipation as he watched the coastline move further away, as they made their way to the starting area, north of Ireland’s Eye. Bundled-up family members and friends waved their support from the lighthouse on the end of the pier, with binoculars in hands.

There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to live by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that was as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embrace its audience one moment, but then could explode with its stormy tempers, flinging people around, wanting them out, attacking coastlines, breaking down islands. It had its playful side too, as it enjoyed the crowd, tossed children about, knocked lilos over, tipped over windsurfers, occasionally gave sailors helping hands; all done with a secret chuckle. For Lou there was nothing like the feel of the wind in his hair, gliding through the water with the rain in his face or the sun beating down. It had been a long time since he’d sailed – he and Ruth, of course, had had many holidays on friends’ yachts over the years, but it was a long time since Lou had been a team player in any aspect of his life. He was looking forward to the challenge; he was looking forward to not only being in competition with thirty other boats, but trying to beat the sea, the wind and all the elements.

In the starting area they sailed near the committee boat Free Enterprise for identification purposes. The starting line was between a red and white pole on the committee boat and a cylindrical orange buoy which was left to port. Lou got into position at the bow of the boat as they circled the starting area, trying to get into the right position to time it perfectly so that they’d cross the starting line at just the right time. The wind was north-east force four and the tide flooding, which added to the sea’s bad humour. This would have to be watched to keep the boat moving fast through the choppy, lumpy sea. Just like old times, Lou and Quentin had talked this out so both knew what was required. Any premature passing of the starting line would mean an elimination, and it was up to Lou to count them down, position them correctly, and communicate with the helmsman, who was Quentin. They used to have it down to a fine art when they were in their teens, back then they’d won numerous races and could have competed with their eyes closed, merely feeling the direction of the wind; but it had been so long ago and the communication between them had broken down rather dramatically over the past few years.

Lou blessed himself as the warning signal appeared at 11.25. They moved the boat around, trying to get into position so that they’d be one of the first to cross the starting line. At 11.26 the preparatory flag went up. At 11.29 the one-minute signal flag went down. Lou waved his arms around wildly, trying to signal to Quentin where to place the boat.

‘Right starboard, starboard right, Quentin!’ he yelled, waving his right arm. ‘Thirty seconds!’ he yelled.

They came dangerously close to another yacht. Lou’s fault.

‘Eh, left port! LEFT!’ Lou yelled. ‘Twenty seconds!’

Each boat fought hard to find a good position, but with thirty boats in the race there could only be a small number that would make it across the starting line in the favoured position close to the committee boat. The rest would have to do their best with stolen wind on the way up the beat.

Eleven thirty heralded the start signal, and at least ten boats crossed the start line before them. Not the best start, but Lou wasn’t going to let it get to him. He was rusty, he needed some practice, but he didn’t have time for that, this was the real thing.

They raced along, with Ireland’s Eye on their right, the headland to their left, but there was no time to take in the view now. Lou didn’t move, thinking fast, looking around him at all the yachts racing by, with the wind blowing in his hair, his blood pumping through his veins, feeling more alive than he’d ever felt. It was all coming back to him, what it felt like to be on the boat. Perhaps his speed was down, but he hadn’t lost his instincts. They raced along, the boat crashing over the waves as they headed towards the weather mark, one mile up in the wind from the starting line.

‘Tacking!’ Quentin shouted, watching and steering as they all prepared. The runners trimmer, Alan, checked that the slack on the old runners had been pulled in. The genoa trimmer, Luke, made sure that the new sheet had the slack pulled in and gave a couple of turns on the winch. Lou didn’t move an inch, thinking ahead about what he needed to do and watching the other boats around them to make sure nothing was too close. He instinctively knew they were tacking onto port and would have no right of way over boats on starboard. His old racing tactics came flooding back and he was quietly pleased with how he had positioned the boat right on the layline to the weather mark. He could sense Quentin’s confidence in him gaining at their now favourable position when the tack was completed, powering towards the mark with a clear passage in. It was Quentin’s belief in him that Lou was fighting to win, just as much as first place.

Quentin made sure that there was room to tack and started the turn. Geoff, the cockpit man, moved quickly to the old genoa, and as the genoa backwinded, he released it. The boat went through the wind, the mainsheet was eased a couple of feet and the boom came across. Luke pulled as fast as possible, and when he couldn’t pull any more he put a couple more turns on the winch and the grinding began. Quentin steered the new course.

‘HIGH SIDE!’ Lou yelled, and they all raced to hang their legs over the windward side.

Quentin whooped and Lou laughed into the wind.

After rounding the first mark and heading towards the second with the wind on their side, Lou jumped into action in time to hoist the spinnaker, then gave Quentin the thumbs up. The rest of the team instantly got busy, tending to their individual duties. Lou was a little too much fingers and thumbs but he could tell it was coming together.

Watching it raise to the top, Lou happily called, ‘UP!’

Alan trimmed the spinnaker while Robert grinded. They sailed fast and Lou punched the air and roared. Behind the wheel, Quentin laughed as the spinny filled with wind like a windsock, and with the wind with them they raced to the next mark. Quentin allowed himself a quick look astern and it was some sight: there must have been twenty-five boats with spinnakers filling, chasing them down. Not bad. He and Lou caught one another’s eyes and smiled. They didn’t say anything. They didn’t need to. They both knew.

After thirty minutes of queuing for the ice rink, Lou and his family finally reached the top.

‘You guys all have fun,’ Lou said, clapping his hands together and stamping his feet to keep warm. ‘I’ll just go to the coffee place over there and watch you.’

Ruth started laughing. ‘Lou, I thought you were coming skating.’

‘No.’ He scrunched up his face. ‘I’ve just spent the last half an hour watching men older than me on the ice and they look like right eejits. What if someone sees me? I’d rather stay here, thank you. Plus, these are new and dry-clean only,’ he added, referring to his trousers.

‘Right,’ Ruth said firmly, ‘you won’t mind taking care of Pud then, while Lucy and I skate.’

‘Come on, Lucy,’ he instantly grabbed his daughter’s hand, ‘let’s get us some skates.’ He winked at a laughing Ruth and made off for the ice-skates. He got to the counter ahead of Smug Family Man, who, like the Pied Piper, was leading even more children now. Ha. He had a sense of silent victory at arriving at the counter first. The ice was nearby and child in Lou had come out to play.

‘What size?’ The man behind the desk looked at him.

‘Ten please,’ Lou responded, and looked down at Lucy to speak up. Her big brown eyes stared back up at him.

‘Tell the man your size, sweetheart,’ he said, feeling Smug Family Man breathing down his neck as he waited.

‘I don’t know, Daddy,’ she said, almost in a whisper.

‘Well, you’re four, aren’t you?’

‘Five,’ she frowned.

‘She’s five,’ he told the man. ‘So whatever size a five-year-old would take.’

‘It really depends on the child.’

Lou sighed and took out his BlackBerry, refusing to have to queue again. Behind him, Smug Family Man with the baby in the pouch called over his head, ‘Two size fours, a size three, and an eleven, please.’

Lou rolled his eyes and mimicked him as he waited for his call to be answered. Lucy laughed and copied his face.

‘Hello?’

‘What size is Lucy?’

Ruth laughed. ‘She’s a twenty-six.’

‘Okay, thanks.’ He hung up.

Once on the ice, he held on to the side of the rink carefully. He took Lucy’s hand and guided her along. Ruth stood by with Pud, who kicked his legs excitedly while bouncing up and down and pointing at nothing in particular.

‘Now, sweetheart,’ Lou’s voice and ankles wobbled as he stepped on the ice, ‘it’s very dangerous, okay, so you have to be very careful. Hold on to the sides now, okay?’

Lucy held on to the side with one hand and slowly got used to moving along the ice while Lou’s ankles wobbled on the thin blades.

Lucy started to skate faster. ‘Honey,’ Lou said, his voice shaky as he looked down at the cold, hard ice, dreading what it would feel like to fall. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d fallen, as a child most probably, and childhood was where falling belonged.

The distance between Lucy and Lou widened.

‘Keep up with her, Lou,’ Ruth called from the other side of the barrier, walking alongside him as he moved, and he could hear the smile in her voice.

‘I bet you’re enjoying this.’ He could barely look up at her, he was concentrating so much.

‘Absolutely.’

He pushed with his left foot, which skidded further than he planned, and he almost broke into the splits. Feeling like Bambi getting to his feet for the first time, he wobbled and spun, arms waving around in circles like a fly trapped in a jam jar, while not too far away he heard Ruth’s distinctive laugh. But he was making progress. He looked up now and then to keep his eye on Lucy, who was clearly visible in her fire-engine-red coat, halfway around the rink.

Smug Family Man went flying by him, arms swinging as though he was about to take part in a bobsleigh race, the speed of him almost toppling Lou. Behind him, Smug Family Man’s kids raced along, holding hands, and were they singing? That was it. Slowly letting go of the barrier at the side, his wobbly legs tried to balance. Then, bit by bit, he slid a foot forward, almost toppling backwards, his back arching as though about to fall into a crab position, but he rescued himself.

‘Hi Daddy,’ Lucy said, speeding by him as she completed the first round of the rink.

Lou moved out from the side of the rink, away from the beginners who were shuffling around inch by inch, determined to beat Smug Family Man, who was racing around like the roadrunner.

Halfway between the centre and the barrier, Lou was out on his own now. Feeling a little more confident, he pushed himself further, trying to swing his arms for balance like the others were doing. He picked up speed. Dodging children and old people, he quite unsophisticatedly darted around the rink, hunched over and swinging his arms, more like an ice-hockey player than a graceful skater. He bumped against children, knocking some over, causing others to topple. He heard a child cry. He broke through a couple holding hands. He was concentrating on not falling over so much that he could barely find the time to apologise. He passed Lucy but, unable to stop, had to keep moving, his speed picking up as he went round and round. The lights that decorated the park trees blurred as he raced around. The sounds and colours of the skaters around him whirled around. Feeling like he was on a merry-go-round, he smiled and relaxed a little bit more, as he raced round, and round, and round. He passed Smug Family Guy; he passed by Lucy for a third time; he passed by Ruth, who he heard call his name and take a photograph. He couldn’t stop and he wouldn’t stop; he didn’t know how. He was enjoying the feel of the wind in his hair, the lights of the city around him, the crispness of the air, the sky so filled with stars as the evening began to close in at the early hour. He felt free and alive, happier than he remembered being for a long time. Round and round he went.

Alexandra and the crew had taken on the course for the third and final time. Their speed and coordination had come together better over the last hour, and Lou had fixed any previous hiccups that he’d had. They were coming up to rounding the bottom mark and they needed to once again execute the spinnaker drop.

Lou made sure that the ropes were free to run. Geoff hoisted the genoa, Lou guided it into the luff groove and Luke made sure that the genoa sheet was cleated off. Robert positioned himself to grab the loose sheet under the mainsail so that it could be used to pull in the spinnaker. As soon as he was in position, everyone prepared for everything to happen at once. Geoff released the halyard and helped to stuff the spinnaker down below. Joey released the guy and made sure it ran out fast so that the spinnaker could fly flaglike outside the boat. When the spinnaker was in the boat, Luke trimmed the genoa for the new course, Joey trimmed the main, Geoff lowered the pole and Lou stowed the pole.

Spinnaker down for the last time and approaching the finishing line, they radioed the race officer on Channel 37 and waited for recognition. Not first in, but they were all happy. Lou looked at Quentin as they sailed in and they smiled. Neither of them said anything. They didn’t need to. They both knew.

Lying on his back in the middle of the rink with people flying by him, Lou held on to his sore rib-cage and tried to stop laughing, but he just couldn’t. He had done what he had been dreading all his life and achieved the most dramatic and comical fall of the day. He lay in the centre of the rink, with Lucy laughing too, trying to lift his arm and pull him up. They had been holding hands and skating around slowly together when, too cocky, Lou had tripped over his own feet, gone flying and landed on his back. Nothing was broken, thankfully, other than his pride, but even that he surprisingly didn’t care about. He allowed Lucy to believe she was helping him up from the ice as she pulled on his arm. He looked over to Ruth and saw a flash as she took yet another photo. They caught one another’s eyes and he smiled.

They didn’t say anything about the day that evening. They didn’t need to. They all knew.

It had been the best day of all of their lives.

26. It All Started with a Mouse

On the Monday following his weekend of sailing and skating, Lou Suffern found himself floating down the corridor to the room with the bigger desk and better light. It was Christmas Eve and the office block was near empty, but the few souls that haunted the halls – dressed in their casuals – offered pats on the back and firm handshakes of congratulations. He had made it. Behind him, Gabe helped carry a box of his files. Being Christmas Eve, it was the last day he would have the opportunity to prepare himself before the Christmas break. Ruth had wanted him to accompany her and the kids into the city and wander around absorbing the atmosphere, but he knew the best thing to do was to get a headstart in his new job, so that he could come back in the New Year and not have to waste time settling in. Christmas Eve or no Christmas Eve, he was intent on familiarising himself with the job now.

Down he and Gabe went to his bigger office with better light. When they opened the door and entered, it was almost as though angels were singing, as the morning sun lit a pathway from the door to the desk, shining directly on his new oversized leather chair as though it were an apparition. He’d made it. And although he could breathe a sigh of relief, he was about to take another deep breath for the new task ahead of him. No matter what he achieved, the feelings of having to reach again were endless. Life for him felt like an endless ladder that disappeared somewhere in the clouds, wobbling, threatening to topple and bring him down with it. He couldn’t look down now or he would freeze. He had to keep his eyes upward. Onward and upward.

Gabe placed the boxes down where Lou directed and he whistled as he looked around.

‘Some office, Lou.’

‘Yeah, it is,’ Lou grinned, looking around.

‘It’s warm,’ Gabe added, hands in pockets and strolling around.

Lou frowned. ‘Warm is … a word I wouldn’t use to describe this’, he spread his hands out in the vast space, ‘enormous fucking office.’ He started laughing, feeling slightly delirious. Tired and emotional, proud and a little fearful, he tried to take it all in.

‘So what exactly is it that you do now?’ Gabe asked.

‘I’m the Business Development Director, which means I now have the authority to tell certain little shits exactly what to do.’

‘Little shits like you?’

Lou’s head snapped around to face Gabe, like a radar that had found a signal.

‘I mean, just a few days ago you would have been one of those little shits being told what to … never mind,’ Gabe trailed off. ‘So how did Cliff take it?’

‘Take what?’

‘That his job was gone?’

‘Oh.’ Lou looked up. He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t tell him.’

Gabe left a silence.

‘I don’t think he’s well enough yet to talk to anyone,’ Lou added, feeling the need to explain.

‘He’s seeing visitors now,’ Gabe told him.

‘How do you know?’

‘I know. You should go and see him. He might have some good advice for you. You could learn from him.’

Lou laughed at that.

Gabe didn’t blink, and stood staring at him in the silence.

Lou cleared his throat awkwardly.

‘It’s Christmas Eve, Lou. What are you doing?’ Gabe’s voice was gentle.

‘What do you mean, what am I doing?’ Lou held his hands up questioningly. ‘What does it look like? I’m working.’

‘Bar security, you’re the only person left in the building. Haven’t you noticed? Everybody’s out there.’ Gabe pointed out at the busy city.

‘Yeah, well, everybody out there isn’t as busy as I am,’ Lou said childishly. ‘Besides, you’re here too, aren’t you?’

‘I don’t count.’

‘Well, that’s a great answer. I don’t count then, either.’

‘You keep on going like this and you won’t. You know, one of the most successful businessmen of all time, a certain Walt Disney, I’m sure you’ve heard of him, he has a company or two here and there,’ Gabe smiled, ‘said that “A man should never neglect his family for business.”’

There was a long, awkward silence where Lou clenched and unclenched his jaw, trying to decide whether to ask Gabe to leave or physically throw him out.

‘But then,’ Gabe laughed, ‘he also said, “It all started with a mouse.”’ Gabe smiled.

‘Okay, well, I’d better get to work now, Gabe. I hope you have a happy Christmas.’ Lou tried to control his tone so that if he didn’t exactly sound happy, he at least didn’t sound like he wanted to strangle Gabe.

‘Thank you, Lou. A very happy Christmas to you too. And congratulations on your warm, enormous fucking office.’

Lou couldn’t help but laugh at that, and as the door closed he was alone for the first time in his new office. He made his way to the desk, ran his finger along the walnut border to the pigskin surface. All that was on the desk was a large white computer, a keypad and a mouse.

He sat down on the leather chair and swung around to face towards the window, watching the city below him preparing for the celebrations. A part of him felt pulled outside, yet he felt trapped behind the window that showed him the world yet wouldn’t let him touch it. He often felt as though he were trapped inside an oversized snow globe, responsibilities and failures sprinkling down around him. He sat in that chair, at that desk, for over an hour, just thinking. Thinking about Cliff; thinking about the events of the past few weeks, and the best day of all, only two days ago. He thought about everything. When a mild panic began inside him, he turned in his chair and faced the office, facing up to it all.

He stared at that keypad. Stared at it hard. Then he followed the thin white wire that was connected to the mouse. He thought about Cliff, about finding him underneath this very desk, clutching this very keyboard, swinging that very mouse at him with wide, terrified, haunted eyes.

In honour of Cliff – something that Lou realised he hadn’t managed to do in the entire time that the man had been out of work – he kicked off his shoes, unhooked the keyboard from the computer monitor, and he pushed back the leather chair. He got onto his hands and knees and crawled underneath the desk, clutching the keyboard close to him. He looked at the windows that were floor to ceiling and watched the city racing by. He sat there for another hour, just pondering.

The clock on the wall ticked loudly in the silence. Gone was the usual hustle and bustle of the office block. No phones ringing, no photocopiers going, no hum of the computers, no voices, no footsteps passing by. Before looking at the clock, he hadn’t heard the seconds at all, but now the ticking seemed to get louder and louder as soon as he’d registered it. Lou looked at the keypad, and then he looked at the mouse. He had a jolt, felt it smack him in the head for the second time that year, but for the first time, Cliff’s message finally reached him. Whatever Cliff had been so afraid of coming to get him, Lou sure as hell didn’t want it chasing him either.

He clambered out from under the desk, shoved his feet into his polished black leather shoes and walked out of the office.

27. Christmas Eve

Grafton Street, the busy pedestrian street in Dublin city, was awash with people doing their last-minute shopping. Hands were fighting to grab the last remaining items on shelves, budgets and all thought had gone out of the window as rash decisions were made according to availability and time, and not necessarily with the recipient in mind. Presents first; for who, later.

For once not keeping up the pace of the panicked around him, Lou and Ruth held hands and slowly wandered the streets of Dublin, allowing others to rush and push by them. Lou had all the time in the world. Ruth had been more than taken aback when he’d arranged to meet her after his earlier brusque no, but, as usual, hadn’t asked any questions. She’d welcomed his new change with a silent delight but with equal amounts of cynicism that she’d refuse to ever speak aloud. Lou Suffern had much to prove to her.

They walked down Henry Street, which was filled with market stalls as hawkers cleared the last of their stock: toys and wrapping paper, leftover tinsel and baubles, remote-control cars that ran up and down the street, everything on show for the last few hours of manic Christmas shopping. On the ever-changing Moore Street, alongside traditional market stalls, displays included a lively ethnic mix of Asian and African stores. Lou bought Brussels sprouts from the sharp-tongued stall-sellers whose stream-of-consciousness outpourings were enough entertainment for anyone. They attended early Christmas Eve Mass and ate lunch together in the Westin Hotel in College Green, the historic nineteenth-century building, formerly a bank, that had been transformed to a five-star hotel. They ate in the Banking Hall, where Pud spent the entire time lopsided with his head tilted to the ceiling, watching in awe the intricately hand-carved ornate ceiling and the four chandeliers that glistened with the eight thousand pieces of Egyptian crystal, shouting over and over again just to hear the echo of his voice in the high ceiling.

Lou Suffern saw the world differently that day. Instead of viewing it from thirteen floors up, behind tinted, reinforced glass in an oversized leather chair, he had chosen to join in. Gabe had been right about the mouse; he’d been right about Cliff teaching him something – in fact it had happened six months ago as soon as the plastic mouse had hit him across the face, causing Lou’s fears and his conscience to resurface after long being buried. In fact, when Lou thought about it, Gabe had been right about a lot of things. The voice that had grated so much on his ear had in fact been speaking the words he hadn’t wanted to hear. He owed Gabe a lot. As the evening was closing in, and the children had to return home before Santa took to the skies, Lou kissed Ruth and the kids goodbye, saw them safely into her car and then headed back to the office. He had one more thing to do.

In the office lobby, while waiting at the elevators, the doors opened, and as Lou was about to step in Mr Patterson stepped out.

‘Lou,’ he said in surprise, ‘I can’t believe you’re working today, you really are a piece of work.’ He eyed the box in Lou’s hand.

‘Oh no, I’m not working. Not on a holiday,’ Lou smiled, trying to make a point, subtly attempting to set the ground rules for his new position. ‘I just have to, em,’ he didn’t want to get Gabe into trouble by revealing his whereabouts, ‘I just left something behind in the office.’

‘Good, good. Well, Lou,’ Mr Patterson rubbed his eyes tiredly, ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you something. I deliberated over whether to or not, but I think it’s best that I do. I didn’t come in this evening to work either,’ he admitted, ‘Alfred called me in. Said it was urgent. After what happened to Cliff we’re all on tenterhooks, I’m afraid, and so I made my way in quickly.’

‘I’m all ears,’ Lou said, the panic building inside him. The elevator doors closed again. Escape route gone.

‘He wanted to have a few words about … well, about you.’

‘Yes,’ Lou said slowly.

‘He brought me these.’ Mr Patterson reached into his pocket and retrieved the container of pills that Gabe had given Lou. There was only one pill inside. Alfred, the rat, had obviously scuttered to the skip to collect the evidence to destroy him.

Lou looked at the container in shock and tried to decide whether to deny them or not. Sweat broke out on his upper lip as he thought quickly for a story. They were his father’s. No. His mother’s. For her hip. No. He had back pain. He realised Mr Patterson was talking and so tuned in.

‘He said something about finding them under the skip. I don’t know,’ Mr Patterson frowned, ‘but that he knew them to be yours …’ He studied Lou again, searching for recognition.

Lou’s heart beat loudly in his ears.

‘I know that you and Alfred are friends,’ Mr Patterson said, a little confused, his face showing his sixty-five years. ‘But his concern for you seemed a little misguided. It seemed to me that the purpose of this was to get you into trouble.’

‘Em,’ Lou swallowed, eyeing up the brown container, ‘that’s not, em, they’re not, em …’ he stuttered while trying to formulate a sentence.

‘I’m not one to pry into people’s personal lives, Lou – what my colleagues do in their own time is their own business, so long as it’s not going to affect the company in any way. So I didn’t take too kindly to Alfred giving me these,’ he frowned. When Lou didn’t answer but continued to sweat profusely, Mr Patterson added, ‘But maybe that’s what you wanted him to do?’ he asked, trying to make sense of it all.

‘What?’ Lou wiped his brow. ‘Why would I want Alfred to bring these to you?’

Mr Patterson stared at him, his lips twitching slightly. ‘I don’t know, Lou, you’re a clever man.’

‘What?’ Lou responded, totally confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but I assumed,’ his twitching lips eventually grew to a smile, ‘that you deliberately tried to mislead Alfred with these pills. That you somehow made him believe they were more than they were. Am I right?’

Lou’s mouth fell open and he looked at his boss in surprise.

‘I knew it.’ Mr Patterson chuckled and shook his head. ‘You are good. But not that good. I could tell from the blue mark on them,’ he explained.

‘What do you mean? What blue mark?’

‘You didn’t manage to scratch the entire symbol off them,’ he explained, opening the container and holding it out so that he could empty it into his palm. ‘See the blue mark? And if you look close enough you can also see the trace of the D where it used to be. I should know, believe me, working in here, I swear by these fellas.’

Lou swallowed. ‘That was the only one with the blue mark?’ Lazy till the end, Alfred couldn’t even reach into a skip to save his own skin, he’d had to scrape an initial off a simple headache tablet.

‘No, there were two pills. Both with blue marks. I took one, I hope you don’t mind. Found under a skip or no skip, my head was pounding so much I had to have one. This bloody Christmas season is enough to drive me to an early grave.’

‘You took one?’ Lou gasped.

‘I’ll replace it.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘You can get them at every pharmacy. Newsagents even, they’re just over-the-counter pills.’

‘What happened when you took one?’

‘Well, it got rid of my headache, didn’t it?’ he frowned. ‘Though to tell you the truth, if I don’t get home in the next hour I’ll be given another one, before I know it.’ He looked at his watch.

Lou was gobsmacked into silence.

‘Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I didn’t like what Alfred was trying to do, and that I don’t think you’re a … well, whatever Alfred was trying to make me believe. There’s no place in the company for people like him. I had to let him go. Christmas Eve, Christ, this job makes a monster of us sometimes,’ he said, tiredly now, appearing older than his sixty-five years.

Lou was silent, his mind screaming questions at him. Either Alfred had replaced them, or Lou too had taken headache pills on the two occasions he had doubled up. Lou took out the handkerchief from his pocket, unwrapped it and examined the one remaining pill. His heart froze in his chest. The faint initial of the headache tablet could be seen. Why hadn’t he noticed it before?

‘Ah, I see you have another one there,’ Mr Patterson chuckled. ‘Caught red-handed, Lou. Well, here you go, you can have the last one. Add it to your collection.’ He handed him the container.

Lou looked at him and opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish, no words coming out, as he took the remaining pill from Mr Patterson.

‘I’d better go now.’ Mr Patterson slowly backed away. ‘I have a train set to put together and batteries to insert into a Little Miss something-or-other with a mouth as dirty as a toilet bowl, which I’ll no doubt be forced to listen to all week. Have a lovely Christmas, Lou.’ He held his hand out.

Lou gulped, his mind still in a whirl about the headache tablets. Was he allergic to them? Had the doubling-up been some sort of side-effect? Had he dreamed it? No. No, it had happened, his family had witnessed his presence on both occasions. So if it wasn’t the pills, then it was …

‘Lou,’ Mr Patterson said, his hand still in mid-air.

‘Bye,’ Lou said croakily, and then cleared his throat. ‘I mean, Happy Christmas.’ He reached out and shook his boss’s hand.

As soon as Mr Patterson had turned his back, Lou ran to the fire escape and charged down the stairs to the basement. It was colder than usual and the light at the end of the hall had finally been fixed, no longer flashing like eighties strobe lighting. Christmas music drifted out from under the door, ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ by Chris Rea echoing down the long, cold, sterile hallway.

Lou didn’t knock before entering. He pushed the door with his foot, still carrying the box in his arms. The room was significantly emptier than it had been. Gabe was down the second aisle, rolling up the sleeping bag and blanket.

‘Hi Lou,’ he said, without turning around.

‘Who are you?’ Lou asked, his voice shaking as he laid the box down on a shelf.

Gabe stood up and stepped out of the aisle. ‘Okay,’ he said slowly, looking Lou up and down. ‘That’s an interesting way to start a conversation.’ His eyes went to the box on the shelf and he smiled. ‘A gift for me?’ he said softly. ‘You really shouldn’t have.’ He stepped forward to receive it and Lou took a step backward while eyeing him quite fearfully.

‘Hmm,’ Gabe said, frowning at him, then turned to the gift-wrapped box on the shelf. ‘Can I open it now?’

Lou didn’t answer. Sweat glistened on his face and his eyes moved sharply to follow Gabe’s every movement.

Taking his time, Gabe carefully opened the perfectly wrapped gift. Approaching it from the ends, he slowly removed the tape, taking care not to rip the paper.

‘I love giving people gifts,’ he explained, still keeping the same easy tone. ‘But it’s not often that people give them to me. But you’re different, Lou. I’ve always thought that.’ He smiled at him. He unwrapped the box and finally revealed the gift inside, an electric heater for his store room. ‘Well, this is certainly very thoughtful. Thank you. It will certainly warm up my next space, but not here, unfortunately, as I’m moving on.’

Lou had moved up against the wall now, as far away from Gabe as he could before he spoke with a tremble. ‘The pills you gave me were headache tablets.’

Gabe kept studying the heater. ‘Mr Patterson told you that, I suspect.’

Lou was taken aback, having expected Gabe to deny it. ‘Yes,’ he responded. ‘Alfred took them from the skip and gave them to him.’

‘The little rat.’ Gabe shook his head, smiling. ‘Predictable old Alfred. I thought he might do that. Well, we can give him points for persistence, he really didn’t want you to have that job, did he?’

When Lou didn’t answer, Gabe continued, ‘I bet running to Patterson didn’t do him any favours, did it?’

‘Mr Patterson fired him,’ Lou said quietly, still trying to figure the situation out.

Gabe smiled, not seeming at all surprised. Just satisfied – and very much satisfied with himself.

‘Tell me about the pills,’ Lou found his voice shaking.

‘Yeah, they were a packet of headache pills I bought at a newsagent. Took me ages to scrape the little letters off; you know there aren’t many pills without branding on them these days.’

‘WHO ARE YOU?’ Lou shouted, his voice drenched in fear.

Gabe jumped, then looked a little bothered. ‘You’re frightened of me now? Because you found out it wasn’t a bunch of pills that cloned you? What is it with science these days? Everyone is so quick to believe in it, in all these new scientific discoveries, new pills for this, new pills for that. Get thinner, grow hair, yada, yada, yada, but when it requires a little faith in something, you all go crazy.’ He shook his head. ‘If miracles had chemical equations then everybody would believe. It’s disappointing. I had to pretend it was the pills, Lou, because you wouldn’t have trusted me otherwise. And I was right, wasn’t I?’

‘What do you mean trust you, who the hell are you, what is this all about?’

‘Now,’ he said, looking at Lou sadly, ‘I thought that was pretty clear by now.’

‘Clear? As far as I’m concerned, things couldn’t be more messed up.’

‘The pills. They were just a science con. A con of science. A conscience.’ He smiled.

Lou rubbed his face tiredly, confused, afraid.

‘It was all to give you your opportunity, Lou. Everybody deserves an opportunity. Even you, despite what you think.’

‘Opportunity FOR WHAT?’ he yelled.

The following words that Gabe spoke sent shivers running up and down Lou’s spine, and had him wanting to run immediately to his family.

‘Come on, Lou, you know this one.’

They were Ruth’s words. They belonged to Ruth.

Lou’s body was trembling now and Gabe continued.

‘An opportunity to spend some time with your family, to really get to know them, before … well, just to spend time with them.’

‘To get to know them before what?’ Lou asked, quiet now.

Gabe didn’t respond, looking away, knowing he’d said too much.

‘BEFORE WHAT?’ Lou yelled again, coming close to Gabe’s face.

Gabe was silent but his crystal-blue eyes bored into Lou’s.

‘Is something going to happen to them?’ His voice shook as he began to panic. ‘I knew it. I was afraid of this. What’s going to happen to them?’ He ground his teeth together. ‘If you did something to them, then I will –’

‘Nothing has happened to your family, Lou,’ Gabe responded.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he panicked, reaching into his pocket and retrieving his BlackBerry. He looked at the screen: no missed calls. Dialling the number of his home quickly, he backed out of the basement stock room, giving Gabe one last vicious look, and ran, ran, ran.

‘Remember to buckle up, Lou!’ Gabe shouted after him, his voice ringing in Lou’s ears as Lou ran to the underground car park.

With the BlackBerry on autodial to Lou’s home, and still ringing out, Lou drove out of the underground car park at a fierce speed. Thick, heavy rain plummeted against his windscreen. Putting the wipers on the fastest speed, he drove out of the empty car park and put his foot down on the by-then-empty quays. The beeping of the seat-belt warning got louder and louder but he couldn’t hear it for all the worrying he was doing. The wheels of the Porsche slipped a little on the wet roads as he raced down the backroads of the quays, then up the Clontarf coast road to Howth. Across the sea, the two red and white striped chimneys of the electricity generating station stood 680 feet tall, like two fingers raised at him. Rain bucketed down, leaving visibility low, but he knew these streets well, had driven up and down them all his life, and all he cared about was driving over the small thread of land that separated him from his family and getting to them as quickly as possible. It was six thirty and pitch black as the day had closed in. Most people were at Mass or in the pubs, getting ready to put presents together and leave a glass of milk and Christmas cake out for Santa, a few carrots for his chauffeur. Lou’s family were at home, having an evening meal – that he’d promised them he’d join – but Lou’s family weren’t answering the phone. He looked down at his BlackBerry to make sure it was still dialling, taking his eye off the road. He swerved a little as he moved over the middle line. A car coming at him beeped loudly and he quickly moved back into his lane again. He flew up past the Marine Hotel at Sutton Cross, which was busy with Christmas parties. Seeing a clear road ahead of him, he put his foot down. He raced by Sutton Church, raced by the school along the coast, passed through safe, friendly neighbourhoods where candles sat in the front windows, Christmas trees sparkled and Santas dangled from roofs. Across the bay, the dozens of cranes of Dublin’s skyline were laced in Christmas lights. He said goodbye to the bay and entered the steep road which began to ascend to his home on the summit. Rain bucketed down, falling in sheets, blurring his vision. Condensation was appearing on the windscreen, and he leaned forward to wipe it with his cashmere coat sleeve. He pressed the buttons on the dashboard to hopefully clear the screen. The ping, ping, ping of the seat-belt warning rang in his ears, and the condensation rapidly filled the windscreen as the car got hotter. Still he sped on, his phone ringing out, his desire to be with his family overtaking any other emotion he should have felt then. It had taken him twelve minutes to get to his street on the empty roads.

Finally, his phone beeped to signal a call coming through. He looked down and saw Ruth’s face – her caller ID picture. Her big smile; her eyes brown, soft and welcoming. Glad she was at least safe enough to call him, he looked down with relief and reached for the BlackBerry.

The Porsche 911 Carrera 4S has a unique four-wheel-drive system which grips the road far better than any rear-wheel-drive sports car. It allots five to forty per cent of the power to the front wheels, depending on how much resistance the rear wheels have. So if you accelerate out of a corner hard enough to spin the rear wheels, power is channelled to the front, pulling the car in the right direction. All-wheel-drive basically means that the Carrera 4S could negotiate the icy road with far more control than most other sports cars.

Unfortunately, Lou did not have that Porsche model. He had it on order. It would be arriving in January, only a week away.

And so when Lou looked down at his BlackBerry, so overwhelmed with relief and emotion to see his wife’s face, he had taken his eye off the road and had dived into the next corner much too fast. He reflexively lifted his foot from the accelerator, which threw the car’s weight forward and lightened the rear wheels; then he got back on the accelerator and turned hard to make the corner. The rear end broke traction and he spun across to the other side of the road, which was the deep decline down the cliff’s edge.

The moments that followed for him were ones of sheer horror and confusion. The shock numbed the pain. The car turned over, once, twice and then a third time. Each time, Lou let out a yell as his head, his body, his legs and arms thrashed about wildly like a doll inside a washing machine. The emergency airbag thumped him in the face, bloodying his nose, knocking him out momentarily so that the next few moments passed in a still but bloody mess.

Some amount of time later, Lou opened his eyes and tried to survey the situation. He couldn’t. He was surrounded by blackness and found himself unable to move. A thick, oily substance covered one of his eyes, preventing him from seeing, and with the one hand he could move, he found that every part of his body he touched was covered in the same substance. He moved his tongue around his mouth, tasted rusty iron and realised it was blood. He tried to move his legs, but couldn’t. He tried to move his arms, and could just about move one. He was silent while he tried to keep calm, to figure out what to do. Then, when for the first time in his life he couldn’t formulate one single thought, when the shock wore off and the realisation set in, the pain hit him at full force. He couldn’t get the images of Ruth out of his mind. Of Lucy, of Pud, of his parents. They weren’t far above him, somewhere on the summit; he had almost made it. In the darkness, in a crushed car, in the middle of the gorse and the hebe, somewhere on a mountainside in Howth, Lou Suffern began to whimper.

Raphie and Jessica were doing their usual rounds and bickering over Raphie’s country-music tape, which he liked to torment Jessica with, as they passed the scene where Lou’s car had gone off the road.

‘Hold on, Raphie,’ she interrupted his howling about his achy breaky heart.

He sang even louder.

‘RAPHIE!’ she shouted, punching the music off.

He looked at her in surprise.

‘Okay, okay, put your Freezing Monkeys on, or whatever you call them.’

‘Raphie, stop the car,’ Jessica said, in a tone that made him immediately pull over. She leapt out of the car and jogged the few paces back to the scene that had caught her eye, where the trees were broken and twisted. She took her torch out and shone it down the mountainside.

‘Oh God, Raphie, we need to call emergency services,’ she shouted to him. ‘Ambulance and fire brigade!’

He stopped his brief jog towards her and made his way back to the car, where he radioed it in.

‘I’m going down!’ she yelled, immediately making her way through the broken trees and down the steep incline.

‘You will not, Jessica!’ she heard Raphie yell back, but she didn’t listen. ‘Get back here, it’s too dangerous!’

She could hear, but quickly zoned out from his shouts and could soon only hear her own breath, fast and furious, her heart beating in her ears.

Jessica, new to the squad, should never have seen a sight like this mangled car, upside down and totally unrecognisable, in her life. But she had. For Jessica, it was all too familiar; it was a sight that haunted her dreams and most of her waking moments. Coming face to face with her nightmare, and the replaying of a memory, dizziness overcame her and she had to hunker down and put her head between her knees. Jessica had secrets, and one of them had come back to haunt her. She hoped to God nobody was in that car; the car was crushed, unrecognisable, with no licence plate, and in the darkness she couldn’t tell whether it was blue or black.

She climbed around the car, the icy wet rain pelting down on her, soaking her in an instant. The surface was wet and mucky beneath her, causing her to lose her footing numerous times, but as her heart beat wildly in her chest and as she found herself back in a distant memory, reliving it, she couldn’t feel the pain in her ankle as she went over on it; she couldn’t feel the scrapes of branches and twigs on her face, the hidden rocks among the gorse that bruised her legs.

Around the far side of the car, she saw a person. Or a body at least, and her heart sank. She shone the light near him. He was bloodied. Covered in it. The door had been smashed shut, she couldn’t pull it open, but the window pane of the driver’s side had shattered, so at least she had access to his upper half. She tried to keep calm as she shone the flashlight.

‘Tony,’ she breathed as she saw the figure. ‘Tony.’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Tony.’ She clawed at the man, ran her hands across his face, urged him to wake. ‘Tony, it’s me,’ she said. ‘I’m here.’

The man groaned but his eyes remained closed.

‘I’m going to get you out of here,’ she whispered in his ear, kissing him on the forehead. ‘I’m going to get you home.’

His eyes slowly opened and she felt a jolt. Blue eyes. Not brown. Tony had brown eyes.

He looked at her. She looked at him. She was taken out of her nightmare.

‘Sir,’ she said, her voice shakier than she wanted. She took a deep breath and started again. ‘Sir, can you hear me? My name is Jessica, can you hear me? Help is on the way, okay? We’re going to help you.’

He groaned and closed his eyes.

‘They’re on their way now,’ Raphie panted from above her, starting to make his way down.

‘Raphie, it’s dangerous down here, it’s too slippy, stay up there so they can see you.’

‘Is anyone alive?’ he asked, ignoring her request and continuing to slowly move down one foot at a time.

‘Yes,’ she called back. ‘Sir, give me your hand.’ She shone the torch to look at his hand and her stomach flipped at the sight. She took a moment to adjust her breathing and she brought the flashlight up again. ‘Sir, take my hand. Here I am, can you feel it?’ She gripped him tight.

He groaned.

‘Stay with me now, we’re going to get you out of here.’

He groaned some more.

‘What? I can’t … em … don’t worry, sir, an ambulance is on its way.’

‘Who is it?’ Raphie called. ‘Do you know?’

‘No,’ she called back simply, not wanting to take her attention away from this man, not wanting to lose him.

‘My wife,’ she heard him whisper, so quietly it could have been mistaken for an exhale. She moved her ear to his lips, so close she could feel them on her ear lobe, the stickiness of the blood.

‘You have a wife?’ she asked gently. ‘You’ll see her. I promise, you’ll see her. What’s your name?’

‘Lou,’ he said, then he started to cry softly, and even that was such an effort that he had to stop.

‘Please hang in there, Lou.’ She fought back the tears and then put her ear to his lips again as he breathed some more words.

‘A pill? Lou, I don’t have any –’

He let go of her hand suddenly and started pulling at his coat, thumping his chest with a lifeless hand as though that movement was the equivalent to lifting a car. He grunted with the effort; he whimpered from the pain. Reaching into his breast pocket, which was soaked with blood, Jessica took out the container. There was one white pill left inside.

‘Is this your medication, Lou?’ she asked unsurely. ‘Do I –?’ She looked up to Raphie, who was trying to figure out how to make it down through the tricky terrain. ‘I don’t know if I’m supposed to give you –’

Lou took her hand and squeezed it with such strength that she immediately opened the container, with a shaking hand, and shook the single pill onto her palm. With trembling fingers she lifted his mouth open, placed the pill on his tongue and closed his mouth. She quickly looked around to see if Raphie had seen her. He was still only halfway down the slope.

When she looked back at Lou, he was looking at her, wide-eyed. He gave her such a look of love, of absolute gratitude for that one simple thing, that it filled her heart with hope. Then he gasped for air and his body shuddered, before he closed his eyes and left the world.

28. For Old Time’s Sake

At exactly the same time as Lou Suffern left one world and entered another, he stood in the front garden of his Howth home, drenched to the very core. He was trembling from the experience he’d just had. He didn’t have much time, but there was nowhere in the world he’d rather have been right at that moment.

He stepped through the front door, his shoes squelching on the tiles. The fire in the sitting room was crackling, the floor below the tree was filled with presents, wrapped with pretty ribbons. Lucy and Pud were so far the only children in the family, and so family tradition decided that his parents, Quentin and Alexandra, and this year the newly separated Marcia, would be staying overnight in his house. Their joy at seeing Lucy’s reaction on Christmas morning was too immense to deny them of. Tonight he couldn’t imagine not being with them; he couldn’t think of anything that would fill his heart with any more joy. He entered the dining room, hoping they would see him, hoping that Gabe’s last miraculous gift wouldn’t fail him now.

‘Lou.’ Ruth looked up from the dinner table and saw him first. She leapt out of her chair and ran to him. ‘Lou, honey, are you okay? Did something happen?’

His mother rushed to get a towel for him.

‘I’m fine,’ he sniffed, cupping her face with his hands and not taking his eyes off her. ‘I’m fine now. I was calling,’ he whispered. ‘You didn’t answer.’

‘Pud hid the phone again,’ she said, studying him with concern. ‘Are you drunk?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘No,’ he laughed. ‘I’m in love,’ he whispered back, then raised his voice so that the whole room could hear. ‘I’m in love with my beautiful wife,’ he repeated. He kissed her fully on the lips, then breathed in her hair, kissed her neck, kissed her everywhere on her face, not caring who was there to see. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered to her, barely able to get words out of his mouth, his tears were so heavy.

‘Sorry about what? What happened?’

‘I’m sorry for the things that I’ve done to you. For being the way I was. I love you. I never meant to hurt you.’

Ruth’s eyes filled. ‘Oh, I know that, sweetheart, you already told me, I know.’

‘I just realised that when I’m not with you, I’m ruthless,’ he smiled, and his tearful mother – who’d returned with a towel – laughed and clapped her hands, before grabbing her husband’s hand at the table.

‘To all of you,’ he pulled away from Ruth, but wouldn’t let go of her hand, ‘I’m so sorry to all of you.’

‘We know that, Lou,’ Quentin smiled, emotion thick in his voice. ‘It’s all water under the bridge now. Okay? Stop worrying and sit down for dinner, it’s all okay.’

Lou looked to his parents, who smiled and nodded. His father had tears in his eyes and nodded emphatically that it was all okay. His sister Marcia was blinking fiercely to stop her tears, moving the silverware around on the table.

They dried him, they loved him, they kissed him, they fed him, though he wouldn’t eat much. He told them in turn that he loved them, over and over again, until they were laughing and telling him to stop. He went upstairs to get a change of clothes before, according to his mother, he caught pneumonia. While upstairs, he heard Pud crying and immediately left his bedroom and hurried to his son’s room.

The room was dark, with just a night light. He could see Pud wide awake and standing up against the railings of his cot, like a woken prisoner held captive by the sleep army. Lou switched the light on and went inside. Pud viewed him angrily at first.

‘Hey there, little man,’ Lou said gently. ‘What are you doing awake?’

Pud just gave a quiet little moan.

‘Oh, come here.’ Lou leaned over the railings and lifted him up, holding him close in his arms and shushing him. For the first time ever, Pud didn’t scream the house down when his father came near him. Instead, he smiled, pointed a finger in Lou’s eye, in his nose, then in his mouth, where he tried to grab his teeth.

Lou started laughing. ‘Hey, you can’t have them. You’ll have your own soon, though.’ He kissed Pud on the cheek. ‘When you’re a big boy, all sorts of things will happen.’ He looked at his son, feeling sad that he would miss all of those things. ‘Mind Mummy for me, won’t you,’ he whispered, his voice shaking.

Pud laughed, suddenly hyper, and blew bubbles with his lips.

Lou’s tears quickly disappeared at the sound of Pud’s laughter. He lifted him up, put Pud’s belly on his head and started jiggling him about. Pud laughed so hard, Lou couldn’t help but join in.

From the corner of his eye, Lou saw Lucy at the door watching them.

‘Now, Pud,’ he spoke loudly, ‘how about you and I go into Lucy’s room and jump on her bed to wake her up – what do you think?’

‘No, Daddy!’ Lucy laughed, exploding into the room. ‘I’m awake!’

‘Oh, you’re awake too! Are you both the little elves that help Santa?’

‘No,’ Lucy laughed. Pud laughed too.

‘Well then, you’d better hurry to bed, or else Santa won’t come to the house if he sees you awake.’

‘What if he sees you?’ she asked.

‘Then he’ll leave extra presents,’ he smiled.

She ruffled up her nose. ‘Pud smells of poo. I’m getting Mummy.’

‘No, I can do it.’ He looked at Pud, who looked back at him and smiled.

Lucy stared at him as though he were insane.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he laughed. ‘How hard can this be? Now come on, buddy, help me out here.’ He smiled at Pud nervously. Pud’s open palm smacked his father across the face playfully. Lucy howled with laughter.

Lou laid Pud down on the ground, so that he wouldn’t wriggle off the changing mat on top of the unit that Ruth used.

‘Mummy puts him up there.’

‘Well, Daddy doesn’t,’ he said, while trying to figure out how to undo the babygro.

‘The buttons are at the bottom.’ Lucy sat down beside him.

‘Oh. Thanks.’ He opened the buttons and rolled it up Pud’s body, evacuating all clothes from the area. He untaped the new nappy and slowly opened it. Turned it around in his hands, trying to figure out which way it went.

‘Oh pooh!’ Lucy dove backwards, her fingers pinching her nose. ‘Piglet goes on the front,’ she said through her blocked nose.

Lou moved quickly to try to get the situation in hand, while Lucy rolled around fanning the air with exaggerated drama. Impatient with his father’s progress, Pud began kicking his legs, forcing Lou away from him. With Pud on his knees, his rear end in Lou’s face, Lou crawled around behind him, approaching his bottom with a baby wipe, as though attacking him with a feather duster. His light swipes were not helping the situation. He needed to get in there. Holding his breath, he went for it. With Pud momentarily under control and playing with a ball that had caught his eye, Lucy handed the various apparatus to Lou.

‘You’re supposed to put that cream on next.’

‘Thanks. You’ll always take care of Pud, won’t you, Lucy?’

She nodded solemnly.

‘And you’ll take care of Mummy?’

‘Yessss.’ She punched the air.

‘And Pud and Mummy will take care of you,’ he said, finally grabbing Pud’s podgy legs and pulling him from under the cot and along the carpet while Pud screeched like a pig.

‘And we’ll all take care of Daddy!’ she hurrahed, dancing around.

‘Don’t worry about Daddy,’ he said quietly, trying to figure out which way to put the nappy on. Finally he got the gist, and quickly closed the buttons on Pud’s suit. ‘Tonight we’re going to let him sleep without his pyjamas.’ He tried to sound sure of himself.

‘Mummy puts the lights out so that he gets sleepy,’ Lucy whispered.

‘Oh, okay, let’s do that,’ Lou whispered, turning off the lights so that the Winnie the Pooh night light was all that circulated on the ceiling.

Pud made a few gurgles and spurts, non-words as he watched the lights.

Lou hunkered down in the darkness, pulling Lucy close to him, and he sat on the carpet hugging his little girl and watched the pooh bear of very little brain chasing a honeypot on the ceiling. It was his moment to tell her now.

‘You know that no matter where Daddy is, no matter what’s happening in your life, no matter if you’re sad or happy or lonely or lost, remember that I’m always there for you. Even if you don’t see me, know that I’m in here,’ he touched her head, ‘and I’m in here,’ he touched her heart. ‘And I’m always looking at you, and I’m always proud of you and of everything you do, and when you sometimes question how I ever felt about you, remember right now, remember me saying that I love you, my sweetheart. Daddy loves you, okay?’

‘Okay, Daddy,’ she said sadly. ‘What about when I’m naughty? Will you love me when I’m naughty?’

‘When you’re naughty,’ he thought about it, ‘remember that Daddy is somewhere always hoping that you’ll be the best that you can be.’

‘But where will you be?’

‘If I’m not here, I’ll be elsewhere.’

‘Where is that?’

‘It’s a secret,’ he whispered, trying to hold back his tears.

‘A secret elsewhere,’ she whispered back, her warm sweet breath on his face.

‘Yeah.’ He hugged her tight, and tried not to let a sound pass his lips as his tears fell, hot and thick.

Downstairs in the dining room, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as they listened to the conversation in Pud’s nursery over the baby intercom. For the Sufferns they were tears of joy because a son, a brother and a husband had finally come back to them.

That night, Lou Suffern made love to his wife, and afterwards held her close to him, rubbing his hands down her silky hair until he drifted away, and even then his fingertips continued to trace the contours of her face: the little turn-up of her nose, her high cheekbones, the tip of her chin, along her jawline then all the way along her hairline, as though he were a blindman seeing her for the first time.

‘I’ll love you forever,’ he whispered to her, and she smiled, halfway to her dream world.

It was in the middle of the night that the dream world was shattered when Ruth was awakened by the gate buzzer. Half-asleep, she stood in her dressing gown and welcomed both Raphie and Jessica into her home. Quentin and Lou’s father accompanied her, keen to protect the house against such late-night dangers. But they couldn’t protect her from this.

‘Morning,’ Raphie said sombrely as they all gathered in the living room. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at such a late hour.’

Ruth looked the young garda beside him up and down, at her dark black eyes that seemed cold and sad, at the grass and dried muck splattered on her boots, which clung to the bottom of her navy-blue trousers. At the small scrapes across the face and the cut that she was trying to hide behind her hair.

‘What is it?’ Ruth whispered, her voice catching in her throat. ‘Tell me, please.’

‘Mrs Suffern, I think you should sit down,’ Raphie said gently.

‘We should get Lou,’ she whispered, looking to Quentin. ‘He wasn’t in bed when I woke up, he must be in his study.’

‘Ruth,’ the young garda said, so softly that Ruth’s heart sank even further, and as her body went limp she allowed Quentin to reach for her and pull her down to the couch beside him and Lou’s father. They grabbed one another’s hands, squeezed one another so tightly that they were linked like a chain, and they listened as Raphie and Jessica told them how life for them had changed beyond all comprehension, as they learned that a son, a brother and a husband had left them as suddenly as he’d arrived.

While Santa laid gifts in homes all across the country; while lights in windows began to go out for the night; while wreaths upon doors became fingers upon lips and blinds went down as the eyelids of a sleeping home drooped, hours before a turkey went through a window at another home in another district, Ruth Suffern had yet to learn that despite losing her husband she had gained his child, and together the family realised – on the most magical night of the year – the true gift that Lou had given them in the early hours of Christmas morning.

29. The Turkey Boy 5

Raphie watched the Turkey Boy’s reaction as he heard the last of the story. He was silent for a moment.

‘How do you know all of this?’

‘We’ve been piecing it all together today. Talking to the family and to his colleagues.’

‘Did you talk to Gabe?’

‘Briefly, earlier. We’re waiting for him to come to the station.’

‘And you called to Lou’s house this morning?’

‘We did.’

‘And he wasn’t there.’

‘Nowhere to be seen. Sheets still warm from where he’d lain.’

‘Are you making this up?’

‘Not a word of it.’

‘Do you expect me to believe this?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Then what was the point?’

‘People tell stories, and it’s up to those who listen whether to believe them or not. It’s not the job of the storyteller.’

‘Shouldn’t the storyteller believe it?’

‘The storyteller should tell it,’ he winked.

‘Do you believe it?’

Raphie looked around the room to make sure nobody had sneaked in without him noticing. He shrugged awkwardly, moving his head at the same time. ‘One man’s lesson is another man’s tale, but often, a man’s tale can be another’s lesson.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Raphie avoided the question by taking a slug of coffee.

‘You said there was a lesson – what was the lesson?’

‘If I have to tell you that, boy …’ Raphie rolled his eyes.

‘Ah, come on.’

‘Appreciating your loved ones,’ Raphie said, a little embarrassed at first. ‘Acknowledging all the special people in your life. Concentrating on what’s important.’ He cleared his throat and looked away, not comfortable with preaching.

The Turkey Boy rolled his eyes and faked a yawn.

Raphie tossed his embarrassment to the side, giving himself one more opportunity to get through to the teen before he gave up altogether. He should have been at home on his second helping of Christmas dinner instead of being here with this frustrating boy.

He leaned forward. ‘Gabe gave Lou a gift, son, a very special gift. I’m not going to bother asking you what that was, I’m going to tell you, and you’d better listen up, because right after this I’m leaving you and you’ll be alone to think about what you did and if you don’t pay attention then you’ll go back out to the world an angry young man who’ll feel angry for the rest of his life.’

‘Okay,’ the Turkey Boy said defensively, sitting up in his seat as though being told off by the headmaster.

‘Gabe gave Lou the gift of time, son.’

The Turkey Boy ruffled up his nose.

‘Oh, you’re fourteen years old, and you think you’ve all the time in the world, but you haven’t. None of us have. We’re spending it with all the might and indifference of January sales shoppers. A week from now they’ll be crowding the streets, swarming the shops, with open wallets, just throwing all their cash away.’ Raphie seemed to crawl into the shell on his back for a moment, his eyes tucked under his grey bushy eyebrows.

The Turkey Boy leaned forward and glared at him, amused by Raphie’s sudden emotion. ‘But you can earn more money, so who cares?’

Raphie snapped out of his trance and looked up as though seeing the Turkey Boy in the room for the first time. ‘So that makes time more precious, doesn’t it? More precious than money, more precious than anything. You can never earn more time. Once an hour goes by, a week, a month, a year, you’ll never get them back. Lou Suffern was running out of time, and Gabe gave him more, to help tie things up, to finish things properly. That’s the gift.’ Raphie’s heart beat wildly in his chest. He looked down at his coffee and pushed it away, feeling his heart cramp again. ‘So we should fix things before …’

He ran out of breath and waited for the cramping to fade.

‘Do you think it’s too late to, you know,’ the Turkey Boy twisted the string of his hoody around his finger, speaking self-consciously, ‘fix things with my, you know …’

‘With your dad?’

The boy shrugged and looked away, not wanting to admit it.

‘It’s never too late –’ Raphie stopped abruptly, nodded to himself as though registering a thought, nodded again with an air of agreement and finality, then pushed back his chair, the legs screeching against the floor, and stood.

‘Hold on, where are you going?’

‘To fix things, boy. To fix some things. And I suggest you do the same when your mother comes.’

The young teenager’s blue eyes blinked back at him, innocence still there, though lost somewhere in the mist of his confusion and anger.

Raphie made his way down the hall, loosening his tie. He heard his voice being called but continued walking anyway. He pushed his way out of the staff quarters, into the public entrance room that was empty on Christmas Day.

‘Raphie,’ Jessica called, chasing after him.

‘Yes,’ he said, turning around finally, slightly out of breath.

‘Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is it your heart? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ he nodded. ‘Everything’s fine. What’s up?’

Jessica narrowed her eyes and studied him, knowing he was lying. ‘Is that boy giving you trouble?’

‘No, he’s fine, purring like a pussy cat now. Everything’s fine.’

‘Then where are you going?’

‘Eh?’ He looked towards the door, trying to think of another lie, another untruth to tell somebody for the tenth year running. But he sighed – a long sigh that had been held in for many years – and he gave up, the truth finally sounding odd yet comfortable as it fell from his tongue.

‘I want to go home,’ he said, suddenly appearing very old. ‘I want today to be over so that I can go home to my wife. And my daughter.’

‘You have a daughter?’ she asked with surprise.

‘Yes,’ he said, simple words filled with emotion. ‘I do. She lives up there on Howth summit. That’s why I’m there in the car every evening. I just like to keep an eye on her. Even if she doesn’t know it.’

They stared at one another for a while, knowing that something strange had overcome them that morning, something strange that had changed them forever.

‘I had a husband,’ she said finally. ‘Car crash. I was there. Holding his hand. Just like this morning.’ She swallowed and lowered her voice. ‘I always said I’d have done anything to give him at least a few more hours.’ There, she’d said it. ‘I gave Lou a pill, Raphie,’ she said firmly, looking him straight in the eye now. ‘I know I shouldn’t have, but I gave him a pill. I don’t know if all that stuff about the pills is true or not – we can’t locate Gabe now – but if I helped Lou have a few more hours with his family, I’m glad, and I’d do it again if anyone asks.’

Raphie simply nodded, acknowledging her two confessions. He’d put it in their statement but he didn’t need to tell her that; she knew.

They just looked at one another, staring at but not seeing each other. Their minds were elsewhere; on the times gone by, the lost time that could never return.

‘Where’s my son?’ A woman’s urgent voice broke their silence. As she had opened the door, light filled the dark station. The cold of the day crept in, snowflakes were trapped in the woman’s hair and clothes and fell from her boots as she stamped them on the ground. ‘He’s only a boy,’ she swallowed. ‘A fourteen-year-old boy.’ Her voice shook. ‘I sent him out to get gravy granules. And the turkey’s missing now.’ She spoke as though delirious.

‘I’ll take care of this.’ Jessica nodded at Raphie. ‘You go home now.’

And so he did.

One thing of great importance can affect a small number of people. Equally so, a thing of little importance can affect a multitude. Either way, a happening – big or small – can affect an entire string of people. Occurrences can join us all together. You see, we’re all made up of the same stuff. When something happens, it triggers something inside us that connects us to a situation, connects us to other people, lighting us up and linking us like little lights on a Christmas tree, twisted and turned but still connected on a wire. Some go out, others flicker, others burn strong and bright, yet we’re all on the same line.

I said at the beginning of this story that this was about a person who finds out who they are. About a person who is unravelled and their core is revealed to all that count. And that all that count are revealed to them. You thought I was talking about Lou Suffern, didn’t you? Wrong. I was talking about us all.

A lesson finds the common denominator and links us all together, like a chain. At the end of that chain dangles a clock, and on the face of the clock the passing of time is registered. We hear it, the hushed tick-tock sound that breaks any silence, and we see it, but often we don’t feel it. Each second makes its mark on every single person’s life; comes and then goes, quietly disappearing without fanfare, evaporating into air like steam from a piping hot Christmas pudding. Enough time leaves us warm; when our time is gone, it too leaves us cold. Time is more precious than gold, more precious than diamonds, more precious than oil or any valuable treasures. It is time that we do not have enough of; it is time that causes the war within our hearts, and so we must spend it wisely. Time cannot be packaged and ribboned and left under trees for Christmas morning.

Time can’t be given. But it can be shared.

CECELIA AHERN

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

Dedicated, with love, to my grandparents,

Olive & Raphael Kelly and Julia & Con Ahern,

Thanks for the Memories

PROLOGUE

Close your eyes and stare into the dark.

My father’s advice when I couldn’t sleep as a little girl. He wouldn’t want me to do that now but I’ve set my mind to the task regardless. I’m staring into that immeasurable blackness that stretches far beyond my closed eyelids. Though I lie still on the ground, I feel perched at the highest point I could possibly be; clutching at a star in the night sky with my legs dangling above cold black nothingness. I take one last look at my fingers wrapped around the light and let go. Down I go, falling, then floating, and, falling again, I wait for the land of my life.

I know now, as I knew as that little girl fighting sleep, that behind the gauzed screen of shut-eye, lies colour. It taunts me, dares me to open my eyes and lose sleep. Flashes of red and amber, yellow and white speckle my darkness. I refuse to open them. I rebel and I squeeze my eyelids together tighter to block out the grains of light, mere distractions that keep us awake but a sign that there’s life beyond.

But there’s no life in me. None that I can feel, from where I lie at the bottom of the staircase. My heart beats quicker now, the lone fighter left standing in the ring, a red boxing glove pumping victoriously into the air, refusing to give up. It’s the only part of me that cares, the only part that ever cared. It fights to pump the blood around to heal, to replace what I’m losing. But it’s all leaving my body as quickly as it’s sent; forming a deep black ocean of its own around me where I’ve fallen.

Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Never have enough time here, always trying to make our way there. Need to have left here five minutes ago, need to be there now. The phone rings again and I acknowledge the irony. I could have taken my time and answered it now.

Now, not then.

I could have taken all the time in the world on each of those steps. But we’re always rushing. All, but my heart. That slows now. I don’t mind so much. I place my hand on my belly. If my child is gone, and I suspect this is so, I’ll join it there. There … where? Wherever. It; a heartless word. He or she so young; who it was to become, still a question. But there, I will mother it.

There, not here.

I’ll tell it: I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m sorry I ruined your chances, my chance – our chance of a life together. But close your eyes and stare into the darkness now, like Mummy is doing, and we’ll find our way together.

There’s a noise in the room and I feel a presence.

‘Oh God, Joyce, oh God. Can you hear me, love? Oh God. Oh God. Oh, please no, Good Lord, not my Joyce, don’t take my Joyce. Hold on, love, I’m here. Dad is here.’

I don’t want to hold on and I feel like telling him so. I hear myself groan, an animal-like whimper and it shocks me, scares me. I have a plan, I want to tell him. I want to go, only then can I be with my baby.

Then, not now.

He’s stopped me from falling but I haven’t landed yet. Instead he helps me balance on nothing, hover while I’m forced to make the decision. I want to keep falling but he’s calling the ambulance and he’s gripping my hand with such ferocity it’s as though it is he who is hanging on to dear life. As though I’m all he has. He’s brushing the hair from my forehead and weeping loudly. I’ve never heard him weep. Not even when Mum died. He clings to my hand with all of the strength I never knew his old body had and I remember that I am all he has and that he, once again just like before, is my whole world. The blood continues to rush through me. Rushing, rushing, rushing. We are always rushing. Maybe I’m rushing again. Maybe it’s not my time to go.

I feel the rough skin of old hands squeezing mine, and their intensity and their familiarity force me to open my eyes. Light fills them and I glimpse his face, a look I never want to see again. He clings to his baby. I know I’ve lost mine; I can’t let him lose his. In making my decision I already begin to grieve. I’ve landed now, the land of my life. And, still, my heart pumps on.

Even when broken it still works.

One Month Earlier

CHAPTER ONE

‘Blood transfusion,’ Dr Fields announces from the podium of a lecture hall in Trinity College’s Arts building, ‘is the process of transferring blood or blood-based products from one person into the circulatory system of another. Blood transfusions may treat medical conditions, such as massive blood loss due to trauma, surgery, shock and where the red-cell-producing mechanism fails.

‘Here are the facts. Three thousand donations are needed in Ireland every week. Only three per cent of the Irish population are donors, providing blood for a population of almost four million. One in four people will need a transfusion at some point. Take a look around the room now.’

Five hundred heads turn left, right and around. Uncomfortable sniggers break the silence.

Dr Fields elevates her voice over the disruption. ‘At least one hundred and fifty people in this room will need a blood transfusion at some stage in their lives.’

That silences them. A hand is raised.

‘Yes?’

‘How much blood does a patient need?’

‘How long is a piece of string, dumb-ass,’ a voice from the back mocks, and a scrunched ball of paper flies at the head of the young male enquirer.

‘It’s a very good question.’ She frowns into the darkness, unable to see the students through the light of the projector. ‘Who asked that?’

‘Mr Dover,’ someone calls from the other side of the room.

‘I’m sure Mr Dover can answer for himself. What’s your first name?’

‘Ben,’ he responds, sounding dejected.

Laughter erupts. Dr Fields sighs.

‘Ben, thank you for your question – and to the rest of you, there is no such thing as a stupid question. This is what Blood For Life Week is all about. It’s about asking all the questions you want, learning all you need to know about blood transfusions before you possibly donate today, tomorrow, the remaining days of this week on campus, or maybe regularly in your future.’

The main door opens and light streams into the dark lecture hall. Justin Hitchcock enters, the concentration on his face illuminated by the white light of the projector. Under one arm are multiple piles of folders, each one slipping by the second. A knee shoots up to hoist them back in place. His right hand carries both an overstuffed briefcase and a dangerously balanced Styrofoam cup of coffee. He slowly lowers his hovering foot down to the floor, as though performing a t’ai chi move, and a relieved smile creeps onto his face as calm is restored. Somebody sniggers and the balancing act is once again compromised.

Hold it, Justin. Move your eyes away from the cup and assess the situation. Woman on podium, five hundred kids. All staring at you. Say something. Something intelligent.

‘I’m confused,’ he announces to the darkness, behind which he senses some sort of life form. There are twitters in the room and he feels all eyes on him as he moves back towards the door to check the number.

Don’t spill the coffee. Don’t spill the damn coffee.

He opens the door, allowing shafts of light to sneak in again and the students in its line shade their eyes.

Twitter, twitter, nothing funnier than a lost man.

Laden down with items, he manages to hold the door open with his leg. He looks back to the number on the outside of the door and then back to his sheet, the sheet that, if he doesn’t grab it that very second, will float to the ground. He makes a move to grab it. Wrong hand. Styrofoam cup of coffee falls to the ground. Closely followed by sheet of paper.

Damn it! There they go again, twitter, twitter. Nothing funnier than a lost man who’s spilled his coffee and dropped his schedule.

‘Can I help you?’ The lecturer steps down from the podium.

Justin brings his entire body back into the classroom and darkness resumes.

‘Well, it says here … well, it said there,’ he nods his head towards the sodden sheet on the ground, ‘that I have a class here now.’

‘Enrolment for international students is in the exam hall.’

He frowns. ‘No, I—’

‘I’m sorry.’ She comes closer. ‘I thought I heard an American accent.’ She picks up the Styrofoam cup and throws it into the bin, over which a sign reads ‘No Drinks Allowed’.

‘Ah … oh … sorry about that.’

‘Mature students are next door.’ She adds in a whisper, ‘Trust me, you don’t want to join this class.’

Justin clears his throat and corrects his posture, tucking the folders tighter under his arm. ‘Actually I’m lecturing the History of Art and Architecture class.’

‘You’re lecturing?’

‘Guest lecturing. Believe it or not.’ He blows his hair up from his sticky forehead. A haircut, remember to get a haircut. There they go again, twitter, twitter. A lost lecturer, who’s spilled his coffee, dropped his schedule, is about to lose his folders and needs a haircut. Definitely nothing funnier.

‘Professor Hitchcock?’

‘That’s me.’ He feels the folders slipping from under his arm.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she whispers. ‘I didn’t know …’ She catches a folder for him. ‘I’m Dr Sarah Fields from the IBTS. The Faculty told me that I could have a half-hour with the students before your lecture, your permission pending, of course.’

‘Oh, well, nobody informed me of that, but that’s no problemo.’ Problemo? He shakes his head at himself and makes for the door. Starbucks, here I come.

‘Professor Hitchcock?’

He stops at the door. ‘Yes.’

‘Would you like to join us?’

I most certainly would not. There’s a cappuccino and cinnamon muffin with my name on them. No. Just say no.

‘Um … nn–es.’ Nes? ‘I mean yes.’

Twitter, twitter, twitter. Lecturer caught out. Forced into doing something he clearly didn’t want to do by attractive young woman in white coat claiming to be a doctor of an unfamiliar initialised organisation.

‘Great. Welcome.’ She places the folders back under his arm and returns to the podium to address the students.

‘OK, attention, everybody. Back to the initial question of blood quantities. A car accident victim may require up to thirty units of blood. A bleeding ulcer could require anything between three and thirty units of blood. A coronary artery bypass may use between one and five units of blood. It varies, but with such quantities needed, now you see why we always want donors.’

Justin takes a seat in the front row and listens with horror to the discussion he’s joined.

‘Does anybody have any questions?’

Can you change the subject?

‘Do you get paid for giving blood?’

More laughs.

‘Not in this country, I’m afraid.’

‘Does the person who is given blood know who their donor is?’

‘Donations are usually anonymous to the recipient but products in a blood bank are always individually traceable through the cycle of donation, testing, separation into components, storage and administration to the recipient.’

‘Can anyone give blood?’

‘Good question. I have a list here of contraindications to being a blood donor. Please all study it carefully and take notes if you wish.’ Dr Fields places her sheet under the projector and her white coat lights up with a rather graphic picture of someone in dire need of a donation. She steps away and instead it fills the screen on the wall.

People groan and the word ‘gross’ travels around the tiered seating like a Mexican wave. Twice by Justin. Dizziness overtakes him and he averts his eyes from the image.

‘Oops, wrong sheet,’ Dr Fields says cheekily, slowly replacing it with the promised list.

Justin searches with great hope for needle or blood phobia in an effort to eliminate himself as a possible blood donor. No such luck – not that it mattered, as the chances of him donating a drop of blood to anyone are as rare as ideas in the morning.

‘Too bad, Dover.’ Another scrunched ball of paper goes flying from the back of the hall to hit Ben’s head again. ‘Gay people can’t donate.’

Ben coolly raises two fingers in the air.

‘That’s discriminatory,’ one girl calls out.

‘It is also a discussion for another day,’ Dr Fields responds, moving on. ‘Remember, your body will replace the liquid part of the donation within twenty-four hours. With a unit of blood at almost a pint and everyone having eight to twelve pints of blood in their body, the average person can easily spare giving one.’

Pockets of juvenile laughter at the innuendo.

‘Everybody, please.’ Dr Fields claps her hands, trying desperately to get attention. ‘Blood For Life Week is all about education as much as donation. It’s all well and good that we can have a laugh and a joke but at this time I think it’s important to note the fact that someone’s life, be it woman, man or child, could be depending on you right now.’

How quickly silence falls upon the class. Even Justin stops talking to himself.

CHAPTER TWO

‘Professor Hitchcock.’ Dr Fields approaches Justin, who is arranging his notes at the podium while the students take a five-minute break.

‘Please call me Justin, Doctor.’

‘Please call me Sarah.’ She holds out her hand.

Very ‘Nice to meet you, Sarah.’

‘I just want to make sure we’ll see each other later?’

‘Later?’

‘Yes, later. As in … after your lecture,’ she smiles.

Is she flirting? It’s been so long, how am I supposed to tell? Speak, Justin, speak.

‘Great. A date would be great.’

She purses her lips to hide a smile. ‘OK, I’ll meet you at the main entrance at six and I’ll bring you across myself.’

‘Bring me across where?’

‘To where we’ve got the blood drive set up. It’s beside the rugby pitch but I’d prefer to bring you over myself.’

‘The blood drive …’ He’s immediately flooded with dread. ‘Ah, I don’t think that—’

‘And then we’ll go for a drink after?’

‘You know what? I’m just getting over the flu so I don’t think I’m eligible for donating.’ He parts his hands and shrugs.

‘Are you on antibiotics?’

‘No, but that’s a good idea, Sarah. Maybe I should be …’ He rubs his throat.

‘Oh, I think you’ll be OK,’ she grins.

‘No, you see, I’ve been around some pretty infectious diseases lately. Malaria, smallpox, the whole lot. I was in a very tropical area.’ He remembers the list of contraindications. ‘And my brother, Al? Yeah, he’s a leper.’ Lame, lame, lame.

‘Really.’ She lifts an eyebrow and though he fights it with all his will, he cracks a smile. ‘How long ago did you leave the States?’

Think hard, this could be a trick question. ‘I moved to London three months ago,’ he finally answers truthfully.

‘Oh, lucky for you. If it was two months you wouldn’t be eligible.’

‘Now hold on, let me think …’ He scratches his chin and thinks hard, randomly mumbling months of the year aloud. ‘Maybe it was two months ago. If I work backwards from when I arrived …’ He trails off, while counting his fingers and staring off into the distance with a concentrated frown.

‘Are you afraid, Professor Hitchcock?’ she smiles.

‘Afraid? No!’ He throws his head back and guffaws. ‘But did I mention I have malaria?’ He sighs at her failure to take him seriously. ‘Well, I’m all out of ideas.’

‘I’ll see you at the entrance at six. Oh, and don’t forget to eat beforehand.’

‘Of course, because I’ll be ravenous before my date with a giant homicidal needle,’ he mumbles as he watches her leave.

The students begin filing back into the room and he tries to hide the smile of pleasure on his face, mixed as it is. Finally the class is his.

OK, my little twittering friends. It’s pay-back time.

They’re not yet all seated when he begins.

‘Art,’ he announces to the lecture hall, and he hears the sounds of pencils and notepads being extracted from bags, loud zips and buckles, tin pencil cases rattling; all new for the first day. Squeaky-clean and untarnished. Shame the same can not be said for the students. ‘The products of human creativity.’ He doesn’t stall to allow them time to catch up. In fact, it is time to have a little fun. His speech speeds up.

‘The creation of beautiful or significant things.’ He paces as he speaks, still hearing zipping sounds and rattling.

‘Sir, could you say that again ple—’

‘No,’ he interrupts. ‘Engineering,’ he moves on, ‘the practical application of science to commerce or industry.’ Total silence now.

‘Creativity and practicality. The fruit of their merger is architecture.’

Faster, Justin, faster!

‘Architecture-is-the-transformation-of-ideas-into-a-physical-reality. The-complex-and-carefully-designed-structure-of-something-especially-with-regard-to-a-specific-period. To-understand-architecture-we-must-examine-the-relationship-between-technology-science-and-society.’

‘Sir, can you—’

‘No.’ But he slows slightly. ‘We examine how architecture through the centuries has been shaped by society, how it continues to be shaped, but also how it, in turn, shapes society.’

He pauses, looking around at the youthful faces staring up at him, their minds empty vessels waiting to be filled. So much to learn, so little time to do it in, such little passion within them to understand it truly. It is his job to give them passion. To share with them his experiences of travel, his knowledge of all the great masterpieces of centuries ago. He will transport them from the stuffy lecture theatre of the prestigious Dublin college to the rooms of the Louvre Museum, hear the echoes of their footsteps as he walks them through the Cathedral of St-Denis, to St-Germain-des-Prés and St-Pierre de Montmartre. They’ll know not only dates and statistics but the smell of Picasso’s paints, the feel of baroque marble, the sound of the bells of Notre-Dame Cathedral. They’ll experi-ence it all, right here in this classroom. He will bring it all to them.

They’re staring at you, Justin. Say something.

He clears his throat. ‘This course will teach you how to analyse works of art and how to understand their historical significance. It will enable you to develop an awareness of the environment while also providing you with a deeper sensitivity to the culture and ideals of other nations. You will cover a broad range: history of painting, sculpture and architecture from Ancient Greece to modern times; early Irish art; the painters of the Italian Renaissance; the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe; the architectural splendours of the Georgian era and the artistic achievements of the twentieth century.’

He allows a silence to fall.

Are they filled with regret on hearing what lay ahead of them for the next four years of their lives? Or do their hearts beat wildly with excitement as his does, just thinking about all that is to come? Even after all these years, he still feels the same enthusiasm for the buildings, paintings and sculptures of the world. His exhilaration often leaves him breathless during lectures; he has to remember to slow down, not to tell them everything at once. Though he wants them to know everything, right now!

He looks again at their faces and has an epiphany.

You have them! They’re hanging on your every word, just waiting to hear more. You’ve done it, they’re in your grasp!

Someone farts and the room explodes with laughter.

He sighs, his bubble burst, and continues his talk in a bored tone. ‘My name is Justin Hitchcock and in my special guest lectures scattered throughout the course, you will study the introduction to European painting such as the Italian Renaissance and French Impressionism. This includes the critical analysis of paintings, the importance of iconography and the various technical methods used by artists from the Book of Kells to modern day. There’ll also be an introduction to European architecture. Greek temples to the present day, blah blah blah. Two volunteers to help me hand these out, please.’

And so it was another year. He wasn’t at home in Chicago now; he had chased his ex-wife and daughter to live in London and was flying back and forth between there and Dublin for his guest lectures. A different country perhaps but another class of the same. First week and giddy. Another group displaying an immature lack of understanding of his passions; a deliberate turning of their backs on the possibility – no, not the possibility, the surety – of learning something wonderful and great.

It doesn’t matter what you say now, pal, from here on in the only thing they’ll go home remembering is the fart.

CHAPTER THREE

‘What is it about fart jokes, Bea?’

‘Oh, hi, Dad.’

‘What kind of a greeting is that?’

‘Oh, gee whizz, wow, Dad, so great to hear from you. It’s been, what, ah shucks, three hours since you last phoned?’

‘Fine, you don’t have to go all porky pig on me. Is your darling mother home yet from a day out at her new life?’

‘Yes, she’s home.’

‘And has she brought the delightful Laurence back with her?’ He can’t hold back his sarcasm, which he hates himself for but, unwilling to withdraw it and incapable of apologising, he does what he always does, which is to run with it, therefore making it worse. ‘Laurence,’ he drawls, ‘Laurence of A—inguinal hernia.’

‘Oh, you’re such a geek. Would you ever give up talking about his trouser leg,’ she sighs with boredom.

Justin kicks off the scratchy blanket of the cheap Dublin hotel he’s staying in. ‘Really, Bea, check it next time he’s around. Those trousers are far too tight for what he’s got going on down there. There should be a name for that. Something-itis.’

Balls-a-titis.

‘There are only four TV channels in this dump, one in a language I don’t even understand. It sounds like they’re clearing their throats after one of your mother’s terrible coq-au-vins. You know, in my wonderful home back in Chicago, I had over two hundred channels.’ Dick-a-titis. Dickhead-a-titis. Ha!

‘Of which none you watched.’

‘But one had a choice not to watch those deplorable house-fixer-upper channels and music channels of naked women dancing around.’

‘I appreciate one going through such an upheaval, Dad. It must be very traumatic for you, a sort-of grown man, while I, at sixteen years old, had to take this huge life adjustment of parents getting divorced and a move from Chicago to London all in my stride.’

‘You got two houses and extra presents, what do you care?’ he grumbles. ‘And it was your idea.’

‘It was my idea to go to ballet school in London, not for your marriage to end!’

‘Oh, ballet school. I thought you said, “Break up, you fool.” My mistake. Think we should move back to Chicago and get back together?’

‘Nah.’ He hears the smile in her voice and knows it’s OK.

‘Hey, you think I was going to stay in Chicago while you’re all the way over this side of the world?’

‘You’re not even in the same country right now,’ she laughs.

‘Ireland is just a work trip. I’ll be back in London in a few days. Honestly, Bea, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be,’ he assures her.

Though a Four Seasons would be nice.

‘I’m thinking of moving in with Peter,’ she says far too casually.

‘So what is it about fart jokes?’ he asks again, ignoring her. ‘I mean what is it about the sound of expelling air that can stop people from being interested in some of the most incredible masterpieces ever created?’

‘I take it you don’t want to talk about me moving in with Peter?’

‘You’re a child. You and Peter can move into the wendy house, which I still have in storage. I’ll set it up in the living room. It’ll be real nice and cosy.’

‘I’m eighteen. Not a child any more. I’ve lived alone away from home for two years now.’

‘One year alone. Your mother left me alone the second year to join you, remember.’

‘You and Mum met at my age.’

‘And we did not live happily ever after. Stop imitating us and write your own fairy tale.’

‘I would, if my overprotective father would stop butting in with his version of how the story should go.’ Bea sighs and steers the conversation back to safer territory. ‘Why are your students laughing at fart jokes, anyway? I thought your seminar was a one-off for postgrads who’d elected to choose your boring subject. Though why anybody would do that, is beyond me. You lecturing me on Peter is boring enough and I love him.’

Love! Ignore it and she’ll forget what she said.

‘It wouldn’t be beyond you, if you’d listen to me when I talk. Along with my postgraduate classes, I was asked to speak to first-year students throughout the year too, an agreement I may live to regret, but no matter. On to my day job and far more pressing matters, I’m planning an exhibition at the Gallery on Dutch painting in the seventeenth century. You should come see it.’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Well, maybe my postgrads over the next few months will be more appreciative of my expertise.’

‘You know, your students may have laughed at the fart joke but I bet at least a quarter of them donated blood.’

‘They only did it because they heard they’d get a free KitKat afterward,’ Justin huffs, rooting through the insufficiently filled mini-bar. ‘You’re angry at me for not giving blood?’

‘I think you’re an asshole for standing up that woman.’

‘Don’t use the word “asshole”, Bea. Anyway, who told you that I stood her up?’

‘Uncle Al.’

‘Uncle Al is an asshole. And you know what else, honey? You know what the good doctor said today about donating blood?’ He struggles with opening the film on the top of a Pringles box.

‘What?’ Bea yawns.

‘That the donation is anonymous to the recipient. Hear that? Anonymous. So what’s the point in saving someone’s life if they don’t even know you’re the one who saved them?’

‘Dad!’

‘What? Come on, Bea. Lie to me and tell me you wouldn’t want a bouquet of flowers for saving someone’s life?’

Bea protests but he continues.

‘Or a little basket of those, whaddaya call ’em muffins that you like, coconut—’

‘Cinnamon,’ she laughs, finally giving in.

‘A little basket of cinnamon muffins outside your front door with a little note tucked into the basket saying, “Thanks, Bea, for saving my life. Anytime you want anything done, like your dry cleaning picked up, or your newspaper and a coffee delivered to your front door every morning, a chauffeur-driven car for your own personal use, front-row tickets to the opera …” Oh the list could go on and on.’

He gives up pulling at the film and instead picks up a corkscrew and stabs the top. ‘It could be like one of those Chinese things; you know the way someone saves your life and then you’re forever indebted to them. It could be nice having someone tailing you everyday; catching pianos flying out of windows and stopping them from landing on your head, that kind of thing.’

Bea calms herself. ‘I hope you’re joking.’

‘Yeah, of course I’m joking.’ Justin makes a face. ‘The piano would surely kill them and that would be unfair.’

He finally pulls open the Pringles lid and throws the corkscrew across the room. It hits a glass on top of the minibar and it smashes.

‘What was that?’

‘House-cleaning,’ he lies. ‘You think I’m selfish, don’t you?’

‘Dad, you uprooted your life, left a great job, nice apartment and flew thousands of miles to another country just to be near me, of course I don’t think you’re selfish.’

Justin smiles and pops a Pringle into his mouth.

‘But if you’re not joking about the muffin basket, then you’re definitely selfish. And if it was Blood For Life Week in my college, I would have taken part. But you have the opportunity to make it up to that woman.’

‘I just feel like I’m being bullied into this entire thing. I was going to get my hair cut tomorrow, not have people stab at my veins.’

‘Don’t give blood if you don’t want to, I don’t care. But remember, if you do it, a tiny little needle isn’t gonna kill you. In fact, the opposite may happen, it might save someone’s life and you never know, that person could follow you around for the rest of your life leaving muffin baskets outside your door and catching pianos before they fall on your head. Now wouldn’t that be nice?’

CHAPTER FOUR

In a blood drive beside Trinity College’s rugby pitch, Justin tries to hide his shaking hands from Sarah, while handing over his consent form and ‘Health and Lifestyle’ questionnaire, which frankly discloses far more about him than he’d reveal on a date. She smiles encouragingly and talks him through everything as though giving blood is the most normal thing in the world.

‘Now I just need to ask you a few questions. Have you read, understood and completed the health and lifestyle questionnaire?’

Justin nods, words failing him in his clogged throat.

‘And is all the information you’ve provided true and accur ate to the best of your knowledge?’

‘Why?’ he croaks. ‘Does it not look right to you? Because if it doesn’t I can always leave and come back again another time.’

She smiles at him with the same look his mother wore before tucking him into bed and turning off the light.

‘OK, we’re all set. I’m just going to do a haemoglobin test,’ she explains.

‘Does that check for diseases?’ He looks around nervously at the equipment in the van. Please don’t let me have any diseases. That would be too embarrassing. Not likely anyway. Can you even remember the last time you had sex?

‘No, this just measures the iron in your blood.’ She takes a pinprick of blood from the pad of his finger. ‘Blood is tested later for diseases and STDs.’

‘Must be handy for checking up on boyfriends,’ he jokes, feeling sweat tickle his upper lip. He studies his finger.

She quietens as she carries out the quick test.

Justin lies supine on a cushioned bench and extends his left arm. Sarah wraps a pressure cuff around his upper arm, making the veins more prominent, and she disinfects his inner elbow.

Don’t look at the needle, don’t look at the needle.

He looks at the needle and the ground swirls beneath him. His throat tightens.

‘Is this going to hurt?’ Justin swallows hard as his shirt clings to his saturated back.

‘Just a little sting,’ she smiles, approaching him with a cannula in her hand.

He smells her sweet perfume and it distracts him momen t arily. As she leans over, he sees down her V-neck sweater. A black lace bra.

‘I want you to take this in your hand and squeeze it repeatedly.’

‘What?’ he laughs nervously.

‘The ball,’ she smiles.

‘Oh.’ He takes a small soft ball into his hand. ‘What does this do?’ His voice shakes.

‘It’s to help speed up the process.’

He pumps at top speed.

Sarah laughs. ‘Not yet. And not that fast, Justin.’

Sweat rolls down his back. His hair sticks to his sticky forehead. You should have gone for the haircut, Justin. What kind of a stupid idea was this—‘Ouch.’

‘That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ she says softly, as though talking to a child.

Justin’s heart beats loudly in his ears. He pumps the ball in his hand to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He imagines his heart pumping the blood, the blood flowing through his veins. He sees it reach the needle, go through the tube and he waits to feel faint. But the dizziness never comes and so he watches his blood run through the tube and down under the bed into the collection bag she has thoughtfully hidden below the bed on a scale.

‘Do I get a KitKat after this?’

She laughs. ‘Of course.’

‘And then we get to go for drinks or are you just using me for my body?’

‘Drinks are fine, but I must warn you against doing anything strenuous today. Your body needs to recover.’

He catches sight of her lace bra again. Yeah, sure.

Fifteen minutes later, Justin looks at his pint of blood with pride. He doesn’t want it to go to some stranger, he almost wants to bring it to the hospital himself, survey the wards and present it to someone he really cares about, someone special, for it’s the first thing to come straight from his heart in a very long time.

Present Day

CHAPTER FIVE

I open my eyes slowly.

White light fills them. Slowly, objects come into focus and the white light fades. Orangey pink now. I move my eyes around. I’m in a hospital. A television high up on the wall. Green fills its screen. I focus more. Horses. Jumping and racing. Dad must be in the room. I lower my eyes and there he is with his back to me in an armchair. He thumps his fists lightly on the chair’s arms, I see his tweed cap appearing and disappearing behind the back of the chair as he bounces up and down. The springs beneath him squeak.

The horse racing is silent. So is he. Like a silent movie being carried out before me, I watch him. I wonder if it’s my ears that aren’t allowing me to hear him. He springs out of his chair now faster than I’ve seen him move in a long time, and he raises his fist at the television, quietly urging his horse on.

The television goes black. His two fists open and he raises his hands up in the air, looks up to the ceiling and beseeches God. He puts his hands in his pockets, feels around and pulls the material out. They’re empty and the pockets of his brown trousers hang inside out for all to see. He pats down his chest, feeling for money. Checks the small pocket of his brown cardigan. Grumbles. So it’s not my ears.

He turns to feel around in his overcoat beside me and I shut my eyes quickly.

I’m not ready yet. Nothing has happened to me until they tell me. Last night will remain a nightmare in my mind until they tell me it was true. The longer I close my eyes, the longer everything remains as it was. The bliss of ignorance.

I hear him rooting around in his overcoat, I hear change rattling and I hear the clunk as the coins fall into the television. I risk opening my eyes again and there he is back in his armchair, cap bouncing up and down, pounding his fists against the air.

My curtain is closed to my right but I can tell I share a room with others. I don’t know how many. It’s quiet. There’s no air in the room; it’s stuffy with stale sweat. The giant windows that take up the entire wall to my left are closed. The light is so bright I can’t see out. I allow my eyes to adjust and finally I see. A bus stop across the road. A woman waits by the stop, shopping bags by her feet and on her hip sits a baby, bare chubby legs bouncing in the Indian summer sun. I look away immediately. Dad is watching me. He is leaning out over the side of the armchair, twisting his head around, like a child from his cot.

‘Hi, love.’

‘Hi.’ I feel I haven’t spoken for such a long time, and I expect to croak. But I don’t. My voice is pure, pours out like honey. Like nothing’s happened. But nothing has happened. Not yet. Not until they tell me.

With both hands on the arms of the chair he slowly pulls himself up. Like a seesaw, he makes his way over to the side of the bed. Up and down, down and up. He was born with a leg length discrepancy, his left leg longer than his right. Despite the special shoes he was given in later years, he still sways, the motion instilled in him since he learned to walk. He hates wearing those shoes and, despite our warnings and his back pains, he goes back to what he knows. I’m so used to the sight of his body going up and down, down and up. I recall as a child holding his hand and going for walks. How my arm would move in perfect rhythm with him. Being pulled up as he stepped down on his right leg, being pushed down as he stepped on his left.

He was always so strong. Always so capable. Always fixing things. Lifting things, mending things. Always with a screwdriver in his hand, taking things apart and putting them back together – remote controls, radios, alarm clocks, plugs. A handiman for the entire street. His legs were uneven, but his hands, always and for ever, steady as a rock.

He takes his cap off as he nears me, clutches it with both hands, moves it around in circles like a steering wheel as he watches me with concern. He steps onto his right leg and down he goes. Bends his left leg. His position of rest.

‘Are you … em … they told me that … eh.’ He clears his throat. ‘They told me to …’ He swallows hard and his thick messy eyebrows furrow and hide his glassy eyes. ‘You lost … you lost, em …’

My lower lip trembles.

His voice breaks when he speaks again. ‘You lost a lot of blood, Joyce. They …’ He lets go of his cap with one hand and makes circular motions with his crooked finger, trying to remember. ‘They did a transfusion of the blood thingy on you so you’re em … you’re OK with your bloods now.’

My lower lip still trembles and my hands automatically go to my belly, not long enough gone to even show swelling under the blankets. I look to him hopefully, only realising now how much I am still holding on, how much I have convinced myself the awful incident in the labour room was all a terrible nightmare. Perhaps I imagined my baby’s silence that filled the room in that final moment. Perhaps there were cries that I just didn’t hear. Of course it’s possible – by that stage I had little energy and was fading away – maybe I just didn’t hear the first little miraculous breath of life that everybody else witnessed.

Dad shakes his head sadly. No, it had been me that had made those screams instead.

My lip trembles more now, bounces up and down and I can’t stop it. My body shakes terribly and I can’t stop it either. The tears; they well, but I stop them from falling. If I start now I know I will never stop.

I’m making a noise. An unusual noise I’ve never heard before. Groaning. Grunting. A combination of both. Dad grabs my hand and holds it hard. The feel of his skin brings me back to last night, me lying at the end of the stairs. He doesn’t say anything. But what can a person say? I don’t even know.

I doze in and out. I wake and remember a conversation with a doctor and wonder if it was a dream. Lost your baby, Joyce, we did all we could … blood transfusion … Who needs to remember something like that? No one. Not me.

When I wake again the curtain beside me has been pulled open. There are three small children running around, chasing one another around the bed while their father, I assume, calls to them to stop in a language I don’t recognise. Their mother, I assume, lies in bed. She looks tired. We catch eyes and smile at one another.

I know how you feel, her sad smile says, I know how you feel.

What are we going to do? my smile says back to her.

I don’t know, her eyes say. I don’t know.

Will we be OK?

She turns her head away from me, her smile gone.

Dad calls over to them. ‘Where are you lot from then?’

‘Excuse me?’ her husband asks.

‘I said where are you lot from then?’ Dad repeats. ‘Not from around here, I see.’ Dad’s voice is cheery and pleasant. No insults intended. No insults ever intended.

‘We are from Nigeria,’ the man responds.

‘Nigeria,’ Dad replies. ‘Where would that be then?’

‘In Africa.’ The man’s tone is pleasant too. Just an old man starved of conversation, trying to be friendly, he realises.

‘Ah, Africa. Never been there myself. Is it hot there? I’d say it is. Hotter than here. Get a good tan, I’d say, not that you need it,’ he laughs. ‘Do you get cold here?’

‘Cold?’ the African smiles.

‘Yes, you know.’ Dad wraps his arms around his body and pretends to shiver. ‘Cold?’

‘Yes,’ the man laughs. ‘Sometimes I do.’

‘Thought so. I do too and I’m from here,’ Dad explains. ‘The chill gets right into my bones. But I’m not a great one for heat either. Skin goes red, just burns. My daughter, Joyce, goes brown. That’s her over there.’ He points at me and I close my eyes quickly.

‘A lovely daughter,’ the man says politely.

‘Ah, she is.’ Silence while I assume they watch me. ‘She was on one of those Spanish islands a few months back and came back black, she did. Well, not as black as you, you know, but she got a fair ol’ tan on her. Peeled, though. You probably don’t peel.’

The man laughs politely. That’s Dad. Never means any harm but has never left the country in his entire life. A fear of flying holds him back. Or so he says.

‘Anyway, I hope your lovely lady feels better soon. It’s an awful thing to be sick on your holliers.’

With that I open my eyes.

‘Ah, welcome back, love. I was just talking to these nice neighbours of ours.’ He seesaws up to me again, his cap in his hands. Rests on his right leg, goes down, bends his left leg. ‘You know I think we’re the only Irish people in this hospital. The nurse that was here a minute ago, she’s from Sing-a-song or someplace like that.’

‘Singapore, Dad,’ I smile.

‘That’s it.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘You met her already, did you? They all speak English, though, the foreigners do. Sure, isn’t that better than being on your holidays and having to do all that signed-languagey stuff.’ He puts his cap down on the bed and wiggles his fingers around.

‘Dad,’ I smile, ‘you’ve never been out of the country in your life.’

‘Haven’t I heard the lads at the Monday Club talking about it? Frank was away in that place last week – oh, what’s that place?’ He shuts his eyes and thinks hard. ‘The place where they make the chocolates?’

‘Switzerland.’

‘No.’

‘Belgium.’

‘No,’ he says, frustrated now. ‘The little round ball-y things all crunchy inside. You can get the white ones now but I prefer the original dark ones.’

‘Maltesers?’ I laugh, but feel pain and stop.

‘That’s it. He was in Maltesers.’

‘Dad, it’s Malta.’

‘That’s it. He was in Malta.’ He is silent. ‘Do they make Maltesers?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. So what happened to Frank in Malta?’

He squeezes his eyes shut again and thinks. ‘I can’t remember what I was about to say now.’

Silence. He hates not being able to remember. He used to remember everything.

‘Did you make any money on the horses?’ I ask.

‘A few bob. Enough for a few rounds at the Monday Club tonight.’

‘But today is Tuesday.’

‘It’s on a Tuesday on account of the bank holiday,’ he explains, seesawing around to the other side of the bed to sit down.

I can’t laugh. I’m too sore and it seems some of my sense of humour was taken away with my child.

‘You don’t mind if I go, do you, Joyce? I’ll stay if you want, I really don’t mind, it’s not important.’

‘Of course it’s important. You haven’t missed a Monday night for twenty years.’

‘Apart from bank holidays!’ He lifts a crooked finger and his eyes dance.

‘Apart from bank holidays,’ I smile, and grab his finger.

‘Well,’ he takes my hand, ‘you’re more important than a few pints and a singsong.’

‘What would I do without you?’ My eyes fill again.

‘You’d be just fine, love. Besides …’ he looks at me warily, ‘you have Conor.’

I let go of his hand and look away. What if I don’t want Conor any more?

‘I tried to call him last night on the hand phone but there was no answer. But maybe I tried the numbers wrong,’ he adds quickly. ‘There are so many more numbers on the hand phones.’

‘Mobiles, Dad,’ I say distractedly.

‘Ah, yes. The mobiles. He keeps calling when you’re asleep. He’s going to come home as soon as he can get a flight. He’s very worried.’

‘That’s nice of him. Then we can get down to the business of spening the next ten years of our married life trying to have babies.’ Back to business. A nice little distraction to give our relationship some sort of meaning.

‘Ah now, love …’

The first day of the rest of my life and I’m not sure I want to be here. I know I should be thanking somebody for this but I really don’t feel like it. Instead I wish they hadn’t bothered.

CHAPTER SIX

I watch the three children playing together on the floor of the hospital, little fingers and toes, chubby cheeks and plump lips – the faces of their parents clearly etched on theirs. My heart drops into my stomach and it twists. My eyes fill again and I have to look away.

‘Mind if I have a grape?’ Dad chirps. He’s like a little canary swinging in a cage beside me.

‘Of course you can. Dad, you should go home now, go get something to eat. You need your energy.’

He picks up a banana. ‘Potassium,’ he smiles, and moves his arms rigorously. ‘I’ll be jogging home tonight.’

‘How did you get here?’ It suddenly occurs to me that he hasn’t been into the city for years. It all became too fast for him, buildings suddenly sprouting up where there weren’t any, roads with traffic going in different directions from before. With great sadness he sold his car too, his failing eyesight too much of a danger for him and others on the roads. Seventy-five years old, his wife dead ten years. Now he has a routine of his own, content to stay around the local area, chatting to his neighbours, church every Sunday and Wednesday, Monday Club every Monday (apart from the bank holidays when it’s on a Tuesday), butchers on a Tuesday, his crosswords, puzzles and TV shows during the days, his garden all the moments in between.

‘Fran from next door drove me in.’ He puts the banana down, still laughing to himself about his jogging joke, and pops another grape into his mouth. ‘Almost had me killed two or three times. Enough to let me know there is a God if ever there was a time I doubted. I asked for seedless grapes; these aren’t seedless,’ he frowns. Liver-spotted hands put the bunch back on the side cabinet. He takes seeds out of his mouth and looks around for a bin.

‘Do you still believe in your God now, Dad?’ It comes out crueller than I mean to but the anger is almost unbearable.

‘I do believe, Joyce.’ As always, no offence taken. He puts the pips in his handkerchief and places it back in his pocket. ‘The Lord acts in mysterious ways, in ways we often can neither explain nor understand, tolerate nor bear. I understand how you can question Him now – we all do at times. When your mother died I …’ he trails off and abandons the sentence as always, the furthest he will go to being disloyal about his God, the furthest he will go to discussing the loss of his wife. ‘But this time God answered all my prayers. He sat up and heard me calling last night. He said to me,’ Dad puts on a broad Cavan accent, the accent he had as a child before moving to Dublin in his teens, ‘“No problem, Henry. I hear you loud and clear. It’s all in hand so don’t you be worrying. I’ll do this for you, no bother at all.” He saved you. He kept my girl alive and for that I’ll be forever grateful to Him, sad as we may be about the passing of another.’

I have no response to that, but I soften.

He pulls his chair closer to my bedside and it screeches along the floor.

‘And I believe in an afterlife,’ he says a little quieter now. ‘That I do. I believe in the paradise of heaven, up there in the clouds, and everyone that was once here is up there. Including the sinners, for God’s a forgiver, that I believe.’

‘Everyone?’ I fight the tears. I fight them from falling. If I start I know I will never stop. ‘What about my baby, Dad? Is my baby there?’

He looks pained. We hadn’t spoken much about my pregnancy. Early days and we were all worried, nobody more than he. Only days ago we’d had a minor falling-out over my asking him to store our spare bed in his garage. I had started to prepare the nursery, you see … Oh dear, the nursery. The spare bed and junk just cleared out. The cot already purchased. Pretty yellow on the walls. ‘Buttercup Dream’ with a little duckie border.

Five months to go. Some people, my father included, would think preparing the nursery at four months is premature but we’d been waiting six years for a baby, for this baby. Nothing premature about that.

‘Ah, love, you know I don’t know …’

‘I was going to call him Sean if it was a boy,’ I hear myself finally say aloud. I have been saying these things in my head all day, over and over, and here they are, spilling out of me instead of the tears.

‘Ah, that’s a nice name. Sean.’

‘Grace, if it was a girl. After Mum. She would have liked that.’

His jaw sets at this and he looks away. Anyone who doesn’t know him would think this has angered him. I know this is not the case. I know it’s the emotion gathering in his jaw, like a giant reservoir, storing and locking it all away until absolutely necessary, waiting for those rare moments when the drought within him calls for those walls to break and for the emotions to gush.

‘But for some reason I thought it was a boy. I don’t know why but I just felt it somehow. I could have been wrong. I was going to call him Sean,’ I repeat.

Dad nods. ‘That’s right. A fine name.’

‘I used to talk to him. Sing to him. I wonder if he heard.’ My voice is far away. I feel like I’m calling out from the hollow of a tree, where I hide.

Silence while I imagine a future that will never be with little imaginary Sean. Of singing to him every night, of marshmallow skin and splashes at bath time. Of kicking legs and bicycle rides. Of sandcastle architecture and football-related hot-headed tantrums. Anger at a missed life – no, worse – a lost life, overrides my thoughts.

‘I wonder if he even knew.’

‘Knew what, love?’

‘What was happening. What he would be missing. Did he think I was sending him away? I hope he doesn’t blame me. I was all he had and—’ I stop. Torture over for now. I feel seconds away from screaming with such terror, I must stop. If I start my tears now I know I will never stop.

‘Where is he now, Dad? How can you even die when you haven’t even been born yet?’

‘Ah, love.’ He takes my hand and squeezes it again.

‘Tell me.’

This time he thinks about it. Long and hard. He pats my hair, with steady fingers takes the strands from my face and tucks them behind my ears. He hasn’t done that since I was a little girl.

‘I think he’s in heaven, love. Oh, there’s no thinking involved – I know so. He’s up there with your mother, yes he is. Sitting on her lap while she plays rummy with Pauline, robbing her blind and cackling away. She’s up there all right.’ He looks up and wags his forefinger at the ceiling. ‘Now you take care of baby Sean for us, Gracie, you hear? She’ll be tellin’ him all about you, she will, about when you were a baby, about the day you took your first steps, about the day you got your first tooth. She’ll tell him about your first day of school and your last day of school and every day in between, and he’ll know all about you so that when you walk through those gates up there, as an old woman far older than me now, he’ll look up from rummy and say, “Ah, there she is now. The woman herself. My mammy.” Straight away he’ll know.’

The lump in my throat, so huge I can barely swallow, prevents me from saying the thank you I want to express, but perhaps he sees it in my eyes as he nods in acknowledgement and then turns his attention back to the TV while I stare out the window at nothing.

‘There’s a nice chapel here, love. Maybe you should go visit, when you’re good and ready. You don’t even have to say anything, He won’t mind. Just sit there and think. I find it helpful.’

I think it’s the last place in the world I want to be.

‘It’s a nice place to be,’ Dad says, reading my mind. He watches me and I can almost hear him praying for me to leap out of bed and grab the rosary beads he’s placed by the bedside.

‘It’s a rococo building, you know,’ I say suddenly, and have no idea what I’m talking about.

‘What is?’ Dad’s eyebrows furrow and his eyes disappear underneath, like two snails disappearing into their shells. ‘This hospital?’

I think hard. ‘What were we talking about?’

Then he thinks hard. ‘Maltesers. No!’

He’s silent for a moment, then starts answering as though in a quick-fire round of a quiz.

‘Bananas! No. Heaven! No. The chapel! We were talking about the chapel.’ He flashes a million-dollar smile, jubilant he succeeded in remembering the conversation of less than one minute ago. He goes further now. ‘And then you said it’s a rickety building. But honestly it felt fine to me. A bit old but, sure, there’s nothin’ wrong with being old and rickety.’ He winks at me.

‘The chapel is a rococo building, not rickety,’ I correct him, feeling like a teacher. ‘It’s famous for the elaborate stucco work which adorns the ceiling. It’s the work of French stuccadore, Barthelemy Cramillion.’

‘Is that so, love? When did he do that, then?’ He moves his chair in closer to the bed. Loves nothing more than a scéal.

‘In 1762.’ So precise. So random. So natural. So inexplicable that I know it.

‘That long? I didn’t know the hospital was here since then.’

‘It’s been here since 1757,’ I reply, and then frown. How on earth do I know that? But I can’t stop myself, almost like my mouth is on autopilot, completely unattached to my brain. ‘It was designed by the same man who did Leinster House. Richard Cassells was his name. One of the most famous architects of the time.’

‘I’ve heard of him, all right,’ Dad lies. ‘If you’d said Dick I’d have known straight away.’ He chuckles.

‘It was Bartholomew Mosse’s brainchild,’ I explain and I don’t know where the words are coming from, don’t know where the knowledge is coming from. From where else, I don’t know. Like a feeling of déjà vu – these words, this feeling is familiar but I haven’t heard them or spoken them in this hospital. I think maybe I’m making it up but I know somewhere deep inside that I’m correct. A warm feeling floods my body.

‘In 1745 he purchased a small theatre called the New Booth and he converted it into Dublin’s first lying-in hospital.’

‘It stood here, did it? The theatre?’

‘No, it was on George’s Lane. This was all just fields. But eventually that became too small and he bought the fields that were here, consulted with Richard Cassells and in 1757 the new lying-in hospital, now known as the Rotunda, was opened by the Lord Lieutenant. On the eighth of December, if I recall correctly.’

Dad is confused. ‘I didn’t know you had an interest in that kind of thing, Joyce. How do you know all that?’

I frown. I didn’t know I knew that either. Suddenly frustration overwhelms me and I shake my head aggressively.

‘I want a haircut,’ I add angrily, blowing my fringe off my forehead. ‘I want to get out of here.’

‘OK, love.’ Dad’s voice is quiet. ‘A little longer, is all.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Get a haircut! Justin blows his fringe out of his eyes and glares with dissatisfaction at his reflection in the mirror.

Until his image caught his eye, he was packing his bag to go back to London while whistling the happy tune of a recently divorced man who’d just been laid by the first woman since his wife. Well, the second time that year, but the first that he could recall with some small degree of pride. Now, standing before the full-length mirror, his whistling stalls, the image of his Fabio self failing miserably against the reality. He corrects his posture, sucks in his cheeks and flexes his muscles, vowing that now that the divorce cloud has lifted, he will get his body back in order. Forty-three years old, he is handsome and he knows it, but it’s not a view that is held with arrogance. His opinions on his looks are merely understood with the same logic he applies to tasting a fine wine. The grape was merely grown in the right place, under the right conditions. Some degree of nurturing and love mixed with later moments of being completely trampled on and walked all over. He possesses the common sense enabling him to recognise he was born with good genes and features that were in proportion, in the right places. He should be neither praised nor blamed for this just as a less attractive person should not be viewed with flared nostrils and a media-obsessed induced smirk. It’s just how it is.

At almost six feet, he is tall, his shoulders broad, his hair still thick and chestnut brown, though greying at the sides. This he does not mind, he’s had grey hairs since his twenties and has always felt they give him a distinguished look. Though there were some, afraid of the very nature of life, that viewed his salt-and-pepper sideburns as a thorn that would burst the bubble of their pretend life every time he was in their presence. They would come at him, bowing over and hunchbacked, and taking on the appearance of a sixteenth-century black-toothed tramp, thrusting hair dye at him as though it were a carafe of precious water from the fountain of eternal life.

For Justin, moving on and change are what he expects. He is not one for pausing, for becoming stuck in life, though he didn’t expect his particular philosophy of ageing and greying to apply to his marriage. Jennifer left him two years ago to ponder this, though not just this, but for a great many other reasons too. So many, in fact, he wishes he had taken out a pen and notepad and listed them as she bellowed at him in her tirade of hate. In the initial dark lonely nights that followed, Justin held the bottle of dye in his hand and wondered if he gave in to his solid tight philosophy, would he make things all right? Would he wake up in the morning and Jennifer be in their bed; would the light scar on his chin have healed from where the wedding ring had landed; would the list of things about him she hated so much be the very things she loved? He sobered up then and emptied the dye down his rented accommodation kitchen sink, blackened stainless steel that proved a reminder to him everyday of his decision to stay rooted in reality, until he moved to London to be closer to his daughter, much to his ex-wife’s disgust.

Through strands of his long fringe hanging over his eyes, he has a vision of the man he expects to see. Leaner, younger, perhaps with fewer wrinkles around the eyes. Any faults, such as the expanding waistline, are partly due to age and partly of his own doing, because he took to beer and takeaways for comfort during his divorce process rather than walking or the occasional jog.

Repeated flashbacks of the previous night draw his eyes back to the bed, where he and Sarah finally got to know one another intimately. All day he definitely felt like the big man on campus and he was just seconds away from interrupting his talk on Dutch and Flemish painting to give details of his previous night’s performance. First-year students in the midst of Rag Week, only three-quarters of the class had shown up after the previous night’s foam party and those that were in attendance he was sure wouldn’t notice if he launched into a detailed analysis of his lovemaking skills. He didn’t test his assumptions, all the same.

Blood For Life Week is over, much to Justin’s relief, and Sarah has moved on from the college, back to her base. On his return to Dublin this month he coincidentally bumped into her in a bar, that he just happened to know she frequented, and they went from there. He wasn’t sure if he would see her again though his inside jacket pocket was safely padded with her number.

He has to admit that while the previous night was indeed delightful – a few too many bottles of Château Olivier, which, until last night he’s always found disappointing despite its ideal location in Bordeaux, in a lively bar on the Green, followed by a trip to his hotel room – he feels much was missing from his conquest. He acquired some Dutch courage from his hotel mini-bar before calling round to see her, and by the time he arrived, he was already incapable of serious conversation or, more seriously, incapable of conversation – Oh, for Christ’s sake, Justin, what man do you know cares about the damn conversation? But, despite ending up in his bed, he feels that Sarah did care about the conversation. He feels that perhaps there were things she wanted to say to him and perhaps did say while he saw those sad blue eyes boring into his and her rosebud lips opening and closing, but his Jameson whiskey wouldn’t allow him to hear, instead singing over her words in his head like a petulant child.

With his second seminar in two months complete, Justin throws his clothes into his bag, happy to see the back of his miserable musty room. Friday afternoon, time to fly back to London. Back to his daughter, and his younger brother, Al, and sister-in-law, Doris, visiting from Chicago. He departs the hotel, steps out onto the cobbled side streets of Temple Bar and into his waiting taxi.

‘The airport, please.’

‘Here on holidays?’ the driver asks immediately.

‘No.’ Justin looks out the window, hoping this will end the conversation.

‘Working?’ The driver starts the engine.

‘Yes.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘A college.’

‘Which one?’

Justin sighs. ‘Trinity.’

‘You the janitor?’ Those green eyes twinkle playfully at him in the mirror.

‘I’m a lecturer on Art and Architecture,’ he says defensively, folding his arms and blowing his floppy fringe from his eyes.

‘Architecture, huh? I used to be a builder.’

Justin doesn’t respond and hopes the conversation will end there.

‘So where are ye off to? Off on holiday?’

‘Nope.’

‘What is it then?

‘I live in London.’ And my US social security number is …

‘And you work here?’

‘Yep.’

‘Would you not just live here?’

‘Nope.’

‘Why’s that then?’

‘Because I’m a guest lecturer here. A previous colleague of mine invited me to give a seminar once a month.’

‘Ah.’ The driver smiles at him in the mirror as though he’d been trying to fool him. ‘So what do you do in London?’ His eyes interrogate him.

I’m a serial killer who preys on inquisitive cab drivers.

‘Lots of different things.’ Justin sighs and caves in as the driver waits for more. ‘I’m the editor of the Art and Architectural Review, the only truly international art and architectural publication,’ he says proudly. ‘I started it ten years ago and still we’re unrivalled. Highest selling magazine of its kind.’ Twenty thousand subscribers, you liar.

There’s no reaction.

‘I’m also a curator.’

The driver winces. ‘You’ve to touch dead bodies?’

Justin scrunches his face in confusion. ‘What? No.’ Then adds unnecessarily, ‘I’m also a regular panelist on a BBC art and culture show.’

Twice in five years doesn’t quite constitute regular, Justin. Oh, shut up.

The driver studies Justin now, in the rearview mirror. ‘You’re on TV?’ He narrows his eyes. ‘I don’t recognise you.’

‘Well, do you watch the show?’

‘No.’

Well, then.

Justin rolls his eyes. He throws off his suit jacket, opens another of his shirt buttons and lowers the window. His hair sticks to his forehead. Still. A few weeks have gone by and he still hasn’t been to the barber. He blows his fringe out of his eyes.

They stop at a red light and Justin looks to his left. A hair salon.

‘Hey, would you mind pulling over on the left just for a few minutes?’

‘Look, Conor, don’t worry about it. Stop apologising,’ I say into the phone tiredly. He exhausts me. Every little word with him drains me. ‘Dad is here with me now and we’re going to get a taxi to the house together, even though I’m perfectly capable of sitting in a car by myself.’

Outside the hospital, Dad holds the door open for me and I climb into the taxi. Finally I’m going home but I don’t feel the relief I was hoping for. There’s nothing but dread. I dread meeting people I know and having to explain what has happened, over and over again. I dread walking into my house and having to face the half-decorated nursery. I dread having to get rid of the nursery, having to replace it with a spare bed and filling the wardrobes with my own overflow of shoes and bags I’ll never wear. As though a bedroom for them alone is as good a replacement as a child. I dread having to go to work instead of taking the leave I had planned. I dread seeing Conor. I dread going back to a loveless marriage with no baby to distract us. I dread living every day of the rest of my life while Conor drones on and on down the phone about wanting to be here for me, when it seems my telling him not to come home has been my mantra for the past few days. I know it would be common sense for me to want my husband to come rushing home to me – in fact, for my husband to want to come rushing home to me – but there are many buts in our marriage and this incident is not a regular normal occurrence. It deserves outlandish behaviour. To behave the right way, to do the adult thing feels wrong to me because I don’t want anybody around me. I’ve been poked and prodded psychologically and physically. I want to be on my own to grieve. I want to feel sorry for myself without sympathetic words and clinical explanations. I want to be illogical, self-pitying, self-examining, bitter and lost for just a few more days, please, world, and I want to do it alone.

Though that is not unusual in our marriage.

Conor’s an engineer. He travels abroad to work for months before coming home for one month and going off again. I used to get so used to my own company and routine that for the first week of him being home I’d be irritable and wish he’d go back. That changed over time, of course. Now that irritability stretches to the entire month of him being home. And it’s become glaringly obvious I’m not alone in that feeling.

When Conor took the job all those years ago, it was difficult being away from one another for so long. I used to visit him as much as I could but it was difficult to keep taking time off work. The visits got shorter, rarer, then stopped.

I always thought our marriage could survive anything as long as we both tried. But then I found myself having to try to try. I dug beneath the new layers of complexities we’d created over the years to get to the beginning of the relationship. What was it, I wondered, that we had then that we could revive? What was the thing that could make two people want to promise one another to spend every day of the rest of their lives together? Ah, I found it. It was a thing called love. A small simple word. If only it didn’t mean so much, our marriage would be flawless.

My mind has wandered much while lying in that hospital bed. At times it has stalled in its wandering, like when entering a room and then forgetting what for. It stands alone dumbstruck. At those times it has been numb, and when staring at the pink walls I have thought of nothing but of the fact that I am staring at pink walls.

My mind has bounced from numbness to feeling too much, but on an occasion while wandering far, I dug deep to find a memory of when I was six years old and I had a favourite tea set given to me by my grandmother Betty. She kept it in her house for me to play with when I called over on Saturdays, and during the afternoons when my grandmother was ‘taking tea’ with her friends I would dress in one of my mother’s pretty dresses from when she was a child and have afternoon tea with Aunt Jemima, the cat. The dresses never quite fit but I wore them all the same, and Aunt Jemima and I never did take to tea but we were both polite enough to keep up the pretence until my parents came to collect me at the end of the day. I told this story to Conor a few years ago and he laughed, missing the point.

It was an easy point to miss – I won’t hold him accountable for that – but what my mind was shouting at him to understand was that I’ve increasingly found that people never truly tire of playing games and dressing up, no matter how many years pass. Our lies now are just more sophisticated; our words to deceive, more eloquent. From cowboys and Indians, doctors and nurses, to husband and wife, we’ve never stopped pretending. Sitting in the taxi beside Dad, while listening to Conor over the phone, I realise I’ve stopped pretending.

‘Where is Conor?’ Dad asks as soon as I’ve hung up.

He opens the top button of his shirt and loosens his tie. He dresses in a shirt and tie every time he leaves his house, never forgets his cap. He looks for the handle on the car door, to roll the window down.

‘It’s electronic, Dad. There’s the button. He’s still in Japan. He’ll be home in a few days.’

‘I thought he was coming back yesterday.’ He puts the window all the way down and is almost blown away. His cap topples off his head and the few strands of hair left on his head stick up. He fixes the cap back on his head, has a mini battle with the button before finally figuring out how to leave a small gap at the top for air to enter the stuffy taxi.

‘Ha! Gotcha,’ he smiles victoriously, thumping his fist at the window.

I wait until he’s finished fighting with the window to answer. ‘I told him not to.’

‘You told who what, love?’

‘Conor. You were asking about Conor, Dad.’

‘Ah, that’s right, I was. Home soon, is he?’

I nod.

The day is hot and I blow my fringe up from my sticky forehead. I feel my hair sticking to the back of my clammy neck. Suddenly it feels heavy and greasy on my head. Brown and scraggy, it weighs me down and once again I have the overwhelming urge to shave it all off. I become agitated in my seat and Dad, sensing it again, knows not to say anything. I’ve been doing that all week: experiencing anger beyond comprehension, so that I want to drive my fists through the walls and punch the nurses. Then I become weepy and feel such loss inside me it’s as if I’ll never be filled again. I prefer the anger. Anger is better. Anger is hot and filling and gives me something to cling on to.

We stop at a set of traffic lights and I look to my left. A hair salon.

‘Pull over here, please.’

‘What are you doing, Joyce?’

‘Wait in the car, Dad. I’ll be ten minutes. I’m just going to get a quick haircut. I can’t take it any more.’

Dad looks at the salon and then to the taxi driver and they both know not to say anything. The taxi directly on front of us indicates and moves over to the side of the road too. We pull up behind it.

A man ahead of us gets out of the car and I freeze with one foot out of the car, to watch him. He’s familiar and I think I know him. He pauses and looks at me. We stare at one another for a while. Search each other’s face. He scratches at his left arm; something that holds my attention for far too long. The moment is unusual and goose bumps rise on my skin. The last thing I want is to see somebody I know, and I look away quickly.

He looks away from me too and begins to walk.

‘What are you doing?’ Dad asks far too loudly, and I finally get out of the car.

I start walking towards the hair salon and it becomes clear that our destination is the same. My walk becomes mechanical, awkward, self-conscious. Something about him makes me disjointed. Unsettled. Perhaps it’s the possibility of having to tell somebody there will be no baby. Yes, a month of nonstop baby talk and there will be no baby to show for it. Sorry, guys. I feel guilty for it, as though I’ve cheated my friends and family. The longest tease of all. A baby that will never be. My heart is twisted at the thought of it.

He holds open the door to the salon and smiles. Handsome. Fresh-faced. Tall. Broad. Athletic. Perfect. Is he glowing? I must know him.

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘You’re welcome.’

We both pause, look at one another, back to the two identical taxis waiting for us by the pavement and back to one another. I think he’s about to say something else but I quickly look away and step inside.

The salon is empty and two staff members are sitting down chatting. They are two men; one has a mullet, the other is bleached blond. They see us and spring to attention.

‘Which one do you want?’ the American says out of the side of his mouth.

‘The blond,’ I smile.

‘The mullet it is then,’ he says.

My mouth falls open but I laugh.

‘Hello there, loves.’ The mullet man approaches us. ‘How can I help you?’ He looks back and forth from the American to me. ‘Who is getting their hair done today?’

‘Well, both of us, I assume, right?’ American man looks at me and I nod.

‘Oh, pardon me, I thought you were together.’

I realise we are so close our hips are almost touching. We both look down at our adjoined hips, then up to join eyes and then we both take one step away in the opposite direction.

‘You two should try synchronised swimming,’ the hairdresser laughs, but the joke dies when we fail to react. ‘Ashley, you take the lovely lady. Now come with me.’ He leads his client to a chair. The American makes a face at me while being led away and I laugh again.

‘Right, I just want two inches off, please,’ the American says. ‘The last time I got it done they took, like, twenty off. Please, just two inches,’ he stresses. ‘I’ve got a taxi waiting outside to take me to the airport, so as quick as possible too, please.’

His hairdresser laughs. ‘Sure, no problem. Are you going back to America?’

The man rolls his eyes. ‘No, I’m not going to America, I’m not going on holiday and I’m not going to meet anyone at arrivals. I’m just going to take a flight. Away. Out of here. You Irish ask a lot of questions.’

‘Do we?’

‘Y—’ he stalls and narrows his eyes at the hairdresser.

‘Gotcha,’ the hairdresser smiles, pointing the scissors at him.

‘Yes you did.’ Gritted teeth. ‘You got me good.’

I chuckle aloud and he immediately looks at me. He seems slightly confused. Maybe we do know each other. Maybe he works with Conor. Maybe I went to school with him. Or college. Perhaps he’s in the property business and I’ve worked with him. I can’t have; he’s American. Maybe I showed him a property. Maybe he’s famous and I shouldn’t be staring. I become embarrassed and I turn away again quickly.

My hairdresser wraps a black cape around me and I steal another glance at the man beside me, in the mirror. He looks at me. I look away, then back at him. He looks away. And our tennis match of glances is played out for the duration of our visit.

‘So what will it be for you, madam?’

‘All off,’ I say, trying to avoid my reflection but I feel cold hands on the sides of my hot cheeks, raising my head, and I am forced to stare at myself face to face. There is something unnerving about being forced to look at yourself when you are unwilling to come to terms with something. Something raw and real that you can’t run away from. You can lie to yourself, to your mind and in your mind all of the time but when you look yourself in the face, well, you know that you’re lying. I am not OK. That, I did not hide from myself, and the truth of it stared me in the face. My cheeks are sunken, small black rings below my eyes, red lines like eyeliner still sting from my night tears. But apart from that, I still look like me. Despite this huge change in my life, I look exactly the same. Tired, but me. I don’t know what I’d expected. A totally changed woman, someone that people would look at and just know had been through a traumatic experience. Yet the mirror told me this: you can’t know everything by looking at me. You can never know by looking at someone.

I’m five foot five, with medium-length hair that lands on my shoulders. My hair colour is midway between blonde and brown. I’m a medium kind of person. Not fat, not skinny; I exercise twice a week, jog a little, walk a little, swim a little. Nothing to excess, nothing not enough. Not obsessed, addicted to anything. I’m neither out-going nor shy, but a little of both, depending on my mood, depending on the occasion. I never overdo anything and enjoy most things I do. I’m seldom bored and rarely whine. When I drink I get tipsy but never fall over or get ill. I like my job, don’t love it. I’m pretty, not stunning, not ugly; don’t expect too much, am never too disappointed. I’m never overwhelmed or under it either; just nicely whelmed. I’m OK. Nothing spectacular but sometimes special. I look in the mirror and see this medium average person. A little tired, a little sad, but not falling apart. I look to the man beside me and I see the same.

‘Excuse me?’ the hairdresser breaks into my thoughts. ‘You want it all off? Are you sure? You’ve such healthy hair.’ He runs his fingers through it. ‘Is this your natural colour?’

‘Yes, I used to put a little colour in it but I stopped because of the—’ I’m about to say ‘baby’. My eyes fill and I look down but he thinks I’m nodding to my stomach, which is hidden under the gown.

‘Stopped because of what?’ he asks.

I continue to look at my feet, pretend to be doing something with my foot. An odd shuffle manoeuvre. I can’t think of anything to say to him and so I pretend not to hear him. ‘Huh?’

‘You were saying you stopped because of something?’

‘Oh, em …’ Don’t cry. Don’t cry. If you start now you will never stop. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I mumble, bending over to play with my handbag on the ground. It will pass, it will pass. Someday it will all pass, Joyce. ‘Chemicals. I stopped because of chemicals.’

‘Right, this is what it’ll look like,’ he takes my hair and ties it back. ‘How about we do a Meg Ryan in French Kiss?’ He pulls hairs out in all directions and I look like I’ve stuck my fingers in an electric socket. ‘It’s the sexy messy bed-head look. Or else we can do this.’ He messes about with my hair some more.

‘Can we hurry this along? I’ve got a taxi waiting outside too.’ I look out the window. Dad is chatting to the taxi driver. They’re both laughing and I relax a little.

‘O … K. Something like this really shouldn’t be rushed. You have a lot of hair.’

‘It’s fine. I’m giving you permission to hurry. Just cut it all off.’ I look back to the car.

‘Well, we must leave a few inches on it, darling.’ He directs my face back towards the mirror. ‘We don’t want Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, do we? No GI Janes allowed in this salon. We’ll give you a side-swept fringe, very sophisticated, very now. It’ll suit you, I think, show off those high cheekbones. What do you think?’

I don’t care about my cheekbones. I want it all off.

‘Actually, how about we just do this?’ I take the scissors from his hand, cut my ponytail, and then hand them both back to him.

He gasps. But it sounds more like a squeak. ‘Or we could do that. A … bob.’

American man’s mouth hangs open at the sight of my hairdresser with a large pair of scissors and ten inches of hair dangling from his hand. He turns to his and grabs the scissors before he makes another cut. ‘Do not,’ he points, ‘do that to me!’

Mullet man sighs and rolls his eyes. ‘No, of course not, sir.’

The American starts scratching his left arm again. ‘I must have got a bite.’ He tries to roll up his shirtsleeve and I squirm in my seat, trying to get a look at his arm.

‘Could you please sit still?’

‘Could you please sit still?’

The hairdressers speak in perfect unison. They look to one another and laugh.

‘Something funny in the air today,’ one of them comments and American man and I look at one another. Funny, indeed.

‘Eyes back to the mirror, please, sir.’ He looks away.

My hairdresser places a finger under my chin and tips my face back to the centre. He hands me my ponytail.

‘Souvenir.’

‘I don’t want it.’ I refuse to take my hair in my hands. Every inch of that hair was from a moment that has now gone. Thoughts, wishes, hopes, desires, dreams that are no longer. I want a new start. A new head of hair.

He begins to shape it into style now and as each strand falls I watch it drift to the ground. My head feels lighter.

The hair that grew the day we bought the cot. Snip.

The hair that grew the day we picked the nursery paint colours, bottles, bibs and baby grows. All bought too soon, but we were so excited … Snip.

The hair that grew the day we decided the names. Snip.

The hair that grew the day we announced it to friends and family. Snip.

The day of the first scan. The day I found out I was pregnant. The day my baby was conceived. Snip. Snip. Snip.

The more painful recent memories will remain at the root for another little while. I will have to wait for them to grow until I can be rid of them too and then all traces will be gone and I will move on.

I reach the till as the American pays for his cut.

‘That suits you,’ he comments, studying me.

I go to tuck some hair behind my ear self-consciously but there’s nothing there. I feel lighter, light-headed, delighted with giddiness, giddy with delight.

‘So does yours.’

‘Thank you.’

He opens the door for me.

‘Thank you.’ I step outside.

‘You’re far too polite,’ he tells me.

‘Thank you,’ I smile. ‘So are you.’

‘Thank you,’ he nods.

We laugh. We both gaze at our taxis queuing up waiting, and look back at one another curiously. He gives me a smile.

‘The first taxi or the second taxi?’ he asks.

‘For me?’

He nods. ‘My driver won’t stop talking.’

I study both taxis, see Dad in the second, leaning forward and talking to the driver.

‘The first. My dad won’t stop talking.’

He studies the second taxi where Dad has now pushed his face up against the glass and is staring at me as though I’m an apparition.

‘The second taxi it is, then,’ the American says, and walks to his taxi, glancing back twice.

‘Hey,’ I protest, and watch him, entranced.

I float to my taxi and we both pull our doors closed at the same time. The taxi driver and Dad look at me like they’ve seen a ghost.

‘What?’ My heart beats wildly. ‘What happened? Tell me?’

‘Your hair,’ Dad simply says, his face aghast. ‘You’re like a boy.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

As the taxi gets closer to my home in Phisboro, my stomach knots tighter.

‘That was funny how the man in front kept his taxi waiting too, Gracie, wasn’t it?’

‘Joyce. And yes,’ I reply, my leg bouncing with nerves.

‘Is that what people do now when they get their hairs cut?’

‘Do what, Dad?’

‘Leave taxis waiting outside for them.’

‘I don’t know.’

He shuffles his bum to the edge of the seat and pulls himself closer to the taxi driver. ‘I say, Jack, is that what people do when they go to the barbers now?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Do they leave their taxis outside waiting for them?’

‘I’ve never been asked to do it before,’ the driver explains politely.

Dad sits back satisfied. ‘That’s what I thought, Gracie.’

‘It’s Joyce,’ I snap.

‘Joyce. It’s a coincidence. And you know what they say about coincidences?’

‘Yep.’ We turn the corner onto my street and my stomach flips.

‘That there’s no such thing as a coincidence,’ Dad finishes, even though I’ve already said yes. ‘Indeedy no,’ he says to himself. ‘No such thing. There’s Patrick,’ he waves. ‘I hope he doesn’t wave back.’ He watches his friend from the Monday Club with two hands on his walking-frame. ‘And David out with the dog.’ He waves again although David is stopping to allow his dog to poop and is looking the other way. I get the feeling Dad feels rather grand in a taxi. It’s rare he’s in one, the expense being too much and everywhere he needs to go being within walking distance or a short bus hop away.

‘Home sweet home,’ he announces. ‘How much do I owe you, Jack?’ He leans forward again. He takes two five-euro notes out of his pocket.

‘The bad news, I’m afraid … twenty euro, please.’

‘What?’ Dad looks up in shock.

‘I’ll pay, Dad, put your money away.’ I give the driver twenty-five and tell him to keep the change. Dad looks at me like I’ve just taken a pint out of his hand and poured it down the drain.

Conor and I have lived in the red-brick terraced house in Phisboro since our marriage ten years ago. The houses have been here since the forties, and over the years we’ve pumped our money into modernising it. Finally it’s how we want it, or it was until this week. A black railing encloses a small patch of a front garden where the rose bushes my mother planted preside. Dad lives in an identical house two streets away, the house I grew up in, though we’re never done growing up, continually learning, and when I return to it I regress to my youth.

The front door to my house opens just as the taxi drives off. Dad’s neighbour Fran smiles at me from my own front door. She looks at us awkwardly, failing to make eye contact with me each time she looks in my direction. I’ll have to get used to this.

‘Oh, your hair!’ she says first, then gathers herself. ‘I’m sorry, love, I meant to be out of here by the time you got home.’ She opens the door fully and pulls a checked trolley-bag behind her. She is wearing a single Marigold glove on her right arm.

Dad looks nervous and avoids my eye.

‘What were you doing, Fran? How on earth did you get into my house?’ I try to be as polite as I can but the sight of someone in my house without my permission both surprises and infuriates me.

She pinks and looks to Dad. Dad looks at her hand and coughs. She looks down, laughs nervously and pulls off her single Marigold. ‘Oh, your dad gave me a key. I thought that … well, I put down a nice rug in the hallway for you. I hope you like it.’

I stare at her with utter confusion.

‘Never mind, I’ll be off now.’ She walks by me, grabs my arm and squeezes hard but still refuses to look at me. ‘Take care of yourself, love.’ She walks on down the road, dragging her trolley-bag behind her, her Nora Batty tights in rolls around her thick ankles.

‘Dad,’ I look at him angrily, ‘what the hell is this?’ I push into the house, looking at the disgusting dusty rug on my beige carpet. ‘Why did you give a near-stranger my house keys so she could come in and leave a rug? I am not a charity!’

He takes off his cap and scrunches it in his hands. ‘She’s not a stranger, love. She’s known you since the day you were brought home from the hospital—’

Wrong story to tell at this moment, and he knows it.

‘I don’t care!’ I splutter. ‘It’s my house, not yours! You cannot just do that. I hate this ugly piece of shit rug!’ I pick up one side of the clashing carpet, I drag it outside and then slam the door shut. I’m fuming and I look at Dad to shout at him again. He is pale and shaken. He is looking at the floor sadly. My eyes follow his.

Various shades of faded brown stains, like red wine, splatter the beige carpet. It has been cleaned in some places but the carpet hairs have been brushed in the opposite direction and give away that something once lay there. My blood.

I put my head in my hands.

Dad’s voice is quiet, injured. ‘I thought it would be best for you to come home with that gone.’

‘Oh, Dad.’

‘Fran has been here for a little while everyday now and has tried different things on it. It was me that suggested the rug,’ he adds in a smaller voice. ‘You can’t blame her for that.’

I despise myself.

‘I know you like all the nice new matching things in your house,’ he looks around, ‘but Fran or I wouldn’t have the likes of that.’

‘I’m sorry, Dad. I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry I shouted at you. You’ve been nothing but helpful this week. I’ll … I’ll call around to Fran at some stage and thank her properly.’

‘Right,’ he nods, ‘I’ll leave you at it, so. I’ll bring the rug back to Fran. I don’t want any of the neighbours seeing it outside on the path and telling her so.’

‘No, I’ll put it back where it was. It’s too heavy for you to bring all the way around. I’ll keep it for the time being and return it to her soon.’ I open the front door and retrieve it from the outside path. I drag it back into the house with more respect, laying it down so that it hides the scene where I lost my baby.

‘I’m so sorry, Dad.’

‘Don’t worry.’ He seesaws up to me and pats my shoulder. ‘You’re having a hard time, that I know. I’m only round the corner if you need me for anything.’

With a flick of his wrist, his tweed cap is on his head and I watch him seesaw down the road. The movement is familiar and comforting, like the motion of the sea. He disappears round the corner and I close the door. Alone. Silence. Just me and the house. Life continues as though nothing has happened.

It seems as though the nursery upstairs vibrates through the walls and floor. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. As though like a heart, it’s trying to push out the walls and send blood flowing down the stairs, through the hallways to reach every little nook and cranny. I walk away from the stairs, the scene of the crime, and wander around the rooms. It appears everything is exactly as it was, though on further inspection I see that Fran has tidied around. The cup of tea I was drinking is gone from the coffee table in the living room. The galley kitchen hums with the sound of the dishwasher Fran has set. The taps and draining boards glisten, the surfaces are gleaming. Straight through the kitchen the door leads to the back garden. My mum’s rose bushes line the back wall. Dad’s geraniums peep up from the soil.

Upstairs the nursery still throbs.

I notice the red light on the answering machine in the hall flashing. Four messages. I flick through the list of registered phone numbers and recognise friends’ numbers. I leave the answering machine, not able to listen to their condolences quite yet. Then I freeze. I go back. I flick through the list again. There it is. Monday evening. 7.10 p.m. Again at 7.12 p.m. My second chance to take the call. The call I had foolishly rushed down the stairs for and sacrificed my child’s life.

They have left a message. With shaking fingers, I press play.

‘Hello, this is Xtra-vision, Phisboro calling about the DVD The Muppet Christmas Carol. It says on our system that it’s one week late. We’d appreciate it if you could return it as soon as possible, please.’

I inhale sharply. Tears spring in my eyes. What did I expect? A phone call worthy of losing my baby? Something so urgent that I was right to rush for it? Would that somehow warrant my loss?

My entire body trembles with rage and shock. Breathing in shakily, I make my way into the living room. I look straight ahead to the DVD player. On top, is the DVD I rented while minding my goddaughter. I reach for the DVD, hold it tightly in my hands, squeeze it as though I can stop the life in it. Then I throw it hard across the room. It knocks our collection of photographs off the top of the piano, cracking the glass on our wedding photo, chipping the silver coating of another.

I open my mouth. And I scream. I scream at the top of my lungs, the loudest I can possibly go. It’s deep and low and filled with anguish. I scream again and hold it for as long as I can. One scream after another from the pit of my stomach, from the depths of my heart. I let out deep howls that border on laughter, that are laced with frustration. I scream and I scream until I am out of breath and my throat burns.

Upstairs, the nursery continues to vibrate. Thump-thump, thump-thump. It beckons me, the heart of my home beating wildly. I go to the staircase, step over the rug and onto the stairs. I grab the banister, feeling too weak even to lift my legs. I pull myself upstairs. The thumping gets louder and louder with every step until I reach the top and face the nursery door. It stops throbbing. All is still now.

I trace a finger down the door, press my cheek to it, willing all that happened not to be so. I reach for the handle and open the door.

A half-painted wall of Buttercup Dream greets me. Soft pastels. Sweet smells. A cot with a mobile of little yellow ducks dangling above. A toy box decorated with giant letters of the alphabet. On a little rail hang two baby grows. Little booties on a dresser.

A bunny rabbit sits up enthusiastically inside the cot. He smiles stupidly at me. I take my shoes off and step barefoot onto the soft shagpile carpet, try to root myself in this world. I close the door behind me. There’s not a sound. I pick up the rabbit and carry it around the room with me while I run my hands over the shiny new furniture, clothes and toys. I open a music box and watch as the little mouse inside begins to circle round and round after a piece of cheese to a mesmerising tinkling sound.

‘I’m sorry, Sean,’ I whisper, and my words catch in my throat. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

I lower myself to the soft floor, pull my legs close to me and hug the blissfully unaware bunny. I look again to the little mouse whose very being revolves around eternally chasing a piece of cheese he will never ever reach, let alone eat.

I slam the box shut and the music stops and I am left in silence.

CHAPTER NINE

‘I can’t find any food in the apartment; we’re going to have to get take-out,’ Justin’s sister-in-law, Doris, calls into the living room as she roots through the kitchen cabinets.

‘So maybe you know the woman,’ Justin’s younger brother, Al, sits on the plastic garden furniture chair in Justin’s half-furnished living room.

‘No, you see, that’s what I’m trying to explain. It’s like I know her but at the same time, I didn’t know her at all.’

‘You recognised her.’

‘Yes. Well, no.’ Kind of.

‘And you don’t know her name.’

‘No. I definitely don’t know her name.’

‘Hey, is anyone listening to me in there or am I talking to myself?’ Doris interrupts again. ‘I said there’s no food here so we’re going to have to get take-out.’

‘Yeah, sure, honey,’ Al calls automatically. ‘Maybe she’s a student of yours or she went to one of your talks. You usually remember people you give talks to?’

‘There’s hundreds of people at a time,’ Justin shrugs. ‘And mostly they sit in darkness.’

‘So that’s a no then.’ Al rubs his chin.

‘Actually, forget the take-out,’ Doris calls. ‘You don’t have any plates or cutlery – we’re going to have to eat out.’

‘And just let me get this clear, Al. When I say “recognise”, I mean I didn’t actually know her face.’

Al frowns.

‘I just got a feeling. Like she was familiar.’ Yeah, that’s it, she was familiar.

‘Maybe she just looked like someone you know.’

Maybe.

‘Hey, is anybody listening to me?’ Doris interupts them, standing at the living-room door with her inch-long leopard-print nails on her skin-tight leather-trouser-clad hips. Thirty-five-yearold Italian-American fast-talking Doris had been married to Al for the past ten years and is regarded by Justin as a lovable but annoying younger sister. Without an ounce of fat on her bones, everything she wears looks like it comes out of the closet of Grease’s Sandy post makeover.

‘Yes, sure, honey,’ Al says again, not taking his eyes off Justin. ‘Maybe it was that déjà vu thingy.’

‘Yes!’ Justin clicks his fingers. ‘Or perhaps vécu, or senti,’ he rubs his chin, lost in thought. ‘Or visité.’

‘What the heck is that?’ Al asks as Doris pulls over a cardboard box filled with books, to sit on, and joins them.

‘Déjà vu is French for “already seen” and it describes the experience of feeling that one has witnessed or experienced a new situation previously. The term was coined by a French psychic researcher Emile Boirac, which expanded upon an essay that he wrote while at the University of Chicago.’

‘Go the Maroons!’ Al raises Justin’s old trophy cup that he’s drinking from, in the air, and then gulps down his beer.

Doris looks at him with disdain. ‘Please continue, Justin.’

‘Well, the experience of déjà vu is usually accompanied by a compelling sense of familiarity, and also a sense of eeriness or strangeness. The experience is most frequently attributed to a dream, although in some cases there is a firm sense that the experience genuinely happened in the past. Déjà vu has been described as remembering the future.’

‘Wow,’ Doris says breathily.

‘So what’s your point, bro?’ Al belches.

‘Well, I don’t think this thing today with me and the woman was déjà vu,’ Justin frowns and sighs.

‘Why not?’

‘Because déjà vu relates to just sight and I felt … oh, I don’t know.’ I felt. ‘Déjà vécu is translated as “already lived”, which explains the experience that involves more than sight, but of having a weird knowledge of what is going to happen next. Déjà senti specifically means “already felt”, which is exclusively a mental happening and déjà visite involves an uncanny knowledge of a new place, but that’s less common. No,’ he shakes his head, ‘I definitely didn’t feel like I had been at the salon before.’

They all go quiet.

Al breaks the silence. ‘Well, it’s definitely déjà something. Are you sure you didn’t just sleep with her before?’

‘Al.’ Doris hits her husband across the arm. ‘Why didn’t you let me cut your hair, Justin, and who are we talking about anyway?’

‘You own a doggie parlour.’ Justin frowns.

‘Dogs have hair,’ she shrugs.

‘Let me try to explain this,’ Al interrupts. ‘Justin saw a woman yesterday at a hair salon in Dublin and he says he recognised her but didn’t know her face, and he felt that he knew her but didn’t actually know her.’ He rolls his eyes melodramatically, out of Justin’s view.

‘Oh my God,’ Doris sings, ‘I know what this is.’

‘What?’ Justin asks, taking a drink from a toothbrush holder.

‘It’s obvious.’ She holds her hands up and looks from one brother to another for dramatic effect. ‘It’s past-life stuff.’ Her face lights up. ‘You knew the woman in a paaast liiife,’ she pronounces the words slowly. ‘I saw it on Oprah.’ She nods her head, eyes wide.

‘Not more of this crap, Doris. It’s all she talks about now. She sees somethin’ about it on TV and that’s all I get, all the way from Chicago on the plane.’

‘I don’t think it’s past-life stuff, Doris, but thanks.’

Doris tuts. ‘You two need to have open minds about this kind of thing because you never know.’

‘Exactly, you never know,’ Al fires back.

‘Oh, come on, guys. The woman was familiar, that’s all. Maybe she just looked like someone I knew at home. No big deal.’ Forget about it and move on.

‘Well, you started it with your déjà stuff,’ Doris huffs. ‘How do you explain it?’

Justin shrugs. ‘The optical pathway delay theory.’

They both stare at him, dumb-faced.

‘One theory is that one eye may record what is seen fractionally faster than the other, creating that strong recollection sensation upon the same scene being viewed milliseconds later by the other eye. Basically it’s the product of a delayed optical input from one eye, closely followed by the input from the other eye, which should be simultaneous. This misleads conscious awareness and suggests a sensation of familiarity when there shouldn’t be one.’

Silence.

Justin clears his throat.

‘Believe it or not, honey, I prefer your past-life thing,’ Al snorts, and finishes his beer.

‘Thanks, sweetie.’ Doris places her hands on her heart, overwhelmed. ‘Anyway as I was saying when I was talking to myself in the kitchen, there’s no food, cutlery or crockery here so we’ll have to eat out tonight. Look at how you’re living, Justin. I’m worried about you,’ Doris looks around the room with disgust and her back-combed hair-sprayed dyed red hair follows the movement. ‘You’ve moved all the way over to this country on your own, you’ve got nothing but garden furniture and unpacked boxes in a basement that looks like it was built for students. Clearly Jennifer also got all the taste in the settlement too.’

‘This is a Victorian masterpiece, Doris. It was a real find, and it’s the only place I could find with a bit of history as well as having affordable rent. This is an expensive town.’

‘I’m sure it was a gem hundreds of years ago but now it gives me the creeps and whoever built it is probably still hanging around these rooms. I can feel him watching me.’ She shudders.

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ Al rolls his eyes.

‘All the place needs is a bit of TLC and it’ll be fine,’ Justin says, trying to forget the apartment he loved and has recently sold in the affluent and historic neighbourhood of Old Town Chicago.

‘Which is why I’m here.’ Doris claps her hands with glee.

‘Great.’ Justin’s smile is tight. ‘Let’s go get some dinner now. I’m in the mood for a steak.’

‘But you’re vegetarian, Joyce.’ Conor looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind. I probably have. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten red meat but I have a sudden craving for it now that we’ve sat down at the restaurant.

‘I’m not vegetarian, Conor. I just don’t like red meat.’

‘But you’ve just ordered a medium-rare steak!’

‘I know,’ I shrug. ‘I’m just one crazy cat.’

He smiles as if remembering there once was a wild streak in me. We are like two friends meeting up after years apart. So much to talk about but not having the slightest clue where to start.

‘Have you chosen the wine yet?’ the waiter asks Conor.

I quickly grab the menu. ‘Actually I would like to order this one, please.’ I point to the menu.

‘Sancerre 1998. That’s a very good choice, madam.’

‘Thank you.’ I have no idea whatsoever why I’ve chosen it.

Conor laughs. ‘Did you just do eeny-meeny-miny-mo?’

I smile but get hot under the collar. I don’t know why I’ve ordered that wine. It’s too expensive and I usually drink white, but I act naturally because I don’t want Conor to think I’ve lost my mind. He already thought I was crazy when he saw I’d chopped all my hair off. He needs to think I’m back to my normal self in order for me to say what I’m going to say tonight.

The waiter returns with the bottle of wine.

‘You can do the tasting,’ Al says to Justin, ‘seeing as it was your choice.’

Justin picks up the glass of wine, dips his nose into the glass and inhales deeply.

I inhale deeply and then swivel the wine in the glass, watching for the alcohol to rise and sweep the sides. I take a sip and hold it on my tongue, suck it in and allow the alcohol to burn the inside of my mouth. Perfect.

‘Lovely, thank you.’ I place the glass on the table again.

Conor’s glass is filled and mine is topped up.

‘It’s beautiful wine.’ I begin to tell him the story.

‘I found it when Jennifer and I went to France years ago,’ Justin explains. ‘She was there performing in the Festival des Cathédrales de Picardie with the orchestra, which was a mem orable experience. In Versailles, we stayed in Hôtel du Berry, an elegant 1634 mansion full of period furniture. It’s practi c ally a museum of regional history – you probably remember my telling you about it. Anyway, on one of her nights off in Paris we found this beautiful little fish restaurant tucked away down one of the cobbled alleys of Montmartre. We ordered the special, seabass, but you know how much of a red wine fanatic I am – even with fish I prefer to drink red – so the waiter suggested we go for the Sancerre.

‘You know I always thought of Sancerre as a white wine, as it’s famous for using the Sauvignon grape, but as it turns out it also uses some Pinot Noir. And the great thing is that you can drink the red Sancerre cooled exactly like white, at twelve degrees. But when not chilled, it’s also good with meat. Enjoy.’ He toasts his brother and sister-in-law.

Conor is looking at me with a frozen face. ‘Montmartre? Joyce, you’ve never been to Paris before. How do you know so much about wine? And who the hell is Jennifer?’

I pause, snap out of my trance and suddenly hear the words of the story I had just explained. I do the only thing I can do under the circumstances. I start laughing. ‘Gotcha.’

‘Gotcha?’ he frowns.

‘They’re the lines to a movie I watched the other night.’

‘Oh.’ Relief floods his face and he relaxes. ‘Joyce, you scared me there for a minute. I thought somebody had possessed your body.’ He smiles. ‘What film is it from?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember,’ I wave my hand dismissively, wondering what on earth is going on with me and try to recall if I even watched a film any night during the past week.

‘You don’t like anchovies now?’ he interrupts my thoughts, and looks down at the little collection of anchovies I’ve gathered in a pile at the side of my plate.

‘Give them to me, bro,’ Al says, lifting his plate closer to Justin’s. ‘I love ’em. How you can have a Caesar salad without anchovies is beyond me. Is it OK that I have anchovies, Doris?’ he asks sarcastically. ‘The doc didn’t say anchovies are going to kill me, did he?’

‘Not unless somebody stuffs them down your throat, which is quite possible,’ Doris says through gritted teeth.

‘Thirty-nine years old and I’m being treated like a kid.’ Al looks wistfully at the pile of anchovies.

‘Thirty-five years old and the only kid I have is my husband,’ Doris snaps, picking an anchovy from the pile and tasting it. She ruffles her nose and looks around the restaur ant. ‘They call this an Italian restaurant? My mother and her family would roll in their graves if they knew this.’ She blesses herself quickly. ‘So, Justin, tell me about this lady you’re seeing.’

Justin frowns. ‘Doris, it’s really no big deal, I told you I just thought I knew her.’ And she looked like she thought she knew you too.

‘No, not her,’ Al says loudly with a mouthful of anchovies. ‘She’s talking about the woman you were banging the other night.’

‘Al!’ Food wedges in Justin’s throat.

‘Joyce,’ Conor says with concern, ‘are you OK?’

My eyes fill as I try to catch my breath from coughing.

‘Here, have some water.’ He pushes a glass in my face.

People around us are staring, concerned.

I’m coughing so much I can’t even take a breath to drink. Conor gets up from his chair and comes around to me. He pats my back and I shrug him off, still coughing with tears running down my face. I stand up in panic, overturning my chair behind me in the process.

‘Al, Al, do something. Oh, Madonn-ina Santa!’ Doris panics. ‘He’s going purple.’

Al untucks his napkin from his collar and coolly places it on the table. He stands up and positions himself behind his brother. He wraps his arms around his waist, and pumps hard on his stomach.

On the second push, the food is dislodged from Justin’s throat.

As a third person races to my aid, or rather to join the growing panicked discussion of how to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre, I suddenly stop coughing. Three faces stare at me in surprise while I rub my throat with confusion.

‘Are you OK?’ Conor asks, patting my back again.

‘Yes,’ I whisper, embarrassed by the attention we are receiving. ‘I’m fine, thank you. Everyone, thank you so much for your help.’

They are slow to back away.

‘Please go back to your seats and enjoy your dinner. Honestly, I’m fine. Thank you.’ I sit down quickly and rub my streaming mascara from my eyes, trying to ignore the stares. ‘God, that was embarrassing.’

‘That was odd; you hadn’t even eaten anything. You were just talking and then, bam! You started coughing.’

I shrug and rub my throat. ‘I don’t know, something caught when I inhaled.’

The waiter comes over to take our plates away. ‘Are you all right, madam?’

‘Yes, thank you, I’m fine.’

I feel a nudge from behind me as our neighbour leans over to our table. ‘Hey, for a minute there I thought you were going into labour, ha-ha! Didn’t we, Margaret?’ He looks at his wife and laughs.

‘No,’ Margaret says, her smile quickly fading and her face turning puce. ‘No, Pat.’

‘Huh?’ He’s confused. ‘Well, I did anyway. Congrats, Conor.’ He gives a suddenly pale Conor a wink. ‘There goes sleep for the next twenty years, believe you me. Enjoy your dinner.’ He turns back to face his table, and we hear murmured squabbling.

Conor’s face falls and he reaches for my hand across the table. ‘Are you OK?’

‘That’s happened a few times now,’ I explain, and instinct ively place my hand over my flat stomach. ‘I’ve barely looked in the mirror since I’ve come home. I can’t stand to look.’

Conor makes appropriate sounds of concern and I hear the words ‘beautiful’ and ‘pretty’ but I silence him. I need for him to listen and not to try to solve anything. I want him to know that I’m not trying to be pretty or beautiful but for once just to appear as I am. I want to tell him how I feel when I force myself to look in the mirror and study my body that now feels like a shell.

‘Oh, Joyce.’ His grip on my hand tightens as I speak, he squeezes my wedding ring into my skin and it hurts.

A wedding ring but no marriage.

I wriggle my hand a little to let him know to loosen his grip. Instead he lets go. A sign.

‘Conor,’ is all I say. I give him a look and I know he knows what I’m about to say. He’s seen this look before.

‘No, no, no, no, Joyce, not this conversation now.’ He withdraws his hand from the table completely and holds his hands up in defence. ‘You – we – have been through enough this week.’

‘Conor, no more distractions.’ I lean forward with urgency in my voice. ‘We have to deal with us now or before we know it, ten years on we’ll be wondering every single day of our miserable lives what might have been.’

We’ve had this conversation in some form or another on an annual basis over the last five years and I wait for the usual retort from Conor. That no one says marriage is easy, we can’t expect it to be so, we promised one another, marriage is for life and he’s determined to work at it. Salvage from the skip what’s worth saving, my itinerant husband preaches. I focus on the centre flame’s reflection in my dessert spoon while I wait for his usual comments. I realise minutes later they still haven’t come. I look up and see he is battling tears and is nodding in what looks like agreement.

I take a breath. This is it.

Justin eyes the dessert menu.

‘You can’t have any, Al.’ Doris plucks the menu out of her husband’s hands and snaps it shut.

‘Why not? Am I not allowed to even read it?’

‘Your cholesterol goes up just reading it.’

Justin zones out as they squabble. He shouldn’t be having any either. Since his divorce he’s started to let himself go, eating as a comfort instead of his usual daily workout. He really shouldn’t, but his eyes hover above one item on the menu like a vulture watching its prey.

‘Any dessert for you, sir?’ the waiter asks.

Go on.

‘Yes. I’ll have the …’

‘Banoffee pie, please,’ I blurt out to the waiter, to my own surprise.

Conor’s mouth drops.

Oh dear. My marriage has just ended and I’m ordering dessert. I bite my lip and stop a nervous smile from breaking out.

To new beginnings. To the pursuit of … somethingness.

CHAPTER TEN

A grand chime welcomes me to my father’s humble home. It’s a sound far more than deserving of the two up-two down, but then, so is my father.

The sound teleports me back to my life within these walls and how I’d identified visitors by the sound of their call at the door. As a child, short piercing sounds told me that friends, too short to reach, were hopping up to punch the button. Fast and weak snippets of sound alerted me to boyfriends cowering outside, terrified of announcing their very existence, never mind their arrival, to my father. Late night unsteady, uncountable rings sang Dad’s homecoming from the pub without his keys. Joyful, playful rhythms were family calls on occasions, and short, loud, continuous bursts like machine-gun fire warned us of door-to-door salespeople. I press the bell again, but not just because at ten a.m. the house is quiet and nothing stirs; I want to know what my call sounds like.

Apologetic, short and clipped. Almost doesn’t want to be heard but needs to be. It says, sorry, Dad, sorry to disturb you. Sorry the thirty-three-year-old daughter you thought you were long ago rid of is back home after her marriage has fallen apart.

Finally I hear sounds inside and I see Dad’s seesaw movement coming closer, shadowlike and eerie, in the distorted glass.

‘Sorry, love,’ he opens the door, ‘I didn’t hear you the first time.’

‘If you didn’t hear me then how did you know I rang?’

He looks at me blankly and then down at the suitcases around my feet. ‘What’s this?’

‘You … you told me I could stay for a while.’

‘I thought you meant till the end of Countdown.’

‘Oh … well, I was hoping to stay for a bit longer than that.’

‘Long after I’m gone, by the looks of it.’ He surveys his doorstep. ‘Come in, come in. Where’s Conor? Something happen to the house? You haven’t mice again, have you? It’s the time of the year for them all right, so you should have kept the windows and doors closed. Block up all the openings, that’s what I do. I’ll show you when we’re inside and settled. Conor should know.’

‘Dad, I’ve never called around to stay here because of mice.’

‘There’s a first time for everything. Your mother used to do that. Hated the things. Used to stay at your grandmother’s for the few days while I ran around here like that cartoon cat trying to catch them. Tom or Jerry, was it?’ He squeezes his eyes closed tight to think, then opens them again, none the wiser. ‘I never knew the difference but by God they knew it when I was after them.’ He raises a fist, looks feisty for a moment while captured in the thought and then he stops suddenly and carries my suitcases into the hall.

‘Dad?’ I say, frustrated. ‘I thought you understood me on the phone. Conor and I have separated.’

‘Separated what?’

‘Ourselves.’

‘From what?’

‘From each other!’

‘What on earth are you talking about, Gracie?’

‘Joyce. We’re not together any more. We’ve split up.’

He puts the bags down by the hall’s wall of photographs, there to provide any visitor who crosses the threshold with a crash course of the Conway family history. Dad as a boy, Mum as a girl, Dad and Mum courting, married, my christening, communion, débutant ball and wedding. Capture it, frame it, display it; Mum and Dad’s school of thought. It’s funny how people mark their lives, the benchmarks they choose to decide when a moment is more of a moment than any other. For life is made of them. I like to think the best ones of all are in my mind, that they run through my blood in their own memory bank for no one else but me to see.

Dad doesn’t pause for a moment at the revelations of my failed marriage and instead works his way into the kitchen. ‘Cuppa?’

I stay in the hall looking around at the photos and breathe in that smell. The smell that’s carried around everyday on every stitch of Dad’s back, like a snail carries its home. I always thought it was the smell of Mum’s cooking that drifted around the rooms and seeped into every fibre, including the wallpaper, but it’s ten years since Mum has passed away. Perhaps the scent was her; perhaps it’s still her.

‘What are you doin’ sniffin’ the walls?’

I jump, startled and embarrassed at being caught, and make my way into the kitchen. It hasn’t changed since I lived here and it’s as spotless as the day Mum left it, nothing moved, not even for convenience’s sake. I watch Dad move slowly about, resting on his left foot to access the cupboards below, and then using the extra inches of his right leg as his own personal footstool to reach above. The kettle boils too loudly for us to have a conversation and I’m glad of that because Dad grips the handle so tightly his knuckles are white. A teaspoon is cupped in his left hand, which rests on his hip, and it reminds me of how he used to stand with his cigarette, shielded in his cupped hand that’d be stained yellow from nicotine. He looks out to his immaculate garden and grinds his teeth. He’s angry and I feel like a teenager once again, awaiting my talking-down.

‘What are you thinking about, Dad?’ I finally ask as soon as the kettle stops hopping about like a crammed Hill 16 in Croke Park during an All-Ireland Final.

‘The garden,’ he replies, his jaw tightening once again.

‘The garden?’

‘That bloody cat from next door keeps pissing on your mother’s roses.’ He shakes his head angrily. ‘Fluffy,’ he throws his hands up, ‘that’s what she calls him. Well, Fluffy won’t be so fluffy when I get my hands on him. I’ll be wearin’ one of them fine furry hats the Russians wear and I’ll dance the hopak outside Mrs Henderson’s front garden while she wraps a shiverin’ Baldy up in a blanket inside.’

‘Is that what you’re really thinking about?’ I ask incredu lously.

‘Well, not really, love,’ he confesses, calming down. ‘That and the daffodils. Not far off from planting season for spring. And some crocuses. I’ll have to get some bulbs.’

Good to know my marriage breakdown isn’t my dad’s main priority. Nor his second. On the list after crocuses.

‘Snowdrops too,’ he adds.

It’s rare I’m around the area so early on in the day. Usually I’d be at work showing property around the city. It’s so quiet now with everyone at work, I wonder what on earth Dad does in this silence.

‘What were you doing before I came?’

‘Thirty-three years ago or today?’

‘Today.’ I try not to smile because I know he’s serious.

‘Quiz.’ He nods at the kitchen table where he has a page full of puzzles and quizzes. Half of them are completed. ‘I’m stuck on the number six. Have a look at that.’ He brings the cups of tea to the table, managing not to spill a drop despite his swaying. Always steady.

‘“Which of Mozart’s operas was not well received by one especially influential critic who summed up the work as having ‘Too many notes’?”’ I read the clue aloud.

‘Mozart,’ Dad shrugs. ‘Haven’t a clue about that lad at all.’

‘Emperor Joseph the Second,’ I say.

‘What’s that now?’ Dad’s caterpillar eyebrows go up in surprise. ‘How did you know that, then?’

I frown. ‘I must have just heard it somwh—do I smell smoke?’

He sits up straight and sniffs the air like a bloodhound. ‘Toast. I made it earlier. Had the setting on too high and burned it. They were the last two slices, as well.’

‘Hate that.’ I shake my head. ‘Where’s Mum’s photograph from the hall?’

‘Which one? There are thirty of her.’

‘You’ve counted?’ I laugh.

‘Nailed them up there, didn’t I? Forty-four photos in total, that’s forty-four nails I needed. Went down to the hardware store and bought a pack of nails. Forty nails it contained. They made me buy a second packet just for four more nails.’ He holds up four fingers and shakes his head. ‘Still have thirty-six of them left over in the toolbox. What is the world comin’ to at all, at all.’

Never mind terrorism or global warming. The proof of the world’s downfall, in his eyes, comes down to thirty-six nails in a toolbox. He’s probably right too.

‘So where is it?’

‘Right where it always is,’ he says unconvincingly.

We both look at the closed kitchen door, in the direction of the hall table. I stand up to go out and check. These are the kinds of things you do when you have time on your hands.

‘Ah ah,’ he jerks a floppy hand at me, ‘sit yourself down.’ He rises. ‘I’ll go out and check.’ He closes the kitchen door behind him, blocking me from seeing out. ‘She’s there all right,’ he calls to me. ‘Hello, Gracie, your daughter was worried about you. Thought she couldn’t see you but sure, haven’t you been there all along watchin’ her sniffin’ the walls, thinkin’ the paper’s on fire. But sure isn’t it only madder she’s gettin’, leaving her husband and packing in her job.’

I haven’t mentioned anything to him about taking leave from my job, which means Conor has spoken to him, which means Dad knew my exact intentions for being here from the very first moment he heard the doorbell ring. I have to give it to him, he plays stupid very well. He returns to the kitchen and I catch a glimpse of the photo on the hall table.

‘Ah!’ He looks at his watch in alarm. ‘Ten twenty-five! Let’s go inside quick!’ He moves faster than I’ve seen him in a long time, grabbing his weekly television guide and his cup of tea and rushing into the television room.

‘What are we watching?’ I follow him into the living room, watching him with amusement.

‘Murder, She Wrote, you know it?’

‘Never seen it.’

‘Oh, wait’ll you see, Gracie. That Jessica Fletcher is a quare one for catching the murderers. Then over on the next channel we’ll watch Diagnosis Murder, where the dancer solves the cases.’ He takes a pen and circles it on the TV page.

I’m captivated by Dad’s excitement. He sings along with the theme tune, making trumpet noises with his mouth.

‘Come in here and lie on the couch and I’ll put this over you.’ He picks up a tartan blanket draped over the back of the green velvet couch and places it gently over me, tucking it in around my body so tightly I can’t move my arms. It’s the same blanket I rolled on as a baby, the same blanket they covered me with when I was home sick from school and was allowed to watch television on the couch. I watch Dad with fondness, remembering the tenderness he always showed me as a child, feeling right back there again.

Until he sits at the end of the couch and squashes my feet.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

‘What do you think, Gracie – will Betty be a millionaire by the end of the show?’

I have sat through an endless amount of half-hour morning shows over the last few days and now we are watching the Antiques Roadshow.

Betty is seventy years old, from Warwickshire, and is currently waiting with anticipation as the dealer tries to price the old teapot she has brought with her.

I watch the dealer handling the teapot delicately and a comfortable, familiar feeling overwhelms me. ‘Sorry, Betty,’ I say to the television, ‘it’s a replica. From the eighteenth century. The French used them but Betty’s one was made in the early twentieth century. You can see from the way the handle is shaped. Clumsy craftsmanship.’

‘Is that so?’ Dad looks at me with interest.

We watch the screen intently and listen as the dealer repeats my remarks. Poor Betty is devastated but tries to pretend it was too precious a gift from her grandmother for her to have sold anyhow.

‘Liar,’ Dad shouts. ‘Betty already had her cruise booked and her bikini bought. How do you know all that about the pots and the French, Gracie? Read it in one of your books maybe?’

‘Maybe.’ I have no idea. I get a headache thinking about this new-found knowledge.

Dad catches the look on my face. ‘Why don’t you call a friend or something? Have a chat.’

I don’t want to but I know I should. ‘I should probably give Kate a call.’

‘The big-boned girl? The one who ploughed you with poteen when you were sixteen?’

‘That’s Kate,’ I laugh. He has never forgiven her for that.

‘What kind of a name is that, at all, at all. She was a messer, that girl. Has she come to anything?’

‘No, not at all. She just sold her shop in the city for two million to become a stay-at-home mother.’ I try not to laugh at the shock on his face.

His ears prick up. ‘Ah, sure, give her a call. Have a chat. You women like to do that. Good for the soul, your mother always said. Your mother loved talking, was always blatherin’ on to someone or other about somethin’ or other.’

‘Wonder where she got that from,’ I say under my breath but just as if by a miracle, my father’s rubbery-looking ears work.

‘Her star sign is where she got it from. Taurus. Talked a lot of bull.’

‘Dad!’

‘What? Is it an admittance of hate? No. Nothing of the sort. I loved her with all my heart but the woman talked a lot of bull. Not enough to talk about a thing, I had to hear about how she felt about it too. Ten times over.’

‘You don’t believe in star signs,’ I nudge him.

‘I do too. I’m Libra. Weighing scales.’ He rocks from side to side. ‘Perfectly balanced.’

I laugh and escape to my bedroom to phone Kate. I enter the room, practically unchanged since the day I left it. Despite the rare occasion of guests staying over after I’d gone, my parents never removed my leftover belongings. The Cure stickers were still on the door and parts of the wallpaper were ripped from the tape that had secured my posters. As a punishment for ruining the walls, Dad forced me to cut the grass in the back garden, but while doing so I ran the lawnmower over a shrub in the bedding. He refused to speak to me for the rest of the day. Apparently it was the first year the shrub had blossomed since he’d planted it. I couldn’t understand his frustration then, but after spending years of hard work cultivating a marriage, only for it to wither and die, I can now understand his plight. But I bet he didn’t feel the relief I feel right now.

My box bedroom can only fit a bed and a wardrobe but it was my whole world. My only personal space to think and dream, to cry and laugh and wait until I became old enough to do all the things I wasn’t allowed to do. My only space in the world then and, at thirty-three years old, my only space now. Who knew I’d find myself back again without any of the things I’d yearned for, and, even worse, still yearning for them? Not to be a member of The Cure or married to Robert Smith, but with no baby and no husband. The wallpaper is floral and wild; completely inappropriate for a space of rest. Millions of tiny brown flowers cluster together with tiny splashes of faded green stalks. No wonder I’d covered them with posters. The carpet is brown with lighter brown swirls, stained from spilled perfume and make-up. New additions to the room are old and faded brown leather suitcases lying on top of the wardrobe, gathering dust since Mum died. Dad never goes anywhere, a life without Mum, he decided long ago, enough of a journey for him.

The duvet cover is the newest introduction. New, as in, over ten years old; Mum purchased it when my room became the guest room. I moved out a year before she died, to live with Kate, and I wish everyday since that I hadn’t, all those precious days of not waking up to hear her long yawns that turned into songs, talking to herself as she made her verbal diary with Gay Byrne’s radio show on in the background. She loved Gay Byrne; her sole ambition in life being to meet him. The closest she got to that dream was when she and Dad got tickets to sit in the audience of The Late Late Show and she spoke about it for years. I think she had a thing for him. Dad hated him. I think he knew about her thing.

He likes to listen to him now, though, whenever he’s on. I think he reminds him of a precious time spent with Mum, as though when we all hear Gay Byrne’s voice, he hears Mum’s instead. When she died, he surrounded himself with all the things she adored. He put Gay on the radio every morning, watched Mum’s television shows, bought her favourite biscuits in his weekly shopping trip even though he never ate them. He liked to see them on the shelf when he opened the cupboard, liked to see her magazines beside his newspaper. He liked her slippers staying beside her armchair by the fire. He liked to remind himself that his entire world hadn’t fallen apart. Sometimes we need all the glue we can get, just to hold ourselves together.

At sixty-five years old, he was too young to lose his wife. At twenty-three I was too young to lose my mother. At fifty-five she shouldn’t have lost her life, but cancer, the thief of seconds, undetected until far too late, stole it from her and us all. Dad married late in life for that time, and didn’t have me until he was forty-two years old. I think that there was somebody that broke his heart back then that he has never spoken of and that I’ve never asked about, but what he does say about that period is that he spent more days of his life waiting for Mum than actually being with her, but that every second spent looking for her and, eventually, remembering her, was worth it for all the moments in between.

Mum never met Conor but I don’t know whether she would have liked him, though she was too polite ever to have shown it. Mum loved all kinds of people but particularly those with high spirit and energy, people that lived and exuded that life. Conor is pleasant. Always just pleasant. Never overexcited. Never, in fact, excited at all. Just pleasant, which is just another word for nice. Marrying a nice man gives you a nice marriage but never anything more. And nice is OK when it’s among other things but never when it stands alone.

Dad would talk to anyone anywhere and not have a feeling about them one way or another. The only negative thing he ever said about Conor was, ‘Sure, what kind of man likes tennis?’ A GAA and soccer man, Dad had spat the word out as though just saying it had dirtied his mouth.

Our failure to produce a child didn’t do much to sway Dad’s opinion. He blamed it on the tennis but particularly on the little white shorts Conor sometimes wore, whenever pregnancy test after pregnancy test failed to show blue. I know he said it all to put a smile on my face; sometimes it worked, other times it didn’t, but it was a safe joke because we all knew it wasn’t the tennis shorts or the man wearing them that was the problem.

I sit down on the duvet cover bought by Mum, not wanting to crease it. A two-pillow and duvet cover set from Dunnes with a matching candle for the windowsill, which has never been lit and has lost its scent. Dust gathers on the top, incrimin ating evidence that Dad is not keeping up with his duties, as if at seventy-five years old the removal of dust from anywhere but his memory shelf should be a priority. But the dust has settled and so let it stay.

I turn on my mobile, which has been switched off for days, and it begins to beep as a dozen messages filter through. I have already made my calls to those near, dear and nosy. Like pulling off a Band-Aid; don’t think about it, move quickly and it’s almost painless. Flip open the phonebook and bam, bam, bam: three minutes each. Quick snappy phone calls made by a strangely upbeat woman who’d momentarily inhabited my body. An incredible woman, in fact, positive and perky, yet emotional and wise at all the right times. Her timing impeccable, her sentiments so poignant I almost wanted to write them down. She even attempted a bit of humour, which some members of the near, dear and nosy coped well with while others seemed almost insulted – not that she cared, for it was her party and she was crying if she wanted to. I’ve met her before, of course; she whizzes around to me for the occasional trauma, steps into my shoes and takes over the hard parts. She’ll be back again, no doubt.

No, it will be a long time before I can speak in my own voice to people other than the woman I am calling now.

Kate picks up on the fourth ring.

‘Hello,’ she shouts and I jump. There are manic noises in the background, as though a mini-war has broken out.

‘Joyce!’ she yells and I realise I’m on speakerphone. ‘I’ve been calling you and calling you. Derek, SIT DOWN. MUMMY IS NOT HAPPY! Sorry, I’m just doing the school run. I’ve to bring six kids home, then a quick snack before I bring Eric to basketball and Jayda to swimming. Want to meet me there at seven? Jayda is getting her ten-metre badge today.’

Jayda howls in the background about hating ten-metre badges.

‘How can you hate it when you’ve never had one?’ Kate snaps. Jayda howls even louder and I have to move the phone from my ear. ‘JAYDA! GIVE MUMMY A BREAK! DEREK, PUT YOUR SEATBELT ON! If I have to brake suddenly, you will go FLYING through the windscreen and SMASH YOUR FACE IN. Hold on, Joyce.’

There is silence while I wait.

‘Gracie!’ Dad yells. I run to the top of the stairs in panic, not used to hearing him shout like that since I was a child.

‘Yes? Dad! Are you OK?’

‘I got seven letters,’ he shouts.

‘You got what?’

‘Seven letters!’

‘What does that mean?’

‘In Countdown!’

I stop panicking and sit on the top stair in frustration. Suddenly Kate’s voice is back and it sounds as though calm has been restored.

‘OK, you’re off speakerphone. I’ll probably be arrested for holding the phone, not to mention cast off the car-pool list, like I give a flying fuck about that.’

‘I’m telling my mammy you said the f word,’ I hear a little voice.

‘Good. I’ve been wanting to tell her that for years,’ Kate murmurs to me and I laugh.

‘FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK,’ I hear a crowd of kids chanting.

‘Jesus, Joyce, I better go. See you at the leisure centre at seven? It’s my only break. Or else I have tomorrow. Tennis at three or gymnastics at six? I can see if Frankie is free to meet up too.’

Frankie. Christened Francesca but refuses to answer to it. Dad was wrong about Kate. She may have sourced the poteen but technically it was Frankie that held my mouth open and poured it down my throat. As a result of this version of the story never being told, he thinks Frankie’s a saint, very much to Kate’s annoyance.

‘I’ll take gymnastics tomorrow,’ I smile as the children’s chanting gets louder. Kate’s gone and there’s silence.

‘GRACIE!’ Dad calls again.

‘It’s Joyce, Dad.’

‘I got the conundrum!’

I make my way back to my bed and cover my head with a pillow.

A few minutes later Dad arrives at the door, scaring the life out of me.

‘I was the only one that got the conundrum. The contestants hadn’t a clue. Simon won anyway, goes through to tomorrow’s show. He’s been the winner for three days now and I’m half bored lookin’ at him. He has a funny-looking face; you’d have a right laugh if you saw it. Don’t think Carol likes him much either and she’s after losin’ loads of weight again. Do you want a HobNob? I’m going to make another cuppa.’

‘No, thanks.’ I put the pillow back over my head. He uses so many words.

‘Well, I’m having one. I have to eat with my pills. Supposed to take it at lunch but I forgot.’

‘You took a pill at lunch, remember?’

‘That was for my heart. This is for my memory. Short-term memory pills.’

I take the pillow off my face to see if he’s being serious. ‘And you forgot to take it?’

He nods.

‘Oh, Dad.’ I start to laugh while he looks on as though I’m having an episode. ‘You are medicine enough for me. Well, you need to get stronger pills. They’re not working, are they?’

He turns his back and makes his way down the hall, grumbling, ‘They’d bloody well work if I remembered to take them.’

‘Dad,’ I call to him and he stops at the top of the stairs. ‘Thanks for not asking any questions about Conor.’

‘Sure, I don’t need to. I know you’ll be back together in no time.’

‘No we won’t,’ I say softly.

He walks a little closer to my room. ‘Is he stepping out with someone else?’

‘No he’s not. And I’m not. We don’t love each other. We haven’t for a long time.’

‘But you married him, Joyce. Didn’t I bring you down the aisle myself?’ He looks confused.

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘You both promised each other in the house of our Lord, I heard you myself with my own ears. What is it with you young people these days, breaking up and remarrying all the time? What happened to keeping promises?’

I sigh. How can I answer that? He begins to walk away again.

‘Dad.’

He stops but doesn’t turn round.

‘I don’t think you’re thinking of the alternative. Would you rather I kept my promise to spend the rest of my life with Conor, but not love him and be unhappy?’

‘If you think your mother and I had a perfect marriage then you’re wrong because there’s no such thing. No one’s happy all the time, love.’

‘I understand that, but what if you’re never happy. Ever.’

He thinks about that for what looks like the first time and I hold my breath until he finally speaks. ‘I’m going to have a HobNob.’

Halfway down the stairs he shouts back rebelliously, ‘A chocolate one.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘I’m on a vacation, bro, why are you dragging me to a gym?’ Al half-walks half-skips alongside Justin in an effort to keep up with his lean brother’s long strides.

‘I have a date with Sarah next week,’ Justin power-walks from the tube station, ‘and I need to get back into shape.’

‘I didn’t realise you were out of shape,’ Al pants, and wipes trickles of sweat from his brow.

‘The divorce cloud was preventing me from working out.’

‘The divorce cloud?’

‘Never heard of it?’

Al, unable to speak, shakes his head and wobbles his chins like a turkey.

‘The cloud moves to take the shape of your body, wraps itself nice and tight around you so that you can barely move. Or breathe. Or exercise. Or even date, let alone sleep with other women.’

‘Your divorce cloud sounds like my marriage cloud.’

‘Yeah, well, that cloud has moved on now.’ Justin looks up at the grey London sky, closes his eyes for a brief moment and breathes in deeply. ‘It’s time for me to get back into action.’ He opens his eyes and walks straight into a lamppost. ‘Jesus, Al!’ He doubles over, head in his hands. ‘Thanks for the warning.’

Al’s beetroot face wheezes back at him, words not coming easily. Or at all.

‘Never mind my having to work out, look at yourself. Your doctor’s already told you to drop a few hundred pounds.’

‘Fifty pounds …’ gasp, ‘aren’t exactly …’ gasp, ‘a few hundred, and don’t start on me too.’ Gasp. ‘Doris is bad enough.’ Wheeze. Cough. ‘What she knows about dieting is beyond me. The woman doesn’t eat. She’s afraid to bite a nail in case they’ve too many calories.’

‘Doris’s nails are real?’

‘Them and her hair is about all. I gotta hold on to something.’ Al looks around, flustered.

‘Too much information,’ Justin says, misunderstanding. ‘I can’t believe Doris’s hair is real too.’

‘All but the colour. She’s a brunette. Italian, of course. Dizzy.’

‘Yeah, she is a bit dizzy. All that past-life talk about the woman at the hair salon,’ Justin laughs. So how do you explain it?

‘I meant I’m dizzy.’ Al glares at him and reaches out to hold on to the nearby railing.

‘Oh … I knew that, I was kidding. It looks like we’re almost here. Think you can make it another hundred yards or so?’

‘Depends on the “or so”,’ Al snaps.

‘It’s about the same as the week or so vacation that you and Doris were planning on taking. Looks like that’s turning into a month.’

‘Well, we wanted to surprise you, and Doug is well able to take care of the shop while I’m gone. The doc advised me to take it easy, Justin. With heart conditions being in the family history, I really need to rest up.’

‘You told the doctor there’s a history of heart conditions in the family?’ Justin asks.

‘Yeah, Dad died of a heart attack. Who else would I be talkin’ about?’

Justin is silent.

‘Besides, you won’t be sorry, Doris will have your apartment done up so nice that you’ll be glad we stayed. You know she did the doggie parlour all by herself?’

Justin’s eyes widen.

‘I know,’ Al beams proudly. ‘So, how many of these seminars will you be doing in Dublin? Me and Doris might accompany you on one of your trips over there, you know, see the place Dad was from.’

‘Dad was from Cork.’

‘Oh. Does he still have family there? We could go and trace our roots, what do you think?’

‘That’s not such a bad idea.’ Justin thinks of his schedule. ‘I have a few more seminars ahead. You probably won’t be here that long, though.’ He eyes Al sideways, testing him. ‘And you can’t come next week because I’m mixing that trip with a date with Sarah.’

‘You’re really hot on this girl?’

His almost forty-year-old brother’s vocabulary never ceases to amaze Justin. ‘Am I hot on this girl?’ he repeats, amused and confused all at the same time. Good question. Not really, but she’s company. Is that an acceptable answer?

‘Did she have you at “I vant your blood”?’ Al chuckles.

‘Wow, that was uncanny,’ Justin says. ‘Sarah, too, is a vampire from Transylvania. Let’s do an hour at the gym.’ He changes the subject. ‘I don’t think “resting up” is going to make you any better. That’s what got you into this state in the first place.’

‘One hour?’ Al almost explodes. ‘What are you planning on doing on the date, rock-climbing?’

‘It’s just lunch.’

Al rolls his eyes. ‘What, you have to chase and kill your food? Anyway, you wake up tomorrow morning after your first work-out for a whole year, you won’t be able to walk, never mind screw.’

* * *

I wake up to the sound of banging pots and pans coming from downstairs. I expect to be in my own bedroom at home and it takes me a moment to remember. And then I remember everything, all over again. My daily morning pill as usual, hard to swallow. One of these days I’ll wake up and I’ll just know. I’m not sure which scenario I prefer; the moments of forgetfulness are such bliss.

I didn’t sleep well last night between the thoughts in my head and the sound of the cistern flushing every hour after Dad’s toilet breaks. When he was asleep, his snores rattled through the walls of the house.

Despite the interruptions, my dreams during my rare moments of sleep are still vivid in my mind. They almost feel real, like memories, though who’s to know how real even they are, with all the altering our minds do? I remember being in a park, though I don’t think I was me. I twirled a young girl with white-blonde hair around in my arms while a woman with red hair looked on smiling, with a camera in her hand. The park was colourful with lots of flowers and we had a picnic … I try to remember the song I’d been hearing all night but it fails me. Instead I hear Dad downstairs singing ‘The Auld Triangle’, an old Irish song he has sung at parties all of my life and probably most of his too. He’d stand there, eyes closed, pint in hand, a picture of bliss as he sang his story of how ‘the auld triangle went jingle jangle’.

I swing my legs out of the bed and groan with pain, suddenly feeling an ache in both legs from my hips, right down my thighs, all the way down to my calf muscles. I try to move the rest of my body and feel paralysed with the pain too; my shoulders, biceps, triceps, back muscles and torso. I massage my muscles with complete confusion and make a note in my head to go to the doctor, just in case it’s something to be worried about. I’m sure it’s my heart, either looking for more attention, or so full of pain it has needed to ooze its ache around the rest of my body just to relieve itself. Each throbbing muscle is an extension of the pain I feel inside, though a doctor will tell me it’s due to the thirty-year-old bed I slept on, manufactured before the time people claimed nightly back support as their God-given right. Potayto, potato.

I throw a dressing gown around me and slowly, as stiff as a board, make my way downstairs, trying my best not to bend my legs.

The smell of smoke is in the air again and I notice as I’m passing the hall table that Mum’s photograph once again isn’t there. Something urges me to slide open the drawer beneath the table and there she is, lying face down in the drawer. Tears spring in my eyes, angry that something so precious has been hidden away. It has always meant more than a photograph to the both of us; it represents her presence in the house, pride of place to greet us whenever we come in the front door or down the stairs. I take deep breaths and decide to say nothing for now, assuming Dad has his reasons, though I can’t think of any acceptable examples at this point. I slide the drawer closed and leave her where Dad has placed her, feeling like I’m burying her all over again.

When I limp into the kitchen, chaos greets me. There are pots and pans everywhere, tea towels, egg shells and what looks like the contents of the cupboards covering the counters. Dad is wearing an apron with an image of a woman in red lingerie and suspenders, over his usual sweater, shirt and trousers. On his feet are Manchester United slippers, shaped as large footballs.

‘Morning, love.’ He sees me and steps up onto his left leg to give me a kiss on the forehead.

I realise it’s the first time in years somebody has made my breakfast for me, but it’s also the first time for many years that Dad has had somebody to cook breakfast for. Suddenly the singing, the mess, the clattering pots and pans all make sense. He’s excited.

‘I’m making waffles!’ he says with an American accent.

‘Ooh, very nice.’

‘That’s what the donkey says, isn’t it?’

‘What donkey?’

‘The one …’ he stops stirring whatever is in the frying pan and closes his eyes to think, ‘the story with the green man.’

‘The Incredible Hulk?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I don’t know any other green people.’

‘You do, you know the one …’

‘The Wicked Witch of the West?’

‘No! There’s no donkey in that! Think about stories with donkeys in them.’

‘Is it a biblical tale?’

‘Were there talking donkeys in the Bible, Gracie? Did Jesus eat waffles, do you think? Christ, we have it all wrong: it was waffles he was breaking at supper to share with the lads, and not bread after all!’

‘My name is Joyce.’

‘I don’t remember Jesus eating waffles but, sure, won’t I ask the crowd at the Monday Club? Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong Bible all my life.’ He laughs at his own joke.

I look over his shoulder. ‘Dad, you’re not even making waffles!’

He sighs with exasperation. ‘Am I a donkey? Do I look like a donkey to you? Donkeys make waffles, I make a good fry-up.’

I watch him poking the sausages around, trying to get all sides evenly cooked. ‘I’ll have sausages too.’

‘But you’re one of those vegetarianists.’

‘Vegetarian. And I’m not any more.’

‘Sure of course you’re not. You’ve only been one since you were fifteen years old after seeing that show about the seals. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and you’ll be tellin’ me you’re a man. Saw it on the telly once. This woman, about the same age as you, brought her husband live on the telly in front of an audience to tell him that she decided that she wanted to turn her—’

Feeling frustrated with him, I blurt out, ‘Mum’s photo isn’t on the hall table.’

Dad freezes, a reaction of guilt, and this makes me somewhat angry, as though before I had convinced myself that the mysterious midnight photograph-mover had broken in and done the dirty deed himself. I’d almost prefer that.

‘Why?’ is all I say.

He keeps himself busy, clattering with plates and cutlery now. ‘Why what? Why are you walking like that is what I want to know?’ Dad eyes my walk curiously.

‘I don’t know,’ I snap, and limp across the room to take a seat at the table. ‘Maybe it runs in the family.’

‘Hoo hoo hoo,’ Dad hoots and looks up at the ceiling, ‘we’ve got a live one here, boss! Set the table like a good girl.’

He brings me right back and I can’t help but smile. And so I set the table and Dad makes the breakfast and we both limp around the kitchen pretending everything is as it was and forever shall be. World without end.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘So, Dad, what are your plans for the day? Are you busy?’

A forkful of sausage, egg, bacon, pudding, mushroom and tomato stops on its way into my dad’s open mouth. Amused eyes peer out at me from under his wildly wiry eyebrows.

‘Plans, you say? Well, let’s see, Gracie, while I go through the ol’ schedule of events for the day. I was thinking of after I finish my fry in approximately fifteen minutes, I’d have another cuppa tea. Then while I’m drinking me tea I might sit down in this chair at this table, or maybe that chair where you are, the exact venue is TBD, as my schedule would say. Then I’ll go through yesterday’s answers of the crossword to see what we got correct and what was incorrect and then I’ll find out the answer to the ones I couldn’t figure out yesterday. Then I’ll do the Dusoku, then the word game. I see we’ve to try and find nautical words today. Seafaring, maritime, yachting, yes, I’ll be able to do that, sure I can see the word “boating” there on the first line already. Then I’m going to cut out my coupons and all that will fill my early morning right up, Gracie. Then I’d say I’ll have another cuppa after all of that and then my programmes start. If you’d like to make an appointment, talk to Maggie.’ He finally shovels the food into his mouth and egg drips down his chin. He doesn’t notice and leaves it there.

I laugh. ‘Who’s Maggie?’

He swallows and smiles, amused at himself. ‘I don’t know why I said it.’ He thinks hard and finally laughs. ‘There was a fella I used to know in Cavan, this is goin’ back sixty years now, Brendan Brady was his name. Whenever we’d be tryin’ to make arrangements he’d say,’ Dad deepens his voice, ‘“Talk to Maggie,” like he was someone awful important.’ She was either his wife or his secretary, I hadn’t a clue. “Talk to Maggie,”’ he repeats. ‘Maggie was probably his mother,’ he laughs, and continues eating.

‘So basically, according to your schedule, you’re doing exactly the same thing as yesterday.’

‘Oh, no, it’s not the same at all.’ He thumbs through his TV guide and stabs a greasy finger on today’s page. He looks at his watch and slides his finger down the page. He picks up his highlighter and marks another show. ‘Animal Hospital is on instead of the Antiques Roadshow. Not exactly the same day as yesterday at all, at all, how’s about that. It’ll be doggies and bunnies today instead of Betty’s fake teapots. We might see her trying to sell the family dog for a few shillings. You might get that bikini on you after all, Betty.’ He continues to draw a design around his shows on the TV page, his tongue licking the corners of his mouth in concentration as though he was decorating a manuscript.

‘The Book of Kells,’ I blurt out of nowhere, though that is nothing odd these days. My random ramblings are becoming something of the norm.

‘What are you talking about now?’ Dad stops his colouring and resumes eating.

‘Let’s go into town today. Do a tour of the city, go to Trinity College and look at the Book of Kells.’

Dad stares at me and munches. I’m not sure what he’s thinking. He’s probably thinking the same of me.

‘You want to go to Trinity College. The girl who never wanted to set foot near the place for either studies or excursions with me and your mother, suddenly out of the blue wants to go. Sure, aren’t “suddenly” and “out of the blue” one and the same? They shouldn’t go together in a sentence, Henry,’ he corrects himself.

‘Yes, I want to go.’ I suddenly, out of the blue, very much want to go to Trinity College.

‘If you don’t want to watch the Animal Hospital show just say so. You don’t have to go darting into the city. There’s such a thing as changing channels.’

‘You’re right, Dad, and I’ve been doing some of that recently.’

‘Is that so? I hadn’t noticed, what with your marriage breaking up, your not being a vegetarianist any more, your not mentioning a word about your job and your moving in with me, and all. There’s been so much action around here, how’s a man to tell if a channel’s been changed or if a new show has just begun?’

‘I need to do something new,’ I explain. ‘I have time for Frankie and Kate but everybody else … I’m just not ready right now. We need a change of schedule, Dad. I’ve got the big remote control of life in my hands and I’m ready to start pushing some buttons.’

He stares at me for a moment and puts a sausage in his mouth in response.

‘We’ll get a taxi into town and catch one of those tour buses, what do you think? MAGGIE!’ I shout out at the top of my voice and it makes Dad jump. ‘MAGGIE, DAD IS COMING INTO TOWN WITH ME TO HAVE A LOOK AROUND. IS THAT OK?’

I cock my ear and wait for a response. Happy I’ve received one, I nod and stand up. ‘Right, Dad, it’s been decided. Maggie says it’s fine if you go into town. I’ll have a shower and we’ll leave in an hour. Ha! That rhymes.’ I limp out of the kitchen, leaving my bewildered father behind with egg on his chin.

‘I doubt Maggie said yes to me walkin’ at this speed, Gracie,’ Dad says, trying to keep up with me as we dodge pedestrians on Grafton Street.

‘Sorry, Dad.’ I slow down and link his arm. Despite his corrective footwear he still sways and I sway with him. Even if he was operated on to equal the length of his legs, I’d imagine he’d still sway, it’s so much a part of who he is.

‘Dad, are you ever going to call me Joyce?’

‘What are you talkin’ about? Sure, isn’t that your name?’

I look at him with surprise. ‘Do you not notice you always call me Gracie?’

He seems taken aback but makes no comment and keeps walking. Up and down, down and up.

‘I’ll give you a fiver, every time you call me Joyce today,’ I smile.

‘That’s a deal, Joyce, Joyce, Joyce. Oh, how I love you, Joyce,’ he chuckles. ‘That’s twenty quid already!’ He nudges me and says seriously, ‘I didn’t notice I called you that, love. I’ll do my best.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You remind me so much of her, you know.’

‘Ah, Dad, really?’ I’m touched; I feel my eyes prick with tears. He never says that. ‘In what way?’

‘You both have little piggy noses.’

I roll my eyes.

‘I don’t know why we’re walking further away from Trinity College. Wasn’t it there that you wanted to go to?’

‘Yes, but the tour buses leave from Stephen’s Green. We’ll see it as we’re passing. I don’t really want to go in there now anyway.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s lunchtime.’

‘And the Book of Kells goes off for an hour’s break, does it?’ Dad rolls his eyes. ‘A ham sambo and a flask of tea and then it props itself back up on display, right as rain for the afternoon. Is that what you think happens? Because, not going just because it’s lunchtime doesn’t make any sense to me.’

‘Well, it does to me.’ And I don’t know why it does but it just feels like the right direction to go in. Internal compass says so.

Justin darts through the front arch of Trinity College and bounds up the road to Grafton Street. Lunchtime with Sarah. He beats away the nagging voice within him telling him to cancel her. Give her a chance. Give yourself a chance. He needs to try, he needs to find his feet again, he needs to remember that not every meeting with a woman is going to be the same as the first time he laid eyes on Jennifer. The thump-thump, thump-thump feeling that made his entire body vibrate, the butterflies that did acrobatics in his stomach, the tingle when he brushed off her skin. He thought about how he’d felt on his date with Sarah. Nothing. Nothing but flattery that she was attracted to him and excitement that he was back out in the dating world again. Plenty of feelings about her and the situation but nothing for her. He had more of a reaction to the woman in the hair salon a few weeks ago and that was saying something. Give her a chance. Give yourself a chance.

Grafton Street is crowded at lunchtime, as though the gates to Dublin zoo have been opened and all the animals have flooded out, happy to escape confinement for an hour. He has finished work for the day, his seminar on his specialist subject, Copper as Canvas: 1575–1775, being a success with the third-year students who had elected to hear him speak.

Conscious that he’ll be late for Sarah, he attempts to break into a run, but the aches and pains in his over-exercised body almost cripple him. Hating that Al’s warnings were correct, instead he limps along, trailing behind what seem to be the two slowest people on Grafton Street. His plan to overtake them on either side is botched as people-traffic prevent him from leaving his lane. With impatience he slows, surrendering to the speed of the two before him, one of whom is singing happily to himself and swaying.

Drunk at this hour, honestly.

Dad takes his time, meandering up Grafton Street as though he has all the time in the world. I suppose he does, compared to everybody else, though a younger person would think differently. Sometimes he stops and points at things, joins circles of spectators to watch a street act and when we continue on, he steps out of line to really confuse the situation. Like a rock in a stream, he sends people flowing around him; he’s a small diversion yet he’s completely oblivious. He sings as we move up and down, down and up.

‘Grafton Street’s a wonderland,

There’s magic in the air,

There’s diamonds in the ladies’ eyes and gold-dust in their hair.

And if you don’t believe me,

Come and see me there,

In Dublin on a sunny summer morning.’

He looks at me and smiles and sings it all over again, forgetting some words and humming them instead.

During my busiest days at work, twenty-four hours just don’t seem enough. I almost want to hold my hands out in the air and try to grasp the seconds and minutes as if I could stop them from moving on, like a little girl trying to catch bubbles. You can’t hold on to time but somehow Dad appears to. I always wondered how on earth he filled his moments, as though my opening doors and talking about sunny angles, central heating and wardrobe space was worth so much more than his pottering. In truth, we’re all just pottering, filling the time that we have here, only we like to make ourselves feel bigger by compiling lists of importance.

So this is what you do when it all slows down and the minutes that tick by feel a little longer than before. You take your time. You breathe slowly. You open your eyes a little wider and look at everything. Take it all in. Rehash stories of old, remember people, times and occasions gone by. Allow everything you see to remind you of something. Talk about those things. Stop and take your time to notice things and make those things you notice matter. Find out the answers you didn’t know to yesterday’s crosswords. Slow down. Stop trying to do everything now, now, now. Hold up the people behind you for all you care, feel them kicking at your heels but maintain your pace. Don’t let anybody dictate your speed.

Though if the person behind me kicks my heels one more time …

The sun is so bright it’s difficult to look straight ahead. It’s as though it’s sitting on the top of Grafton Street, another bowling ball ready to knock us all down. Finally we near the top of the street and escape of the human current is in sight. Dad suddenly stops walking, enthralled by the sight of a mime artist nearby. As I’m linking his arm, I’m forced to a sudden stop too, causing the person behind to run straight into me. One grand final kick of my heels. That is it.

‘Hey!’ I spin around. ‘Watch it!’

He grunts at me in frustration and power-walks off. ‘Hey yourself,’ an American accent calls back.

I’m about to shout again but his voice silences me.

‘Look at that,’ Dad marvels, watching the mime trapped in an invisible box. ‘Should I give him an invisible key to get out of that box?’ He laughs again. ‘Wouldn’t that be funny, love?’

‘No, Dad.’ I examine the back of my road-rage nemesis, trying to recall the voice.

‘You know de Valera escaped prison by using a key that was smuggled in to him in a birthday cake. Someone should tell this fella that story. Now where do we go from here?’ He spins round beside me, looking about. He walks off in another direction, straight through a group of parading Hare Krishnas, without taking the slightest bit of notice.

The sandy duffel coat turns round again, throws me one last dirty look before he hurries on in a huff.

Still, I stare. If I was to reverse the frown. That smile. Familiar.

‘Gracie, this is where you get the tickets. I’ve found it,’ he shouts from afar.

‘Hold on, Dad.’ I watch after the duffel coat. Turn round one more time and show me your face, I plead.

‘I’ll just go get the tickets, so.’

‘OK, Dad.’ I continue to watch the duffel coat moving further away. I don’t – correction, can’t – move my eyes away from him. I mentally throw a cowboy’s rope around his body and begin to pull him back towards me. His strides become smaller, his speed gradually slows.

He suddenly stops dead in his tracks. Yee-ha.

Please turn. I pull on the rope.

He spins round, searches the crowd. For me?

‘Who are you?’ I whisper.

‘It’s me!’ Dad is beside me again. ‘You’re just standing in the middle of the street.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ I snap. ‘Here, go get the tickets.’ I hold out some money.

I step away from the Hare Krishnas, keeping my eye on the duffel coat, hoping he’ll see me. The crisp pale wool of his coat almost glows among the dark and gloomy colours of others around him. Around his sleeves, down his front like an autumn St Nicholas. I clear my throat and smooth down my shortened hair.

His eyes continue to search the street and then they ever so slowly fall upon mine. I remember him in the second it takes them to register me. ‘Him’ from the hair salon.

What now? Perhaps he won’t recognise me at all. Perhaps he’s just still angry that I shouted at him. I’m not sure what to do. Should I smile? Wave? Neither of us moves.

He holds up a hand. Waves. I look behind me first, to ensure it’s me that his attention is on. Though I was so sure anyway, I would have bet my father on it. Suddenly Grafton Street is empty. And silent. Just me and him. Funny how that happened. How thoughtful of everyone. I wave back. He mouths something to me.

Hungry? Horny? No.

Sorry. He’s sorry. I try to figure out what to mouth back but I’m smiling. Nothing can be mouthed when smiling, it’s as impossible as whistling through a smile.

‘I got the tickets!’ Dad shouts. ‘Twenty euro each – it’s a crime, that is. Seeing is for free, I don’t know how they can charge us to use our eyes. I’m planning to write a strongly worded letter to somebody about that. Next time you ask me why I stay in and watch my programmes I’ll have it in mind to remind you that it’s free. Two euro for my TV guide, one hundred and fifty for a yearly licence fee is better value than a day out with you,’ he huffs. ‘Expensive taxis into the town, lookin’ at things in a city I’ve lived in and have looked at for free for sixty years.’

Suddenly I hear the traffic again, see the people crowding around, feel the sun and breeze on my face, feel my heart beating wildly in my chest as my blood rushes around in frenzied excitement. I feel Dad tugging on my arm.

‘It’s leaving now. Come on, Gracie, it’s leaving. It’s a bit of a walk up the road, we have to go. Near the Shelbourne Hotel. Are you OK? You look like you’ve seen a ghost and don’t tell me you have because I’ve dealt with enough today already. Forty euro,’ he mutters to himself.

A steady flow of pedestrians gather at the top of Grafton Street to cross the road, blocking my view of him. I feel Dad pulling me back and so I begin to move with him down Merrion Row, walking backwards, trying to keep him in sight.

‘Damn it!’

‘What’s wrong, love? It’s not far up the road at all. What on earth are you doing, walking backwards?’

‘I can’t see him.’

‘Who, love?’

‘A guy I think I know.’ I stop walking backwards and stand in line with Dad, continuing to look down the street and scouring the crowds.

‘Well, unless you know that you know him for sure, I wouldn’t be stopping to chat in the city,’ Dad says protect ively. ‘What kind of a bus is this at all, Gracie? It looks a bit odd, I’m not sure about this. I don’t come to the city for a few years and look what the CIE do.’

I ignore him and let him lead the way onto the bus, while I’m busy looking the other way, searching furiously through the, curiously, plastic windows. The crowd finally move on from in front of where he stood to reveal nothing.

‘He’s gone.’

‘Is that so? Can’t have known him too well then, if he just ran off.’

I turn my attention to my father. ‘Dad, that was the weirdest thing.’

‘I don’t care what you say, there’s nothing weirder than this.’ Dad looks around us in bewilderment.

Finally I too look around the bus and take in my surroundings. Everyone else is wearing a Viking helmet, with life jackets on their laps.

‘OK, everybody,’ the tour guide speaks into the microphone, ‘we finally have everyone on board. Let’s show our new arrivals what to do. When I say the word I want you all to roooooar just like the Vikings did! Let me hear it!’

Dad and I jump in our seats, and I feel him cling to me, as the entire bus roars.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

‘Good afternoon, everybody, I’m Olaf the White, and welcome aboard the Viking Splash bus! Historically known as DUKWS, or Ducks, as they’re more affectionately known. We are sitting in the amphibious version of the General Motors vehicle built during World War Two. Designed to withstand being driven onto beaches in fifteen-foot seas to deliver cargo or troops from ship to shore, they are now more commonly used as rescue and underwater recovery vehicles in the US, UK and other parts of the world.’

‘Can we get off?’ I whisper in Dad’s ear.

He swats me away, enthralled.

‘This particular vehicle weighs seven tonnes, is thirty-one feet long and eight feet wide. It has six wheels and can be driven in rear-wheel or all-wheel drive. As you can see, it has been mechanically rebuilt and outfitted with comfortable seats, a roof, roll down sides to protect you from the elements, because as you all know, after we see the sites around the city, we have a “splashdown” into the water with a fantastic trip around the Grand Canal Docklands!’

Everyone cheers and Dad looks at me, eyes wide like a little boy.

‘Sure, no wonder it was twenty euro. A bus that goes into the water. A bus? That goes into the water? I’ve never seen the likes of it. Wait till I tell the lads at the Monday Club about this. Big mouth Donal won’t be able to beat this story for once.’ He turns his attention back to the tour operator, who, like everyone else on the bus, is wearing a Viking helmet with horns. Dad collects two, props one on his head and hands the other, which has blonde side plaits attached, to me.

‘Olaf, meet Heidi.’ I pop it on my head and turn to Dad.

He roars quietly in my face.

‘Sights along the way include our famous city cathedrals, St Patrick’s and Christchurch, Trinity College, Government buildings, Georgian Dublin …’

‘Ooh, you’ll like this one,’ Dad elbows me.

‘… and of course Viking Dublin!’

Everyone roars again, including Dad, and I can’t help but laugh.

‘I don’t understand why we’re celebrating a bunch of oafs who raped and pillaged their way around our country.’

‘Oh, would you ever lighten up, at all, and have the craic?’

‘And what do we do when we see a rival DUKW on the road?’ the tour guide asks.

There’s a mixture of boos and roars.

‘OK, let’s go!’ Olaf says enthusiastically.

Justin frantically searches over the shaven heads of a group of Hare Krishnas who have begun to parade by him and obstruct his view of his woman in the red coat. A sea of orange togas, they smile at him merrily through their bell-ringing and drum-beating. He hops up and down on the spot, trying to get a view down Merrion Row.

Before him, a mime artist, dressed in a black leotard, with a painted white face, red lips and a striped hat, appears suddenly. They stand opposite one another, each waiting for the other to do something, Justin praying for the mime to grow bored and leave. He doesn’t. Instead, the mime squares his shoulders, looks mean, parts his legs and lets his fingers quiver around his holster area.

Keeping his voice down, Justin speaks politely, ‘Hey, I’m really not in the mood for this. Would you mind playing with someone else, please?’

Looking forlorn, the mime begins to play an invisible violin.

Justin hears laughter and realises he has an audience. Great.

‘Yeah, that’s funny. OK, enough now.’

Ignoring the antics, Justin distances himself from the growing crowd and continues to search down Merrion Row for the red coat.

The mime appears beside him again, holds his hand to his forehead and searches the distance as though at sea. His herd of spectators follow, bleating and snap-happy. An elderly Japanese couple take a photograph.

Justin grits his teeth and speaks quietly, hoping nobody but the mime can hear. ‘Hey, asshole, do I look like I’m having fun?’

With lips of a ventriloquist, a gruff Dublin accent responds, ‘Hey, asshole, do I look like I give a shit?’

‘You wanna play like this? Fine. I’m not sure whether you’re trying to be Marcel Marceau or Coco the clown but your little pantomime street performance is insulting to both of them. This crowd might find your stolen routines from Marceau’s repertoire amusing but I don’t. Unlike me, they’re not aware that you’ve failed to notice the fact that Marceau used these routines to tell a story or sketch a theme or character. He did not just randomly stand on a street trying to get out of a box nobody could see. Your lack of creativity and technique gives a bad name to mimes all over the world.’

The mime blinks once and proceeds to walk against an invisible strong wind.

‘Here I am!’ a voice calls beyond the crowd.

There she is! She recognised me!

Justin shuffles from foot to foot, trying to catch sight of her red coat.

The crowd turns and parts, to reveal Sarah, looking excited by the scene.

The mime mimicks Justin’s obvious disappointment, plastering a look of despair on his face and hunching his back so that his arms hang low and his hands almost scrape the ground.

‘Oooooooo,’ go the crowd, and Sarah’s face falls.

Justin nervously replaces his look of disappointment with a smile. He makes his way through the crowd, greets Sarah quickly and leads her speedily away from the scene while the crowd clap and some drop coins into a container nearby.

‘Don’t you think that was a bit rude? Maybe you should have given him some change or something,’ she says, looking over her shoulder apologetically at the mime, who is covering his face and moving his shoulders up and down violently in a false fit of tears.

‘I think the gentleman in the leotard was a bit rude.’ Distracted, Justin continues to look around for the red coat as they make their way to the restaurant for lunch, which Justin now definitely wants to cancel.

Tell her you feel sick. No. She’s a doctor, she’ll ask too many questions. Tell her you have unfortunately made a mistake and that you have a lecture, right now. Tell her, tell her!

But instead he finds himself continuing to walk with her, his mind as active as Mount St Helens, his eyes jumping around like an addict needing a fix. In the basement restaur ant, they are led to a quiet table in the corner. Justin eyes the door.

Yell ‘FIRE’ and run!

Sarah shuffles her coat off her shoulders to reveal much flesh, and pulls her chair closer to his.

Such a coincidence he bumped, quite literally, into the woman from the salon again. Though maybe it wasn’t such a big deal; Dublin’s a small town. Since being here he’s learned that everyone pretty much knows everyone, or somebody related to somebody, that someone once knew. But the woman, he would definitely have to stop calling her that. He should give her a name. Angelina.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Sarah leans across the table and gazes at him.

Or Lucille. ‘Coffee. I’m thinking about coffee. I’ll have a black coffee, please,’ he says to the waitress clearing their table. He looks at her name badge. Jessica. No, his woman wasn’t a Jessica.

‘You’re not eating?’ Sarah asks, disappointed and confused.

‘No, I can’t stay as long as I’d hoped. I have to get back to the college earlier than planned.’ His leg bounces beneath the table, hitting the surface and rattling the cutlery. The waitress and Sarah eye him peculiarly.

‘Oh, OK, well,’ she studies the menu, ‘I’ll have a chef’s salad and a glass of the house white, please,’ she says to the waitress and then to Justin, ‘I have to eat or I’ll collapse, I hope you don’t mind.’

‘No problem,’ he smiles. Even though you ordered the biggest fucking salad on the menu. How about the name, Susan? Does my woman look like a Susan? My woman? What the hell is wrong with me?

‘We are now turning into Dawson Street, so named after Joshua Dawson, who also designed Grafton, Anne and Henry Streets. On your right you will see the Mansion House, which houses the Lord Mayor of Dublin.’

All horned Viking helmets turn to the right. Video cameras, digital cameras and camera phones are suspended from the the open windows.

‘You think this is what the Vikings did, way back when, Dad? Went clickety-click with their cameras at buildings that weren’t even built yet?’ I whisper.

‘Oh, shut up,’ he says loudly, and the tour operator stops speaking, shocked.

‘Not you.’ Dad waves a hand at him. ‘Her.’ He points, and the entire bus looks at me.

‘To your right you will see St Anne’s Church, which was designed by Isaac Wells in 1707. The interior dates back to the seventeenth century,’ Olaf continues to the thirty-strong crew of Vikings aboard.

‘Actually the Romanesque façade wasn’t added until 1868, and that was designed by Thomas Newenham Deane,’ I whisper to Dad.

‘Oh,’ Dad says slowly at this, eyes widening. ‘I didn’t know that.’

My eyes widen at my own piece of information. ‘Me neither.’

Dad chuckles.

‘We are now on Nassau Street, we will pass Grafton Street on the left in just a moment.’

Dad starts singing, ‘Grafton Street’s a wonderland.’ Loudly.

The American woman in front of us turns around, her face beaming. ‘Oh, do you know that song? My father used to sing that song. He was from Ireland. Oh, I would love to hear it again; can you sing it for us?’

A chorus of, ‘Oh, yes, please do …’ from around us.

No stranger to singing in public, the man who sings weekly at the Monday Club begins singing and the entire bus joins in, moving from side to side. Dad’s voice reaches out beyond the plastic fold-up windows of the DUKW and into the ears of pedestrians and traffic going by.

I take another mental photograph of Dad sitting beside me, singing with his eyes closed, two horns propped on top of his head.

Justin watches with growing impatience as Sarah slowly picks at her salad. Her fork playfully pokes at a piece of chicken; the chicken hangs on, falls off, grabs on again and manages to hang on while she waves it around, using it as a sledgehammer to knock pieces of lettuce over to see what’s beneath. Finally she stabs a piece of tomato and as she lifts the fork to her mouth, the same piece of chicken falls off again. That was the third time she’d done that.

‘Are you sure you’re not hungry, Justin? You seem to be really studying this plate,’ she smiles, waving another forkful of food around, sending red onion and cheddar cheese tumbling back to the plate. It was like one step forward, two steps back every time.

‘Yeah, sure, I wouldn’t mind having some.’ He’d already ordered and finished a bowl of soup in the time it had taken her to have five mouthfuls.

‘You want me to feed it to you?’ she flirts, moving it in circular motions towards his mouth.

‘Well, I want more on it than that, for a start.’

She spears a few other pieces of food.

‘More,’ he says, keeping an eye on his watch. The more food he can squeeze in his mouth, the quicker this frustrating experience will be over. He knows that his woman, Veronica, is probably long gone by now, but sitting here, watching Sarah burn more calories playing with her food than ingesting them, isn’t going to confirm that for him.

‘OK, here comes the aeroplane,’ she sings.

‘More.’ At least half of it has fallen again during its ‘takeoff’.

‘More? How can you possibly fit more on the fork, never mind in your mouth?’

‘Here, I’ll show you.’ Justin takes the fork from her and begins stabbing at as much as he can. Chicken, corn, lettuce, beetroot, onion, tomato, cheese; he manages it all. ‘Now, if the lady pilot would like to bring her plane in to land …’

She giggles. ‘This is not going to fit in your mouth.’

‘I have a pretty big mouth.’

She shovels it in, laughing all the while, barely fitting it all into Justin’s mouth. When he’s finally swallowed it all, he looks at his watch and then again at her plate.

‘OK, now you do it.’ You’re such a shit, Justin.

‘No way,’ she laughs.

‘Come on.’ He gathers as much food as possible, including the same piece of chicken she’s deserted four times and ‘flies’ it into her open mouth.

She laughs while trying to fit it all in. Barely able to breathe, chew, swallow or smile, she still tries to look pretty. For almost a full minute she’s unable to speak in her attempts to chew as ladylike as possible. Juices, dressing and food dribble down her chin and when she finally swallows, her lipstick-smudged mouth smiles at him to reveal a great big piece of lettuce stuck between her teeth.

‘That was fun,’ she smiles.

Helen. Like Helen of Troy, so beautiful she could start a war.

‘Are you finished? Can I take the plate?’ the waitress asks.

Sarah begins to answer, ‘N—’ but Justin jumps in.

‘Yes, we are, thank you.’ He avoids Sarah’s stare.

‘Actually I’m not quite finished, thank you,’ Sarah says sternly. The plate is replaced.

Justin’s leg bounces beneath the table, his impatience growing. Salma. Sexy Salma. An awkward silence falls between them.

‘I’m sorry, Salma, I don’t mean to be rude—’

‘Sarah.’

‘What?’

‘My name is Sarah.’

‘I know that. It’s just that—’

‘You called me Salma.’

‘Oh. What? Who’s Salma? God. Sorry. I don’t even know a Salma, honestly.’

She speeds up her eating, obviously dying to get away from him now.

He says more softly, ‘It’s just that I have to get back to the college—’

‘Earlier than planned. You said.’ She smiles quickly and her face falls immediately as she looks back down at her plate. She pierces the food with purpose now. Playtime over. Time to eat. Food fills her mouth instead of words.

Justin cringes inside, knowing his behaviour is uncharacteristically rude. Now say it like you mean it, you jerk. He stares at her: beautiful face, great body, intelligent woman. Dressed smartly in a trouser suit, long legs, big lips. Long elegant fingers, neat French-manicured nails, a smart bag to match her shoes by her feet. Professional, confident, intelligent. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this woman at all. It is Justin’s own distraction that is the problem, the feeling that a part of him is somewhere else. A part of him, in fact, that feels so nearby, he is almost compelled to run out and catch it. Right now running seems like a good idea but the problem is he doesn’t know what he is trying to catch, or who. In a city of one million people, he can’t expect to walk outside this door and find the same woman standing on the pavement. And is it worth leaving the beautiful woman sitting with him in this restaurant, in order just to chase a good idea?

He stops bouncing his leg up and down and settles back into his chair, no longer at the edge of his seat or ready to dive for the door the second she puts down her knife and fork.

‘Sarah,’ he sighs, and means it this time when he says, ‘I’m very sorry.’

She stops forking food into her mouth and looks up at him, chews quickly, dabs at her lips with a napkin and swallows. Her face softens. ‘OK.’

She wipes away the crumbs around her plate, shrugging. ‘I’m not looking for a marriage here, Justin.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘Lunch is all this is.’

‘I know that.’

‘Or shall we say just coffee, in case mentioning the former sends you running out the fire exit yelling “Fire”?’ She acknowledges his empty cup and flicks at imaginary crumbs now.

He reaches out to grab her hand and stop her fidgeting. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘OK,’ she repeats.

The air clears, the tension evaporates, her plate is cleared away.

‘I suppose we should get the check—’

‘Have you always wanted to be a doctor?’

‘Whoa.’ She pauses midway opening her wallet. ‘It’s just intense either way with you, isn’t it?’ But she’s smiling.

‘I’m sorry.’ Justin shakes his head. ‘Let’s have a coffee before we leave. Hopefully I’ll have time to stop this from being the worst date you’ve ever been on.’

‘It’s not.’ She shakes her head, smiling. ‘But it’s a close second. It was almost the worst but you pulled it right back there with the doctor question.’

Justin smiles. ‘So. Have you?’

She nods. ‘Ever since James Goldin operated on me when I was in Junior Infants. What do you call it, kindergarten? Anyway, I was five years old and he saved my life.’

‘Wow. That’s young for a serious operation. It must have had a huge effect.’

‘Profound. I was in the yard at lunch break, I fell during a game of hopscotch and hurt my knee. The rest of my friends were discussing amputation but James Goldin came running over and straight away gave me mouth-to-mouth. Just like that, the pain went away. And that’s when I knew.’

‘That you wanted to be a doctor?’

‘That I wanted to marry James Goldin.’

Justin smiles. ‘And did you?’

‘Nah. Became a doctor instead.’

‘You’re good at it.’

‘Yes, because you can tell that from a needle insertion at a blood donation,’ she smiles. ‘Everything OK in that department?’

‘My arm’s a little itchy but it’s fine.’

‘Itchy? It shouldn’t be itchy, let me see.’

He goes to roll up his sleeve and stops. ‘Could I ask you something?’ He squirms a little in his chair. ‘Is there any way that I can find out where my blood went?’

‘Where? As in, which hospital?’

‘Well, yeah, or even better, do you know who it went to?’

She shakes her head. ‘The beauty of this is that it’s completely anonymous.’

‘But someone, somewhere would know, wouldn’t they? In hospital records or even your office records?’

‘Of course. Products in a blood bank are always individually traceable. It’s documented throughout the entire process of donation, testing, separation into components, storage and administration to the recipient but—’

‘There’s a word I hate.’

‘Unfortunately for you, you can’t know who received your donation.’

‘But you just said that it’s documented.’

‘That information can’t be released. But all our details are kept in a secure computerised database where all your donor details are kept. Under the Data Protection Act you have the right to access your donor records.’

‘Will those records tell me who received my blood?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then, I don’t want to see them.’

‘Justin, the blood you donated was not transfused directly into somebody’s body exactly as it came from your vein. It was broken up and separated into red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets—’

‘I know, I know, I know all of that.’

‘I’m sorry that there’s nothing I can do. Why are you so keen to know?’

He thinks about it for a while, drops a brown sugar cube into his coffee and stirs it around. ‘I’m just interested to know who I helped, if I helped them at all and if I did, how they are. I feel like … no, it sounds stupid, you’ll think I’m insane. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Hey, don’t be silly,’ she says soothingly. ‘I already think you’re insane.’

‘I hope that’s not your medical opinion.’

‘Tell me.’ Her piercing blue eyes watch him over the brim of her coffee cup as she sips.

‘This is the first time I’ve said this aloud, so forgive me for speaking while I think. At first, it was a ridiculous macho ego trip. I wanted to know whose life I saved. Which lucky person I’d sacrificed my precious blood for.’

Sarah smiles.

‘But then over the last few days I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I feel differently. Genuinely different. Like I’ve given something away. Something precious.’

‘It is precious, Justin. We need more donors all the time.’

‘I know, but not – not like that. I just feel like there’s someone out there walking around with something inside them that I gave them and now I’m missing something—’

‘The body replaces the liquid part of your donation within twenty-four hours.’

‘No, I mean, I feel like I’ve given something away, a part of me, and that somebody else has been completed because of that part of me and … my God, this sounds crazy. I just want to know who that person is. I just feel like there’s a part of me missing and I need to get out there and grab it.’

‘You can’t get your blood back, you know,’ Sarah jokes weakly, and they both fall into deep thought; Sarah looking sadly into her coffee, Justin trying to make sense of his jumbled words.

‘I should never try to discuss something so illogical with a doctor, I suppose,’ he says.

‘You sound like a lot of people I know, Justin. You’re just the first person I’ve heard blame it on a blood donation.’

Silence.

‘Well,’ Sarah reaches behind her chair to get her coat, ‘you’re in a rush so we should really move now.’

They make their way down Grafton Street in a comfortable silence that’s occasionally dotted with small talk. They automatically stop walking at the Molly Malone statue, across the road from Trinity College.

‘You’re late for your class.’

‘No, I’ve got a little while before I—’ He looks at his watch and then remembers his earlier excuse. He feels his face redden. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ she repeats.

‘I feel like this whole lunch date has been me saying sorry and you saying that it’s OK.’

‘It really is OK,’ she laughs.

‘And I really am—’

‘Stop!’ She holds her hand to his mouth to hush him. ‘Enough.’

‘I really had a lovely time,’ he says awkwardly. ‘Should we … you know, I’m feeling really uncomfortable right now with her watching us.’

They look to their right and Molly stares down at them with her bronze eyes.

Sarah laughs. ‘You know maybe we could make arrangements to—’

‘Roooooaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrr!!’

Justin almost leaps out of his skin with fright, startled by the intense screaming coming from the bus stopped at the traffic lights beside him. Sarah yelps with fright and her hand flies to her chest. Beside them more than a dozen men, women and children, all wearing Viking helmets, are waving their fists in the air and laughing and roaring at passers-by. Sarah and the dozens of others crowded around them on the pavement start laughing, some roar back, most ignore them.

Justin, whose breath has caught in his throat, is silent, for he can’t take his eyes off the woman laughing uproariously with an old man; a helmet on her head, long blonde plaits flowing each side.

‘We certainly got them, Joyce,’ the old man laughs, roaring lightly in her face and waving his fist.

She looks surprised at first, then hands him a five-euro note, much to his delight, and they both continue laughing.

Look at me, Justin wills her. Her eyes stay on the old man’s as he holds the note up to the light to check its authenticity. Justin looks to the traffic lights, which are still red. He has time yet for her to see him. Turn around! Look at me just once! The pedestrian lights flash to amber. He doesn’t have much time.

Her head remains turned, completely lost in conversation.

The lights turn green and the bus slowly moves off up Nassau Street. He starts to walk alongside it, willing her with everything he has to look at him.

‘Justin!’ Sarah calls. ‘What are you doing?’

He keeps on walking alongside the bus, quickening his pace and finally breaking out into a jog. He can hear Sarah calling after him but he can’t stop.

‘Hey!’ he calls.

Not loud enough; she doesn’t hear him. The bus picks up speed and Justin’s jog breaks out into a run, the adrenalin surging through his body. The bus is beating him, speeding up. He’s losing her.

‘Joyce!’ he blurts out. The surprising sound of his own yell is enough to stop him in his tracks. What on earth is he doing? He doubles over to rest his hands on his knees, tries to catch his breath, tries to centre himself in the whirlwind he feels caught up in. He looks back at the bus one last time. A Viking helmet appears from the window, blonde plaits moving from side to side like a pendulum. He can’t make out the face but with just one head, just one person looking out from that bus and back at him, he knows it has to be her.

The whirlwind stops momentarily while he holds up a hand in salute.

A hand appears out the window and the bus rounds the corner onto Kildare Street, leaving Justin to, once again, watch her disappear from sight with his heart beating so wildly, he’s sure the pavement is pounding beneath him. He may not have the slightest clue what is going on but there is one thing he knows now for sure.

Joyce. Her name is Joyce.

He looks down the empty street.

But who are you, Joyce?

‘Why are you hanging your head out of the window?’ Dad pulls me in, wild with worry. ‘You might not have much to live for but, for Christsake, you owe it to yourself to live it.’

‘Did you hear somebody calling my name?’ I whisper to Dad, my mind a whirl.

‘Oh, she’s hearing voices now,’ he grumbles. ‘I said your bloody name and you gave me a fiver for it, don’t you remember?’ He snaps it before her face and turns his attention back to Olaf.

‘On your left is Leinster House, the building that now houses the National Parliament of Ireland.’

Snappedy-snap, clickety-click, flash-flash, record.

‘Leinster House was originally known as Kildare House after the Earl of Kildare commissioned it to be built. On his becoming the Duke of Leinster, it was renamed. Parts of the building, which was formerly the Royal College of Surgeons—’

‘Science,’ I say loudly, still largely lost in thought.

‘Pardon me?’ He stops talking and heads turn once again.

‘I was just saying that,’ my face flushes, ‘it was the Royal College of Science.’

‘Yes, that’s what I said.’

‘No, you said “surgeons”,’ the American woman in front of me speaks out.

‘Oh,’ he gets flustered. ‘Excuse me, I’m mistaken. Parts of the building, which was formerly the … the Royal College of,’ he looks pointedly at me, ‘Science, have served as the seat of the Irish government since 1922 …’

I tune out.

‘Remember I told you about the guy who designed the Rotunda hospital?’ I whisper to Dad.

‘I do. Dick somebody.’

‘Richard Cassells. He designed this too. It’s been claimed that it formed a model for the design of the White House.’

‘Is that so?’ Dad says.

‘Really?’ The American woman twists around in her seat to face me. She speaks loudly. Very loudly. Too loudly. ‘Honey, did you hear that? This lady says the guy who designed this, designed the White House.’

‘No, I didn’t actually—’

Suddenly I notice the tour operator has stopped talking and is currently glaring at me with as much love as a Viking Dragon for a Sea Cat. All eyes, ears and horns are on us.

‘Well, I said it’s been claimed that it formed a model for the design of the White House. There aren’t any certainties as such,’ I say quietly, not wanting to be dragged into this. ‘It’s just that James Hoban, who won the competition for the design of the White House in 1792, was an Irishman.’

They stare expectantly at me.

‘Well, he studied architecture in Dublin and would have more than likely studied the design of Leinster House,’ I finish off quickly.

The people around me ooh, aah and talk amongst one another about that titbit of information.

‘We can’t hear you!’ someone at the top of the bus shouts out.

‘Stand up, Gracie.’ Dad pushes me up.

‘Dad …’ I slap him away.

‘Hey, Olaf, give her the microphone!’ the woman shouts to the tour operator. He grudgingly hands it over and folds his arms.

‘Eh, hello.’ I tap it with my finger and blow into the mike.

‘You have to say, “Testing one, two, three,” Gracie.’

‘Eh, testing one, two—’

‘We can hear you,’ Olaf the White snaps.

‘OK, well,’ I repeat my comments, and the people up front nod with interest.

‘And this is all part of your government’s buildings too?’ the American woman points to the buildings either side.

I look uncertainly at Dad and he nods at me with encouragement. ‘Well, actually no. The building to the left is the National Library and the National Museum is on the right.’ I go to sit down again and Dad whooshes my backside back up. They are all still looking at me for more. The tour guide looks sheepish.

‘Well, a bit of interesting information may be that the National Library and the National Museum were originally home of the Dublin Museum of Science and Art, which opened in 1890. Both were designed by Thomas Newenham Deane and his son Thomas Manly Deane after a competition held in 1885 and were constructed by the Dublin contractors J. and W. Beckett, who demonstrated the best of Irish craftsmanship in their construction. The Museum is one of the best surviving examples of Irish decorative stonework, woodcarving and ceramic tiling. The National Library’s most impressive feature is the entrance rotunda. Internally this space leads up an impressive staircase to the magnificent reading room with its vast vaulted ceiling. As you can see for yourselves, the exterior of the building is characterised by its array of columns and pilasters in the Corinthian order and the rotunda with its open veranda and corner pavilions framing the composition. In the—’

Loud clapping interrupts my talk – single, loud clapping, coming only from one person: Dad. The rest of the bus is silent. A child, asking her mother if they can roar again, breaks it. An imaginary piece of tumbleweed blows down the aisle, landing at a grinning Olaf the White.

‘I, em, I wasn’t finished,’ I say quietly.

Dad claps louder in response, and one man, who is sitting alone in the back row, joins in nervously.

‘And … that’s all I know,’ I say quickly, sitting down.

‘How do you know all that?’ the woman in front asks.

‘She’s an estate agent,’ Dad says proudly.

The woman’s brow creases, she makes an ‘oh’ shape with her mouth and turns around again to face an extremely satisfied-looking Olaf. He grabs the microphone from me.

‘Now everybody, let’s roooooooaaaaaar!’

The silence is broken as everybody comes to life again, while each muscle and organ in my body cringes into a foetal position.

Dad leans into me and crushes me against the window. He moves his head close to whisper in my ear and our helmets knock against one another.

‘How did you know all that, love?’

As though I’d used all of my words up in that tirade, my mouth opens and closes but nothing comes out. How on earth did I know all of that?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My ears immediately sizzle as soon I enter the school gymnas ium that same evening, and spy Kate and Frankie huddled together on the bleachers, looking deep in conversation with concern etch-a-sketched across their faces. Kate looks as though Frankie’s just told her that her father’s passed away, a face I’m familiar with as I was the one to give her that look, with that very news, five years ago at Arrivals in Dublin airport when she’d cut short her holiday to rush to his side. Now Kate is talking and Frankie looks as though her dog’s been hit by a car, a face I’m also familiar with, as I was once again the one to deliver the news, and the blow, that broke three of the sausage dog’s legs. Now Kate looks as though she’s been caught in the act as she glances in my direction. Frankie freezes too. Looks of surprise, then guilt and then a smile to make me think they’ve just been discussing the weather, rather than the events in my life, which are as changeable as.

I wait for the usual Lady of Trauma to fill my shoes. To give me a little break while she offers the usual insightful comments that keep inquisitors at bay; explaining one’s recent loss as more of a continuous journey rather than a dead end, giving one the invaluable opportunity to gain strength and learn about oneself, and thereby turning this terribly tragic affair into something hugely positive. Usual Lady of Trauma does not arrive, knowing this is no easy gig for her. She is well aware the two people who currently hug me tight can see through her words and right to the heart of me.

My friends’ hugs are longer and tighter; consist of extra squeezes and pats, which alternate between a circular rubbing motion and a light pitter-pattering on the back, both of which I find surprisingly comforting. The pity in their faces hammers home my great loss and my stomach feels queasy and my head fully loaded again. I realise that swaddling myself in a nest with Dad does not hold the super healing powers I’d hoped for, for every time I leave the house and meet somebody new, I have to go through it over again. Not just the entire rigmarole, but I have to feel it all, all over again, which is a far more tiring thing than words. Wrapped in Kate and Frankie’s arms I could easily morph into the baby that they in their minds are coddling, but I don’t, because if I start now, I know I’ll never stop.

We sit on the bleachers away from the other parents where few sit together but most take time that is precious and rare to be alone to read or think or watch their children doing unimpressive sideways tumbles on the blue rubber mats. I spot Kate’s children, six-year-old Eric and my five-year-old goddaughter, Jayda, the Muppet Christmas Carol fanatic I have sworn not to hold anything against. They are enthusiastically hopping about and chirping like crickets, pulling their underwear from in between the cheeks of their behinds and tripping over untied shoelaces. Eleven-month-old Sam sleeps beside us in a stroller, blowing bubbles from his chubby lips. I watch him fondly, then remember again and look away. Ah, remembering. That old chestnut.

‘How’s work, Frankie?’ I ask, wanting everything to be as it was.

‘Busy as usual,’ she responds, and I detect guilt, perhaps even embarrassment.

I envy her normality, possibly even her boredom. I envy that her today was the same as her yesterday.

‘Still buying low, selling high?’ Kate pipes up.

Frankie rolls her eyes. ‘Twelve years, Kate.’

‘I know, I know,’ Kate bites her lip and tries not to laugh.

‘Twelve years, I’ve had this job and twelve years you’ve being saying that. It’s not even funny any more. In fact I don’t recall it ever being, and yet you persist.’

Kate laughs. ‘It’s just that, I have absolutely no idea what it is that you do. Something in the stock market?’

‘Manager, deputy head corporate treasury and investor solutions desk,’ Frankie tells her.

Kate stares back blankly, then sighs. ‘So many words to say that you work at a desk.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, what do you do all day, again? Wipe shitty asses and make organic banana sandwiches?’

‘There are other aspects to being a mother, Frankie,’ Kate puffs. ‘It is my responsibility to prepare three human beings so that if, God forbid, something happens to me, or when they are adults, they will be able to live and function and succeed responsibly in the world all by themselves.’

‘And you mush organic bananas,’ Frankie adds. ‘No, no, hold on, is that before or after the preparation of three human beings? Before.’ She nods to herself. ‘Yes, definitely mush bananas and then prepare human beings. Got it.’

‘All I’m saying is, you have, what, seven words to describe your paper-pushing job?’

‘I believe it’s eight.’

‘I have one. One.’

‘Well, I don’t know. Is “car-pooler” one or two words? Joyce, what do you think?’

I stay out of it.

‘The point I’m trying to make is that the word “mum”,’ she says, irritated, ‘a teeny, tiny little word that every woman with a child is called, fails to describe the plethora of duties. If I was doing what I do everyday in your company, I’d be running the fucking place.’

Frankie shrugs nonchalantly. ‘Sorry, but I don’t think I care. And I can’t speak for my colleagues, but personally I like to make my own banana sandwiches and wipe my own behind.’

‘Really?’ Kate lifts an eyebrow. ‘I’m surprised you don’t have some poor man you picked up along the way, do that for you.’

‘Nope, I’m still searching for that special one,’ Frankie smiles back sweetly.

They do this all the time: talk at each other, never to each other, in an odd bonding ritual that seems to pull them closer when it would do the opposite to anybody else. In the silence that follows they both have time to figure out what exactly they were talking about in my company. Ten seconds later Kate kicks Frankie. Oh, yes. The mention of children.

When something tragic has happened, you’ll find that you, the tragicee, become the person that has to make everything comfortable for everyone else.

‘How’s Crapper?’ I fill their uncomfortable silence and ask after Frankie’s dog.

‘He’s doing well; his legs are healing nicely. Still howls when he sees your photograph, though. Sorry I had to move it from the fireplace.’

‘Doesn’t matter. In fact I was going to ask you to move it. Kate, you can get rid of my wedding photo too.’

Divorce talk. Finally.

‘Ah, Joyce,’ she shakes her head and looks at me sadly, ‘that’s my favourite photo of me. I looked so good at your wedding. Can I not just cut Conor out?’

‘Or draw a little moustache on him,’ Frankie adds. ‘Or better yet, give him a personality. What colour should that be?’

I bite my lip guiltily to hide a smile that threatens to crawl from the corner of my lips. I’m not used to this kind of talk of my ex. It’s disrespectful and I’m not sure I’m completely comfortable with it. But it is funny. Instead I look away to the children on the floor.

‘OK, everybody.’ The gymnastics instructor claps his hands for attention and the crickets’ hopping and chirping momentarily subsides. ‘Spread out on the mat. We’re going to do backwards rolls. Place your hands flat on the floor, fingers pointing towards your shoulders as you roll back to a stand. Like this.’

‘Well, looky-look at our little flexible friend,’ Frankie remarks.

One by one the children roll backwards to a perfect stand. Until it gets to Jayda, who rolls over one side of her head in the most awkward way, kicks another child in the shins and then gets onto her knees before finally jumping to a stand. She strikes a Spice Girl pose in all of her pink sparkling glory, with peace fingers and all, thinking nobody has noticed her error. The instructor ignores her.

‘Preparing a human being for the world,’ Frankie repeats smartly. ‘Yip. You’d be running the fucking place all right.’ Frankie turns to me and softens her voice. ‘So, Joyce, how are you?’

I have debated whether to tell them, whether to tell anyone. Short of carting me off to the madhouse I have no idea how anybody will react to what’s been happening to me, or even how they should react. But after today’s experience, I side with the part of my brain that is anxious to reveal.

‘This is going to sound really odd so bear with me on this.’

‘It’s OK.’ Kate grabs my hand. ‘You say whatever you want. Just release.’

Frankie rolls her eyes.

‘Thanks.’ I slowly slip my hand out of hers. ‘I keep seeing this guy.’

Kate tries to register this. I can see her trying to link it with the loss of my baby or my looming divorce, but she can’t.

‘I think I know him but at the same time, I know I don’t. I’ve seen him precisely three times now, the most recent being today, when he chased after my Viking bus. And I think he called out my name. Though I may have imagined that because how on earth could he know my name? Unless he knows me, but that brings me back to my being sure that he really doesn’t. What do you think?’

‘Hold on, I’m way back at the Viking bus part,’ Frankie slows me down. ‘You say you have a Viking bus.’

‘I don’t have one. I was on one. With Dad. It goes into the water too. You wear helmets with horns and go “aaaagh” at everyone.’ I go close to their faces and wave my fists at them.

They stare back blankly.

I sigh and slide back on the bench. ‘So anyway, I keep seeing him.’

‘OK,’ Kate says slowly, looking at Frankie.

There’s an awkward silence as they worry about my sanity. I join with them on that.

Frankie clears her throat. ‘So this man, Joyce, is he young, old, or indeed a Viking upon your magic bus that travels the high waters?’

‘Late thirties, early forties. He’s American. We got our hair cut together. That’s where I saw him first.’

‘Which is lovely, by the way.’ Kate gently fingers a few front strands.

‘Dad thinks I look like Peter Pan,’ I smile.

‘So maybe he remembers you from the hair salon,’ Frankie reasons.

‘It even felt weird at the salon. There was a … recog nition or a something.’

Frankie smiles. ‘Welcome to the world of singledom.’ She turns to Kate, whose face is scrunched up in disagreement. ‘When’s the last time Joyce allowed herself a little flirt with someone? She’s been married for so long.’

‘Please,’ Kate says patronisingly to Frankie. ‘If you think that’s what happens when you’re married then you’re sorely mistaken. No wonder you’re afraid to get married.’

‘I’m not afraid, I just don’t agree with it. You know, just today I was watching a make-up show—’

‘Oh, here we go.’

‘Shut up and listen. And the make-up expert said that because the skin is so sensitive around the eye, you must apply cream with your ring finger because it is the finger with the least power.’

‘Wow,’ Kate says drily. ‘You sure have revealed us married folk for the fools that we are.’

I rub my eyes wearily. ‘I know I sound insane, I’m tired and probably imagining things where there is nothing to be imagined. The man I’m supposed to have on the brain is Conor and he’s not. He’s really not at all. I don’t know if it’s a delayed reaction and next month I’m going to fall apart, start drinking and wear black everyday—’

‘Like Frankie,’ Kate butts in.

‘But right now, I feel nothing but relieved,’ I continue. ‘Isn’t that terrible?’

‘Is it OK for me to feel relieved too?’ Kate asks.

‘You hated him?’ I ask sadly.

‘No. He was fine. He was nice. I just hated you not being happy.’

‘I hated him,’ Frankie chirps up.

‘We spoke briefly yesterday. It was odd. He wanted to know if he could take the espresso machine.’

‘The bastard,’ Frankie spits.

‘I really don’t care about the espresso machine. He can have it.’

‘It’s mind games, Joyce. Be careful. First it’s the espresso machine and then it’s the house and then it’s your soul. And then it’s that emerald ring that belonged to his grandmother that he claims you stole but that you recall more than clearly that when you first went to his house for lunch he said, “help yourself” and there it was.’ She scowls.

I look to Kate for help.

‘Her break-up with Lee.’

‘Ah. Well, it’s not going to get like your break-up with Lee.’

Frankie grumbles.

‘Christian went for a pint with Conor last night,’ Kate says. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course I don’t. They’re friends. Is he OK?’

‘Yeah, he seemed fine. He’s upset about the, you know …’

‘Baby. You can say the word. I’m not going to fall apart.’

‘He’s upset about the baby and disappointed the marriage didn’t work but I think he thinks it’s the right thing to do. He’s going back to Japan in a few days. He also said you’re both putting the house on the market.’

‘I don’t like being there any more and we bought it together, so it’s the right thing to do.’

‘But are you sure? Where will you live? Is your dad not driving you insane?’

As a tragicee and future divorcee, you’ll also find that people will question you on the biggest decision you’ve ever made in your life as though you hadn’t thought about it at all before, as though, through their twenty questions and many dubious faces, they’re going to shine light on something that you missed the first time or hundredth time round during your darkest hours.

‘Funnily enough, no,’ I smile as I think about him. ‘He’s actually having the opposite effect. Though he’s only managed to call me Joyce once in a week. I’m going to stay with him until the house is sold and I find somewhere else to live.’

‘That story about the man … apart from him, how are you really? We haven’t seen you since the hospital and we were so worried.’

‘I know. I’m sorry about that.’ I’d refused to see them when they came to visit, and I’d sent Dad out to the corridor to send them home, which of course he didn’t, and so they’d sat by my side for a few minutes while I stared at the pink wall, thinking about the fact I was staring at a pink wall, and then they left. ‘I really appreciated you coming, though.’

‘No you didn’t.’

‘OK, I didn’t then, but I do now.’

I think about that, about how I am now, really. Well, they asked.

‘I eat meat now. And I drink red wine. I hate anchovies and I listen to classical music. I particularly love the JK Ensemble with John Kelly on Lyric FM, who doesn’t play Kylie and I don’t mind. Last night I listened to Handel’s “Mi restano le lagrime” from Act Three Scene One of Alcina before going to sleep, and I actually knew the words but have no idea how. I know a lot about Irish architecture but not as much as I know about French and Italian. I’ve read Ulysses and can quote from it ad nauseam when I couldn’t even finish the audio book before. Only today I wrote a letter to the council telling them how their cramming yet another new ugly modern block into an area in which its buildings are mostly older, less fashionable constructs means that not only is the nation’s heritage seriously under threat but the sanity of its citizens too. I thought my father was the only person who wrote strongly worded letters. That’s not such a big deal in itself, the big deal is that two weeks ago I’d have been excited about the prospect of showing these properties. Today I’m particularly vexed about talk of bulldozing a hundred-year-old building in Old Town, Chicago, and so I plan to write another letter. I bet you’re wondering how I knew about that. Well, I read it in the recent edition of the Art and Architectural Review, the only truly international art and architectural publication. I’m a subscriber now.’ I take a breath. ‘Ask me anything, because I’ll probably know the answer and I’ve no idea how.’

Stunned, Kate and Frankie look at one another.

‘Maybe with the stress of constantly worrying about you and Conor over with, you’re able to concentrate on things more,’ Frankie suggests.

I consider that but not for long. ‘I dream almost every night about a little girl with white-blonde hair who every night gets bigger. And I hear music – a song I don’t know. When I’m not dreaming about her I have vivid dreams of places I’ve never been, eating foods I’ve never tasted and surrounded by strange people that I seem to know so well. A picnic in a park with a woman with red hair. A man with green feet. And sprinklers.’ I think hard. ‘Something about sprinklers.

‘When I wake up I have to remember all over again that my dreams are not real and that my reality is not a dream. I find that next to impossible, but not completely, because Dad is there with a smile on his face and sausages on the frying pan, chasing a cat called Fluffy around the garden and for some unknown reason hiding Mum’s photograph in the hall drawer. And after the first few moments of my waking day when everything is crap, all those other things become the only things on my mind. And a man I can’t get out of my head, but not Conor, as you’d assume, the love of my life that I’ve just separated from. No, I keep thinking about an American man that I don’t even know.’

The girls’ eyes are filled, their faces a mixture of sympathy, worry and confusion.

I don’t expect them to say anything – they probably think I’m crazy – and so I look out to the kids again on the gymnas ium floor and watch as Eric takes to the balance beam, a four-inch-wide beam covered in thin leather. The instructor calls out to him to do aeroplane arms. Eric’s face is a picture of nervous concentration. He stops walking as he slowly lifts his arms. The instructor offers words of encouragement and a small proud smile lifts onto Eric’s face. He raises his eyes briefly to see if his mother is watching and in that one moment, loses balance and falls straight down, the beam quite unfortunately landing between his legs. His face is one of horror.

Frankie snorts again. Eric howls. Kate runs to her child. Sam continues to blow bubbles.

I leave.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Driving back to Dad’s, I try not to glance at my house as I pass. My eyes lose the battle with my mind and I see Conor’s car parked outside. Since our final meal together at the restaur ant we have talked a few times, each conversation varying in degrees of affection for one another, the last, at the lower end of the scale. The first call came late at night the day after our final meal; Conor asking just one last time if we were doing the right thing. His slurred words and soft voice drifted in my ear as I lay on my bed in my childhood box bedroom and stared at the ceiling, just as I did during those all-night phone calls when we first met. Living with my father at thirty-three years of age after a failed marriage, and a vulnerable husband on the other end of the phone … it was so easy right then to remember the greatest times we’d ever spent together and go back on our decision. But more often than not, the easy decisions are the wrong decisions, and sometimes we feel like we’re going backwards when we’re actually moving forward.

The next phone call was a little more stern, an embarrassed apology and a mention of something legal related. The next, a frustrated enquiry into why my solicitor hadn’t replied to his solicitor yet. The next, him telling me his newly pregnant sister was going to take the cot, something that made me fly into a jealous rage as soon as I rang off and throw the phone in the bin. The last was to tell me he’d boxed everything up, he was leaving for Japan in a few days. And could he have the espresso machine?

But each time I hung up the phone, I felt that my weak goodbye wasn’t a goodbye. It was more of a ‘see you around’. I knew that there was always a chance to back out, that he’d be around for a little while longer, that our words weren’t really final.

I pull the car over and stare up at the house we’ve lived in for almost ten years. Didn’t it deserve more than a few weak goodbyes?

I ring the doorbell and there’s no answer. Through the front window I can see everything in boxes, the walls naked, the surfaces bare, the stage set for the next family to move in and tread the boards. I turn my key in the door and step inside, making a noise so as not to surprise him. I’m about to call his name when I hear the soft tinkle of music drifting from upstairs. I make my way up to the half-decorated nursery and find Conor sitting on the soft carpet, tears streaming down his face as he watches the mouse chase the cheese. I cross the room and reach for him. On the floor, I hold him close and rock him gently. I close my eyes and drift away.

He stops crying and looks up at me slowly. ‘What?’

‘Hmm?’ I snap out of my trance.

‘You said something. In Latin.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Yes you did. Just there.’ He dries his eyes. ‘Since when do you speak Latin?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Right,’ he says sharply. ‘Well, what does the one phrase that you do know mean?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You must know, you just said it.’

‘Conor, I don’t recall saying anything.’ He glares at me, something pretty close to hate and I swallow hard.

A stranger stares back at me in a tense silence.

‘OK.’ He gets to his feet and moves towards the door. No more questions, no more trying to understand me. He no longer cares. ‘Patrick will be acting as my solicitor now.’

Fantastic, his shit-head brother.

‘OK,’ I whisper.

He stops at the door and turns round, grinds his jaw as his eyes take in the room. A last look at everything, including me, and he’s gone.

The final goodbye.

I have a restless night in bed at Dad’s as more images flash through my mind like lightning, so fast and sharp they light up my head with an urgent bolt and then are gone again. Back to black.

A church. Bells ringing. Sprinklers. A tidal wave of red wine. Old buildings with shop fronts. Stained glass.

A view through banisters of a man with green feet, closing a door behind him. A baby in my arms. A girl with white-blonde hair. A familiar song.

A casket. Tears. Family dressed in black.

Park swings. Higher and higher. My hands pushing a child. Me swinging as a child. A seesaw. A chubby young boy raising me higher in the air, as he lowers himself to the ground. Sprinklers again. Laughter. Me and the same boy in swimming togs. Suburbs. Music. Bells. A woman in a white dress. Cobbled streets. Cathedrals. Confetti. Hands, fingers, rings. Shouting. Slamming.

The man with green feet closing the door.

Sprinklers again. A chubby young boy chasing me and laughing. A drink in my hand. My head down a toilet. Lecture halls. Sun and green grass. Music.

The man with green feet outside in the garden, holding a hose in his hand. Laughter. The girl with the white-blonde hair playing in the sand. The girl laughing on a swing. Bells again.

View from the banisters of the man with green feet closing a door. A bottle in his hand.

A pizza parlour. Ice-cream sundaes.

Pills in his hand too. The man’s eyes seeing mine before the door closes. My hand on a doorknob. The door opening. Empty bottle on the ground. Bare feet with green soles. A casket.

Sprinklers. Rocking back and forth. Humming that song. Long blonde hair covering my face and in my small hand. Whispers of a phrase …

I open my eyes with a gasp, heart drumming in my chest. The sheets are wet beneath me; my body is soaked in sweat. I fumble in the darkness for the bedside lamp. With tears in my eyes that I refuse to allow to fall, I reach for my mobile and dial with trembling fingers.

‘Conor?’ My voice is shaking.

He mumbles incoherently for a little while until he awakens. ‘Joyce, it’s three a.m.,’ he croaks.

‘I know, I’m sorry.’

‘What’s wrong? Are you OK?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine, it’s just that, well, I – I had a dream. Or a nightmare or maybe it was neither, there were flashes of, well … lots of places and people and things and,’ I stop myself and try to focus. ‘Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim?’

‘What?’ he says groggily.

‘The Latin that I said earlier, is that what I said?’

‘Yeah, it sounds like it. Jesus, Joyce—’

‘Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you,’ I blurt out. ‘That’s what it means.’

He is quiet and then he sighs. ‘OK, thanks.’

‘Somebody told me that, if not when I was a child, but tonight, they told me.’

‘You don’t have to explain.’

Silence.

‘I’m going back to sleep now.’

‘OK.’

‘Are you OK, Joyce? Do you want me to call someone for you or …?’

‘No, I’m fine. Perfect.’ My voice catches in my throat. ‘Good night.’

He’s gone.

A single tear rolls down my cheek and I wipe it away before it reaches my chin. Don’t start, Joyce. Don’t you dare start now.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

As I make my way downstairs the following morning, I spy Dad placing Mum’s photograph back on the hall table. He hears me approaching, whips out his handkerchief from his pocket and pretends he’s dusting it.

‘Ah, there she is. Muggins has risen from the dead.’

‘Yes, well, the toilet flushing every fifteen minutes kept me awake for most of the night.’ I kiss the top of his almost hairless head and go into the kitchen. I sniff the smoky atmosphere again.

‘I’m very sorry that my prostate is bothering your sleep.’ He studies my face. ‘What’s wrong with your eyes?’

‘My marriage is over and so I decided to spend the night crying,’ I explain matter-of-factly, hands on hips, sniffing the air.

He softens a bit but sticks the knife in regardless. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Yes, Dad, you’re absolutely right, the past few weeks have been every girl’s dream.’

He moves up and down, down and up to the kitchen table, takes his usual seat in the path of the sun’s beam, props his glasses on the base of his nose and continues his Sudoku. I watch him for a while, feeling mesmerised by his simplicity and then continue my sniffing mission.

‘Did you burn toast again?’ He doesn’t hear me and keeps scribbling away. I check the toaster. ‘It’s on the right setting, I don’t understand how it’s still burning.’ I look inside. No crumbs. I check the bin, no toast thrown out. I sniff the air again, grow suspicious and watch Dad from the corner of my eye. He fidgets.

‘You’re like that Fletcher woman or that Monk man, snooping around. You’ll find no corpses here,’ he says without looking up from his puzzle.

‘Yes, but I’ll find something, won’t I?’

His head jerks up, quickly. Nervously. Aha. I narrow my eyes.

‘What’s up with you at all, at all?’

I ignore him, and race around the kitchen, opening presses, searching inside each of them.

He looks worried. ‘Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?’

‘Did you take your pills?’ I ask, coming across the medicine cabinet.

‘What pills?’

With a response like that, there’s definitely something up.

‘Your heart pills, memory pills, vitamin pills.’

‘No, no and …’ he thinks for a while, ‘no.’

I bring them over to him, line them up on the table. He relaxes a little. Then I continue searching the cupboards and I feel him tense. I pull on the cereal cupboard knob—

‘Water!’ he shouts, and I jump and bang the door closed.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ he says calmly. ‘I just need a glass of water for my pills. Glasses are in that cupboard over there.’ He points to the other end of the kitchen.

Suspiciously, I fill a glass with water and deliver it to him. I return to the cereal cupboard.

‘Tea!’ he shouts. ‘Sure, we’ll have a cup of tea. Sit down there and I’ll make it for you. You’ve been through such a tough time and you’ve been great about it all. So brave. Trophy brave, as a man says. Now sit down there and I’ll fetch you a cuppa. A nice bit of cake as well. Battenburg – you liked that as a wee one. Always tried to take the marzipan off when no one was lookin’, the greedy goat that you were.’ He tries to steer me away.

‘Dad,’ I warn. He stops dithering and sighs in surrender.

I open the cupboard door and look inside. Nothing odd, or out of place, just the porridge I eat every morning and Sugar Puffs that I never touch. Dad looks satisfied, lets out a hearty harrumph-ing sound and makes his way back to the table. Hold on a minute. I open the press again and reach for the Sugar Puffs that I never eat and never see Dad eat. As soon as I lift it I know that it’s empty of cereal. I look inside.

‘Dad!’

‘Ah what, love?’

‘Dad, you promised me!’ I hold the packet of cigarettes in front of his face.

‘I only had one, love.’

‘You have not had only one. That smell of smoke every morning is not burned toast. You lied to me!’

‘One a day is hardly going to kill me.’

‘That’s exactly what it’s going to do. You’ve had bypass surgery, you’re not supposed to smoke at all! I turn a blind eye to your morning fry-ups but this, this is unacceptable,’ I tell him.

Dad rolls his eyes and he holds his hand up like a puppet’s mouth, mimicking me as he snaps it open and closed in my face.

‘That’s it, I’m calling your doctor.’

His mouth drops, he jumps out of his chair. ‘No, love, don’t do that.’

I march out to the hall and he chases after me. Up, down, down, up, up, down. Goes down on his right, bends his left.

‘Ah, you wouldn’t do that to me. If the cigarettes don’t kill me, she will. She’s a battleaxe, that woman.’

I pick up the phone that’s beside Mum’s photograph and dial the emergency number I’ve memorised. The first number that comes to my mind when I need to help the most import ant person in my life.

‘If Mum knew what you were doing she would go berserk – oh.’ I stall. ‘That’s why you hide the photograph?’

Dad looks down at his hands and nods sadly. ‘She made me promise I’d stop. If not for me, for her. I didn’t want her to see,’ he adds in a whisper as though she can hear us.

‘Hello?’ There’s a response on the other end of the phone. ‘Hello? Is that you, Dad?’ a young girl with an American accent says.

‘Oh,’ I snap out of it and Dad looks pleading at me. ‘Pardon me,’ I speak into the phone. ‘Hello?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, I saw an Irish number and thought you were my dad,’ the voice on the other end explains.

‘That’s OK,’ I say, confused.

Dad is standing before me with his hands together in prayer.

‘I was looking for …’ Dad shakes his head wildly and I stall.

‘Tickets to the show?’ the girl asks.

I frown. ‘To what show?’

‘The Royal Opera House.’

‘Sorry, who is this? I’m confused.’

Dad rolls his eyes and sits on the bottom stair.

‘I’m Bea.’

‘Bea.’ I look at Dad questioningly and he shrugs. ‘Bea who?’

‘Well, who is this?’ Her tone is harder.

‘My name is Joyce. I’m sorry, Bea, I think I’ve dialled the wrong number. You said you saw an Irish number? Have I called America?’

‘No, don’t worry.’ Happy there isn’t a stalker at the other end, her tone is friendly again. ‘You’ve called London,’ she explains. ‘I saw the Irish number and thought you were my dad. He’s flying back tonight to make it to my show tomorrow and I was worried because I’m still a student and it’s such a huge deal and I thought he was … sorry, I have absolutely no idea why I’m explaining this to you but I’m so nervous,’ she laughs and takes a deep breath. ‘Technically, this is his emergency number.’

‘Funny, I dialled my emergency number too,’ I say faintly.

We both laugh.

‘Oh, weird,’ she says.

‘Your voice is familiar, Bea. Do I know you?’

‘I don’t think so. Don’t know anyone in Ireland apart from my dad, who is a man and American, so unless you’re my dad trying to be funny …’

‘No, no, I’m not trying to be …’ I feel weak at the knees. ‘This may sound like a stupid question but, are you blonde?’

Dad holds his head in his hands and I hear him groan.

‘Yeah! Why, do I sound blonde? Maybe that’s not such a good thing,’ she laughs.

I have a lump in my throat and must stop speaking. ‘Just a silly guess,’ I force out.

‘Good guess,’ she says curiously. ‘Well, I hope everything’s OK. You said you dialled your emergency number?’

‘Yes, thanks, everything’s fine.’

Dad looks relieved.

She laughs. ‘Well, this is weird. I better go. Nice talking to you, Joyce.’

‘Nice talking to you too, Bea. Best of luck with your ballet show.’

‘Oh, sweet, thank you.’

We say our goodbyes and with a shaking hand I replace the handset.

‘You silly dope, did you just dial the Americas?’ Dad says, putting his glasses on and pressing a button on the phone. ‘Joseph down the road showed me how to do this when I was getting the cranky calls. You can see who’s called you and who you’ve called too. Turns out it was Fran bumping off her hand phone. The grandchildren got it for her last Christmas and she’s done nothing with it but wake me up at all hours. Anyway, there it is. First few numbers are 0044. Where’s that?’

‘That’s the UK.’

‘Why on earth did you do that? Were you trying to trick me? Christ, that alone was enough to give me a heart attack.’

‘Sorry, Dad.’ I lower myself to the bottom stair, feeling shaky. ‘I don’t know where I got that number from.’

‘Well, that sure taught me a lesson,’ he says insincerely. ‘I’ll never smoke again. No siree, Bob. Give me those cigarettes and I’ll throw them out.’

I hold my hand out, feeling dazed.

He snaps the packet up and shoves it deep into his trouser pocket. ‘I hope you’ll be paying for that phone call because my pension certainly won’t be.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘What’s up with you?’

‘I’m going to London,’ I blurt out.

‘What?’ His eyes almost pop out of his head. ‘Christ Almighty, Gracie, it’s just one thing after another with you.’

‘I have to find some answers to … something. I have to go to London. Come with me,’ I urge, standing up and stepping towards him.

He begins to walk backward with his hand held protect ively over his pocket containing the cigarettes.

‘I can’t go,’ he says nervously.

‘Why not?’

‘Sure, I’ve never been away from here in my life!’

‘All the more reason to go away now,’ I urge him intensely. ‘If you’re going to smoke, you might as well see outside of Ireland before you kill yourself.’

‘There are numbers I can call about being spoken to like that. Don’t you think that I haven’t heard about all of that abuse carry-on that children do to their elderly parents?’

‘Don’t play the victim, you know I’m looking out for you. Come to London with me, Dad. Please.’

‘But, but,’ he keeps moving backward, his eyes wide, ‘I can’t miss the Monday Club.’

‘We’ll go tomorrow morning, be back before Monday, I promise.’

‘But, I don’t have a passport.’

‘You just need photo ID.’

We’re approaching the kitchen now.

‘But we’ve nowhere to stay.’ He passes through the door.

‘We’ll book a hotel.’

‘It’s too expensive.’

‘We’ll share a room.’

‘But I won’t know where anything is in London.’

‘I know my way; I’ve been plenty of times.’

‘But … but,’ he bumps into the kitchen table and can move back no further. His face is a picture of terror. ‘I’ve never been on a plane before.’

‘There’s nothing to it. You’ll probably have a great time up there. And I’ll be right beside you, talking to you the whole time.’

He looks unsure.

‘What is it?’ I ask gently.

‘What will I pack? What will I need for over there? Your mother usually packed all my going-away bags.’

‘I’ll help you pack,’ I smile, getting excited. ‘This is going to be so much fun – you and me on our first overseas holiday!’

Dad looks excited for a moment, then the excitement fades. ‘No, I’m not going. I can’t swim. If the plane goes down, I can’t swim. I don’t want to go over the seas. I’ll fly with you somewhere but not over the seas.’

‘Dad, we live on an island; everywhere we go outside of this country, has to be over the sea. And there are life jackets on the plane.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yeah, you’ll be fine,’ I assure him. ‘They show you what to do in case of emergencies, but believe me there won’t be one. I’ve flown dozens of times without so much as a hiccup. You’ll have a great time. And imagine all the things you’ll have to tell the gang at the Monday Club? They’ll hardly believe their ears, they’ll want to hear your stories all day.’

A smile slowly creeps onto Dad’s lips and he concedes, ‘Big mouth Donal would have to listen to someone else tell a more interesting story, for a change. I think Maggie might be able to clear a spot for me in the schedule, all right.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘Fran’s outside, Dad. We have to go!’

‘Hold on, love, I’m just making sure everything’s OK.’

‘Everything’s fine,’ I assure him. ‘You’ve checked five times already.’

‘You can never be too sure. You hear these stories of televisions malfunctioning and toasters exploding and people coming back from their holidays to a pile of smouldering ashes instead of their house.’ He checks the socket switches in the kitchen for the umpteenth time.

Fran beeps the horn again.

‘I swear one of these days I’m going to throttle that woman. Beep, beep, beep yourself,’ he calls back, and I laugh.

‘Dad,’ I take his hand, ‘we really have to go now. The house will be fine. All your friends that live around will keep an eye on it. Any little noise outside and their noses are pressed up against their windows. You know that.’

He nods and looks about, his eyes watering.

‘We’ll have great fun, really we will. What are you worried about?’

‘I’m worried about that damn Fluffy cat, comin’ into my garden and pissin’ on my plants. I’m worried that the stranglers will suffocate my poor petunias and snapdragons, and that there’ll be no one to keep an eye on my chrysanthemums. What if there’s wind and rain when we’re away? I haven’t staked them yet and the flowers get heavy and might break. Do you know how long the magnolia took to settle? Planted it when you were a wee one, while your mother was lying out catchin’ the sun on her legs and laughin’ at Mr Henderson, God rest his soul, who was peekin’ out the curtains at her from next door.’

Beep, beeeeeeep. Fran presses down on the horn.

‘It’s only a few days, Dad. The garden will be fine. You can get to work on it as soon as you get back.’

‘OK, so.’ He takes a last look around and makes his way to the door.

I watch his figure swaying. Dressed in his Sunday finest; a three-piece suit, shirt and tie, extra-shined shoes and his tweed cap, of course, which he’d never be seen without outside the house. He looks as though he’s jumped straight from the photographs on the wall beside him. He stalls at the hall table and reaches for the photograph of Mum.

‘You know your mother was always at me to go to London with her.’ He pretends to wipe a smudge on the glass but really he runs his finger over Mum’s face.

‘Bring her with you, Dad.’

‘Ah, no, that’d be silly,’ he says confidently, but looks at me unsurely. ‘Wouldn’t it?’

‘I think it’d be a great idea. The three of us will go and have a great time.’

His eyes tear up again and with a simple nod of the head, he slides the photo frame into his overcoat pocket and exits the house to more of Fran’s beeping.

‘Ah, there you are, Fran,’ he calls to her as he sways down the garden path. ‘You’re late, we’ve been waiting for you for ages.’

‘I was beeping, Henry – did you not hear me?’

‘Were you now?’ He gets into the car. ‘You should press it a little harder the next time; we couldn’t hear a thing in there.’

As I slide the key into the lock the phone sitting just inside the hall begins ringing. I look at my watch. Seven a.m. Who on earth would be calling at seven a.m.?

Fran’s car beeps again and I turn round angrily and see Dad leaning over Fran’s shoulder, pushing his hand down on the steering wheel.

‘There you go now, Fran. We’ll hear you the next time. Come on, love, we’ve a plane to catch!’ he laughs uproariously.

I ignore the ringing phone and hurry to the car with the bags.

‘There’s no answer.’ Justin paces the living room in a panic. He tries the number again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this yesterday, Bea?’

Bea rolls her eyes. ‘Because I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal. People get wrong numbers all the time.’

‘But it wasn’t a wrong number.’ He stops walking and taps his foot impatiently to the sound of the rings.

‘That’s exactly what it was.’

Answering machine. Damn it! Do I leave a message?

He hangs up and frantically dials again.

Bored with his antics, Bea sits on the garden furniture in the living room and looks around the dust-sheet-covered room and the walls filled with dozens of colour samples. ‘When is Doris going to have this place finished?’

‘After she starts,’ Justin snaps, dialling again.

‘My ears are burning,’ Doris sings, appearing at the door in a pair of leopard-print overalls, her face heavily made up as usual. ‘Found these yesterday, aren’t they adorable?’ she laughs. ‘Buzzy-Bea, sweetie, so lovely to see you!’ She rushes to her niece and they embrace. ‘We are so excited about your performance tonight, you have no idea. Little Buzzy-Bea all grown up and performing in the Royal Opera House.’ Her voice rises to a screech. ‘Oh, we are so proud, aren’t we, Al?’

Al enters the room with a chicken leg in his hand. ‘Mmm hhm.’

Doris looks him up and down with disgust, and then back to her niece. ‘A bed for the spare room arrived yesterday morning so you’ll actually have something to sleep on when you stay, won’t that be a treat?’ She glares at Justin. ‘Also, I got some paint and fabric samples so we can start planning your room design but I’m only designing according to feng shui rules. I won’t hear of anything else.’

Bea freezes. ‘Oh gee, great.’

‘I know we’ll have such fun!’

Justin glares at his daughter. ‘That’s what you get for withholding information.’

‘What information? What’s going on?’ Doris ties her hair up in a cerise-pink scarf and makes a bow at the top of her head.

‘Dad is having a conniption fit,’ Bea explains.

‘I told him to go to the dentist already. He has an abscess, I’m sure of it,’ Doris says matter-of-factly.

‘I told him too,’ Bea agrees.

‘No, not that. The woman,’ Justin says intensely. ‘Remember the woman I was telling you about?’

‘Sarah?’ Al asks.

‘No!’ Justin responds as though that was the most ridiculous answer ever given.

‘Who can keep up with you?’ Al shrugs him off. ‘Certainly not Sarah, especially when you’re running at top speed after buses, leaving her behind.’

Justin cringes. ‘I apologised.’

‘To her voice mail,’ he chuckles. ‘She is never going to answer your calls again.’

I wouldn’t blame her.

‘The déjà vu woman?’ Doris gasps, realising.

‘Yes.’ Justin gets excited. ‘Her name is Joyce and she called Bea yesterday.’

‘She may not have.’ Bea’s protests falls on deaf ears. ‘A woman named Joyce rang yesterday. But I do believe there’s more than one Joyce in the world.’

Ignoring her, Doris gasps again. ‘How can this be? How do you know her name?’

‘I heard somebody call her that on a Viking bus. And yesterday Bea got a phone call, on her emergency number, that no one but me has, from a woman in Ireland.’ Justin pauses for dramatic effect. ‘Called Joyce.’

There’s a silence. Justin nods his head knowingly. ‘Yep, I know, Doris. Spooky, huh?’

Frozen in place, Doris widens her eyes. ‘Spooky, all right. Besides from the Viking bus.’ She turns to Bea. ‘You’re eighteen years old and you’ve given your father an emergency number?’

Justin groans with frustration and starts dialling again.

Bea’s cheeks pink. ‘Before he moved over, Mum wouldn’t let him call at certain hours because of the time difference. So I got another number. It’s not technically an emergency number but he’s the only one that has it and every time he calls he seems to have done something wrong.’

‘Not true,’ Justin objects.

‘Sure,’ Bea responds breezily, flicking through a magazine. ‘And I’m not moving in with Peter.’

‘You’re right, you’re not. Peter,’ he spits out the name, ‘picks strawberries for a living.’

‘I love strawberries,’ Al offers his support. ‘If it wasn’t for Petey, I wouldn’t eat ’em.’

‘Peter is an IT consultant.’ Bea holds her hands out in confusion.

Choosing this moment to butt in, Doris turns to Justin. ‘Sweetie, you know I’m all for this stuff with the déjà vu lady—’

‘Joyce, her name is Joyce.’

‘Whatever, but you got nothing but a coincidence. And I’m all for coincidences but this is … well, a pretty dumb one.’

‘I have not got nothing, Doris, and that sentence is atrociously wrong on so many grammatical levels, you wouldn’t believe. I have got a name and now I have a number.’ He kneels before Doris and squeezes her face in his hands, pushing her cheeks together so that her lips puff out. ‘And that, Doris Hitchcock, means that I got something!’

‘It also makes you a stalker,’ Bea says under her breath.

You are now leaving Dublin. We hope you enjoyed your stay.

Dad’s rubber ears go back on his head, his bushy eyebrows lift upward.

‘You’ll tell all the family that I’m asking for them, won’t you, Fran?’ Dad says a little nervously.

‘Of course I will, Henry. You’ll have a great time.’ Fran’s eyes smile at me knowingly in the rearview mirror.

‘I’ll see them all when I come back,’ Dad adds, closely watching a plane as it disappears to the skies. ‘It’s off behind the clouds now,’ he says, looking at me unsurely.

‘The best part,’ I smile.

He relaxes a little.

Fran pulls over at the drop-off section, busy with people conscious they can’t stay for more than a minute and are quickly unloading bags, hugging, taxi drivers being paid, other drivers being moved on. Dad stands still, like the rock thrown into the stream again, and takes it all in, as I lift the bags from the boot. Eventually he snaps out of it and turns his attention to Fran, suddenly filled with warm affection for a woman he usually can’t stop bickering about. Then he surprises us all by offering her a hug, awkward as it is.

Once inside, in the hustle and bustle of one of Europe’s busiest airports, Dad holds on to my arm tightly with one hand and with the other, pulls along the weekend bag I’ve lent him. It had taken me the entire day and night to convince him it wasn’t anything like the tartan trolley-bags Fran and all the other older ladies use for their shopping. He looks around now and I see him registering men with similar bags. He looks happy, if not a little confused. We go to the computers to check in.

‘What are you doing? Getting the sterling pounds out?’

‘It’s not an ATM, this is check-in, Dad.’

‘Do we not speak to a person?’

‘No, this machine does it for us.’

‘I wouldn’t trust this yoke.’ He looks over the shoulder of the man beside us. ‘Excuse me, is your yokey-mabob working for you?’

‘Scusi?’

Dad laughs. ‘Scoozy-woozy to you too.’ He looks back at me with a grin on his face. ‘Scoozy. That’s a good one.’

‘Mi dispiace tanto, signore, la prego di ignorarlo, è un vecchio sciocco e non sa cosa dice,’ I apologise to the Italian man, who seemed more than taken aback by Dad’s comments. I have no idea what I’ve said but he returns my smile and continues checking in.

‘You speak Italian?’ Dad looks surprised but I haven’t time to respond as he hushes me as an announcement is made. ‘Whisht, Gracie, it might be for us. We better hurry.’

‘We have two hours until our flight.’

‘Why did we come so early?’

‘We have to.’ I’m already getting tired now and the tireder I get, the shorter the answers get.

‘Who says?’

‘Security.’

‘Security who?’

‘Airport security. Through there.’ I nod in the direction of the metal detectors.

‘Where do we go now?’ he asks once I retrieve our boarding passes from the machine.

‘To check our bags in.’

‘Can we not carry them on?’

‘No.’

‘Hello,’ the lady behind the counter smiles, and takes my passport and Dad’s ID.

‘Hello,’ Dad says chirpily, a saccharine smile forcing itself through the wrinkles of his permanently grumpy face.

I roll my eyes. Always a sucker for the ladies.

‘How many bags are you checking in?’

‘Two.’

‘Did you pack your own bags?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’ Dad nudges me and frowns. ‘You packed my bag for me, Gracie.’

I sigh. ‘Yes, but you were with me, Dad. We packed it together.’

‘Not what she asked.’ He turns back to the lady. ‘Is that OK?’

‘Yes.’ She continues, ‘Did anybody ask you to carry anything for them on the plane?’

‘N—’

‘Yes,’ Dad interrupts me again. ‘Gracie put a pair of her shoes in my bag because they wouldn’t fit in hers. We’re only going for a couple of days, you know, and she brought three pairs. Three.’

‘Do you have anything sharp or dangerous in your hand luggage – scissors, tweezers, lighters or anything like that?’

‘No,’ I say.

Dad squirms and doesn’t respond.

‘Dad,’ I elbow him, ‘tell her no.’

‘No,’ he finally says.

‘Well done,’ I snap.

‘Have a pleasant trip.’ She hands us back our IDs.

‘Thank you. You have very nice lipstick,’ Dad adds before I pull him away.

I take deep breaths as we approach the security gates and I try to remind myself that this is Dad’s first time in an airport and that if you’ve never heard the questions before, particularly if you’re a seventy-five-year-old, I agree they would seem quite strange.

‘Are you excited?’ I ask, trying to make the moment enjoyable.

‘Delirious, love.’

I give up and keep to myself.

I collect a clear plastic bag and fill it with my make-up and his pills, and we make our way through the maze that is the security queue.

‘I feel like a little mouse,’ Dad comments. ‘Will there be cheese at the end of this?’ He gives a wheezy laugh. Then we are through to the metal detectors.

‘Just do what they say,’ I tell him while taking off my belt and jacket. ‘You won’t cause any trouble, will you?’

‘Trouble? Why would I cause trouble? What are you doing? Why are you taking your clothes off, Gracie?’

I groan quietly.

‘Sir, could you please remove your shoes, belt, overcoat and cap?’

‘What?’ Dad laughs at him.

‘Remove your shoes, belt, overcoat and cap.’

‘I will do no such thing. You want me walking around in my socks?’

‘Dad, just do it,’ I tell him.

‘If I take my belt off, my trousers will fall down,’ he says angrily.

‘You can hold them up with your hands,’ I snap.

‘Christ Almighty,’ he says loudly.

The young man looks round to his colleagues.

‘Dad, just do it,’ I say more firmly now. An extremely long queue of irritated seasoned travellers who already have their shoes, belts and coats off, is forming behind us.

‘Empty your pockets, please.’ An older and angrier-looking security man steps in.

Dad looks uncertain.

‘Oh my God, Dad, this is not a joke. Just do it.’

‘Can I empty them away from her?’

‘No, you’ll do it right here.’

‘I’m not looking.’ I turn away, baffled.

I hear clinking noises as Dad empties his pockets.

‘Sir, you were told you could not bring these things through with you.’

I spin round to see the security man holding a lighter and toe-nail clippers in his hands, the packet of cigarettes is in the tray with the photograph of Mum. And a banana.

‘Dad!’ I say.

‘Stay out of this, please.’

‘Don’t speak to my daughter like that. I didn’t know I couldn’t bring them. She said scissors and tweezers and water and—’

‘OK, we understand, sir, but we’re going to have to take these from you.’

‘But that’s my good lighter, you can’t take it from me! And what’ll I do without my clippers?’

‘We’ll buy new ones,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘Now just do what they say.’

‘OK,’ he waves his hands rudely at them, ‘keep the damn things.’

‘Sir, please remove your cap, jacket, shoes and belt.’

‘He’s an old man,’ I say to the security guard in a low voice so that the gathering crowd behind us don’t hear. ‘He needs a chair to sit on to take off his shoes. And he shouldn’t have to take them off as they’re corrective footwear. Can you not just let him through?’

‘The nature of his right shoe means that we must check it,’ the man begins to explain but Dad overhears and explodes.

‘Do you think I have a BOMB IN MY SHOE? Sure, what kind of eejit would do that? Do you think I have a BOMB sittin’ on my head under my cap or in my belt? Is my banana really a GUN, do you think?’ He waves the banana around at the staff, making shooting sounds. ‘Are you all gone loony in here?’

Dad reaches for his cap. ‘Or maybe I’ve a GRENADE under my—’

He doesn’t have the opportunity to finish as everything goes crazy. He is whisked away before my eyes and I am taken to a small cell-like room and ordered to wait.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After fifteen minutes of sitting alone in the sparse interrogation room with nothing but a table and chair, I hear the door in the next room open, then close. I hear the squeak of chair legs and then Dad’s voice, as always, louder than everyone else’s. I move closer to the wall and press my ear up against it.

‘Who are you travelling with?’

‘Gracie.’

‘Are you sure about that, Mr Conway?’

‘Of course! She’s my daughter, ask her yourself!’

‘Her passport tells us her name is Joyce. Is she lying to us, Mr Conway? Or are you lying?’

‘I’m not lying. Oh, I meant Joyce, I meant to say Joyce.’

‘Are you changing your story now?’

‘What story? I got the name wrong, is all. My wife is Gracie, I get confused.’

‘Where is your wife?’

‘She’s not with us any more. She’s in my pocket. I mean the photograph of her is in my pocket. At least, it was in my pocket until the lads out there took her and put her in the tray. Will I get my toe-nail clippers back, do you think? They cost me a bit.’

‘Mr Conway, you were told sharp items and lighter fluid is not permitted on the flights.’

‘I know that, but my daughter, Gracie, I mean, Joyce, went mad at me yesterday when she found my pack of smokes hidden in the Sugar Puffs and I didn’t want to take the lighter out of my pocket or she’d lose the head again. I apologise for that, though. I wasn’t intending to blow up the plane or anything.’

‘Mr Conway, please refrain from using such language. Why did you refuse to take off your shoes?’

‘I have holes in me socks!’

There is a silence.

‘I’m seventy-five years old, young man. Why on earth do I have to take my shoes off? Did you think I was going to blow the plane up with a rubber shoe? Or maybe it’s the insoles you’re worried about. Maybe you’re right, you can never tell the damage a man can do with a good insole—’

‘Mr Conway, please don’t use such language and refrain from smart-aleck behaviour or you will not be allowed on the plane. What was the reason for your refusal to remove your belt?’

‘My trousers would have fallen down! I’m not like all these kids now, I don’t wear a belt to look groovy, as they say. Where I come from you wear it because it keeps your pants up. And you’d be arrestin’ me for a whole lot more than this, if it didn’t, believe you me.’

‘You haven’t been arrested, Mr Conway. We just need to ask you some questions. Behaviour such as yours is prohibited at this airport, so we need to ascertain if you are a threat to the safety of our passengers.’

‘What do you mean, a threat?’

The security officer clears his throat. ‘Well, it means finding out if you are a member of any gangs or terrorist organisations before we reconsider allowing you through.’

I hear Dad roar with laughter.

‘You must understand that planes are very confined spaces and we can’t allow anybody on that we aren’t sure of. We have the right to choose who we allow onboard our aircraft.’

‘The only threat I’d be in a confined space is when I’ve had a good curry from my local. And terrorist organisations? I am, all right. The Monday Club is all I’m a member of. Meet every Monday except on bank holidays when we meet on a Tuesday. A bunch of lads and lasses like me gettin’ together for a few pints and a singsong is all it is. Though if you’re lookin’ for juice, Donal’s family were pretty heavily involved in the IRA all right.’

I hear the man questioning him clear his throat again.

‘Donal?’

‘Donal McCarthy. Ah, leave him alone, he’s ninety-seven, and I’m talkin’ about way back when his dad fought. The only rebellious thing he’s able to do now is whack the chessboard with his cane and that’s only because he’s frustrated he can’t play. Arthritis in both his hands. Could do with gettin’ it in his mouth, if you ask me. Talkin’ is all he does. Annoys Peter no end but they’ve never gotten along since he courted his daughter and broke her heart. She’s seventy-two. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous? Had a wandering eye, she claimed, but sure, he’s as cock-eyed as they come. His eye wanders without him even knowing it. I wouldn’t blame the man for that, though he does like to dominate the conversations every week. I can’t wait for him to listen to me for a change.’ Dad laughs and sighs in the long pause that follows. ‘Do you think I could get a cuppa?’

‘We won’t be much longer, Mr Conway. What is the nature of your visit to London?’

‘I’m going because my daughter dragged me here, last minute. She gets off the phone yesterday morning and looks at me with a face as white as a sheet. I’m off to London, she says, like it’s somethin’ you just do last minute. Ah, maybe it is what you young people do, but not for me. Not what I’m used to at all, at all. Never been on a plane before, you see. So she says wouldn’t it be fun if we both go away? And usually I’d say no, I’ve loads to be doin’ in my garden. Have to put down the lilies, tulips, daffodils and hyacinths in time for the spring, you see, but she says live a little and I felt like peltin’ her because it’s more livin’ I’ve been doing than her. But because of recent, well, troubles, shall we say, I decided to come with her. And that’s no crime, is it?’

‘What recent troubles, Mr Conway?’

‘Ah, my Gracie—’

‘Joyce.’

‘Yes, thank you. My Joyce, she’s been goin’ through a rough patch. Lost her little baby a few weeks back, you see. Had been years trying to have one with a fella that plays tennis in little white shorts and things finally looked great but she had an accident, fell, you see and she lost the little one. Lost a little of herself too, if I’m to be honest with you. Lost the husband too just last week, but don’t you be feelin’ sorry for her about that. She lost somethin’ all right but, mind you, she got a little somethin’ she never had before. Can’t put my finger on exactly what, but whatever it is, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. Generally things aren’t goin’ right for her and sure, what kind of a father would I be to let her go off on her own in this state? She’s got no job, no baby, no husband, no mother and soon no house, and if she wants to go to London for a break, even if it is last minute, then she sure as hell is entitled to go without any more people stopping her from what she wants.

‘Here, take my bloody cap. My Joyce wants to go to London and you fellows should let her. She’s a good girl, never did a thing wrong in her life. She has nothing right now but me and this trip, as far as I can see. So here, take it. If I have to go without my cap and my shoes and my belt and my coat, well then, that’s fine by me, but my Joyce isn’t going to London without me.’

Well, if that isn’t enough to break a girl.

‘Mr Conway, you do know that you get your clothing back once you go through the metal detector?’

‘What?’ he shouts. ‘Why the hell didn’t she tell me that? All this feckin’ nonsense for nothing. Honestly, you’d think she almost wants the trouble sometimes. OK, lads, you can take my things. Will we still make the flight, do you think?’

Any tears that had welled very quickly dried.

Finally the door to my cell opens and, with a single nod, I’m a free woman.

‘Doris, you cannot move the stove in the kitchen. Al, tell her.’

‘Why not?’

‘Honey, first of all it’s heavy and second of all, it’s gas. You are not qualified to move around kitchen appliances,’ Al explains, and prepares to bite into a doughnut.

Doris whisks it away from him, leaving him to lick dribbles of jam from his fingers. ‘You two don’t seem to understand that it’s bad feng shui to have a stove facing a door. The person at the stove may instinctively want to glance back at the door, which creates a feeling of unease, which can lead to accidents.’

‘Perhaps removing the stove altogether will be a safer option for Dad.’

‘You have to give me a break,’ Justin sighs, sitting down at the new kitchen table and chairs. ‘All the place needs is furniture and a lick of paint, not for you to restructure the entire place according to yoda.’

‘It is not according to yoda,’ Doris huffs. ‘Donald Trump follows feng shui, you know.’

‘Oh, well then,’ Al and Justin say in unison.

‘Yes, well then. Maybe if you did what he did, you’d be able to walk up the stairs without having to take a lunch-break halfway up,’ she snaps at Al. ‘Just because you sell tyres, sweetie, it doesn’t mean you have to wear them too.’

Bea’s mouth drops and Justin tries not to laugh. ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s get out of here before it turns to violence.’

‘Where are you two going? Can I come?’ Al asks.

‘I’m going to the dentist and Bea has rehearsals for tonight.’

‘Good luck, Blondie.’ Al ruffles her hair. ‘We’ll be cheering for you.’

‘Thanks.’ She grinds her teeth and fixes her hair. ‘Oh, that reminds me. One more thing about the woman on the phone, Joyce?’

What, what, what? ‘What about her?’

‘She knows that I’m blonde.’

‘How did she know?’ Doris asks, with surprise.

‘She said she just guessed. But that’s not it. Before she hung up she said, “Best of luck with your ballet show.”’

‘So she’s a thoughtful lucky-guesser,’ Al shrugs.

‘Well, I was thinking about it afterward and I don’t remember telling her anything about my show being specifically ballet.’

Justin immediately looks to Al, a little more concerned now that it involves his daughter, but adrenalin still surges. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think, watch your back, bro. She could be a fruit cake.’ He stands up and heads to the kitchen, rubbing his stomach. ‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Fruit cake.’

Deflated, Justin looks hopefully at his daughter. ‘Did she sound like a fruit cake?’

‘I dunno,’ Bea shrugs. ‘What does a fruit cake sound like?’

Justin, Al and Bea all turn to stare at Doris.

‘What?’ she squeals.

‘No,’ Bea shakes her head wildly at her father. ‘Nothing like that, at all.’

‘What’s this for, Gracie?’

‘It’s a sick bag.’

‘What does this do?’

‘It’s for hanging your coat up.’

‘Why is that there?’

‘It’s a table.’

‘How do you get it down?’

‘By unlatching it, at the top.’

‘Sir, please leave your table-top up until after take-off.’

Silence.

‘What are they doing outside?’

‘Loading the bags.’

‘What’s that yoke?’

‘An ejector seat for people who ask three million questions.’

‘What’s it, really?’

‘For reclining your chair.’

‘Sir, could you stay upright until after take-off, please?’

Silence.

‘What does that do?’

‘Air conditioning.’

‘What about that?’

‘A light.’

‘And that one?’

‘Yes, sir, can I help you?’

‘Eh, no, thanks.’

‘You pressed the button for assistance.’

‘Oh, is that what that little woman on the button is for? I didn’t know. Can I have a drink of water?’

‘We can’t serve drinks until after take-off, sir.’

‘Oh, OK. That was a fine display you did earlier. You were the image of my friend Edna when you had that oxygen mask on. She used to smoke sixty a day, you see.’

The air stewardess makes an oh shape with her mouth.

‘I feel very safe now, but what if we go down over land?’ He raises his voice and the passengers around us look our way. ‘Surely the life jackets are hopeless, unless we blow our whistles while we’re flying through the air and hope someone below hears us and catches us. Do we not have parachutes?’

‘There’s no need to worry, sir, we won’t go down over land.’

‘OK. That’s very reassuring, indeed. But if we do, tell the pilot to aim for a hay stack or something.’

I take deep breaths and pretend that I don’t know him. I continue reading my book, The Golden Age of Dutch Painting: Vermeer, Metsu and Terborch, and convince myself this was not the bad idea it’s turning out to be.

‘Where are the toilets?’

‘To the top and on the left but you can’t go until after takeoff.’

Dad’s eyes widen. ‘And when will that be?’

‘In just a few minutes.’

‘In just a few minutes, that,’ he takes the sick bag out from the seat pocket, ‘won’t be used for what it’s supposed to be used for.’

‘We will be in the air in just a few minutes more, I assure you.’ The stewardess quickly leaves before he asks another question.

I sigh.

‘Don’t you be sighing until after take-off,’ Dad says, and the man next to me laughs and pretends to turn it into a cough.

Dad looks out the window and I revel in the moment of silence.

‘Oh oh oh,’ he sings, ‘we’re moving now, Gracie.’

As soon as we’re off the ground, the wheels moan as they’re brought back up and then we are light in the air. Dad is suddenly quiet. He is turned sideways in his chair, head filling the window, watching as we reach the beginning of the clouds, mere wisps at first. The plane bumps around as it pushes through the clouds. Dad is agog as we’re surrounded by white on all sides of the plane, his head darts around looking at every window possible, and then suddenly it is blue and calm above the fluffy world of clouds. Dad blesses himself. He pushes his nose up against the window, his face lit by the nearby sun, and I take a mental photograph for my own hall of memories.

The seatbelt fasten sign goes off with a bing and cabin crew announce that we may now use electronic devices, the facilities, and that food and refreshments will be served shortly. Dad takes down the table-top, reaches into his pocket and takes out his photograph of Mum. He places her down on the table, facing out the window. He reclines his chair and they both watch the endless sea of white clouds disappear further below us and don’t say a word for the remainder of the flight.

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘Well, I must say, that was absolutely marvellous. Marvellous indeed.’ Dad pumps the pilot’s hand up and down enthusiastically.

We are standing by the just-opened door of the plane, with a queue of hundreds of irritated passengers huffing and puffing down our necks. They are like greyhounds whose trap has opened, the bunny has been fired off ahead of them and all that blocks their path is, well, Dad. The usual rock in the stream.

‘And the food,’ Dad continues to the cabin crew, ‘it was excellent, just excellent.’

He’s eaten a ham roll and a cup of tea.

‘I can’t believe I was eating in the sky,’ he laughs. ‘Well done again, just marvellous. Nothing short of miraculous, I’d say. My Lord.’ He pumps the pilot’s hand again, as though he’s meeting JFK.

‘OK, Dad, we should move on now. We’re holding everybody up.’

‘Oh, is that so? Thanks again, folks.’ Bye now. Might see you on the way back,’ he shouts over his shoulder, as I pull him away.

We make our way through the tunnel adjoining the plane to the terminal and Dad says hello and tips his hat to everyone we pass.

‘You really don’t have to say hello to everybody, you know.’

‘It’s nice to be important, Gracie, but it’s more important to be nice. Particularly when in another country,’ says the man who hasn’t left the province of Leinster for ten years.

‘Will you stop shouting?’

‘I can’t help it. My ears feel funny.’

‘Either yawn or hold your nose and blow. It will help your ears to pop.’

He stands by the conveyor belt, purple-faced, with his cheeks puffed out and his fingers over his nose. He takes a deep breath and pushes. He lets out a fart.

The conveyor belt jerks into motion and like flies around a carcass, people suddenly swoop in front of us to block our view, as though their life depends on grabbing their bags this very second.

‘There’s your bag.’ I step forward.

‘I’ll get it, love.’

‘No, I will. You’ll hurt your back.’

‘Step back, love, I can do it.’ He passes over the yellow line and grabs his bag, only to realise that the strength he once had is gone and he finds himself walking alongside it, while tugging away. Ordinarily I would rush to help him but I’m doubled over laughing. All I can hear is Dad saying, ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ to people who are standing over the yellow line, as he tries to keep up with his moving luggage. He does a full lap of the conveyor belt and by the time he gets back to where I stand (though I’m still doubled over) somebody has the common sense to help the out-of-breath grumbling old man.

He pulls his bag over to me, his face scarlet, his breathing heavy.

‘I’ll let you get your own bag,’ he says, pulling his cap further down over his eyes with embarrassment.

I wait for our bags while Dad wanders around baggage claim ‘acquainting himself with London’. After the incident at Dublin airport, the satellite navigational voice in my head has continuously nagged at me to make a U-turn right now but somewhere inside, another part of me is under strict orders to soldier on, feeling convinced this trip is the right thing to do. Now I’m wondering what exactly this is. As I collect my bag from the belt, I am aware that there is not a clear purpose for this trip at all. A wild-goose chase is all it is. Instinct alone, caused by a confusing conversation with a girl named Bea, has caused me to fly to another country with my seventy-five-year-old father, who has never left Ireland in his life. Suddenly what seemed like the ‘only thing to do’ at the time, has now occurred to me as being completely irrational behaviour.

What does it mean to dream about somebody you’ve never met, almost every night, and then have a chance encounter with them over the phone? I had called my dad’s emergency number; she had answered her dad’s emergency phone number. What message is in that? What am I supposed to learn? Is it a mere coincidence that an ordinary right-thinking person would ignore or am I right to think and feel that something more lies beneath this? My hope is that this trip will have some answers for me. Panic begins to build as I watch Dad reading a poster on the far side of the room. I have no idea what to do with him.

Suddenly Dad’s hand flies to his head and then his chest and he darts towards me with a manic look in his eyes. I make a grab for his pills.

‘Gracie,’ he gasps.

‘Here, quickly, take these.’ My hand trembles as I hold out the pills and bottle of water.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Well, you looked …’

‘I looked what?’

‘Like you were going to have a heart attack!’

‘That’s because I bloody well will, if we don’t get out of here quick.’ He grabs my arm and starts to pull me along.

‘What’s wrong? Where are we going?’

‘We’re going to Westminster.’

‘What? Why? No! Dad, we have to go to the hotel to leave our bags.’

He stops walking and whips around, pushes his face close to mine, almost aggressively. His voice shakes with the adrenalin. ‘The Antiques Roadshow are having a valuation day today from nine thirty to four thirty in the afternoon in a place called Banqueting House. If we leave now we can start queuing. I’m not going to miss seeing it on the telly and then come all the way to London just to miss seeing it in the flesh. Sure we might even get to see Michael Aspel. Michael Aspel, Gracie. Christ Almighty, let’s get out of here.’

His pupils are dilated, he’s all fired up. He shoots off through the sliding doors, with nothing to declare but tempor ary insanity, and takes a confident left.

I stand in the arrivals hall, while men in suits approach me with placards from all sides. I sigh and wait. Dad appears from the direction he went in, seesawing and pulling his bag behind him at top speed.

‘You could have told me that was the wrong way,’ he says, passing me and heading in the opposite direction.

Dad rushes through Trafalgar Square, pulling his suitcase behind him and scattering a flock of pigeons into the sky. He’s not interested in acquainting himself with London any more; he has only Michael Aspel and the treasures of the blue-rinse brigade in sight. Finally, after we’ve taken a few wrong turns since surfacing from the tube station, Banqueting House is eventually in view, a seventeenth-century former royal palace, and though I am sure I have never visited it before, it stands before me, a familiar sight.

Once deep in the queue, I study the single drawer that is in the hands of the old man in front of us. Behind us, a woman is rolling out a tea cup from a pile of newspapers to show somebody else in the queue. All around me there is excited and rather innocent and polite chatter, and the sun is shining as we wait outside to enter the reception area of Banqueting House. There are TV vans, camera and sound people going in and out of the building, and cameras filming the long queue while a woman with a microphone picks people out of the crowd to interview. Many people in the queue have brought deck chairs, picnic baskets of scones and finger sandwiches, and canteens of tea and coffee, and as Dad looks around with a grumbling stomach I feel like a guilty mother who hasn’t properly equipped her child. I’m also concerned for Dad that we won’t make it past the front door.

‘Dad, I don’t want to worry you but I really think that we’re supposed to have something with us.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Like an object. Everybody else has things with them to be valued.’

Dad looks around and notices for the first time. His face falls.

‘Maybe they’ll make an exception for us,’ I add quickly but I doubt it.

‘What about these cases?’ He looks down at our bags.

I try not to laugh. ‘I got them in TK Maxx; I don’t think they’ll be interested in valuing them.’

Dad laughs. ‘Maybe I’ll give them my undies, Gracie, what you think? There’s a fine bit of history in them.’

I make a face and he waves his hand dismissively.

We shuffle along slowly in the queue and Dad has a great time chatting to everybody about his life and his exciting trip with his daughter. After queuing for an hour and a half, we have been invited to two houses for afternoon tea and Dad has taken note from the gentleman behind us on how to stop the mint in his garden from taking over his rosemary. Up ahead, just beyond the doors, I see an elderly couple being turned away due to having no items with them. Dad sees this too and looks at me, his eyes worried. It will be us next.

‘Eh …’ I look around quickly for something.

Both entrance doors have been held open for the flowing crowd. Just inside the main entrance, behind the opened door is a wooden waste basket posing as an umbrella stand, holding a few forgotten and broken umbrellas. While no one is looking I turn it upside down, emptying the few scrunched balls of paper and broken umbrellas out. I kick them behind the door just in time to hear, ‘Next.’

I carry it up to the reception desk and Dad’s eyes almost pop out of his head at the sight of me.

‘Welcome to Banqueting House,’ the young woman greets us.

‘Thank you,’ I smile innocently.

‘How many objects have you brought today?’ she asks.

‘Oh, just the one.’ I raise the bin onto the table.

‘Oh, wow, fantastic.’ She runs her fingers along it and Dad gives me a look, that if for any second I had forgotten which of us was the parent, I am quickly reminded. ‘Have you been to a valuation day before?’

‘No.’ Dad shakes his head wildly. ‘But I see it on the telly all the time. Big fan, I am. Even when Hugh Scully was host.’

‘Wonderful,’ she smiles. ‘Once you enter the hall you’ll see there are many queues. Please join the queue for the appropriate discipline.’

‘What queue should we join for this thing?’ Dad looks at the item as though there’s a bad smell.

‘Well, what is it?’ she smiles.

Dad looks at me baffled.

‘We were hoping you’d tell us that,’ I say politely.

‘I’d suggest miscellaneous, and though that is the busiest table, we try to move it along as quickly as possible for you by having four experts. Once you reach the expert’s table, simply show your item and he or she will tell you all about it.’

‘Which table do we go to for Michael Aspel?’

‘Unfortunately Michael Aspel isn’t actually an expert, he is the host, so he doesn’t have a table of his own, but we do have twenty other experts that will be available to answer your questions.’

Dad looks devastated.

‘There is the chance that your item may be chosen for television,’ she adds quickly, sensing Dad’s disappointment. ‘The expert shows the object to the television team and a decision is made whether to record it, depending on rarity, quality, what the expert can say about the object and, of course, value. If your object is chosen, you’ll be taken to our waiting room and made up before talking to the expert about your object in front of the camera for about five minutes. You would meet Michael Aspel under those circumstances. And the exciting news is that for the first time, we are broadcasting the show live, in, ooh let’s see,’ she examines her watch, ‘in one hour.’

Dad’s eyes widen. ‘But five minutes? To talk about that thing?’ Dad explodes and she laughs.

‘Do bear in mind that we have to see two thousand people’s items before the show,’ she says to me with a knowing look.

‘We understand. We’re just here to enjoy the day, isn’t that right, Dad?’

He doesn’t hear; he’s busy looking around for Michael Aspel.

‘Do enjoy your day,’ the woman says finally, calling the next person in line forward.

As soon as we enter the busy hall, I immediately look up at the ceiling of the double-cubed room, already knowing what to expect: nine huge canvases commissioned by Charles I, to fill the panelled ceiling.

‘Here you go, Dad.’ I hand him the waste basket. ‘I’m going to take a look around this beautiful building while you look at the junk people are putting inside it.’

‘It’s not junk, Gracie. I once saw the show where a man’s collection of walking sticks went for sixty thousand sterling pounds.’

‘Wow, in that case you should show them your shoe.’

He tries not to laugh.

‘Off you go to have a look around and I’ll meet you back here.’ He starts to wander away before he even finishes the sentence. Dying to get rid of me.

‘Have fun,’ I wink.

He smiles broadly and looks around the hall with such happiness, my mind takes another photograph.

As I wander the rooms of the only part of Whitehall Palace to survive a fire, the feeling that I’ve been here before comes over me in a giant wave and I find a quiet corner and secretly produce my mobile.

‘Manager, deputy head corporate treasury and investor solutions desk, Frankie speaking.’

‘My God, you weren’t lying. That’s a ridiculous amount of words.’

‘Joyce! Hi!’ Her voice is hushed and behind her, the stock-trading in the Irish Financial Services Centre offices, sounds manic.

‘Can you talk?’

‘For a little bit, yeah. How are you?’

‘I’m fine. I’m in London. With Dad.’

‘What? With your dad? Joyce, I’ve told you before it’s not polite to bind and gag your father. What are you doing there?’

‘I just decided to come over last minute.’ For what, I have no idea. ‘We’re currently at the Antiques Roadshow. Don’t ask.’

I leave the quiet rooms behind me and enter the gallery of the main hall. Below me I can see Dad wandering around the crowded hall with the bin in his hands. I smile as I watch him.

‘Have we ever been to Banqueting House together?’

‘Refresh my memory, where is it, what is it and what does it look like?’

‘It’s at the Trafalgar Square end of Whitehall. It’s a seventeenth-century former royal palace designed by Inigo Jones in 1619. Charles I was executed on a scaffold in front of the building. I’m in a room now, with nine canvases covering the panelled ceiling.’ What does it look like? I close my eyes. ‘From memory, the roofline is balustrade. The street façade has two orders of engaged columns, Corinthian over Ionic, above a rusticated basement, which lock together in a harmonious whole.’

‘Joyce?’

‘Yes?’ I snap out of it.

‘Are you reading from a tourist guide?’

‘No.’

‘Our last trip to London consisted of Madame Tussaud’s, a night in G-A-Y and a party back in a man named Gloria’s flat. It’s happening again, isn’t it? That thing you were talking about?’

‘Yes.’ I slump into a chair in the corner, feel a rope beneath me and jump back up. I quickly move away from the antique chair, looking around for security cameras.

‘Has your being in London got anything to do with the American man?’

‘Yes,’ I whisper.

‘Oh, Joyce—’

‘No, Frankie, listen. Listen and you’ll understand. I hope. Yesterday I panicked about something and called Dad’s doctor, a number that is practically engraved in my head, as it should be. I couldn’t possibly get it wrong, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Wrong. I ended up dialling a UK number and a girl named Bea answered the phone. She’d seen an Irish number and thought it was her dad calling. So from our short conversation I figure out that her dad is American but was in Dublin and was travelling to London last night to see her in a show today. And she has blonde hair. I think Bea is the little girl I keep dreaming about seeing on the swings and playing in the sand, all at different ages.’

Frankie is quiet.

‘I know I sound insane, Frankie, but this is what’s happening. I have no explanation for it.’

‘I know, I know,’ she says quickly. ‘I’ve known you practi c ally all my life – this is not something you’d be inclined to make up – but even as I take you seriously please do keep in consideration the fact that you’ve had a traumatic time and what you’re currently experiencing could be due to high levels of stress.’

‘I’ve already considered that.’ I groan and hold my head in my hands. ‘I need help.’

‘We’ll only consider insanity as a last resort. Let me think for a second.’ She sounds as though she’s writing it down. ‘So basically, you have seen this girl, Bea—’

‘Maybe Bea.’

‘OK, OK, let’s just say it is Bea. You’ve seen her grow up?’

‘Yes.’

‘To what age?’

‘From birth to I don’t know …’

‘Teenager, twenties, thirties?’

‘Teenager.’

‘OK, so who else is in the scenes with Bea?’

‘Another woman. With a camera.’

‘But never your American man?’

‘No. So he probably has nothing to do with this at all.’

‘Let’s not rule anything out. So when you view Bea and the lady with the camera, are you part of the scene or viewing them as an outsider?’

I close my eyes and think hard, see my hands pushing the swing, holding hands, taking a photograph of the girl and her mother in the park, feeling the water from the sprinklers spray and tickle my skin … ‘No, I’m part of it. They can see me.’

‘OK.’ She is silent.

‘What, Frankie, what?’

‘I’m figuring it out. Hold on. OK. So you see a child, a mother and they both see you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you say that in your dreams you’re viewing this girl grow up through the eyes of a father?’

Goose bumps form on my skin.

‘Oh my God,’ I whisper. The American man?

‘I take it that’s a yes,’ Frankie says. ‘OK, we’re on to something here. I don’t know what, but it’s something very weird and I can’t believe I’m even entertaining these thoughts. But what the hell, I only have a million other things to do. What else do you dream about?’

‘It’s all very fast, images just flashing by.’

‘Try and remember.’

‘Sprinklers in a garden. A chubby young boy. A woman with long red hair. I hear bells. See old buildings with shop fronts. A church. A beach. I’m at a funeral. Then at college. Then with the woman and young girl. Sometimes she’s smiling and holding my hand, sometimes she’s shouting and slamming doors.’

‘Hmm … she must be your wife.’

I bury my head in my hands. ‘Frankie, this sounds so ridiculous.’

‘Who cares? When has life ever made sense? Let’s keep going.’

‘I don’t know, the images are all so abstract. I can’t make any sense of it.’

‘What you should do is, every time you get a flash of something, or suddenly know something you never knew, then write it down and tell me. I’ll help you figure this out.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So apart from the place you’re in now, what kinds of things do you suddenly just know about?’

‘Em … mostly buildings.’ I look around and then up at the ceiling. ‘And art. I spoke Italian to a man at the airport. And Latin, I spoke Latin to Conor the other day.’

‘Oh God.’

‘I know. I think he wants to have me sent away.’

‘Well, we won’t let him do that. Yet. OK so, buildings, art, languages. Wow, Joyce, it’s like you’ve gotten a crash course in an entire college education you never had. Where is the culturally ignorant girl I once knew and loved?’

I smile. ‘She’s still here.’

‘OK, one more thing. My boss has called me for a meeting this afternoon. What is it about?’

‘Frankie, I don’t have psychic powers!’

The door to the gallery opens and a flustered-looking young girl with a headset over her head rushes in. She approaches almost every woman on her way in, asking for me.

‘Joyce Conway?’ she asks me, out of breath.

‘Yes.’ My heat beats a mile a minute. Please let Dad be OK. Please, God.

‘Is your father Henry?’

‘Yes.’

‘He wants you to join him in the green room.’

‘He what? In the what?’

‘He’s in the green room. He’s going live with Michael Aspel in just a few minutes with his item and he wants you to join him because he says you know more about it. We really have to move now, there’s very little time and we need to get you made up.’

‘Live with Michael Aspel …’ I trail off. I realise I’m still holding the phone. ‘Frankie,’ I say, dazed, ‘put on BBC, quick. You’re about to witness me getting into very big trouble.’



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I half-walk, half-run behind the girl with the headset, to get to the green room, and arrive panting and nervous to see Dad sitting on a make-up chair facing a mirror lit up by bulbs, tissue tucked into his collar, a cup and saucer in his hand, his bulbous nose being powdered for his close-up.

‘Ah, there you are, love,’ Dad says grandly. ‘Everybody, this is my daughter and she’ll be the one to tell us all about my lovely piece here that caught the eye of Michael Aspel.’ This is followed by a chuckle and he sips on his tea. ‘There’s Jaffa Cakes over there if you want them.’

Evil little man.

I look around the room at all the interested, nodding heads, and force a smile onto my face.

Justin squirms uncomfortably in his chair in the dentist’s waiting room, with his throbbing swollen cheek, sandwiched between two old dears carrying on a conversation about someone they know called Rebecca, who should leave a man called Timothy.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

The 1970s television in the corner, which is covered by a lace cloth and fake flowers, announces that the Antiques Roadshow is about to begin.

Justin groans. ‘Does anybody mind if I change the channel?’

‘I’m watching it,’ says a young boy no older than seven years old.

‘Charming,’ Justin smiles at him with loathing, then looks to his mother for backup.

Instead she shrugs. ‘He’s watching it.’

Justin grunts in frustration.

‘Excuse me.’ Justin finally interrupts the women to his right and left. ‘Would one of you ladies like to swap places with me, so that you can continue this conversation more privately?’

‘No, don’t worry, love, there’s nothing private about this conversation, believe you me. Eavesdrop all you like.’

The smell of her breath silently tiptoes under his nostrils again, tickles them with a feather duster and runs off with an evil giggle.

‘I wasn’t eavesdropping. Your lips were quite literally in my ear, and I’m not sure if Charlie or Graham or Rebecca would appreciate that.’ He turns his nose away.

‘Oh, Ethel,’ one laughs, ‘he thinks we’re talking about real people.’

How foolish I am.

Justin turns his attention back to the television in the corner, which the other six people in the room are glued to.

‘… And welcome to our first live Antiques Roadshow special …’

Justin sighs loudly again.

The little boy narrows his eyes at him and raises the volume with the remote control that is firmly within his grasp.

‘… coming to you from Banqueting House, London.’

Oh, I’ve been there. A nice example of Corinthian and Ionic locked together in a harmonious whole.

‘We have had over two thousand people spilling through our doors since nine thirty this morning, and only moments ago those doors have closed, leaving us to display the best pieces for you to view at home. Our first guests come from—’

Ethel leans across Justin and rests her elbow on his thigh. ‘So anyway, Margaret—’

He zones in on the television so as not to grab both their heads and smash them together.

‘So what do we have here?’ Michael Aspel asks. ‘Looks like a designer waste basket to me,’ he says as the camera takes a close-up on the piece propped on the table.

Justin’s heart begins to palpitate.

‘Do you want me to change it now, mister?’ The boy flicks through the channels at top speed.

‘No!’ he shouts, breaking through Margaret and Ethel’s conversation and reaching out dramatically into thin air as though he can stop the waves from changing the channel. He falls to the carpet on his knees, before the television. Margaret and Ethel jump and go silent. ‘Go back, go back, go back!’ he shouts at the boy.

The boy’s lower lip begins to tremble as he looks to his mother.

‘There’s no need to shout at him.’ She holds his head to her chest, protectively.

He grabs the remote control from the boy and flicks through the channels at top speed. He stops when he comes upon the close-up of Joyce, whose eyes are looking uncertainly to the left and right, as though she has just landed in the cage of a Bengal tiger at feeding time.

In the Irish Financial Services Centre, Frankie is racing through the offices searching for a television. She finds one, surrounded by dozens of suits studying the figures that are racing by on the screen.

‘Excuse me! Coming through!’ she shouts, pushing her way through. She rushes to the TV and starts fiddling with the buttons to cries of abuse from the men and women around her.

‘I’ll just be one minute, the market won’t crash in all of the two minutes this will take.’ She flicks around and finds Joyce and Henry live on BBC.

She gasps and holds her hands up to her mouth. And then she laughs and throws her fist at the screen. ‘You go, Joyce!’

The team around her quickly shuffles off to find another screen, apart from one man who seems pleased by the change in channel and decides to stay and watch.

‘Oh, that’s a nice piece,’ he comments, leaning back against the desk and folding his arms.

‘Em …’ Joyce is saying, ‘well, we found it … I mean we put it, put this beautiful … extraordinarily … eh, wooden … bucket, outside of our house. Well, not outside,’ she quickly withdraws that statement on seeing the appraiser’s reaction. ‘Inside. We put it inside our front porch so that it’s protected from the weather, you see. For umbrellas.’

‘Yes, and it may have been used for that too,’ he says. ‘Where did you get it from?’

Joyce’s mouth opens and closes for a few seconds and Henry jumps in. He is standing upright with his hands clasped over his belly. His chin is raised, there is a glint in his eye and he ignores the expert and takes on a posh accent to direct his answer at Michael Aspel, whom he addresses as though he’s the Pope.

‘Well, Michael, I was given this by my great-great-grandfather Joseph Conway, who was a farmer in Tipperary. He gave it to my grandfather Shay, who was also a farmer. My grandfather gave it to my father, Paddy-Joe, who was also a farmer in Cavan and then when he died, I took it.’

‘I see, and do you have any idea where your great-great-grandfather may have got this?’

‘He probably stole it from the Brits,’ Henry jokes, and is the only one to laugh. Joyce elbows her father, Frankie snorts, and on the floor before the television in a dentist’s waiting room in London, Justin throws his head back and laughs loudly.

‘Well, the reason I ask is because this is a fabulous item you have. It’s a rare nineteenth-century English Victorian era upright jardinière planter—’

‘I love gardening, Michael,’ Henry interrupts the expert, ‘do you?’

Michael smiles at him politely and the expert continues, ‘It has wonderful hand-carved Black Forest-style plaques set in the Victorian ebonised wood framing on all four sides.’

‘Country English or French décor, what do you think?’ Frankie’s work colleague asks her.

She ignores him, concentrating on Joyce.

‘Inside it has what looks like an original tole-painted tin liner. Superb condition, ornate patterns carved into the solid wood panels. We can see here that two of the sides have a floral motif and the other two sides are figural, one with the centre lion’s head and the other with griffin figures. Very striking indeed and an absolutely wonderful piece to have by your front door too.’

‘Worth a few quid, is it?’ Henry asks, dropping the posh accent.

‘We’ll get to that part,’ the expert says. ‘While it is in good condition, it appears there would have been feet, quite likely wooden. There are no splits or warping in the sides, there is an original tole-painted tin removable liner and the finger ring handles on the sides are intact. So bearing all that in mind, how much do you think it’s worth?’

‘Frankie!’ Frankie hears her boss calling her from across the room. ‘What’s this I hear about you messing with the monitors?’

Frankie stands up, turns her back and while blocking the television with her body, attempts to turn the channel back.

‘Ah,’ her colleague tuts. ‘They were just about to announce the value. That’s the best bit.’

‘Step aside,’ her boss frowns.

Frankie moves to display the stock market figures racing across the screen. She smiles brightly, showing all her teeth, and then sprints back to her desk.

In the dental surgery’s waiting room, Justin is glued to the television, glued to Joyce’s face.

‘Is she a friend, love?’ Ethel asks.

Justin studies Joyce’s face and smiles, ‘Yes she is. Her name is Joyce.’

Margaret and Ethel ooh and aah.

On screen, Joyce’s father or at least who Justin assumes him to be, turns to Joyce and shrugs.

‘What would you say, love? How much lolly for Dolly?’

Joyce smiles tightly. ‘I really wouldn’t have the slightest idea how much it’s worth.’

‘How does between one thousand five hundred to one thousand seven hundred pounds sound to you?’ the expert asks.

‘Sterling pounds?’ the old man asks, flabbergasted.

Justin laughs.

The camera zooms in on Joyce and her father’s face. They are both astonished, so gobsmacked, in fact, that neither of them can say anything.

‘Now there’s an impressive reaction,’ Michael laughs. ‘Good news from this table, let’s go over to our porcelain table to see if any of our other collectors here in London, have been as lucky.’

‘Justin Hitchcock,’ the receptionist announces.

The room is quiet. They all look around at one another.

‘Justin,’ she repeats, raising her voice.

‘That must be him on the floor,’ Ethel says. ‘Yoohoo!’ she sings and gives him a kick with her comfortable shoe. ‘Are you Justin?’

‘Somebody’s in love, ooohey-ooohey,’ Margaret sings while Ethel makes kissing noises.

‘Louise,’ Ethel says to the receptionist, ‘why don’t I go in now while this young man runs down to Banqueting House to see his lady? I’m tired of waiting.’ She stretches her left leg out and makes pained expressions.

Justin stands and wipes the carpet hairs from his trousers. ‘I don’t know why you’re both waiting here anyway, at your age. You should just leave your teeth here and then come back later when the dentist’s finished with them.’

He exits the room as a year-old copy of Homes and Gardens flies at his head.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea.’ Justin stops following the receptionist down the hallway to the surgery, as adrenalin once again surges through his body. ‘That’s exactly what I’ll do.’

‘You’re going to leave your teeth here?’ she says drily, in a strong Liverpool accent.

‘No, I’m going to Banqueting House,’ he says, hopping about with excitement.

‘Great, Dick. Can Anne come too? Let’s be sure to ask Aunt Fanny first.’ She glares at him, killing his excitement. ‘I don’t care what’s going on with you, you’re not escaping again. Come now. Dr Montgomery won’t be happy if you don’t show for your appointment again,’ she urges him along.

‘OK, OK, hold on. My tooth is fine now.’ He holds out his hands and shrugs like it’s all no big deal. ‘All gone. No pain at all. In fact, chomp, chomp, chomp,’ he says as he snaps his teeth together. ‘Look, completely gone. What am I even doing here? Can’t feel a thing.’

‘Your eyes are watering.’

‘I’m emotional.’

‘You’re delusional. Come on.’ She continues to lead him down the corridor.

Dr Montgomery greets him with a drill in his hand, ‘Hello, Clarisse,’ he says, and breaks his heart laughing. ‘Just joking. Trying to run off on me again, Justin?’

‘No. Well, yes. Well, no, not run off exactly but I realised that there’s somewhere else I should be and …’

All throughout his explanation, the firm-handed Dr Montgomery and his equally strong assistant manage to usher him into the chair, and by the time he’s finished his excuse he realises he’s wearing a protective gown and reclining.

‘Blah blah blah, was all I heard, I’m afraid, Justin,’ Dr Montgomery says cheerily.

He sighs.

‘You’re not going to fight me today?’ Dr Montgomery snaps two surgical gloves onto his hands.

‘As long as you don’t ask me to cough.’

Dr Montgomery laughs as Justin reluctantly opens his mouth.

The red light on the camera goes off and I grab Dad’s arm.

‘Dad, we have to go now,’ I say with urgency.

‘Not now,’ Dad responds in a David Attenborough-style loud whisper. ‘Michael Aspel is right over there. I can see him, standing behind the porcelain table, tall, charming, more handsome than I thought. He’s looking around for someone to talk to.’

‘Michael Aspel is very busy in his natural habitat, presenting a live television show.’ I dig my fingernails into Dad’s arm. ‘I don’t think talking to you is very high on his priority list right now.’

Dad looks slightly wounded, and not from my fingernails. He lifts his chin high in the air, which I know from down the years has an invisible string attached to his pride. He prepares to approach Michael Aspel, who is standing alone by the porcelain table with his finger in his ear.

‘Must get waxy build-up, like me,’ Dad whispers. ‘He should use that stuff you got for me. Pop! Comes right out.’

‘It’s an earpiece, Dad. He’s listening to the people in the control room.’

‘No, I think it’s a hearing aid. Let’s go over to him and remember to speak up and mouth your words clearly. I have experience with this.’

I block his path and leer over him in the most intimidating way possible. Dad steps onto his left leg and immediately rises near enough to my eyelevel.

‘Dad, if we do not leave this place right now, we will find ourselves locked in a cell. Again.’

Dad laughs, ‘Ah, don’t exaggerate, Gracie.’

‘I’m bloody Joyce,’ I hiss.

‘All right, bloody Joyce, no need to get your bloody knickers in a twist.’

‘I don’t think you understand the seriousness of our situation. We have just stolen a seventeen-hundred-pound Victorian waste basket from a once-upon-a-time royal palace and talked about it live on air.’

Dad looks at me quickly, his bushy eyebrows raised halfway up his forehead. For the first time in a long time I can see his eyes. They look alarmed. And rather watery and yellow at the corners, and I make a note to ask him about that later, when we are not running from the law. Or the BBC.

The production girl I chased in order to find Dad gives me wide eyes from across the room. My heart beats in panic and I look around quickly. Heads are turning to stare at us. They know.

‘OK, we have to go now. I think they know.’

‘It’s no big deal. We’ll put it back.’ He speaks as though it is a big deal. ‘We haven’t even taken it off the premises – that’s no crime.’

‘OK, it’s now or never. Grab it quick, so we can put it back and get out of here.’

I scan the crowd to make sure nobody big and burly is coming towards us, cracking their knuckles and swinging a baseball bat. Just the young girl with the headset, and I’m sure I can take her on, and if not, Dad can hit her on the head with his clunky corrective shoe.

Dad grabs the waste basket from the table and tries to hide it in the inside of his coat. The coat barely makes it a third of the way around and I look at him bizarrely and he removes it. We make our way through the crowd, ignoring congrats and well-wishes from those who seem to think we’ve won the lottery. I see the young girl with the headset pushing her way through the crowd too.

‘Quick, Dad, quick.’

‘I’m going as fast as I can.’

We make it to the door of the hall, leaving the crowd behind, and start towards the main entrance. I look back before closing it behind me, and catch the girl with the headset, talking into her mike, urgently. She starts to run but gets caught behind two men in brown overalls carrying a wardrobe across the floor. I grab the wooden bin from Dad’s hands and immediately we speed up. Down the stairs, we grab our bags from the cloakroom and then up and down, down and up, all the way along the marble-floored hallway.

Dad reaches for the gold oversized handle on the main door and we hear, ‘Stop! Wait!’

We stop abruptly and slowly turn to look at one another, fearfully. I mouth ‘Run’ at Dad. He sighs dramatically, rolls his eyes and steps down on his right leg, bending his left as a way of reminding me of his struggles with walking, let alone running.

‘Where are you two going in such a hurry?’ the man asks, making his way towards us.

We slowly turn round, and I prepare to defend our honour.

‘It was her,’ Dad says straight away, thumb pointed at me.

My mouth falls open.

‘It was both of you, I’m afraid,’ he smiles. ‘You left your microphone and packs on. Worth a bit, these are.’ He fiddles around the back of Dad’s trousers and unclips his battery pack. ‘Could have gotten into a bit of trouble if you’d escaped with this,’ he laughs.

Dad looks relieved until I ask nervously, ‘Were these turned on, the entire time?’

‘Eh,’ he studies the pack and flicks the switch to the ‘off’ position. ‘They were.’

‘Who would have heard us?’

‘Don’t worry, they wouldn’t have broadcasted your sound while they went to the next item.’

I breath a sigh of relief.

‘But internally, whoever was wearing headphones on the floor would have heard,’ he explains, removing Dad’s mike. ‘Oh, and the control room too,’ he adds.

He turns to me next and I get into an embarrassing muddle as he pulls the pack from the waistband of my trousers and in doing so tugs the string of my thong, which it’s mistakenly attached to.

‘Ooowwwwww!’ I yelp, and it echoes around the corridor.

‘Sorry.’ The sound man’s face reddens while I fix myself. ‘Pitfall of the job.’

‘Perk, my friend, perk,’ Dad smiles.

After he shuffles back to the fair, we place the umbrella stand back by the entrance door while no one is looking, fill it with the broken umbrellas and exit the scene of the crime.

‘So, Justin, any news?’ Dr Montgomery asks.

Justin, who is reclined in the chair, with two surgically gloved hands and apparatus shoved in his mouth, is unsure of how to answer, and decides to blink once having seen that on television. Then unsure of what exactly that signal means, he blinks twice to confuse matters.

Dr Montgomery misses his code and chuckles, ‘Cat got your tongue?’

Justin rolls his eyes.

‘I might start getting offended one of these days, if people continue to ignore me when I ask questions.’ He chuckles again and leans in over Justin, giving him a good view up his nostrils.

‘Arrrgggh,’ he flinches as the cool prong hits his sore point.

‘Hate to say I told you so,’ Dr Montgomery continues, ‘but that would be a lie. The cavity that you wouldn’t let me look at during your last visit has become infected and now the tissue is inflamed.’

He taps around some more.

‘Aaaahh.’ Justin makes some gurgling sounds from the back of his throat.

‘I should write a book on dentistry language. Everybody makes all sorts of sounds that only I can understand. What do you think, Rita?’

Rita with the glossy lips doesn’t care much.

Justin gurgles some expletives.

‘Now, now,’ Dr Montgomery’s smile fades for a moment. ‘Don’t be rude.’

Startled, Justin concentrates on the television suspended from the wall in the corner of the room. Sky News’s red banner at the bottom of the screen screams it’s breaking news again and though it’s muted and too far away for him to read what exactly it is that they are breaking, it provides a welcome distraction from Dr Montgomery’s dismal jokes and calms his urge to jump out of the chair and grab the first taxi he can find, straight to Banqueting House.

The broadcaster is currently standing outside Westminster, but as Justin can’t hear a thing he has no idea what it’s related to. He studies the man’s face and tries to lip-read while Dr Montgomery comes at him with what looks like a needle. His eyes widen as he catches sight of something on the television. His pupils melt into his eyes, blackening them.

Dr Montgomery smiles as he holds it before Justin’s face. ‘Don’t worry, Justin. I know how much you hate needles but it’s necessary for a numbing effect. You need a filling in another tooth before that gets an abscess as well. It won’t hurt, it will just feel slightly odd.’

Justin’s eyes grow wider as he watches the television and he tries to sit up. For once, Justin doesn’t care about the needle. He must try to communicate this as best as possible. Unable to move or close his mouth, he begins to make deep noises from the back of his throat.

‘OK, don’t panic. Just one more minute. I’m nearly there.’

He leans over Justin again, blocking his view of the television, and Justin squirms in his seat, trying to see the screen.

‘My goodness, Justin, please stop it. The needle won’t kill you, but I might if you don’t stop wriggling.’ Chuckle, chuckle.

‘Ted, I think maybe we should stop,’ his assistant says, and Justin looks at her with grateful eyes.

‘Is he having a fit of some sort?’ Dr Montgomery asks her and then raises his voice at Justin as though he has suddenly become hearing-impaired. ‘I say, are you having a fit of some sort?’

Justin rolls his eyes and makes more noises from the back of his throat.

‘TV? What do you mean?’ Dr Montgomery looks up at Sky News and finally removes his fingers from Justin’s mouth.

All three focus on the television screen, the other two concentrating on the news while Justin watches the background where Joyce and her father have wandered into the path of the camera’s angle, them in the forefront, Big Ben in the background. Seemingly unaware, they carry out what looks like a seriously heated conversation, their hands gesturing wildly.

‘Look at those two idiots at the back,’ Dr Montgomery laughs.

Suddenly Joyce’s father pushes his suitcase over to Joyce and then storms off in the other direction, leaving Joyce alone with two bags, and throwing her hands up with frustration.

‘Yeah, thanks, that’s very mature,’ I shout after Dad who has just stormed off, leaving his suitcase behind with me. He is going in the wrong direction. Again. Has been since we left the Banqueting House but refuses to admit it and also refuses to get a taxi to the hotel as he is on a penny-saving mission.

He is still within my sights and so I sit on my case and wait for him to realise the error of his ways and come back. It’s evening now and I just want to get to the hotel and have a bath. My phone rings.

‘Hi, Kate.’

She is laughing hysterically.

‘What’s up with you?’ I smile. ‘Well, it’s nice to hear somebody is in a good mood.’

‘Oh, Joyce,’ she catches her breath and I imagine she’s wiping her teared-up eyes. ‘You are the best dose of medicine, you really are.’

‘What do you mean?’ I can hear children’s laughter in the background.

‘Do me a favour and raise your right hand.’

‘Why?’

‘Just do it. It’s a game the kids taught me,’ she giggles.

‘OK,’ I sigh, and raise my right hand.

I hear the kids howl with laughter in the back.

‘Tell her to wiggle her right foot,’ Jayda shouts down the phone.

‘OK,’ I laugh. This is putting me in a much better mood. I wiggle my right foot and they laugh again. I can even hear Kate’s husband howling in the background, which suddenly makes me uncomfortable again. ‘Kate, what exactly is this?’

Kate can’t answer, she’s laughing so much.

‘Tell her to hop up and down!’ Eric shouts.

‘No.’ I’m irritated now.

‘She did it for Jayda,’ he begins to whinge, and I sense tears.

I quickly hop up and down.

They howl again.

‘By any chance,’ Kate wheezes through her laugher, ‘is there anyone around you who has the time?’

‘What are you talking about?’ I frown, looking around. I see Big Ben behind me, still not sure of the joke, and as I turn back round only then see the camera crew in the distance. I stop hopping.

‘What on earth is that woman doing?’ Dr Montgomery steps closer to the television. ‘Is she dancing?’

‘Oo han ee ha?’ Justin says, feeling the effects of his numbed mouth.

‘Of course I can see her,’ he responds. ‘I think she’s doing the hokey cokey. See? You put your left leg in,’ he begins to sing. ‘Left leg out. In. Out. In. Out. Shake it all about.’ He dances around. Rita rolls her eyes.

Justin, relieved that his sightings of Joyce aren’t all in his mind, begins to bounce up and down in his seat, impatiently. Hurry! I need to get to her.

Dr Montgomery glances at him curiously, pushes Justin back in the chair and places the instruments in his mouth again. Justin gurgles and makes noises from the back of his throat.

‘It’s no good explaining it to me, Justin, you’re not going anywhere until I have filled this cavity. You’ll have to take antibiotics for the abscess, then when you come back I’ll either extract it or use endodontic treatment. Whatever I’m in the mood for,’ he laughs girlishly. ‘And whoever this Joyce lady is, you can thank her for curing your fear of needles. You didn’t even notice I’d injected you.’

‘Aah haa ooo aaa aa ee a.’

‘Oh, well, good for you, old boy. I donated blood before too, you know. Satisfying isn’t it?’

‘Aa. Ooo aaa iii uuuu.’

Dr Montgomery throws his head back and laughs. ‘Oh, don’t be silly, they’ll never tell you who the blood has gone to. Besides it’s been separated into different parts, platelets, red blood cells and what have you.’

Justin gurgles again.

The dentist laughs again. ‘What kind of muffins do you want?’

‘Aa.’

‘Banana,’ he considers this. ‘Prefer chocolate, myself. Air, Rita, please.’

A bewildered Rita puts the tube into Justin’s mouth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I succeed in hailing a black cab and I send the driver in the direction of the dapper old man who is easily spotted on the pavement swaying in horizontal motions like a drunken sailor, amidst the crowd’s vertical stream. Like a salmon, he swims upstream, pushing against the throngs of people going in the opposite direction. Not doing it just for the sake of it, not to be deliberately different, or even noticing he’s the odd one out.

Seeing him now reminds me of a tale he told me when I was so small he seemed to me to be as gigantic as our neighbour’s oak tree that loomed over our garden wall, raining acorns onto our grass. This, during the months when outside playtime was interrupted by afternoons spent staring out the window at the grey world, and, outside, wearing mitts that hung from strings through my coat sleeves. The howling wind would blow the giant oak tree’s branches from side to side, leaves going swish swash, left to right, just like my dad, a skittle wavering at the end of a bowling alley. But neither of them fell under the wind’s force. Not like the acorns, that leapt from their branches like panicked parachutist pushed out unawares or excited wind worshippers falling to their knees.

When my dad was as sturdy as an oak tree and when I was bullied at school for sucking my thumb, he recalled the Irish myth of how an ordinary salmon had eaten hazelnuts that had fallen into the Fountain of Wisdom. In doing so, the salmon gained all the knowledge in the world, and the first to eat the salmon’s flesh would, in turn, gain this knowledge. The poet Finneces spent seven long years fishing for this salmon and when he’d finally caught it, he instructed his young apprentice, Fionn, to prepare it for him. When spattered with hot fat from the cooking salmon, Fionn immediately sucked on his burned thumb to ease his pain. In doing so, he gained incredible knowledge and wisdom. For the rest of his life, when he didn’t know what to do, all he had to do was suck on his thumb and the knowledge would come.

He told me that story way back when I sucked my thumb and when he was as big as an oak tree. When Mum’s yawns sounded like songs. When we were all together. When I had no idea there would ever come a time when we wouldn’t be. When we used to have chats in the garden, under the weeping willow. Where I always used to hide and where he always found me. When nothing was impossible and when the three of us, together forever, was a given.

I smile now as I watch my great big salmon of knowledge moving upstream, weaving in and out of the pedestrians pounding the pavements towards him.

Dad looks up, sees me, gives me two fingers and keeps walking.

Ah.

‘Dad,’ I call out the open window, ‘come on, get in the car.’

He ignores me and holds a cigarette to his mouth, inhaling long and hard, so much so that his cheeks concave.

‘Dad, don’t be like this. Just get in the car and we’ll go to the hotel.’

He continues walking, looks straight ahead, as stubborn as anything. I’ve seen this face so many times before, arguing with Mum over spending too late and too often at the pub, arguments with the Monday Club gang about the political state of their country, at a restaurant when his beef is handed to him not resembling a piece of charcoal as he so wishes. The ‘I’m right, you’re wrong’ look that has set his chin in that defiant stance, jutting outward like Cork and Kerry’s rugged coastline to the rest of the land. A defiant chin, a troubled head.

‘Look, we don’t even have to talk. You can ignore me in the car too. And in the hotel. Don’t talk to me all night, if it’ll make you feel better.’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ he huffs.

‘Honestly?’

He looks at me.

‘Yes.’

He tries not to smile. Scratches the corner of his mouth with his yellow-stained cigarette fingers to hide how he softens. The smoke rises into his eyes and I think of his yellow eyes, think of how piercingly blue they used to be when, as a little girl, legs swinging, chin on my hands, I’d watch him sitting at the kitchen table, while he dismantled a radio or a clock or a plug. Piercing blue eyes, alert, busy, like a CAT scan sourcing a tumour. His cigarette squashed between his lips, to the side of his mouth like Popeye, the smoke drifting into his squinted eyes, perhaps staining them the yellow that he sees through now. The colour of age, like old newspapers dipped in time.

I’d watch him, transfixed, afraid to speak, afraid to breathe, afraid to break the spell he’d cast on the contraption he was fixing. Like the surgeon who’d operated on his heart during his bypass surgery ten years ago, there he was, youth on his side, connecting wires, clearing blockages, his shirtsleeves rolled to just below his elbows, the muscles in his arms tanned from the gardening, flexing and unflexing as his fingers tackled the problem. His fingernails, always with a trace of dirt under the surface. His right forefinger and middle finger, yellow from the nicotine. Yellow, but steady. Uneven, but steady.

Finally he stops walking. He throws his cigarette on the ground and stomps it out with his chunky shoe. The cab stops. I throw the life-saving ring around his body and we pull him out of his stream of defiance and into the boat. Always a chancer, always lucky, he’d fall into a river and come out dry, with fish in his pockets. He sits in the car without a word to me, his clothes, breath and fingers smelling of smoke. I bite my lip to stop from saying anything and prepare to have my thumb burned.

He is silent for a record amount of time. Ten, maybe fifteen, minutes. Finally words start spilling out of his mouth, as though they’d been queuing up impatiently behind his closed lips during the rare silence. As though they’d been fired from his heart and, as usual, not from his head, catapulted to his mouth, only this time to find themselves bounce against the walls of closed lips. Instead of being allowed out into the world, they build up like paranoid fat cells, afraid of the food never coming. But now the lips open and the words fly out in all directions like projectile vomit.

‘You may have got a sherbet but I hope you know that I haven’t a sausage.’ He raises his chin, which pulls on the invisible string attached to his pride. He appears pleased with the collection of words that have strung themselves together for him on this particular occasion.

‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Yes, but …’

‘Sherbet dab, cab. Sausage and mash, cash,’ he explains. ‘It’s the ol’ Chitty Chitty.’

I try to work that out in my head.

‘Bang Bang, rhyming slang,’ he finishes. ‘He knows exactly what I’m talking about,’ he nods at the driver.

‘He can’t hear you.’

‘Why? Is he Mutt and Jeff?’

‘What?’

‘Deaf.’

‘No,’ I nod my head, feeling dazed and tired. ‘When the red light is off, they can’t hear you.’

‘Like Joe’s hearing aid,’ Dad responds. He leans forward and flicks the switch in the back of the cab. ‘Can you hear me?’ he shouts.

‘Yeah, mate.’ The driver looks at him in the mirror. ‘Loud and clear.’

Dad smiles and flicks the switch again. ‘Can you hear me now?’

There is no response, the driver quickly glances at him in the rearview mirror, concern wrinkling his forehead, while trying also to keep an eye on the road.

Dad chuckles.

I bury my face in my hands.

‘This is what we do to Joe,’ he says mischievously. ‘Sometimes he can go a whole day without realising we turned his hearing aid off. He just thinks that no one’s saying anything. Every half-hour he shouts, “JAYSUS, IT’S VERY QUIET IN HERE!”’ Dad laughs and flicks the switch again, ‘’Allo, guv,’ Dad says pleasantly.

‘All right, Paddy,’ the driver responds.

I wait for Dad’s gnarled fist to go through the slit in the window. It doesn’t. Instead his laughter filters through.

‘I feel like being on my tod tonight. I say, could you tell me where there’s a good jack near my hotel, so I can go for a pig without my teapot.’

The young driver studies Dad’s innocent face in the mirror, always meaning well, never intending insults. But he doesn’t respond and continues driving.

I look away so Dad isn’t embarrassed, but I feel rather superior and hate myself for it. Moments later, at a set of traffic lights, the hatch opens and the driver passes a piece of paper through.

‘There’s a list of a few there, mate. I’d suggest the first one, that’s my favourite. Does good loop and tucker right about now, if you know what I mean,’ he smiles and winks.

‘Thank you.’ Dad’s face lights up. He studies the paper closely as though it’s the most precious thing he’s ever been given, then folds it carefully and slides it into his top pocket, proudly. ‘It’s just that this one here, is being a merry ol’ soul, if you know what I mean. Make sure she gives you a good bit of rifle.’

The driver laughs and pulls over at our hotel. I examine it from the cab and am pleasantly surprised. The three-star hotel is right in the heart of the city, only ten minutes’ walk from main theatres, Oxford Street, Piccadilly and Soho. Enough to keep us either out of trouble. Or right in it.

Dad gets out of the car and pulls his case along to the revolving doors at the hotel entrance. I watch him while waiting for my change. The doors are going around so fast, I can see him trying to time his entrance. Like a dog afraid to jump into the cold sea, he inches forward, then stops, jerks forward again and stops. Finally he makes a run for it and his suitcase gets stuck outside, jamming the revolving doors and trapping him inside.

I take my time getting out of the cab. I lean in the passenger’s side window to the sound of Dad rapping on the glass behind me.

‘Help! Someone!’ I hear Dad call.

‘By the way, what did he call me?’ I ask the driver, calmly ignoring the calls behind me.

‘A merry old soul?’ he asks with a grin. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Tell me,’ I smile.

‘It means arsehole,’ he laughs, and then he pulls away, leaving me at the side of the street with my mouth gaping.

I notice the knocking has quietened and turn to see that Dad has been freed at last. I hurry inside.

‘I can’t give you a credit card, but I can give you my word,’ Dad is saying slowly and loudly to the woman behind the reception desk. ‘And my word is as good as my honour.’

‘It’s OK, here you go.’ I slide my credit card across the counter to the young lady.

‘Why can’t people just pay with paper money these days?’ Dad says, leaning further over the counter. ‘It’s more trouble that the youth of today are getting themselves into, debt after debt because they want this, they want that, but they don’t want to work for it so they use those plastic thingies. Well, that’s not free money, I can tell you that.’ He nods his head with finality. ‘You’ll only ever lose with one of those.’

No one responds.

The receptionist smiles at him politely and taps away on the computer. ‘You’re sharing a room?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ I respond with dread.

‘Two Uncle Teds, I hope?’

She frowns.

‘Beds,’ I say quietly. ‘He means beds.’

‘Yes, they’re twin beds.’

‘Is it an en-suite?’ He leans in, trying to see her name badge. ‘Breda, is it?’ he asks.

‘Aakaanksha. And, yes, sir, all our rooms are en-suite,’ she says politely.

‘Oh,’ he looks impressed. ‘Well, I hope your lifts are working because I can’t take the apples, my Cadbury’s playin’ up.’

I squeeze my eyes together tightly.

‘Apples and pears, stairs. Cadbury snack, back,’ he says with the same voice he used to say nursery rhymes to me as a little girl.

‘I see. Very good, Mr Conway.’

I take the key and head towards the elevator, hearing his little voice repeating a question over and over again as he follows me through the foyer. I hit the button for the third floor and the doors close.

The room is standard and it’s clean, and that’s good enough for me. Our beds are far enough apart for my liking, there’s a television and a mini-bar, which hold Dad’s attention while I run a bath.

‘I wouldn’t mind a drop of fine,’ he says, his head dis appearing into the mini-bar.

‘You mean wine.’

‘Fine and dandy, brandy.’

I finally slide down into the hot soothing bathwater, the suds rise like the foam atop an ice-cream float. They tickle my nose and cover my body, overflow and float to the ground, where they slowly fade with a crackling sound. I lie back and close my eyes, feeling tiny bubbles all over my body pop as soon as they touch my skin … There’s a knock on the door.

I ignore it.

Then it goes again, a little more loudly this time.

Still I don’t answer.

BANG! BANG!

‘What?’ I shout.

‘Oh, sorry, thought you’d fallen asleep or something, love.’

‘I’m in the bath.’

‘I know that. You have to be careful in those things. Could nod off and slip under the water and drown. Happened to one of Amelia’s cousins. You know Amelia. Visits Joseph sometimes, down the road. But she doesn’t drop by as much as before on account of the bath accident.’

‘Dad, I appreciate your concern but I’m fine.’

‘OK.’

Silence.

‘Actually, it’s not that, Gracie. I’m just wonderin’ how long you’ll be in there for?’

I grab the yellow rubber duck sitting at the side of the bath and I strangle it.

‘Love?’ he asks in a little voice.

I hold the duck under the water, trying to drown it. Then I let go, it bobs to the top again, the same silly eyes staring back at me. I take a deep breath, breathe out slowly.

‘About twenty minutes, Dad, is that OK?’

Silence.

I close my eyes again.

‘Eh, love. It’s just that you’ve been in there twenty minutes already and you know how my prostate is—’

I don’t hear any more, because I’m climbing out of the bath with all the gracefulness of a piranha at feeding time. My feet squeak on the bathroom floor, water splashes in all directions.

‘Everything OK in there, Shamu?’ Dad laughs uproariously at his own joke.

I throw a towel around me and open the door.

‘Ah, Willy’s been freed,’ he smiles.

I bow and hold my arm out to the toilet. ‘Your chariot awaits you, sir.’

Embarrassed, he shuffles inside and closes the door behind him. It locks.

Wet and shivering, I browse through the half-bottles of red wine in the mini-bar. I pick one up and study the label. Immediately an image flashes through my mind, so vivid, I feel like my body has been transported.

A picnic basket with this bottle inside, an identical label, red and white chequered cloth laid out on the grass, a little girl with blonde hair twirling, twirling in a pink tutu. The wine swirling, swirling in a glass. The sound of her laughter. Birds twittering. Children’s laughter far off, a dog barking. I am lying on the chequered cloth, barefoot, trousers rolled above my ankles. Hairy ankles. I feel a hot sun beating down on my skin, the little girl dances and twirls before the sun, sometimes blocking the harshness of light, other times spinning in the other direction to send the glare into my eyes. A hand appears before me, a glass of red wine in it. I look to her face. Red hair, lightly freckled, smiling adoringly. At me.

‘Justin,’ she’s singing. ‘Earth to Justin!’

The little girl is laughing and twirling, the wine is swirling, the long red hair is blowing in the light breeze …

Then it’s gone. I’m back in the hotel room, standing before the mini-bar, my hair dripping bath water onto the carpet. Dad is studying me, watching me curiously, hand suspended in the air as though he’s not sure whether to touch me or not.

‘Earth to Joyce,’ he’s singing.

I clear my throat. ‘You’re done?’

Dad nods and his eyes follow me to the bathroom. On the way there, I stop and turn. ‘By the way, I’ve booked a ballet show for tonight if you’d like to come. We need to leave in an hour.’

‘OK, love,’ he nods softly, and watches after me with a familiar look of worry in his eyes. I’ve seen that look as a child, I’ve seen it as an adult and a million times in between. It’s as though I’ve taken the stabilisers off my bicycle for the very first time and he’s running along beside me, holding on tight, afraid to let me go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Dad breathes heavily beside me and links my arm tightly as we slowly make our way to Covent Garden. Using my other hand I pat down my pockets, feeling for his heart pills.

‘Dad, we’re definitely getting a taxi back to the hotel and I’m not taking no for an answer.’

Dad stops and stares ahead, he takes deep breaths.

‘Are you OK? Is it your heart? Should we sit down? Stop and take a rest? Go back to the hotel?’

‘Shut up and turn round, Gracie. It’s not just my heart that takes my breath away, you know.’

I spin round and there it is, the Royal Opera House, its columns illuminated for the evening performance, a red carpet lining the pavement outside and crowds filing through the doors.

‘You have to take your moments, love,’ Dad says, taking in the sight before him. ‘Don’t just go head first into everything, like a bull seeing red.’

Having booked our tickets so late we are seated in the lower slips almost at the top of the tremendous theatre. The position is unlucky, yet we are fortunate to have got tickets at all. The view of the stage is restricted, yet the view of the boxes opposite is perfect. Squinting through the binoculars situated beside the seat, I spy on the people filling the boxes. No sign of my American man. Earth to Justin? I hear the woman’s voice in my head and wonder if Frankie’s theory about seeing the world from his eyes was correct.

Dad is enthralled by our view. ‘We’ve got the best seats in the house, love, look.’ He leans over the balcony and his tweed cap almost falls off his head. I grab his arm and pull him back. He takes the photograph of Mum from his pocket and places her on the velvet balcony ledge. ‘Best seat in the house, indeed,’ he says, his eyes filling.

The voice over the intercom system counts latecomers down and finally the cacophony of the orchestra dies down, the lights dim and there is silence before the magic begins. The conductor taps and the orchestra play the opening bars of Tchaikovsky’s ballet. Apart from Dad snorting when the male principal dancer appears on stage wearing tights, it runs smoothly and we are both entranced by the story of Swan Lake. I look away from the prince’s coming-of-age party and study those sitting in the boxes. Their faces are lit, their eyes dancing along with the dancers they follow. It’s as though a music box has been opened, spilling music and light from it and all those watching have been enchanted, captured by its magic. I continue to spy at them through my opera glasses, moving from left to right, a row of unfamiliar faces until … My eyes widen as I reach the familiar face, the man from the hair salon I now know from Bea’s biography in the programme, to be Mr Hitchcock. Justin Hitchcock? He watches the stage, entranced, leaning so far over the balcony it looks as though he’ll topple over the ledge.

Dad elbows me. ‘Would you stop looking around you, and keep your eye on the stage. He’s about to kill her.’

I turn to face the stage and try to hold my eyes on the prince leaping about with his crossbow, but I can’t. A magnetic pull turns my face back down to the box, anxious to see who Mr Hitchcock is sitting with. My heart is drumming so loudly I only realise now it’s not part of Tchaikovsky’s score. Beside him is the woman with long red hair and lightly freckled face, who holds the camera in my dreams. Beside her is a sweet-looking gentleman and behind them, squashed together are a young man pulling uncomfortably at his tie, a woman with big curly red hair and a large round man. I flick through my memory files like I’m going through Polaroids. The chubby boy from the sprinkler scene and seesaw? Perhaps. But the other two, I don’t know. I move my eyes back to Justin Hitchcock and smile, finding his face more entertaining than the action on stage.

Suddenly the music changes, the light reflecting on his face flickers and his expression changes. I know instantly that Bea is on stage, and I turn to watch. There she is among the flock of swans, moving about so gracefully in perfect unison, dressed in a white fitted corset dress with raggedy long white tutu, similar to feathers. Her long blonde hair is tied up in a bun, covered by a neat headdress. I recall the image of her in the park as a little girl, twirling and twirling in her tutu and I’m filled with pride. How far she has come. How grown up she is now. My eyes fill.

‘Oh, look, Justin,’ Jennifer says breathily beside him.

He is looking. He can’t take his eyes off his daughter, a vision in white, dancing in perfect unison with the flock of swans, not a movement out of place. She looks so grown up, so … how did that happen? It seems like only yesterday she was twirling for him and Jennifer in the park across from their house, a little girl with a tutu and dreams and now … His eyes fill and he looks beside him to Jennifer, to share a look, share the moment but at the same time, she reaches for Laurence’s hand. He looks away quickly, back to his daughter. A tear falls and he reaches into his front pocket for his handkerchief.

A handkerchief is raised to my face, catches my tear before it drips from my chin.

‘What are you crying for?’ Dad says loudly, dabbing at my chin roughly, as the curtain lowers for the interval.

‘I’m just so proud of Bea.’

‘Who?’

‘Oh, nothing … I just think it’s a beautiful story. What do you think?’

‘I think those lads have definitely got socks down their tights.’

I laugh and wipe my eyes. ‘Do you think Mum’s enjoying it?’

He smiles and stares at the photo. ‘She must be, she hasn’t turned round once since it started. Unlike you, who’s got ants in her pants. If I’d known you were so keen on binoculars I’d have taken you out bird-watching long ago.’ He sighs and looks around. ‘The lads at the Monday Club won’t believe this at all. Donal McCarthy, you better watch out,’ he chuckles.

‘Do you miss her?’

‘It’s been ten years, love.’

It stings that he can be so dismissive. I fold my arms and look away, silently fuming.

Dad leans closer and nudges me. ‘And everyday, I miss her more than I did the day before.’

Oh. I immediately feel guilty for wishing that on him.

‘It’s like my garden, love. Everything grows. Including love. And with that growing everyday how can you expect missing her to ever fade away? Everything builds, including our ability to cope with it. That’s how we keep going.’

I shake my head, in awe of some of the things he comes out with. Philosophical and otherwise. And this from a man who’s been calling me his teapot (lid, kid) since we landed.

‘And I just thought you liked pottering,’ I smile.

‘Ah, there’s a lot to be said for pottering. You know Thomas Berry said that gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe? There are lessons in pottering.’

‘Like what?’ I try not to smile.

‘Well, even a garden grows stranglers, love. It grows them naturally, all by itself. They creep up and choke the plants that are growing from the very same soil as they are. We each have our demons, our self-destruct button. Even in gardens. Pretty as they may be. If you don’t potter, you don’t notice them.’

He eyes me and I look away, choosing to clear my already-clear throat.

Sometimes I wish he’d just stick to laughing at men in tights.

‘Justin, we’re going to the bar, are you coming?’ Doris asks.

‘No,’ he says, in a huff like a child, folding his arms.

‘Why not?’ Al squeezes further into the box to sit beside him.

‘I just don’t want to.’ He picks up the opera glasses and starts fiddling with them.

‘But you’ll be here on your own.’

‘So?’

‘Mr Hitchcock, would you like me to get you a drink?’ Bea’s boyfriend, Peter, asks.

‘Mr Hitchcock was my father, you can call me Al. Like the song.’ He punches him playfully on the shoulder but it knocks him back a few steps.

‘OK, Al, but I actually meant Justin.’

‘You can call me Mr Hitchcock.’ Justin looks at him like there’s a bad smell in the room.

‘We don’t have to sit with Laurence and Jennifer, you know.’

Laurence. Laurence of Ahernia who has elephantitis of the—

‘Yes we do, Al, don’t be ridiculous,’ Doris interrupts.

Al sighs. ‘Well, give Petey an answer, do you want us to bring you back a drink?’

Yes. But Justin can’t bring himself to say it and instead shakes his head sulkily.

‘OK, we’ll be back in fifteen.’

Al gives him a comforting brotherly pat on his shoulder before they all leave him alone in the box to stew over Laurence and Jennifer and Bea and Chicago and London and Dublin and now Peter, and how exactly his life has ended up.

Two minutes later and already tired of feeling sorry for himself, he looks through the opera glasses and begins spying on the trickles of people seated below him who’d stayed in their seats for the interval. He spots a couple fighting, snapping at one another. Another couple kissing, reaching for their coats and then disappearing quickly to the exits. He spies a mother giving out to her son. A group of women laughing together. A couple saying nothing to one another or who have nothing to say to one another. He’d prefer the former. Nothing exciting. He moves to the boxes opposite. They are empty, everyone choosing to have their pre-ordered drinks in the nearby bar. He cranes his neck up higher.

How on earth can anyone see anything from there?

Here, there are a small number of people, like everyone else, just chatting. He moves along from right to left. Then stops. Rubs his eyes. Sure he is imagining it. He squints back through the opera glasses again and sure enough, there she is. With the old man. Every scene in his life was beginning to be like a page from Where’s Wally?

She is looking through her opera glasses too, scanning the crowd below them both. Then she raises her opera glasses, moves slowly to the right and … they both freeze, staring at one another through the lenses. He slowly lifts his arm. Waves.

She slowly does the same. The old man beside her puts his glasses on and squints in his direction, mouth opening and closing the entire time.

Justin holds his hand up, intends to make a ‘wait’ sign. Hold on, I’m coming up to you. He holds his forefinger up, as though he’s just thought of an idea. One minute. Hold on, I’ll be one minute, he tries to signal.

She gives him the thumbs-up and he breaks into a smile.

He drops the opera glasses and stands up immediately, taking note of where exactly she is sitting. The door to the box opens and in walks Laurence.

‘Justin, I thought maybe we could have a word,’ he says politely, drumming his fingers on the back of the chair that separates them.

‘No, Laurence, not now, sorry.’ He tries to move past him.

‘I promise not to take up too much of your time. Just a few minutes while we’re alone. To clear the air, you know?’ He opens the button of his blazer, smooths down his tie and closes his button again.

‘Yeah, I appreciate that, buddy, I really do, but I’m in a really big hurry right now.’ He tries to inch by him but Laurence moves to block him.

‘A hurry?’ he says, raising his eyebrows. ‘But the interval is just about over and … ah,’ he stops, realising. ‘I see. Well, I just thought I’d give it a try. If you’re not ready to have the discussion yet, that’s understandable.’

‘No, it’s not that.’ Justin looks through his opera glasses and up at Joyce, feeling panicked. She’s still there. ‘It’s just that I really am in a hurry to get to somebody. I have to go, Laurence.’

Jennifer walks in just as he says that. Her face is stony.

‘Honestly, Justin. Laurence just wanted to be a gentleman and talk to you like an adult. Something, it seems, you have forgotten how to be. Though I don’t know why I’m surprised about that.’

‘No, no, look, Jennifer.’ I used to call you Jen. So formal now, a lifetime away from that memorable day in the park when they were all so happy, so in love. ‘I really don’t have time for this right now. You don’t understand, I have to go.’

‘You can’t go. The ballet is about to begin in a few minutes and your daughter will be onstage. Don’t tell me you’re walking out on her too, because of some ridiculous male pride.’

Doris and Al enter the box, Al’s size alone completely crowding the small space and blocking his path to the door. Al holds a pint of cola in his hand and an oversized bag of crisps.

‘Tell him, Justin.’ Doris folds her arms and taps her long fake pink nails against her thin arms.

Justin groans. ‘Tell him what?’

‘Remind him of the heart disease in your family so that he may think twice before eating and drinking that crap.’

‘What heart disease?’ Justin holds his hands to his head while on the other side of him, Jennifer drones on and on in what sounds like Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice. ‘Wah, wah, wah’ is all he hears.

‘Your father, dying of a heart attack,’ she says impatiently.

Justin freezes.

‘The doc didn’t say that it would necessarily happen to me,’ Al moans to his wife.

‘He said there was a good chance. If there’s a history in the family.’

Justin’s voice sounds to him as though it’s coming from somewhere else. ‘No, no, I really don’t think you have to worry about that, Al.’

‘See?’ He looks at Doris.

‘That’s not what the doctor said, sweetheart. We have to be more careful if it runs in the family.’

‘No, it doesn’t run in the—’ Justin stalls. ‘Look, I really have to go now.’ He tries to move in the crowded box.

‘No, you will not,’ Jennifer blocks him. ‘You are not going anywhere until you apologise to Laurence.’

‘It’s really all right, Jen,’ Laurence says awkwardly.

I call her Jen, not you!

‘No, it’s not, sweetheart.’

I’m her sweetheart, not you!

Voices come at him from all sides, wah wah wah, he is unable to make out the words. He feels hot and sweaty, dizziness grips him.

Suddenly the lights dim and the music begins and he has no choice but to take his seat again, beside a fuming Jennifer, an insulted Laurence, a silent Peter, a worried Doris and a hungry Al, who decides to munch loudly in his left ear, on the packet of potato chips.

He sighs and looks up at Joyce.

Help.

It seems the squabble in Mr Hitchcock’s box has ended, but as the lights are going down, they are all still standing. When the lights lift again, they are all seated with stony faces, apart from the large man at the back, who is eating a large bag of crisps. I have ignored Dad all throughout the last few moments, choosing instead to invest my time in a crashcourse in lipreading. If I have been successful, their conversation involved Carrot Top and barbecued bananas.

Deep inside, my heart drums like a djembe, its deep bass and slap reaching down into my chest. I feel it in the base of my throat, throbbing, and all because he saw me, he wanted to come to me. I feel relieved that following my instincts, however flighty, paid off. It takes me a few minutes to be able to focus on anything other than Justin, but when I calm my nerves slightly I turn my attention back to the stage where Bea takes my breath away and causes me to sniffle through her performance like a proud aunt. It occurs to me so strongly right now that the only people privy to those wonderful happy memories in the park are Bea, her mother, father … and me.

‘Dad, can I ask you something?’ I lean close to him and whisper.

‘He’s just after telling that girl that he loves her but she’s the wrong girl,’ he rolls his eyes. ‘Eejit. The swan girl was in white and that one is in black. They don’t look alike at all.’

‘She could have changed for the ball. No one wears the same thing everyday.’

He looks me up and down. ‘You only took your bathrobe off one day last week. Anyway, what’s up with you?’

‘Well, it’s that, I, em, something has happened and, well …’

‘Spit it out for Christsake, before I miss anything else.’

I give up whispering in his ear and turn to face him. ‘I’ve been given something, or more, something very special has been shared with me. It’s completely inexplicable and it doesn’t make any sense at all, in an Our Lady of Knock kind of way, you know?’ I laugh nervously and quickly stop, on seeing his face.

No, he doesn’t know. Dad looks angry I’ve used Mary’s apparition in County Mayo during the 1870s as an example of nonsense.

‘OK, perhaps that was a bad example. What I mean is, it breaks every rule I’ve ever known. I just don’t understand why.’

‘Gracie,’ Dad lifts his chin, ‘Knock, like the rest of Ireland, suffered great distress over the centuries from invasion, evictions and famines, and Our Lord sent His Mother, the Blessed Virgin, to visit with His oppressed children.’

‘No,’ I hold my hands over my face, ‘I don’t mean why did Mary appear, I mean why has this … this thing happened to me? This thing I’ve been given.’

‘Oh. Well, is it hurting anyone? Because if it’s not and if you’ve been given it, I’d as soon stop callin’ it a “thing” and start referring to it as a “gift”. Look at them dancing. He thinks she’s the swan girl. Surely he can see her face. Or is it like Superman when he takes the glasses off and suddenly he’s completely different, even though it’s as clear as day that it’s the same person?’

A gift. I’d never thought of it like that. I look over at Bea’s parents, beaming with pride, and I think of Bea before the interval, floating around with her flock of swans. I shake my head. No. No one is being hurt.

‘Well, then,’ Dad shrugs.

‘But I don’t understand why and how and—’

‘What is it with people these days?’ he hisses, and the man beside me turns round. I whisper my apologies.

‘In my day, something just was. None of this analysis a hundred times over. None of these college courses with people graduating with degrees in Whys and Hows and Becauses. Sometimes, love, you just need to forget all of those words and enrol in a little lesson called “Thank You”. Look at this story here,’ he points at the stage. ‘Do you hear anybody here giving out about the fact she, a woman, has been turned into a swan? Have you heard anything more ludicrous in your life?’

I shake my head, smiling.

‘Have you met anyone lately who happens to have been turned into a swan?’

I laugh and whisper, ‘No.’

‘Yet look at it. This bloody thing has been famous the world over for centuries. We have non-believers, atheists, intellects, cynicists, him.’ He nods his head at the man who shushed us. ‘All kinds of what-have-yous in here tonight, but all of them want to see that fella in the tights end up with that swan girl, so she’ll be able to get out of that lake. Only with the love of one who has never loved before, can the spell be broken. Why? Who the hell cares why? Do you think your woman with the feathers is going to ask why? No. She’s going to say thank you because then she can move on and wear nice dresses and go for walks, instead of having to peck at soggy bread in a stinky lake every day for the rest of her life.’

I have been stunned to silence.

‘Now, whisht, we’re missing the performance. She wants to kill herself now, look? Talk about being dramatic.’ He places his elbows on the balcony and leans in closer to the stage, his left ear tilted towards the stage more than his eyes, quite literally eavesdropping.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

During the standing ovation, Justin spies Joyce’s father helping her into a red coat, the same one from their Grafton Street collision. She begins to move to her nearby exit with her father in tow.

‘Justin,’ Jennifer scowls at her ex-husband, who is more busy spying through his opera glasses up at the ceiling than at his daughter bowing on stage.

He puts the glasses down and claps loudly, cheering.

‘Hey, guys, I’m going to go to the bar and keep some good seats for us.’ He starts moving towards the door.

‘It’s already reserved,’ Jennifer shouts after him, over the applause.

He holds his hand up to his ear and shakes his head. ‘Can’t hear you.’

He escapes and runs down the corridors, trying to find his way upstairs to the lower slips. The curtains must have fallen for the final time as people begin to exit their boxes, crowding the corridors and making it impossible for Justin to push past.

He has a change of plan: he’ll rush to the exit and wait for her there. That way he can’t miss her.

* * *

‘Let’s get a drink, love,’ Dad says as we slowly amble behind the crowd exiting the theatre. ‘I saw a bar on this floor.’

We stop to read some directions.

‘There’s the Amphitheatre bar, this way,’ I say, looking out constantly for Justin Hitchcock.

A woman usher announces that the bar is open only for cast, crew and family members.

‘That’s great, we’ll have some peace and quiet so,’ Dad says to her, tipping his cap as he walks by. ‘Oh, you should have seen my granddaughter up there. Proudest day of my life,’ he says, putting his hand on his heart.

The woman smiles and allows us entry.

‘Come on, Dad.’ After we’ve bought our drinks, I drag him deep into the room to sit at a table in the far corner, away from the growing crowd.

‘If they try to throw us out, Gracie, I’m not leaving my pint. I just sat down.’

I wring my hands nervously and perch on the edge of my seat, looking around for him. Justin. His name rolls around in my head, plays around my tongue like a contented pig in muck.

People filter out of the bar until all that is left are family, crew and cast members. Nobody approaches us again to usher us out, perhaps one of the perks of being with an old man. Bea’s mother enters with the two unknown people from the box, and the chubby man I recognise. But no Mr Hitchcock. My eyes dart around the room.

‘There she is,’ I whisper.

‘Who?’

‘One of the dancers. She was one of the swans.’

‘How do you know? They all looked the same. Even the nancy boy thought they were the same. Sure, didn’t he profess his love to the wrong woman? The bloody eejit.’

There’s no sign of Justin and I begin to worry that this is another wasted opportunity. Perhaps he has left early and isn’t coming to the bar at all.

‘Dad,’ I say urgently, ‘I’m just going to take a look around for somebody. Please do not move from this chair. I’ll be back soon.’

‘The only moving I’ll be doing is this.’ He picks up his pint and moves it to his lips. He takes a gulp of Guinness, closes his eyes and savours the taste, leaving a white moustache around his lips.

I hurry out of the bar and wander around the huge theatre, not sure where to start looking. I stand outside the nearby gents’ toilets for a few moments but he doesn’t appear. I look over at the balcony he was seated in but it’s empty.

Justin gives up standing by the exit door as the last few people trickle by him. He must have missed her and he was stupid to think there was only one exit. He sighs with frustration. He wishes he could transport himself back in time to the day in the salon and relive the moment properly this time. His pocket vibrates, snapping him out of his daydream.

‘Bro, where the heck are you?’

‘Hi, Al. I saw the woman again.’

‘The Sky News woman?’

‘Yeah!’

‘The Viking woman?’

‘Yeah, yeah, her.’

‘The Antiques Roadshow wo—’

‘YES! For Christsake, do we have to go through this again?’

‘Hey, did you ever think that maybe she’s a stalker?’

‘If she’s a stalker, then why am I always chasing her?’

‘Oh, yeah. Well, maybe you’re the stalker and you don’t know it.’

‘Al …’ Justin grits his teeth.

‘Whatever, hurry back up here before Jennifer has a conniption fit. Another one.’

Justin sighs. ‘I’m coming.’

He snaps his phone shut and takes one last look down the street. Among the crowd something catches his eye, a red coat. Adrenalin surges. He races outside, pushes past the slowly filtering crowd, his heart pounding, his eyes not budging from the coat.

‘Joyce!’ he calls. ‘Joyce, wait!’ he shouts louder.

She keeps walking, unable to hear him.

He bumps and pushes, getting cursed at and prodded by people he pushes by until finally she’s just inches from him.

‘Joyce,’ he says breathlessly, reaching out and grabbing her arm. She spins around, a face twisted in surprise and fright. A face of a stranger.

She hits him over the head with her leather bag.

‘Ow! Hey! Jesus!’

Apologising, he slowly makes his way back to the theatre, trying to catch his breath, rubbing his sore head, cursing and grumbling to himself with frustration. He reaches for the main door. It doesn’t open. He tries it again gently, then rattles it slightly a few times. Within seconds, he pulls and pushes the door with full force, kicking at the door with frustration.

‘Hey, hey, hey! We’re closed! Theatre’s closed!’ a member of staff informs him from behind the glass.

When I return to the bar, I thankfully find Dad sitting in the corner where I’d left him. Only this time he’s not alone. Perched on the chair beside him, her head close to his as though in deep conversation, is Bea. I panic and rush over to them.

‘Hi.’ I approach them, terrified by what verbal diarrhoea may have slipped out of his mouth already.

‘Ah, there you are, love. Thought you’d abandoned me. This nice girl came to see if I was OK, seeing as someone tried to throw me out again.’

‘I’m Bea,’ she smiles, and I can’t help but notice how grownup she has become. How self-assured and confident she is. I almost feel like telling her that the last time I’d seen her she was ‘yay high’, but I stop myself from gushing at her extraordinary transformation into adulthood.

‘Hello, Bea.’

‘Do I know you?’ Frown lines appear on her porcelain forehead.

‘Em …’

‘This is my daughter, Gracie,’ Dad butts in, and for once I don’t correct him.

‘Oh, Gracie,’ Bea shakes her head. ‘No. I was thinking of someone else. Nice to meet you.’

We shake hands and I hold on for a little too long perhaps, entranced by the feel of her real skin, not just a memory. I quickly let go.

‘You were wonderful tonight. I was so proud,’ I say breathily.

‘Proud? Oh, yes, your father told me you designed the costumes,’ she smiles. ‘They were beautiful. I’m surprised I hadn’t met you until now, we had been dealing with Linda for all the fittings.’

My mouth drops, Dad shrugs nervously and sips on what looks to be a new pint. A fresh lie for a fresh pint. The price of his soul.

‘Oh, I didn’t design them … I just …’ You just what, Joyce? ‘I just supervised,’ I say dumbly. ‘What else has he been telling you?’ I nervously sit down and look around for her father, hoping this isn’t the moment he chooses to enter and greet me in the midst of this ridiculous lie.

‘Well, just as you arrived he was telling me about how he’d saved a swan’s life,’ she smiles.

‘Single-handedly,’ they both add in unison and laugh.

‘Ha ha,’ I force out and it sounds fake. ‘Is that true?’ I ask him doubtfully.

‘Oh, ye of little faith.’ Dad takes another gulp of Guinness. Seventy-five years old and he’s already had a brandy and a pint: he’ll be on his ear in no time. God knows what he’d be saying then. We’ll have to leave soon.

‘Well, you know what, girls, it’s great to save a life, it really, really is,’ Dad says from his high horse. ‘Unless you’ve done it, you have no idea.’

‘My father, the hero,’ I smile.

Bea laughs at Dad. ‘You sound exactly like my father.’

My ears perk up. ‘Is he here?’

She looks around. ‘No, not yet. I don’t know where he is. Probably hiding from my mom and her new boyfriend, not to mention my boyfriend,’ she laughs. ‘But that’s another story. Anyway he considers himself Superman—’

‘Why?’ I interrupt and try to rein myself in.

‘About a month ago, he donated blood,’ she smiles and holds her hands up. ‘Ta-da! That’s it!’ She laughs. ‘But he thinks he’s some kind of hero that’s saved somebody’s life. I mean, I don’t know, maybe he has. It’s all he talks about. He donated it at a mobile unit at the college where he was giving a seminar – you guys probably know it, it’s in Dublin. Trinity College? Anyway, I wouldn’t mind, but he only did it because the doctor was cute and for that Chinese thing, what do you call it? The thing where you save someone’s life and they’re forever indebted to you or something like that?’

Dad shrugs. ‘I don’t speak Chinese. Or know any. She eats the food all the time, though.’ He nods his head at me. ‘Rice with eggs, or something.’ He ruffles his nose.

Bea laughs. ‘Anyway, he figured if he was going to save someone’s life he deserved to be thanked every day for the rest of his life by the person he saved.’

‘How would they do that, then?’ Dad leans in.

‘By delivering a muffin basket, do his dry cleaning, a newspaper and coffee delivered to his door every morning, a chauffeur-driven car, front-row tickets to the opera …’ She rolls her eyes and then frowns. ‘I can’t remember what else but they were ridiculous things. Anyway, I told him he may as well have a slave if he wants that kind of treatment, not save someone’s life.’ She laughs and Dad does too.

I make an oh shape with my mouth but nothing comes out.

‘Don’t get me wrong, he’s a really thoughtful guy,’ she adds quickly, misunderstanding my silence. ‘And I was proud of him for donating blood as he’s absolutely terrified by needles. He has a huge phobia,’ she explains to Dad, who nods along in agreement. ‘That’s him there.’ She opens her locket around her neck and if I have regained my power of speech, it is quickly lost again.

On one side of the locket is a photograph of Bea and her mother, and on the other side is the photograph of her and her father when she was a little girl, in the park on that summer day that is clearly imbedded in my memory. I remember how she jumped up and down with excitement and how it had taken us so long to get her to sit still. I remember the smell of her hair as she sat on my lap and pushed her head up against mine and shouted ‘Cheeeeese!’ so loudly she’d almost deafened me. She hadn’t done that to me at all, of course, but I remember it with equal fondness as a day spent fishing with my father when I was a child, feel all the sensations of the day as clearly as the drink I now taste in my mouth and feel flowing down my throat. The cold of the ice, the sweetness of the mineral. It’s all as real to me as the moments spent with Bea in the park.

‘I’ll have to put my glasses on to see this,’ Dad says, moving closer and taking the gold locket in his old fingers. ‘Where was this?’

‘The park near where we used to live. In Chicago. I’m five years old there, with my dad, but I love this photograph. It was such a special day.’ She looks at it fondly. ‘One of the best.’

I smile too, remembering it.

‘Photograph!’ somebody in the bar calls out.

‘Dad, let’s get out of here,’ I whisper while Bea is distracted by the commotion.

‘OK, love, just after this pint—’

‘No! Now!’ I hiss.

‘Group photo! Come on!’ Bea says, grabbing Dad’s arm.

‘Oh!’ Dad looks pleased.

‘No, no no no no no.’ I try to smile to hide my panic. ‘We really must go now.’

‘Just one photo, Gracie,’ she smiles. ‘We have to get the lady who’s responsible for all these beautiful costumes.’

‘No, I’m not—’

‘Costume supervisor,’ Bea corrects herself apologetically.

A woman on the other side of the group throws me a look of horror, on hearing this. Dad laughs. I’m stiff beside Bea, who throws one arm around me and the other arm around her mother.

‘Everyone say Tchaikovsky!’ Dad shouts.

‘Tchaikovsky!’ They all cheer and laugh.

I roll my eyes.

The camera flashes.

Justin enters the room.

The crowd breaks up.

I grab Dad, and run.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Back in our hotel room it’s lights out for Dad, who climbs into bed in his brown paisley pyjamas, and for me, who is wearing more clothes in bed than I’ve worn for a long time.

The room is black, thick with shadows and still, apart from the flashing red digits in the time display panel at the bottom of the television. Laying flat and still on my back, I attempt to process the day’s events. My body once again becomes the subject of much Zulu drumming as my heartbeat intensifies. I feel its pounding rebound against the springs in the mattress beneath me. Then the pulse in my neck vibrates so wildly it causes my ear drums to join in. Beneath my ribcage, it feels like two fists hammering to get out, and I watch the bedroom door and anticipate the arrival of an African tribe, ready to participate in the synchronised stamping of feet, at the end of my bed.

The reason for these internal war drums? Over and over again, my mind runs through the clanger Bea dropped only hours ago. The words fell from her mouth just like a cymbal falling from its drum set. Since then it has rolled around the floor and only now lands face down on the ground with a crash, ending my African orchestra. The revelation that Bea’s dad, Justin, donated blood a month ago in Dublin, the same month I fell down the stairs and changed my life for ever, plays over and over in my mind. Coincidence? A resounding yes. Something more? A shaky possibility. A hopeful possibility.

When is a coincidence just a coincidence, though? And when, if at all, should it be seen as something more? At a time like this? When I am lost and desperate, grieving for a child that was never born, and tending to my wounds after a defeated marriage? This, I have found, is the time when what was once clear has instead become cloudy, and what was once considered bizarre has now become a possibility.

It is during troubled times like these that people see straight, though others watch with concern and try to convince them that they can’t. Weighted minds are just so because of all of their new thoughts. When those who have passed through their troubles and come out the other side suddenly embrace their new beliefs wholeheartedly, it is viewed with cynicism by others. Why? Because when you’re in trouble you look harder for answers than those who aren’t, and it’s those answers that help you through.

This blood transfusion – is it the answer or merely an answer I’m looking for? I find that, usually, answers present themselves. They are not hidden under rocks or camouflaged among trees. Answers are right there, in front of our eyes. But if you haven’t cause to look, then of course you will probably never find them.

So, the explanation for the sudden arrival of alien memories, the reason for such a deep connection to Justin – I feel it running through my very veins. Is this the answer that my heart is currently raging within me to realise? It hops up and down now, like Skippy, trying to get my attention, trying to alert me to a problem. I breathe in slowly through my nose and exhale, I close my eyes gently and place my hands over my chest, feeling the thump-thump, thump-thump that is raging within me. Time to slow everything down now, time to get answers.

Taking the bizarre as a given for just one moment, as people in trouble do: if I did indeed receive Justin’s blood during my transfusion, then my heart is now sending his blood around my body. Some of the blood that once flowed through his veins, keeping him alive, now rushes through mine, helping to keep me alive. Something that came from his heart, that beat within him, that made him who he is, is now a part of me.

At first I shiver at the thought, goose bumps rising on my skin, but on further thought, I snuggle down into the bed and hug my body. I suddenly don’t feel so lonely, feel glad of the company within me. Is this the reason for the connection I feel with him? That in flowing from his channels to mine, it enabled me to tune into his frequency and experience his personal memories and passions?

I sigh wearily, knowing nothing in my life makes sense any more, and not just since the day I fell down the stairs. I had been falling for quite some time before that. That day … that was the day I’d landed. The first day of the rest of my life, and quite possibly, thanks to Justin Hitchcock.

It has been a long day. The business at the airport, the Antiques Roadshow, then finally the clanger at the Royal Opera House. A tsunami of emotions has come crashing down upon me all in twenty-four hours, pulled me under and overwhelmed me. I smile now, remembering the events, the precious moments with Dad, from tea at his kitchen table to a mini-adventure in London. I offer a wide toothy grin to the ceiling above me and a thanks to beyond the ceiling.

From the darkness I hear a wheezing, short rasps drifting into the atmosphere.

‘Dad?’ I whisper. ‘Are you OK?’

The wheezing gets louder and my body freezes.

‘Dad?’

Then it’s followed by a snort. And a loud guffaw.

‘Michael Aspel,’ he splutters through his laughter. ‘Christ Almighty, Gracie.’

I smile with relief as his laughter intensifies, becomes so much bigger than him that he almost can’t bear it. I giggle at the sound of his laughter. He laughs harder on hearing me, and I at him. Our sounds fuel each other. The springs of the mattress beneath me squeak as my body shakes, causing us to roar even more. Thoughts of the umbrella stand, going live with Michael Aspel, the group cheering ‘Tchaikovsky!’ at the camera, the hilarity grows with each flickering scene.

‘Oh, my stomach,’ he howls.

I roll onto my side, hands on my belly.

Dad continues to wheeze and bangs his hand repeatedly on the side cabinet that separates us. I try to stop, the panic of a stiffening stomach sore but hilarious at the same time. I can’t stop and Dad’s high-pitched wheezing sets me off even more. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him laugh so much and so heartily. From the pale light seeping through the window beside Dad, I see his legs rise in the air and kick around with glee.

‘Oh. My. I. Can’t. Stop.’

We wheeze and roar and laugh, sit up, lie down, roll around and try to catch our breaths. We stop momentarily and try to compose ourselves but it takes over our bodies again, laughing, laughing, laughing in the darkness, at nothing and everything.

Then we calm down and there is silence. Dad farts and we are off again.

Hot tears roll from the sides of my eyes and down my plumped cheeks, which ache from smiling and I squeeze them with my hands to stop. It occurs to me how close happiness and sadness are. So closely knitted together. Such a thin line, a thread-like divide that in the midst of emotions, it trembles, blurring the territory of exact opposites. The movement is minute, like the thin thread of a spider’s web that quivers under a raindrop. Here in my moment of unstoppable cheek-and stomach-aching laughter, as my body rolls around, my stomach clenched, all the muscles taut, my body jumps about, is racked by emotion and therefore steps ever so slightly over the mark, and into sadness. Tears of sadness gush down my cheeks as my stomach continues to shake and ache with happiness.

I think of Conor and me; how quickly a moment of love was snapped away to a moment of hate. One comment to steal it all away. Of how love and war stand upon the very same foundations. How, in my darkest moments, my most fearful times, when faced, became my bravest. When feeling at your weakest you end up showing more strength, when at your lowest are suddenly lifted above higher than you’ve ever been. They all border one another, those opposites, and how quickly we can be altered. Despair can be altered by one simple smile offered by a stranger; confidence can become fear by the arrival of one uneasy presence. Just as Kate’s son had wavered on the balance beam and in an instant his excitement had turned to pain. Everything is on the verge, always brimming the surface, a slight shake, a tremble sends things toppling. How similar emotions are.

Dad stops his laughter so abruptly it concerns me and I reach for the light.

Pitch-black so quickly becomes light.

He looks at me as though he’s done something wrong, but is afraid to admit it. He throws the covers off his body and shuffles into the bathroom, grabbing his travel bag and hitting off everything in his path, refusing to meet my eyes. I look away. How quickly such comfort with someone can shift to awkwardness. How in the very second you reach a dead-end, moments when you are convinced you know exactly where you’re going are altered. A realisation in less than a second. A flicker.

Dad makes his way back to bed wearing a different pair of pyjama bottoms and with a towel tucked under his arm. I turn off the light, both of us quiet now. Light so quickly becomes darkness again. I continue to stare at the ceiling, feeling lost again when only moments ago I’d been found. My answers of only minutes ago are again transformed into questions.

‘I can’t sleep, Dad.’ My voice sounds childlike.

‘Close your eyes and stare into the dark, love,’ Dad responds sleepily, sounding thirty years younger too.

Moments later his light snores are audible. Awake … and then gone.

A veil hangs between the two opposites, a mere slip of a thing that is transparent to warn us or comfort us. You hate now but look through this veil and see the possibility of love; you’re sad now but look through to the other side and see happiness. Absolute composure to a complete mess – it happens so quickly, all in the blink of an eye.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

‘OK, I’ve gathered us all here today because—’

‘Somebody died.’

‘No, Kate,’ I sigh.

‘Well, it sounds like—Ow,’ she yelps as Frankie, I assume, physically harms her for her tactlessness.

‘So are you all red-bused out of it?’ Frankie asks.

I’m seated at the desk in my hotel room, on the phone to the girls who are huddled around the phone in Kate’s house with me on loudspeaker. I’d spent the morning looking around London with Dad, taking photographs of him standing awkwardly in front of anything resembling anything English: red buses, post boxes, police horses, pubs, Buckingham Palace, and a completely unaware transvestite, as he was so excited to see ‘a real one’, who was nothing like the local priest who’d lost his mind and wandered the streets wearing a dress, in his home town of Cavan when he was young.

While I sit at the desk, he is lying on his bed watching a rerun of Strictly Come Dancing, drinking a brandy and licking the sour cream and onion off Pringles before depositing the soggy crisps in the bin.

‘NICE!’ he shouts at the television, responding to Bruce Forsyth’s catchphrase.

I’ve called a conference call to share the latest news, or more for help and a plea for sanity strengthening. I may have gone one wish too far, but a girl can always dream. Kate and Frankie are huddled around Kate’s home phone.

‘One of your kids just puked on me,’ Frankie says. ‘Your kid just puked on me.’

‘Oh, that is not puke, that’s just a little dribble.’

‘No, this is dribble …’

There’s silence.

‘Frankie, you are disgusting.’

‘OK, girls, girls, please can you two stop, just this once?’

‘Sorry, Joyce, but I can’t continue this conversation until it is out of here. It’s crawling around biting things, climbing on things, drooling on things. It’s very distracting. Can’t Christian mind it?’

I try not to laugh.

‘Do not call my child “it”. And no, Christian is busy.’

‘He’s watching football.’

‘He doesn’t like to be disturbed, particularly by you. Ever.’

‘Well, you’re busy too. How do I get it to come with me?’

There’s a silence.

‘Come here, little boy,’ Frankie says uneasily.

‘His name is Sam. You’re his godmother, in case you’ve forgotten that too.’

‘No, I haven’t forgotten that. Just his name.’ Her voice strains, as though she’s lifting weights. ‘Wow, what do you feed it?’

Sam squeals like a pig.

Frankie snorts back.

‘Frankie, give him to me. I’ll bring him in to Christian.’

‘OK, Joyce,’ Frankie begins in Kate’s absence, ‘I’ve done some research on the information you gave me yesterday and I’ve brought some paperwork with me, hold on.’ I hear papers being ruffled.

‘What’s this about?’ Kate asks, returning.

‘This is about Joyce jumping into the mind of the American man, thereby possessing his memories, skills and intelligence,’ Frankie responds.

‘What?’ Kate shrieks.

‘I found out that his name is Justin Hitchcock,’ I say excitedly.

‘How?’ Kate asks.

‘His surname was in his daughter’s biography in last night’s ballet programme, and his first name, well, I heard that in a dream.’

There’s silence. I roll my eyes as I imagine them giving each other that look.

‘What the hell is going on here?’ Kate asks, confused.

‘Google him, Kate,’ Frankie orders. ‘Let’s see if he exists.’

‘He exists, believe me,’ I confirm.

‘No, sweetie, you see, the way these stories work is, we’re supposed to think you’re crazy for a while before eventually believing you. So let us check up on him and then we’ll go from there.’

I lean my chin on my hand and wait.

‘While Kate’s doing that, I looked into the idea of sharing memories—’

‘What?’ Kate shrieks again. ‘Sharing memories? Are you both out of your mind?’

‘No, just me,’ I say tiredly, resting my head on the desk.

‘Actually, surprisingly enough, it turns out that you’re not clinically insane. On that count, anyway. I went online and did some research. It turns out you’re not alone in feeling that.’

I sit up, suddenly alert.

‘I came across websites with interviews with others who have admitted to experiencing somebody else’s memories and who have also acquired their skills or tastes.’

‘Oh, you two are having me on. I knew this was a set-up. I knew it was out of character for you to drop by, Frankie.’

‘This isn’t a set-up,’ I assure Kate.

‘So you’re trying to tell me honestly that you’ve magically acquired somebody else’s skills.’

‘She speaks Latin, French and Italian,’ Frankie explains. ‘But we didn’t say it was magically. That is ridiculous.’

‘And what about tastes?’ Kate is not convinced.

‘She eats meat now,’ Frankie says matter-of-factly.

‘But why do you think these are somebody else’s skills? Why can’t she just have learned Latin, French and Italian by herself and decided that she likes meat all by herself, like a normal person? I suddenly like olives and have an aversion to cheese, does that mean my body has been possessed by an olive tree?’

‘I don’t think you’re quite getting this. What makes you think olive trees don’t like cheese?’

Silence.

‘Look, Kate, I agree with you about the change of diet being a natural thing, but in all fairness, Joyce did learn three languages overnight without actually learning them.’

‘Oh.’

‘And I have dreams of Justin Hitchcock’s private childhood moments.’

‘Where the hell was I when all of this was happening?’

‘Making me do the hokey cokey live on Sky News,’ I huff.

I place the phone on loudspeaker and for the few minutes that follow, pace the room patiently and watch the time on the bottom of the television as both Frankie and Kate laugh heartily, on the other end.

Dad’s tongue freezes mid-Pringle lick as his eyes follow me.

‘What’s that noise?’ he finally asks.

‘Kate and Frankie laughing,’ I respond.

He rolls his eyes and continues licking his Pringles, attention back on a middle-aged male newsreader doing the rumba.

After three minutes, the laughter stops and I take them off loudspeaker.

‘So as I was saying,’ Frankie says, catching her breath, as though nothing had happened, ‘what you’re experiencing is quite normal – well, not normal, but there are other, eh …’

‘Freaks?’ Kate suggests.

‘… cases where people have spoken of similar things. The only thing is, these are all people who have had heart transplants, which is nothing to do with what you’ve been through, so that blows that theory.’

Thump-thump, thump-thump. In my throat again.

‘Hold on,’ Kate butts in, ‘one person says here that it’s because she was abducted by aliens.’

‘Stop reading my notes, Kate,’ Frankie hisses. ‘I wasn’t going to mention her.’

‘Listen,’ I interrupt their squabbling, ‘he donated blood. The same month that I went into hospital.’

‘So?’ Kate says.

‘She received a blood transfusion,’ Frankie explains. ‘Not all that different to the heart transplant theory I just mentioned.’

We all go quiet.

Kate breaks the silence. ‘OK, so, I still don’t get it. Somebody explain.’

‘Well, it’s practically the same thing, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘Blood comes from the heart.’

Kate gasps. ‘It came straight from his heart,’ she says dreamily.

‘Oh, so now blood transfusions are romantic to you,’ Frankie comments. ‘Let me tell you about what I got from the Net. Due to reports from several heart transplant recipients claiming experiences of unexpected side effects, Channel Four made a documentary about whether it’s possible that in receiving a transplanted organ, a patient could inherit some of their donor’s memories, tastes, desires and habits as well. The documentary follows these people making contact with the donor families in the recipients’ efforts to understand the new life within them. It questions science’s understanding of how the memory works, featuring scientists who are pioneering research into the intelligence of the heart and the biochemical basis for memory in our cells.’

‘So if they think that the heart holds more intelligence than we think, then the blood which is pumped from someone’s heart could carry that intelligence. So in transfusing his blood, he transfused his memories too?’ Kate asks. ‘And his love of meat and languages,’ she adds a little tartly.

Nobody wants to say yes to that question. Everybody wants to say no. Apart from me, who’s had a night to warm to the idea already.

‘Did Star Trek have an episode of this one time?’ Frankie asks. ‘Because if they didn’t, they should have.’

‘This can easily be solved,’ Kate says excitedly. ‘You can just find out who your blood donor was.’

‘She can’t.’ Frankie, as usual, dampens her spirits. ‘That kind of information is confidential. Besides, it’s not as though she received all of his blood. He could only have donated less than a pint in one go. Then it’s separated into white blood cells, red blood cells, plasma and platelets. What Joyce would have got, if Joyce received it at all, is only a part of his blood. It could even have been mixed with somebody else’s.’

‘His blood is still running through my body,’ I add. ‘It doesn’t matter how much of it there is. And I remember feeling distinctly odd as soon as I opened my eyes in the hospital.’

A silence answers my ridiculous statement, as we all consider the fact that my feeling ‘distinctly odd’ had nothing to do with my transfusion and all to do with the unspeakable tragedy of losing my baby.

‘We’ve got a Google hit for Mr Justin Hitchcock,’ Kate fills the silence.

My heart beats rapidly. Please tell me I’m not making it all up, that he exists, that he’s not a figment of my delusional mind. That the plans I’ve put in place already are not going to scare away some random person.

‘OK, Justin Hitchcock was a hatmaker in Massachusetts. Hmm. Well, at least he’s American. You have any knowledge of hats, Joyce?’

I think hard. ‘Berets, bucket hats, fedoras, fishermen hats, ball caps, pork-pie hats, tweed caps.’

Dad stops licking his Pringle again and looks at me. ‘Panama hat.’

‘Panama hat,’ I repeat to the girls.

‘Newsboy caps, skull caps,’ Kate adds.

‘Top hat,’ Dad says, and I pass this down the phone once again.

‘Cowboy hat,’ Frankie says, sounding deep in thought. She snaps out of it. ‘Wait a minute, what are we doing? Anybody can name hats.’

‘You’re right, it doesn’t feel right. Keep reading,’ I urge.

‘Justin Hitchcock moved to Deerfield in 1774 where he served as a soldier and fifer in the Revolution … I should probably stop reading this. Over two hundred years old is probably too much of a sugar daddy for you.’

‘Hold on,’ Frankie takes over, not wanting me to lose hope. ‘There’s another Justin Hitchcock below that. New York sanitation department—’

‘No,’ I say with frustration. ‘I already know he exists. This is ridiculous. Add Trinity College to the search; he did a seminar there.’

Tap-tap-tap.

‘No. Nothing for Trinity College.’

‘Are you sure you spoke to his daughter?’ Kate asks.

‘Yes,’ I say through gritted teeth.

‘And did anybody see you talking to this girl?’ she says sweetly.

I ignore her.

‘I’m adding the words, art, architecture, French, Latin, Italian to the search,’ Frankie says over the tap-tap-tap sound.

‘Aha! Gotcha, Justin Hitchcock! Guest lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin. The Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Department of Art and Architecture. Bachelor’s degree, Chicago, Master’s degree, Chicago, Ph. D. Sorbonne University. Special interests are History of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, Painting in Europe in 1600–1900. External responsibilities include founder and editor of the Art and Architectural Review. He is the co-author of The Golden Age of Dutch Painting: Vermeer, Metsu and Terborch, author of Copper as Canvas: Paintings on Copper 1575–1775. He has written over fifty articles in books, journals, dictionaries and conference proceedings.’

‘So he exists,’ Kate says, as though she’s just found the Holy Grail.

Feeling more confident now I say, ‘Try his name with the London National Gallery.’

‘Why?’

‘I have a hunch.’

‘You and your hunches.’ Kate continues reading, ‘He is a curator of European Art at the National Gallery, London. Oh my God, Joyce, he works in London. You should go see him.’

‘Hold your horses, Kate. She might freak him out and end up in a padded cell. He might not even be the donor,’ Frankie objects. ‘And even if he is, it doesn’t explain anything.’

‘It’s him,’ I say confidently. ‘And if he was my donor, then it means something to me.’

‘We’ll have to figure out a way to find out,’ Kate offers.

‘It’s him,’ I repeat.

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Kate asks.

I smile lightly and glance at the clock again. ‘What makes you think I haven’t done something already?’

* * *

Justin holds the phone to his ear and paces the small office in the National Gallery as much as he can, stretching the phone cord as far as it will go on each pace, which is not far. Three and a half steps up, five steps down.

‘No, no, Simon, I said Dutch Portraits, though you’re correct as there certainly will be much Dutch portraits,’ he laughs. ‘The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals,’ he continues. ‘I’ve written a book about that subject so it’s something I’m more than familiar with.’ A half-written book you stopped working on two years ago, liar.

‘The exhibition will include sixty works, all painted between 1600 and 1680.’

There is a knock on the door.

‘Just a minute,’ he calls out.

The door opens anyway and his colleague, Roberta, enters. Though young, in her thirties, her back is hunched, her chin pressed to her chest as though she is decades older. Her eyes, mostly cast downward, occasionally flicker upwards to meet his before falling again. She is apologetic for everything, as always, constantly saying sorry to the world, as though her very presence offends. She tries to manoeuvre her way through the obstacle course that is his cluttered office to reach his desk. This she does the same way as she does through her life, as quietly and as invisibly as possible, which Justin would find admirable if it weren’t quite so sad.

‘Sorry, Justin,’ she whispers, carrying a small basket in her hand. ‘I didn’t know you were on the phone, sorry. This was at reception for you. I’ll just put it here. Sorry.’ She backs away, barely making a sound as she tiptoes out of the room and closes the door silently behind her. A silent whirlwind that spins so gracefully and slowly it hardly appears to move at all, failing to uproot anything that lies around it.

He simply nods at her and then tries to concentrate on the conversation, picking up where he left off.

‘It will range from small individual portraits meant for the private home to the large-scale group portraits of members of charitable institutions and civic guards.’

He stops pacing and eyes the hamper suspiciously, feeling as though something is about to jump out at him.

‘Yes, Simon, in the Sainsbury Wing. If there’s anything else you need to know please do contact me here at the office.’

He hurries his colleague off the phone and hangs up. His hand pauses on the receiver, not sure whether to call for security. The small hamper seems alien and sweet, in his musty office, like a new-born baby in a cradle left on the dirty steps of an orphanage. Underneath the wicker handle, the contents are covered by a chequered cloth. He stands back and lifts it slowly, preparing to jump away at any moment.

A dozen or so muffins stare back at him.

His heart thumps and he quickly looks around his box-sized office, knowing nobody is with him, but his discomfort at receiving this surprise gift adds an eerie presence. He searches the basket for a card. Taped to the other side is a small white envelope. With what he realises now are shaking hands, he rips it rather clumsily from the basket. It hasn’t been sealed and so he slides the card out. In the centre of the card in neat handwritten script it simply says:

Thank you …

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Justin power-walks through the halls of the National Gallery, part of him obeying and the other part disobeying the ‘no running in the halls’ rule as he jogs three steps then walks three steps, jogs three steps and slows to a walk again. Goody Two-Shoes and the daredevil within him battling it out.

He spots Roberta tiptoeing through the hallway, making her way like a shadow to the private library where she has worked for the past five years.

‘Roberta!’ His daredevil is unleashed; disobeys the ‘no shouting in the halls’ rule, and his voice echoes and rebounds off the walls and high ceilings, deafening the ears of all in the portraits, loud enough to wilt van Gogh’s sunflowers and to crack the mirror in the Arnolfini portrait.

It’s also enough for Roberta to freeze and turn slowly, her eyes wide and terrified like a deer caught in the headlights. She blushes as the half-dozen members of the public turn to stare at her. Her gulp is visible from where he stands and Justin’s immediately sorry for breaking her code, for pointing her out when she wanted to be invisible. He stops his power-walking and tries to walk quietly along the floors, glide as she does, in an attempt to retract the noise he had made. She stands, stiff as a board and as close to the wall as possible like an elegant climber, clinging to the walls and fences, preferring shelter and not noticing its own beauty. Justin wonders if her behaviour is as a consequence of her career, or if being a librarian in the National Gallery had seemed attractive to her because of her way. He thinks the latter.

‘Yes,’ she whispers, wide-eyed and frightened.

‘Sorry for shouting your name,’ he says as quietly as he can.

Her face softens and her shoulders relax a little.

‘Where did you get this hamper?’ He holds it out to her.

‘At reception. I was returning from my break when Charlie asked me to give it to you. Is there something wrong?’

‘Charlie.’ He thinks hard. ‘He’s at the Sir Paul Getty Entrance?’

She nods.

‘OK, thank you, Roberta, I apologise for shouting.’ He dashes off to the East Wing, his daredevil and good side clashing again in a remarkably confused half-run, half-walk combination, while the basket swings from his hand.

‘Finished for the day, Little Red Riding Hood?’ He hears a croaky chuckle.

Justin, noticing he was skipping along with the basket, stops abruptly and spins around to face Charlie, a security guard, over six foot tall.

‘My, Grandmother, what an ugly head you have.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I was wondering who gave you this basket?’

‘A delivery guy from …’ Charlie moves over to behind his small desk and riffles through some papers. He retrieves a clipboard. ‘Harrods. Zhang Wei,’ he reads. ‘Why? Something wrong with the muffins?’ He runs his tongue over his teeth and clears his throat.

Justin’s eyes narrow. ‘How did you know they were muffins?’

Charlie refuses to meet his stare. ‘Had to check, didn’t I? This is the National Gallery. You can’t expect me to accept a package without knowing what’s in it.’

Justin studies Charlie, whose face has pinked. He spies crumbs stuck to the crevices at the corners of his mouth and slight traces down his uniform. He removes the chequered cloth from his hamper and counts. Eleven muffins.

‘Don’t you think it’s odd to send a person eleven muffins?’

‘Odd?’ Eyes wander, shoulders fidget. ‘Dunno, mate. Never sent muffins to anyone in my life.’

‘Wouldn’t it seem more obvious to send a dozen muffins?’

Shoulders shrug. Fingers fidget. His eyes study everybody that enters the gallery, far more intently than usual. His body language tells Justin that he’s finished with the conversation.

Justin whips out his cellphone as he exits to Trafalgar Square.

‘Hello?’

‘Bea, it’s Dad.’

‘I’m not talking to you.’

‘Why not?’

‘Peter told me what you said to him at the ballet last night,’ she snaps.

‘What did I do?’

‘You interrogated him on his intentions all night.’

‘I’m your father, that’s my job.’

‘No, what you did is the job of the Gestapo,’ she fumes. ‘I swear, I’m not speaking to you until you apologise to him.’

‘Apologise?’ he laughs. ‘What for? I merely made a few enquiries into his past, in order to ascertain his agenda.’

‘Agenda? He doesn’t have an agenda!’

‘So I asked him a few questions, so what? Bea, he’s not good enough for you.’

‘No, he’s not good enough for you. Well, I don’t care what you think of him, it’s me that’s supposed to be happy.’

‘He picks strawberries for a living.’

‘He is an IT consultant!’

‘Then, who picks strawberries?’ Somebody picks strawberries. ‘Well, honey, you know how I feel about consultants. If they are so amazing at something why don’t they do it themselves, instead of just making money telling people?’

‘You’re a lecturer, curator, reviewer, whatever. If you know so much why don’t you just build a building or paint a damn picture yourself?’ she shouts. ‘Instead of just bragging to everybody about how much you know about them!’

Hmm.

‘Sweetheart, let’s not get out of control now.’

‘No, you are the one out of control. You will apologise to Peter and if you do not, I will not answer your phone calls and you can deal with your little dramas all by yourself.’

‘Wait, wait, wait. Just one question.’

‘Dad, I—’

‘Did-you-send-me-a-hamper-of-a-dozen-cinnamon-muffins?’ he rushes out with.

‘What? No!’

‘No?’

‘No muffins! No conversations, no nothing—’

‘Now, now, sweetheart, there’s no need for double negatives.’

‘I’ll have no more contact with you until you apologise,’ she finishes.

‘OK,’ he sighs. ‘Sorry.’

‘Not to me. To Peter.’

‘OK, but does that mean you won’t be collecting my dry cleaning on your way over tomorrow? You know where it is, it’s the one beside the tube station—’

The phone clicks. He stares at it in confusion. My own daughter hung up on me? I knew this Peter was trouble.

He thinks again about the muffins and dials again. He clears his throat.

‘Hello.’

‘Jennifer, it’s Justin.’

‘Hello, Justin.’ Her voice is cold.

Used to be warm. Like honey. No, like hot caramel. It used to bounce from octave to octave when she heard his name, just like the piano music he’d wake on Sunday mornings to hear her play from the conservatory. But now?

He listens to the silence on the other end.

Ice.

‘I’m just calling to see whether you’d sent me a hamper of muffins.’ As soon as he’s said it, he realises how ridiculous this call is. Of course she didn’t send him anything. Why would she?

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I received a basket of muffins to my office today along with a thank you note, but the note failed to reveal the sender’s identity. I was wondering if it was you.’

Her voice is amused now. No, not amused, mocking. ‘What would I have to thank you for, Justin?’

It’s a simple question, but knowing her as he knows her, it has implications far beyond the words, and so Justin jumps up and snaps at the bait. The hook cuts through his lip and bitter Justin is back, the voice he grew so accustomed to during the demise of their … well, during their demise. She has reeled him right in.

‘Oh, I don’t know, twenty years of marriage, perhaps. A daughter. A good living. A roof over your head.’ He knows it’s a stupid statement. That before him, after him and even without him, she had and always would have a roof, of all things, over her head, but it’s spurting out of him now and he can’t stop and won’t stop, for he is right and she is wrong and anger is spurring on every word, like a jockey whipping his horse as they near the finish line. ‘Travel all over the world.’ Whip-crack-away! ‘Clothes, clothes and more clothes.’ Whip-crack-away! ‘A new kitchen when we didn’t need one, a conservatory, for Christsake …’ And he goes on, like a man from the nineteenth century who’d been keeping his wife accustomed to a good life she would otherwise have been without, ignoring the fact that she had made a good living herself, playing in an orchestra that travelled the world, making several trips that he had accompanied her on.

At the beginning of their married life they had no choice but to live with Justin’s mother. They were young and had a baby to rear, the reason for their hasty marriage, and as Justin was still attending college by day, bar tending at night and working at an art museum at the weekend, Jennifer had made money playing the piano at an upmarket restaurant in Chicago. At the weekends, she would return home in the early hours of the morning, her back sore and tendonitis in her middle finger, but that all went out of his mind when she’d dangled the line with that seemingly innocent question. She had known that this tirade would come and he gobbles, gobbles, gobbles, munches on the bait that fills his mouth. Finally running out of things they have spent the last twenty years doing together, and out of steam, he stops.

Jennifer is silent.

‘Jennifer?’

‘Yes, Justin.’ Icy.

Justin sighs with exhaustion. ‘So, was it you?’

‘It must have been one of your other women, because it most certainly wasn’t me.’

Click and she’s gone.

Rage bubbles inside him. Other women. Other women! One affair when he was twenty years old, a fumble in the dark with Mary-Beth Dursoa at college, before he and Jennifer were even married, and she carries on as though he was Don Juan. In their bedroom, he’d even put a print of A Satyr Mourning over a Nymph by Piero di Cosimo, which Jennifer had always loathed but he had always hoped would send her subliminal messages. In the painting there is a young girl semi-clothed who on first glance seems asleep but on further viewing has blood seeping from her throat. A satyr is mourning her. Justin’s interpretation of the painting is that the woman, mistrusting her husband’s fidelity, followed him into the woods. He was hunting, not going astray as she thought, and shot her by accident, thinking her rustling in the trees was an animal. Sometimes during his and Jennifer’s darkest moments, when their hate raged during their toughest arguments, when their throats were red raw, their eyes stinging with tears, their hearts breaking from the pain, their heads pounding from the analysis, Justin would study the painting and envy the satyr.

Fuming, he charges down the North Terrace steps, sits down by one of the fountains, places the basket by his feet and bites into a muffin, scoffing it down so quickly he barely has time to taste it. Crumbs fall at his feet, attracting a flock of pigeons with intent in their beady black eyes. He goes to reach for another muffin but he is swarmed by overenthusiastic pigeons pecking at the contents of his basket, greedily. Peck, peck, peck – he watches dozens more flock towards him, coming in to land like fighter jets. Afraid of falling missiles from those that circle his head, he picks up his basket and shoos them away with all the butchness of an eleven-year-old.

He breezes in the front door of his home, leaving it open behind him, and is immediately greeted by Doris, with a paint palette in her hand.

‘OK, so I’ve narrowed it down,’ she begins, thrusting dozens of colours in his face.

Her long leopard-print nails are each decorated with a diamanté jewel. She wears an all-in-one snakeskin jumpsuit, and her feet wobble dangerously in patent lace-up ankle stilettos. Her hair is still its usual shock of red, her eyes catlike with inky eyeliner sweeping up from her corners of her eyes, her painted lips to match her hair remind him of Ronald McDonald. He watches them with severe irritation as they open and close.

The random words he hears are, ‘Gooseberry Fool, Celtic Forest, English Mist and Woodland Pearl, all calm tones, would look so good in this room or Wild Mushroom, Nomadic Glow and Sultana Spice. The Cappuccino Candy is one of my faves but I don’t think it’ll work next to that curtain, what do you think?’

She waves a fabric in front of his face and it tickles his nose, which tingles with such intensity it senses the fight that is about to brew. He doesn’t respond but takes deep breaths and counts to ten in his mind. And when that doesn’t work and she keeps listing paint colours, he keeps on going to twenty.

‘Hello? Justin?’ She snaps her fingers in his face. ‘Hel-lo?’

‘Maybe you should give Justin a break, Doris. He looks tired.’ Al looks nervously at his brother.

‘But—’

‘Get your sultana spice behind over here,’ he teases and she whoops.

‘OK, but just one more thing. Bea will love her room done in Ivory Lace. And Petey too. Imagine how romantic this will be for—’

‘ENOUGH!’ Justin screams at the top of his lungs, not wanting his daughter’s name and the word romantic to share the same sentence.

Doris jumps and stops talking immediately. Her hand flies to her chest. Al stops drinking, his bottle freezes just below his lips, his heavy breathing above the rim making ivory pipe music. Other than that, there’s absolute silence.

‘Doris,’ Justin takes a deep breath and tries to speak as calmly as possible, ‘enough of this please. Enough of this Cappuccino Nights—’

‘Candy,’ she interrupts, and quickly silences again.

‘Whatever. This is a Victorian house, from the nineteenth century, not some painted lady from an episode of Changing Rooms.’ He tries to restrain his emotions, his feelings insulted on behalf of the building. ‘If you had mentioned Cappuccino Chocolate—’

‘Candy,’ she whispers.

‘Whatever! To anyone during that time, you would have been instantly burned at the stake!’

She squeaks, insulted.

‘It needs sophistication, it needs to be researched, it needs furniture of the period, colours of the period, not a room that sounds like Al’s dinner menu.’

‘Hey!’ Al speaks up.

‘I think it needs,’ Justin takes a deep breath and says gently, ‘somebody else for the job. Maybe it’s just bigger than you thought it was going to be but I appreciate your help, really I do. Please tell me you understand.’

She nods slowly and he breathes a sigh of relief.

Suddenly the paint palettes go flying across the room as Doris lets rip, ‘You pretentious little bastaaaaard!’

‘Doris!’ Al leaps up out of his armchair, or at least, makes a great attempt to.

Justin immediately takes steps back as she walks aggressively towards him, pointing her sparkly animal-print nail at him, like a weapon.

‘Listen here, you silly little man. I have spent the last two weeks researching this dump of a basement in the kinds of libraries and places you wouldn’t even think exist. I’ve been to dark, dingy dungeons where people smell of old … things.’ Her nostrils flare and her voice deepens, threateningly. ‘I purchased every historic period paint brochure that I could get my hands on and applied the colours in accordance with the colour rules at the end of the nineteenth century. I’ve shaken hands with people you don’t even wanna know about, I’ve seen parts of London I didn’t even wanna know about. I’ve looked through books so old, the dust mites were big enough to hand them to me from the shelves. I have matched the Dulux colours as closely as I possibly could to your historic period paint and I’ve been to second-hand, third-hand, even antique stores and seen furniture in such disgusting derelict conditions, I almost set up the ISPCF. I’ve seen things crawling around dining-room tables and sat in such rickety chairs I could smell the black death that killed the last person who died sitting right in it. I have sanded down so much pine, I have splinters in places you don’t wanna see. So.’ She prods him in the chest with her dagger nail as she emphasises each word that finally backs him up against the wall. ‘Don’t. Tell. Me. That this is too big for me.’

She clears her throat and stands up straight. The anger in her voice is replaced with a vulnerable ‘poor me’ tremble. ‘But despite what you said, I will finish this project. I will go on undeterred. I will do it in spite of you and I will do it for your brother, who might be dead next month and you don’t even care.’

‘Dead?’ Justin’s eyes widen.

With that, she turns on her heel and storms off into her bedroom.

She sticks her head out of the doorway. ‘By the way, just so you know, I would have banged the door behind me VERY LOUDLY to show just how angry I am but it’s currently out in the backyard ready for sanding and priming, before I paint it …’ and this she spits out rebelliously, ‘Ivory Lace.’

Then she disappears again, without a bang.

I shift from foot to foot nervously outside the open door of Justin’s home. Should I press the bell now? Simply call his name into the room? Would he call the police and have me arrested for trespassing? Oh, this was such a bad decision. Frankie and Kate had persuaded me to come here, to present myself to him. They had pumped me up to such a point I had hopped in the first taxi that came my way to Trafalgar Square, to catch him at the National Gallery before he left. I’d been so close to him as he’d been on the phone, heard his calls to people as he asked them about the basket. I’d felt oddly comfortable just watching him, without his knowing, unable to take my eyes off him, revelling in the secret thrill of being able to see him for who he is instead of viewing his life from his own memories.

His anger at whoever was on the phone – most likely his ex-wife, the woman with the red hair and freckles – convinced me it was the wrong time to approach him and so I’d followed him. Followed, not stalked. I’d taken my time while trying to build up the courage to talk to him. Would I mention the transfusion or not? Would he think I was crazy or be open to listening or, even better, open to believing?

But once on the tube, the timing again wasn’t right. It was overcrowded, people were pushing and shoving, avoiding eye contact, never mind first-time introductions or conversations about studies into the possible intelligence of blood. And so after pacing up and down his road, feeling like both a schoolgirl with a crush and a stalker at the same time, I now find myself standing outside the door, with a plan. But my plan is once again being compromised as Justin and his brother Al begin to talk about something I know I shouldn’t be hearing, about a family secret I am more than familiar with already.

I move my finger away from the doorbell, keep hidden from all the windows and I bide my time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Justin looks to his brother in panic and searches quickly for something to sit on. He pulls over a giant paint tub and sits down, not noticing the wet white ring of paint around the top.

‘Al, what was she talking about? About you being dead next month.’

‘No, no, no,’ Al laughs. ‘She said, might be dead. That’s distinctly different. Hey, you got away lightly there, bro. Good for you. I think that valium is really helping her. Cheers.’ He holds up his bottle and downs the last of it.

‘Hold on, hold on. Al, what are you talking about? There’s something you haven’t told me? What did the doctor say?’

‘The doctor told me exactly what I’ve been telling you for the last two weeks. If any members of a person’s immediate family developed coronary heart disease at a young age, i.e., a male under fifty-five years old, well then, we have an increased risk of coronary heart disease.’

‘Have you high blood pressure?’

‘A little.’

‘Have you high cholesterol?’

‘A lot.’

‘So, all you do is make lifestyle changes, Al. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be struck down like … like …’

‘Dad?’

‘No.’ He frowns and shakes his head.

‘Coronary heart disease is the number-one killer of American males and females. Every thirty-three seconds an American will suffer some type of coronary event and almost every minute someone will die from it.’ He looks at their mother’s grandfather clock half-covered in a dust sheet. The minute hand moves. Al grabs his heart and starts groaning. His noises soon turn to laughter.

Justin rolls his eyes. ‘Who told you that nonsense?’

‘The pamphlets at the doc’s office said so.’

‘Al, you’re not going to have a heart attack.’

‘It’s my fortieth birthday next week.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Justin hits him playfully on the knee. ‘That’s the spirit, we’ll have a big party.’

‘That’s what age Dad was when he died.’ He lowers his eyes and peels the label from his beer.

‘That’s what this is about?’ Justin’s voice softens. ‘Damnit, Al, that’s what this is all about? Why didn’t you say something earlier?’

‘I just thought that I’d spend some time with you before, you know, just in case …’ His eyes tear up and he looks away.

Tell him the truth.

‘Al, listen, there’s something you should know.’ His voice trembles and he clears his throat, trying to control it. You’ve never told anyone. ‘Dad was under a huge amount of pressure at work. He had a lot of difficulties, financial and otherwise, that he didn’t tell anyone. Not even Mom.’

‘I know, Justin. I know.’

‘You know?’

‘Yeah, I get it. He didn’t just drop dead for no reason. He was stressed out of his mind. And I’m not, I know that. But ever since I was a kid, I’ve had this feeling hanging over me that it’s gonna happen to me too. It’s been playing on my mind for as long as I can remember and now that my birthday’s next week and I’m not in the greatest of shape … Things have been real busy at the business and I haven’t been looking after myself. Never could do it like you could, you know?’

‘Hey, you don’t have to explain it to me.’

‘Remember that day we spent with him on the front lawn? With the sprinklers? Just hours before Mom found him … Well, remember the whole family playing around?’

‘They were good times,’ Justin smiles, fighting back the tears.

‘You remember?’ Al laughs.

‘Like it was yesterday,’ Justin says.

‘Dad was holding the hose and spraying us both. He seemed in such good humour.’ Al frowns with confusion and thinks for a while, then the smile returns. ‘He’d brought Mom home a big bunch of flowers – remember she put that big flower in her hair?’

‘The sunflower.’ Justin nods along.

‘And it was real hot. Do you remember it being real hot?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And Dad had his pants rolled up to his knees and his shoes and socks off. And the grass was getting all wet and his feet were all covered in grass and he just kept chasing us around and around …’ He smiles into the distance. ‘That was the last time I saw him.’

It wasn’t for me.

Justin’s memory flashes through the image of his father closing the living-room door. Justin had run into the house from the front yard to go to the bathroom; all that playing around with water was almost making him burst. As far as he knew, all the members of his family were still outside playing. He could hear his mom chasing and taunting Al, and Al, who was only five years old, screeching with laughter. But when he was coming downstairs, he spotted his dad coming out of the kitchen, walking down the hall. Justin, wanting to jump out and surprise him, crouched down and watched him from behind the banister.

But then he saw what was in his hand. He saw the bottle of liquid that was always locked away in the cabinet in the kitchen and only taken out on special occasions when his dad’s family came over from Ireland to visit. When they all drank from that bottle they would change, they would sing songs that Justin had never heard before but that his dad knew every word of, and they would laugh and tell stories and sometimes cry. He wasn’t sure why that bottle was in his dad’s hands now. Did he want to sing and laugh and tell stories today? Did he want to cry?

Then Justin saw the bottle of pills in his hand too. He knew they were pills, because they were in the same container as the medicine Mom and Dad took when they were sick. He hoped his dad wasn’t feeling sick now and he hoped he didn’t want to cry. He watched as he closed the door behind him with the pills and bottle of alcohol in his hands. He should have known then what his dad was about to do but he didn’t. Thinks of that moment over and over and tries to force himself to call out and stop him. But the nine-year-old Justin never hears him. He stays crouched on the stair, waiting for his dad to come out so he can jump out and surprise him. As time went by he began to feel that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t quite know why he felt that way and he didn’t want to ruin the big surprise by checking on his dad.

After minutes that felt like hours, of nothing but silence from behind the door, Justin gulped and stood up. He could hear Al screaming with laughter outside. He could still hear Al laughing when he went inside and saw the green feet on the floor. He remembers the sight of those feet so vividly, Dad lying on the floor like a big green giant. He remembers following those feet and finding his dad on the floor, staring lifeless at the ceiling.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t scream, didn’t touch him, didn’t kiss him, didn’t try to help him because though he didn’t understand much at that time, he knew that it was too late for help. He just slowly backed out of the room, closed the door behind him and ran out to the front lawn to his mom and younger brother.

Five minutes they had. Five more minutes of everything being exactly the same. He was nine years old on a sunny day with a mom and a dad and a brother, and he was happy and Mom was happy and the neighbours smiled at him normally like they did all the other kids, all the food they ate for dinner was made by his mom and when he was bad at school the teachers shouted at him, like they should. Five more minutes of everything being the same, until his mom went into the house and then it was all completely different, then everything changed. Five minutes later, he wasn’t nine years old with a mom, a dad and a brother. He wasn’t happy, neither was Mom, and the neighbours smiled at him with such a sadness he wished they didn’t bother smiling at all. Everything they ate came from containers carried over by women that lived on the same street, who always looked sad too, and when he acted up at school the teachers just looked at him with that same face. Everyone had the same face. The five extra minutes wasn’t long enough.

Mom told them Dad had suffered a heart attack. She told the entire family and anybody that came by with a home-cooked meal or pie.

Justin could never bring himself to tell anyone he knew the truth, half because he wanted to believe the lie and half because he thought his mother had started to believe it too. So he kept it to himself. He hadn’t even told Jennifer, because saying it out loud made it true and he did not want to validate his father dying that way. And now, their mother gone, he was the only person who knew the truth about his dad. The story of their father’s death that had been fabricated to help them had ended up hanging like a black cloud over Al and a burden for Justin.

He wanted to tell Al the truth right now, he really did. But how could it help him? Surely knowing the truth would be far worse, and he’d have to explain how and why he’d kept it from him all these years … But then he would no longer have to shoulder all the burden. Perhaps there would be finally some release for him. It could help Al’s fear of heart failure and they could deal with it together.

‘Al, there’s something I have to tell you,’ Justin begins.

The doorbell rings suddenly. A sharp sting of a ring that startles them both from their thoughts, smashing the silence like a sledgehammer through glass. All their thoughts shatter and fall to pieces on the ground.

‘Is someone gonna get that?’ Doris yells, breaking the silence.

Justin walks to the door with a white ring of paint around his behind. The door is already ajar and he pulls it open further. Before him, on the railings, hangs his dry cleaning. His suits, shirts and sweaters all covered in plastic. Nobody is there. He steps outside and runs up the basement steps to see who has left them there, but apart from the skip, the front lawn is empty.

‘Who is it?’ Doris calls.

‘Nobody,’ Justin responds, confused. He unhooks his dry cleaning from the railing and carries it inside.

‘You’re telling me that cheap suit just pressed the doorbell itself?’ she asks, still angry at him from before.

‘I don’t know. It’s peculiar. Bea was going to collect this tomorrow. I hadn’t arranged a delivery with the dry cleaners.’

‘Maybe it’s a special delivery, for being such a good customer because by the looks of it, they dry cleaned your entire wardrobe.’ She eyes his choice of clothes with distaste.

‘Yeah, and I’ll bet the special delivery comes with a big bill,’ he grumbles. ‘I had a little falling-out with Bea earlier; maybe she organised this as an apology.’

‘Oh, you are a stubborn man.’ Doris rolls her eyes. ‘Do you ever think for a second that it’s you who should be making the apologies?’

Justin narrows his eyes at her. ‘Did you talk to Bea?’

‘Hey, look, there’s an envelope on this side,’ Al points out, interrupting the beginnings of another fight.

‘There’s your bill,’ Doris laughs.

Justin’s heart immediately leaps to his mouth as he catches sight of the familiar envelope. He throws the pile of clothes down on the dust sheet and rips off the envelope.

‘Be careful! These have just been pressed.’ Doris takes them and hangs them from the door frame.

He opens the envelope and gulps hard, reading the note.

‘What does it say?’ Al asks.

‘It must be a death threat, look at his face,’ Doris says excitedly. ‘Or a begging letter. Some of those are so much fun. What’s wrong with them and how much do they want?’ she giggles.

Justin takes out the card he received on the muffin basket earlier, and he holds the two cards together so that they make a complete sentence. Reading the words causes a chill to run through his body.

Thank you … For Saving My Life.

CHAPTER THIRTY

I lie in the skip, breathless, heart beating at the speed of a humming bird’s wings. I’m like a child playing hide and seek, with intense nervous excitement rolling around my tummy; like a dog on its back trying to rid itself of fleas. Please don’t find me, Justin, don’t find me like this, lying at the bottom of the skip in your garden, covered in plaster and dust. I hear his footsteps move further away, back down the steps to his basement flat and the door closes.

What on earth have I become? A coward. I chickened out and rang the doorbell to stop Justin telling the story about his father to Al and then, afraid of playing God to two strangers, I ran, leaped and landed in the bottom of a skip. How metaphorical. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to speak to him. I don’t know how I’ll ever find the words to explain how I’m feeling. The world is not a patient place: stories such as this are mostly for the pages of the Enquirer or double-page spreads in certain women’s magazines. Beside my story would be a photograph of me, in my dad’s kitchen, looking forlornly at the camera. With no make-up. No, Justin would never believe me if I told him – but actions speak louder than words.

Lying on my back, I stare up at the sky. Lying face down, the clouds stare right back down at me. They pass over the woman in the skip with curiosity, calling the stragglers behind them to come see. More clouds gather, eager to see what the others are grumbling about. Then they too pass over, leaving me staring at blue and the occasional white wisp. I almost hear my mother laughing aloud, imagine her nudging her friends to come have a look at her daughter. I imagine her peeping over a cloud, hanging over too far like Dad in the balcony at the Royal Opera House. I smile, enjoying this now.

Now, as I brush dust, paint and wood from my clothes and clamber out of the skip, I try to remember what other things Bea mentioned her father wanted to have done, by the person he saved.

‘Justin, calm down, for creep’s sake. You’re making me nervous.’ Doris sits on a stepladder and watches Justin pace up and down the room.

‘I can’t calm down. Do you not understand what this means?’ He hands her the two cards.

Her eyes widen. ‘You saved someone’s life?’

‘Yeah.’ He shrugs and stops pacing. ‘It’s really no big deal. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.’

‘He donated blood,’ Al interrupts his brother’s failed attempt at modesty.

‘You donated blood?’

‘It’s how he met Vampira, remember?’ Al refreshes his wife’s memory. ‘In Ireland when they say, “Fancy a pint?” beware.’

‘Her name is Sarah not Vampira.’

‘So you donated blood to get a date.’ Doris folds her arms. ‘Is there nothing you do for the greater good of humanity or is it all just for yourself?’

‘Hey, I have a heart.’

‘Though a pint lighter than it was,’ Al adds.

‘I have donated plenty of my time to helping organisations – colleges, universities and galleries – which are in need of my expertise. Something I don’t have to do, but which I have agreed to do for them.’

‘Yeah and I bet you charge them per word. That’s why he says “oops-a-daisies” instead of “shit” when he stubs his toe.’

Al and Doris dissolve into laughter, thumping and hitting each other in their fit.

Justin takes a deep breath. ‘Let’s get back to the matter at hand. Who is sending me these notes and running these errands?’

He begins pacing again and biting his nails. ‘Maybe this is Bea’s idea of a joke. She’s the only person I had the conversation with about deserving thanks in return for saving a life.’

Please, don’t be Bea.

‘Man, you are selfish,’ Al laughs.

‘No.’ Doris shakes her head, her long earrings whip against her cheeks with each movement, her back-brushed hairsprayed hair as still as a microphone head. ‘Bea wants nothing to do with you until you apologise. No words can describe how much she hates you right now.’

‘Well, thank God for that.’ Justin continues pacing. ‘But she must have told somebody or this wouldn’t be happening. Doris, find out from Bea who she spoke to about this.’

‘Huh.’ Doris lifts her chin and looks away. ‘You said some pretty nasty things to me before. I don’t know if I can help you.’

Justin falls to his knees and shuffles over to her.

‘Please, Doris, I’m begging you. I am so, so sorry for what I said. I had no idea how much time and effort you were putting into this place. I underestimated you. Without you, I’d still be drinking from a toothbrush holder and eating from a cat bowl.’

‘Yeah, I meant to ask you about that,’ Al interrupts his grovelling. ‘You don’t even have a cat.’

‘So I’m a good interior designer?’ Doris lifts her chin.

‘A great designer.’

‘How great?’

‘Greater than …’ he stalls. ‘Andrea Palladio.’

Her eyes look to the left, look to the right. ‘Is he better than Ty Pennington?’

‘He was an Italian architect in the sixteenth century, widely considered the most influential person in the history of Western architecture.’

‘Oh. OK. You’re forgiven.’ She holds out her hand. ‘Give me your phone and I’ll call Bea.’

Moments later they are all seated around the new kitchen table listening to Doris’s half of the phone conversation.

‘OK, Bea told Petey, and the costume supervisor for Swan Lake. And her father.’

‘The costume supervisor? Do you guys still have the programme?’

Doris disappears to her bedroom and returns with the ballet programme. She flicks through the pages.

‘No,’ Justin shakes his head on reading her biography, ‘I met this woman that night and it’s not her. But her father was there? I didn’t see her father.’

Al shrugs.

‘Well, these people aren’t involved in this, I certainly didn’t save her life or her father’s. The person must be Irish or have received medical attention in an Irish hospital.’

‘Maybe her dad’s Irish, or was in Ireland.’

‘Give me that programme, I’m calling the theatre.’

‘Justin, you can’t just call her up.’ Doris dives for the programme in his hand, but he dodges her. ‘What are you going to say?’

‘All I need to know is if her father is Irish or was in Ireland during the past month. I’ll make the rest up as I go along.’

Al and Doris look at each other worriedly while he leaves the kitchen to make the call.

‘Did you do this?’ Doris asks Al quietly.

‘No way.’ Al shakes his head, his chins wobbling.

Five minutes later Justin returns.

‘She remembered me from last night and, no, it’s not her or her father. So either Bea told somebody else or … it must be Peter fooling around. I’m gonna get that little kid and—’

‘Grow up, Justin. It’s not him,’ Doris says sternly. ‘Start looking elsewhere. Call the dry cleaners, call the guy who delivered the muffins.’

‘I have already. They were charged to a credit card and they can’t release the owner’s details.’

‘Your life is just one big mystery. Between the Joyce woman and these mysterious deliveries, you should hire a private investigator,’ Doris responds. ‘Oh! I just remembered.’ She reaches into her pocket and hands him a piece of paper. ‘Speaking of private investigators. I got this for you. I’ve had it for a few days but didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you going on a wild-goose chase and making a fool of yourself. But seeing as you’re choosing to do that anyway, here.’

She hands him the piece of paper with Joyce’s details.

‘I called International Directory Enquiries and gave them the number of the Joyce person that showed up on Bea’s phone last week. They gave me the address that goes with it. I think it’d be a better idea to find this woman, Justin. Forget this other person. It seems very odd behaviour to me. Who knows who’s sending you these notes? Concentrate on the woman; a nice healthy relationship is what you need.’

He barely reads the page before putting it in his jacket pocket, totally uninterested, his mind elsewhere.

‘You just jump from one woman to another, don’t you?’ Doris studies him.

‘Hey, it could be the Joyce woman that’s sending the messages,’ Al pipes up.

Doris and Justin both look at him and roll their eyes.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Al,’ Justin dismisses him. ‘I met her in a hair salon. Anyway, who says it’s a woman that’s doing this?’

‘Well, it’s obvious,’ Al replies. ‘Because you were given a muffin basket.’ He scrunches up his nose. ‘Only a woman would think of sending a muffin basket. Or a gay guy. And whoever it is, he or she – or maybe it’s a heshe – they know how to do calligraphy, which further backs up my theory. Woman, gay guy or tranny,’ he sums up.

‘I was the one who thought of the muffin basket!’ Justin puffs. ‘And I do calligraphy.’

‘Yeah, like I said. Woman, gay guy or tranny,’ he grins.

Justin throws his hands up in exasperation and falls back in his chair. ‘You two are no help.’

‘Hey, I know who could help you.’ Al sits up.

‘Who?’ Justin rests his chin on his fist, bored.

‘Vampira,’ he says spookily.

‘I’ve already asked her for help. All I could see were my blood details in the database. Nothing about who received my donation. She won’t tell me where my blood went and she won’t ever speak to me again either.’

‘On account of you running away from her after a Viking bus?’

‘That had something to do with it.’

‘Gee, Justin, you really have a beautiful way with women.’

‘Well, at least somebody thinks I’m doing something right.’ He stares at the two cards he’s placed in the centre of the table.

Who are you?

‘You don’t have to ask Sarah straight out. Maybe you could snoop around a bit in her office,’ Al gets excited.

‘No, that would be wrong,’ Justin says unconvincingly. ‘I could get into trouble. I could get her into trouble and, besides, I’ve treated her so badly.’

‘So a really lovely thing to do,’ Doris says slyly, ‘would be to drop by her office, and tell her you’re sorry. As a friend.’

A smile slowly creeps onto each of their faces.

‘But can you take a day off work next week, to go to Dublin?’ Doris asks, breaking their evil moment.

‘I’ve already accepted an invitation from the National Gallery in Dublin to give a talk on Terborch’s Woman Writing a Letter,’ Justin says excitedly.

‘What’s the painting of?’ Al asks.

‘A woman writing a letter, Sherlock,’ Doris snorts.

‘What a boring story.’ Al scrunches up his nose. Then he and Doris settle down and watch as Justin reads the notes over and over, hoping to decipher a hidden code.

‘Man Reading a Note,’ Al says rather grandly, ‘Discuss.’

He and Doris crack up again as Justin exits the room.

‘Hey, where are you going?’

‘Man booking a flight,’ he winks.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

At seven fifteen the next morning, just before Justin leaves his flat for work, he stands poised at the front door, hand on the door handle.

‘Justin, where’s Al? He wasn’t in bed when I woke up.’ Doris shuffles out of her bedroom in her slippers and robe. ‘What on earth are you doing now, you funny little man?’

Justin holds a finger to his lips, hushing her, and jerks his head in the direction of the door.

‘Is the blood person out there?’ she whispers excitedly, kicking off her slippers and tiptoeing like a cartoon character, to join him at the door.

He nods excitedly.

They press their ears up against the door and Doris’s eyes widen. ‘I can hear!’ she mouths.

‘OK, on three,’ he whispers and they mouth together, One, two—He pulls the door open with full force. ‘HA! Gotcha!’ he shouts, striking an attacker’s pose and pointing his finger with more aggression than intended.

‘Aaaah!’ the postman screams with fright, dropping envelopes by Justin’s feet. He fires a package at Justin and holds another parcel by his head in defence.

‘Aaaah!’ Doris shouts.

Justin doubles over as the package hits between his legs. He falls to his knees, his face turning red as he gasps for air.

They all hold their chests, panting.

The postman remains cowered, his knees bent, his head covered by a package.

‘Justin,’ Doris picks up an envelope and hits Justin across the arm, ‘you idiot! It’s the postman.’

‘Yes,’ he rasps, and makes choking sounds. ‘I can see that now.’ He takes a moment to compose himself. ‘It’s OK, sir, you can lower your package now. I’m sorry to have frightened you.’

The postman slowly lowers the parcel, fear and confusion in his eyes. ‘What was that about?’

‘I thought you were someone else. I’m sorry, I was expecting … something else.’ He looks to the envelopes on the floor. Bills. ‘Is there nothing else for me?’

His left arm starts to niggle at him again. Tingling as though a mosquito has bitten him. He starts to scratch. Lightly at first and then he pats his inner elbow, smacking the itch away. The tingling becomes more intense and he digs his nail into his skin, scratching over and over. Beads of sweat break out on his forehead.

The postman shakes his head and starts to back away.

‘Did nobody give you anything to deliver to me?’ He climbs back to his feet and moves closer, unintentionally appearing threatening.

‘No, I said no.’ The postman rushes up the steps.

Justin looks after him, confused.

‘Leave the man alone. You almost gave him a heart attack.’ Doris continues picking up the envelopes. ‘If you have that reaction to the real person, then you’ll scare them off too. If you ever do meet this person, I advise you rethink the “Ha! Gotcha!” routine.’

Justin pulls up the sleeve of his shirt and examines his arm, expecting to find red lumps or a rash, but there are no marks on his skin apart from the scratch marks he has made himself.

‘Are you on something?’ Doris narrows her eyes.

‘No!’

She shuffles back into the kitchen with a harrumphing sound. ‘Al?’ her voice echoes around the kitchen. ‘Where are you?’

‘Help! Help me! Someone!’

In the distance they hear Al’s voice, muffled as though his mouth is stuffed with socks.

Doris gasps, ‘Baby?’ Justin hears the fridge door opening. ‘Al?’ She sticks her head in the fridge. She returns to the living room, shaking her head, alterting Justin to the fact that her husband was not in the fridge after all.

Justin rolls his eyes. ‘He’s outside, Doris.’

‘Then for goodness’ sake stop just standing there looking at me and help him!’

He opens the door and Al sits slumped on the ground at the base of the steps. Wrapped around his sweaty head, Rambo style, is one of Doris’s tangerine headbands, his T-shirt is soaked with sweat, beads of perspiration run down his face, his legs are spandex-clad and crumpled underneath him, still in the same position as when he’d fallen.

Doris pushes by Justin aggressively, and charges towards Al. She falls to her knees. ‘Baby? Are you OK? Did you fall down the stairs?’

‘No,’ he says weakly, his chins resting on his chest.

‘No, you’re not OK or no, you didn’t fall down the stairs?’ she asks.

‘The first one,’ he says with exhaustion. ‘No, the second. Hold on, what was the first?’

She shouts at him now as though he is deaf. ‘The first was, are you OK? And the second was, did you fall down the stairs?’

‘No,’ he responds, rolling his head back to rest it against the wall.

‘To which one? Will I call an ambulance? Do you need a doctor?’

‘No.’

‘No what, baby? Come on, don’t go to sleep on me, don’t you dare go anywhere.’ She slaps his face. ‘You have to stay conscious.’

Justin leans against the door frame and folds his arms, watching the two. He knows his brother is fine, lack of fitness being his only problem. He goes to the kitchen for some water for Al.

‘My heart …’ Al is panicking when Justin returns. His hands are scraping at his chest and he’s gasping for air, stretching his head upwards and taking in gulps, like a goldfish reaching to the surface of the fish bowl for food.

‘Are you having a heart attack?’ Doris shrieks.

Justin sighs, ‘He’s not having a—’

‘Stop it, Al!’ Justin is interrupted by a screeching Doris. ‘Don’t you dare have a heart attack, do you hear me?’ She picks up a newspaper from the ground, starts hitting Al across the arm with each word. ‘Don’t. You. Dare. Even. Think. Of. Dying. Before. Me. Al. Hitchcock.’

‘Ow,’ he rubs his arm, ‘that hurts.’

‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Justin breaks it up. ‘Give me that paper, Doris.’

‘No!’

‘Where did you get it?’ He tries to grab it out of her hands but she dodges him each time.

‘It was just there, beside Al,’ she shrugs. ‘Paperboy delivered it.’

‘They don’t have paperboys around here,’ he explains.

‘Then I guess it’s Al’s.’

‘There’s a coffee to-go too,’ Al, finally getting his breath back, manages to say.

‘A coffee-to-WHAT?’ Doris screeches so loudly, a window from the neighbour’s flat upstairs is banged closed loudly. This does not deter Doris. ‘You bought a coffee?’ She begins spanking him again with the newspaper. ‘No wonder you’re dying!’

‘Hey,’ he crosses his arms over his body protectively, ‘it’s not mine. It was outside the door with the newspaper when I got here.’

‘It’s mine.’ Justin snatches the paper from Doris’s hands and the coffee to-go that is on the ground beside Al.

‘There’s no note attached.’ She narrows her eyes and looks from one brother to the other and back. ‘Trying to defend your brother is only going to kill him in the long run, you know.’

‘I might do it more often, then,’ he grumbles, shaking the newspaper and hoping for a note to fall out. He checks the coffee cup for a message. Nothing. Yet he’s sure it’s for him and whoever left it there can’t be long gone. He focuses then on the front page. Above the headline, in the corner of the page he notices the instruction, ‘P. 42.’

He can’t open it quick enough and battles with the oversized pages to get to the correct point. Finally he opens it up on the classified pages. He scans the advertisements and birthday greetings and is about to close the paper altogether and join Doris in blaming Al for feeding his caffeine habit, when he spots it.

‘Eternally grateful recipient wishes to thank Justin Hitchcock, donor and hero, for saving life. Thank you.’

He holds his head back and howls with laughter. Doris and Al look at him with surprise.

‘Al,’ Justin lowers himself to his knees before his brother, ‘I need you to help me now.’ His voice is urgent, the pitch going up and down with excitement. ‘Did you see anybody when you were jogging back to the house?’

‘No.’ Al’s head rolls tiredly from one side to the other. ‘I can’t think.’

‘Think.’ Doris slaps his face lightly.

‘That’s not entirely necessary, Doris.’

‘They do it in the movies when they’re looking for information. Go on, tell him, baby.’ She nudges him a little more lightly.

‘I don’t know,’ Al whinges.

‘You make me sick,’ she growls in his ear.

‘Honestly, Doris, that’s really not helping.’

‘Fine,’ she folds her arms, ‘but it works for Horatio.’

‘By the time I got to the house, I couldn’t breathe, let alone see. I don’t remember anyone. Sorry, bro. Man, I was so scared. All of these black dots were in front of my eyes and I just couldn’t see any more, I was getting so dizzy and—’

‘OK,’ Justin leaps to his feet and runs up the stairs to the front yard. He runs to the drive entrance and looks up and down the street. It’s busier now; at seven thirty there is more life as people leave their homes to head for work and the traffic noise level has picked up.

‘THANK YOU!’ Justin shouts at the top of his lungs, his voice breaking through the quiet. A few people turn around to look at him but most keep their heads down as a light drizzle of October London rain begins to fall while another man loses his mind on a Monday morning in the city.

‘I CAN’T WAIT TO READ THIS!’ He waves the newspaper around in the air, shouting up the road and down so that he can be heard from all angles.

What do you say to someone whose life you saved? Say something deep. Say something funny. Say something philosophical.

‘I’M GLAD YOU’RE ALIVE!’ he shouts.

‘Eh, thanks.’ A woman scurries past him with her head down.

‘EM, I WON’T BE HERE TOMORROW!’ Pause. ‘IN CASE YOU’RE PLANNING ON DOING THIS AGAIN.’ He lifts the coffee into the air and waves it around, sending droplets to jump from the small drinking hole and burn his hand. Still hot. Whoever it was, they weren’t here that long ago.

‘EM. GETTING THE FIRST FLIGHT TO DUBLIN TOMORROW MORNING. ARE YOU FROM THERE?’ he shouts to the wind. The breeze sends more crispy autumn leaves parachuting from their branches to the ground, where they land running, make a tapping sound, and scrape along the ground until it’s safe to stop.

‘ANYWAY, THANKS AGAIN.’ He waves the paper in the air and turns to face the house.

Doris and Al are standing at the top of the stairs, their arms folded, their faces a picture of concern. Al has caught his breath and composed himself but is leaning against the iron railings for support.

Justin tucks the newspaper under his arm, straightens himself up and tries to appear as respectable as possible. He puts his hand in his pocket and strolls back towards the house. Feeling a piece of paper in his hand, he retrieves it and reads it quickly before crumpling it in his hand and tossing it into the skip. He has saved a person’s life just as he thought; he must focus on the most important matter at hand. He makes his way to the flat, trying to appear as dignified as possible.

From the bottom of the skip, beneath rolls of old tired smelly carpets, crushed tiles, paint tubs and plaster board, I lie in the discarded bath tub and listen as the voices recede and the door to the flat finally closes.

A crumpled ball of paper has landed nearby and as I reach for it, my shoulder knocks over a two-legged stool, which toppled onto me in my rush to leap into the skip. I locate the paper and open it up, smoothing out the edges. My heart starts its rumba beat again as I see my first name, Dad’s address and his phone number scrawled upon it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

‘Where on earth have you been? What happened to you, Gracie?’

‘Joyce,’ is my response as I burst into the hotel room, breathless and covered in paint and dust. ‘Don’t have time to explain.’ I rush around the room, throwing my clothes into my bag, taking a change of clothes and hurrying by Dad, who’s sitting on the bed, in order to get to the bathroom.

‘I tried calling you on your hand phone,’ Dad calls to me.

‘Yeah? I didn’t hear it ring.’ I struggle to squeeze into my jeans, hopping around on one foot while I pull them up and brush my teeth at the same time.

I hear his voice saying something. Mumbles but no words.

‘Can’t hear you, brushing my teeth!’

Silence while I finish and then back to the room and he continues as though we didn’t have five minutes of silence.

‘That’s because when I called it, I heard it ringing here in the bedroom. It was on top of your pillow. Just like one of those chocolates the nice ladies here leave behind.’

‘Oh. OK.’ I jump over his legs to get to the dressing table and reapply my make-up.

‘I was worried about you,’ he says quietly.

‘You needn’t have been.’ I hop around with one shoe on, while searching everywhere for the other.

‘So I called downstairs to reception to see if they knew where you were.’

‘Yeah?’ I give up looking for my shoe and concentrate on inserting my earrings. My fingers are trembling with the adrenalin of the Justin situation and my fingers become too big for the task at hand. The back of one earring falls to the floor. I get down on my hands and knees to find it.

‘So then I walked up and down the road, checking all of the shops that I know you like, asking all the people in them if they’d seen you.’

‘You did?’ I say, distracted, feeling carpet burns through my jeans as I shuffle around the floor on my knees.

‘Yes,’ he says quietly again.

‘Aha! Got it!’ I find it beside the bin below the dresser. ‘Where the hell is my shoe?’

‘And along the way,’ Dad continues, and I hold back my aggravation, ‘I met a policeman and I told him I was very worried, and he walked me back to the hotel and told me to wait here for you but to call this number if you didn’t come back after twenty-four hours.’

‘Oh, that was nice of him.’ I open the wardrobe, still searching for my shoe, and find it still full of Dad’s clothes. ‘Dad!’ I exclaim. ‘You forgot your other suit. And your good jumper!’

I look at him, I realise for the first time since I entered the room, and only now notice how pale he looks. How old he looks in this new soulless hotel room. Perched at the edge of his single bed, he’s dressed in his three-piece suit, cap beside him on the bed, his case packed or half-packed and sitting upright right beside him. In one hand is the photograph of Mum, in the other is the card the policeman gave him. The fingers that hold them tremble; his eyes are red and sore-looking.

‘Dad,’ I say as panic builds inside me, ‘are you OK?’

‘I was worried,’ he repeats again in the tiny voice I’d as good as ignored since I’d entered the room. He swallows hard. ‘I didn’t know where you were.’

‘I was visiting a friend,’ I say softly, joining him on the bed.

‘Oh. Well, this friend here was worried.’ He gives a small smile. A weak smile and I’m jolted by how fragile he appears. He looks like an old man. His usual attitude, his jovial nature is gone. His smile disappears quickly and his trembling hands, usually steady as a rock, force the photoframe of Mum and the card from the policeman back into his coat pocket.

I look at his bag. ‘Did you pack that yourself?’

‘Tried to. Thought I got everything.’ He looks away from the open wardrobe, embarrassed.

‘OK, well, let’s take a look in it and see what we have.’ I hear my voice and it startles me to hear myself speaking to him as though addressing a child.

‘Aren’t we running out of time?’ he asks. His voice is so quiet, I feel I should lower mine so as not to break him.

‘No,’ my eyes fill with tears and I speak more forcefully than I intend, ‘we have all the time in the world, Dad.’

I look away and distract those tears from falling by lifting his case onto the bed and trying to compose myself. Day-to-day things, the ordinary, the mundane is what keeps the motor running. How extraordinary the ordinary really is, a tool we all use to keep going, a template for sanity.

When I open the case I feel my composure slip again but I keep talking, sounding like a delusional 1960s suburban TV mother, repeating the hypnotic mantra that everything’s just dandy and swell. I ‘oh, gosh’ and ‘shucks’ my way through his suitcase, which is a mess, though I shouldn’t be surprised as Dad has never had to pack a suitcase in his life. I think what upsets me is the possibility that at seventy-five years old, after ten years without his wife, he simply doesn’t know how to, or else my being missing for a few hours has prevented him from accomplishing it. A simple thing like that, my big-as-an-oak-tree, steady-as-a-rock father cannot do. Instead he sits on the edge of the bed twisting his cap around in his gnarled fingers, liver spots like the skin of a giraffe, his fingers trembling in air as though wobbling on an invisible fingerboard and controlling the vibrato in my head.

Things have attempted to be folded but have failed, are crumpled in small balls with no order at all as though they have been packed by a child. I find my shoe inside some bathroom towels. I take my shoe out and put it on my foot without saying anything, as though it’s the most normal thing in the world. The towels go back to where they belong. I start folding and packing all over again. His dirty underwear, socks, pyjamas, vests, his washbag. I turn my back to take his clothes from the wardrobe and I take a deep breath.

‘We have all the time in the world, Dad,’ I repeat. Though this time, it’s for my own benefit.

On the tube, on the way to the airport, Dad keeps checking his watch and fidgeting in his seat. Every time the tube stops at a station, he pushes the seat in front of him impatiently as if to move it along himself.

‘Have you to be somewhere?’ I smile.

‘The Monday Club. He looks at me with worried eyes. He’s never missed a week, not even when I was in hospital.

‘But today is Monday.’

He fidgets. ‘I just don’t want to miss this flight. We might get stuck over here.’

‘Oh, I think we’ll make it.’ I do my best to hide my smile. ‘And there’s more than one flight a day, you know.’

‘Good.’ He looks relieved and even impressed. ‘I might even make evening Mass. Oh, they won’t believe everything I tell them tonight,’ he says with excitement. ‘Donal will drop dead when everybody listens to me and not to him for a change.’ He settles back into his seat and watches out the window as the blackness of the underground speeds by. He stares into the black, not seeing his own reflection but seeing somewhere else and someone else a long way off, a long time ago. While he’s in another world, or the same world but a different time, I take out my mobile and start planning my next move.

‘Frankie, it’s me. Justin Hitchcock is getting the first plane to Dublin tomorrow morning and I need to know what he’s doing stat.’

‘How am I supposed to do that, Dr Conway?’

‘I thought you had ways.’

‘You’re right, I do. But I thought you were the psychic one.’

‘I’m certainly not pyschic and I’m not getting anything about where he could be going.’

‘Are your powers fading?’

‘I don’t have powers.’

‘Whatever. Give me an hour, I’ll get back to you.’

Two hours later, just as Dad and I are about to board, I receive a phone call from Frankie.

‘He’s going to be in the National Gallery tomorrow morning at ten thirty. He’s giving a talk on a painting called Woman Writing a Letter. It sounds fascinating.’

‘Oh, it is, it’s one of Terborch’s finest. In my opinion.’

Silence.

‘You were being sarcastic, weren’t you?’ I realise. ‘OK, well, does your Uncle Tom still run that company?’ I smile mischievously and Dad looks at me curiously.

‘What are you planning?’ Dad asks suspiciously once I’ve hung up the phone.

‘I’m having a little bit of fun.’

‘Shouldn’t you get back to work? It’s been weeks now. Conor called your hand phone while you were gone this morning, it slipped my mind to tell you. He’s in Japan but I could hear him very clearly,’ he says, impressed with either Conor or the phone company, I’m not sure which. ‘He wanted to know why the house hadn’t got a For Sale sign in the garden yet. He said that you were supposed to do that.’ He looks worried, as though I’ve broken a world-old rule and now the house will explode if it doesn’t have a For Sale sign dug into the ground.

‘Oh, I haven’t forgotten.’ I’m agitated by Conor’s call. ‘I’m selling it myself. I have my first viewing tomorrow.’

He looks unsure and he’s right to because I’m lying through my teeth, but all I have to do is go through my books and call around my list of clients who I know to be looking for a similar property. I can think of a few straight away.

‘Your company knows this?’ His eyes narrow.

‘Yes,’ I smile tightly. ‘They can take the photos and put the sign up in a matter of hours. I know a few people in the estate agent world.’

He rolls his eyes.

We both look away, in a huff, and just so I don’t feel that I’m lying, while we shuffle along the queue to board the plane, I text a few clients I showed properties to before I took my leave to see if they’re interested in a viewing. Then I ask my trusty photographer to take the shots of the house. Just as we take our seats on the plane, I have already arranged the photographs and For Sale sign for later today and a viewing appointment for tomorrow. Both teachers at the local school, she and her husband will view the house during their lunch break. At the bottom of the text is the mandatory ‘Was so sorry to hear about what happened. Have been thinking of you. See you tomorrow, Linda xx.’

I delete it straight away.

Dad looks at my thumb working over the buttons on my phone with speed. ‘You writing a book?’

I ignore him.

‘You’ll get arthritis in your thumb and it’s not much fun, I can tell you that.’

I press send and switch the phone off.

‘You really weren’t lying about the house?’ he asks.

‘No,’ I say, confidently now.

‘Well, I didn’t know that, did I? I didn’t know what to tell him.’

Score one to me.

‘That’s OK, Dad, you don’t have to feel in the middle of all this.’

‘Well, I am.’

Score one to him.

‘Well, you wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t answered my phone.’

Two one.

‘You were missing all morning – what was I supposed to do, ignore it?’

Two all.

‘He was concerned about you, you know. He thought you should see someone. A professional person.’

Off the charts.

‘Did he now?’ I fold my arms, wanting to call him straight away and rant about all the things I hate about him and that have always annoyed me. The cutting of his toenails in bed, his nose-blowing every morning that almost rattled the house, his inability to let people finish their sentences, his stupid party coin trick that I fake laughed to every time he did it, including the first, his inability to sit down and have an adult conversation about our problems, his constant walking away during our fights … Dad interrupts from my silent torture of Conor.

‘He said you called him in the middle of the night, spurting Latin.’

‘Really?’ I feel anger surge. ‘What did you say?’

He looks out the window as we pick up speed down the runway.

‘I told him you made a fine fluent Italian-speaking Viking too.’ I see his cheeks lift and I throw my head back and laugh.

All even.

He suddenly grabs my hand. ‘Thanks for all this, love. I had a great time.’ He gives my hand a squeeze and goes back to looking out the window as the green of the fields surrounding the runway goes racing by.

He doesn’t let go of my hand, so I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Justin walks through arrivals at Dublin airport on Tuesday morning, with his cellphone glued to his ear, listening once again to the sound of Bea’s voice mail. He sighs and rolls his eyes before the beep, beyond bored now with her childish behaviour.

‘Hi, honey, it’s me. Dad. Again. Listen, I know you’re angry with me, and at your age everything is oh-so-very-dramatic, but if you’d just listen to what I have to say, the odds are you’ll agree with me and thank me for it when you’re old and grey. I only want the best for you and I will not hang up this phone until I have convinced you …’ He immediately hangs up.

Behind the barricade at arrivals is a man in a dark suit holding a large white placard with Justin’s surname written in large capitals. Underneath are those two magical words, ‘THANK YOU’.

Those words had captured his attention on billboards, newspapers, radio adverts and television adverts all day and every day, since the first note arrived. Whenever the words drifted from the lips of a passer-by, he did a double take, following them as though hypnotised, as though in them was contained a special encrypted code just for him. Those words floated in the air like the scent of freshly cut grass on a summer’s day; more than a smell, they carried with them a feeling, a place, a time of year, a happiness, a celebration of change, of moving on. They transport him just as the hearing of a special song familiar from youth does, when nostalgia, like the tide, sweeps in and catches you on the sand, pulling you in and under when you least expect it, often when you least want it.

Those words were constantly in his head, thank you, thank you, thank you. The more he heard them and reread the short notes, the more alien they became, as though he was seeing the sequence of those particular letters for the first time in his life – like music notes, so familiar, so simple, but arranged in a different way, become pure masterpieces.

This transformation of everyday common things to something magical, this growing understanding that what he perceived to be was not at all, reminded him of when he was a child and spent long silent moments staring at his face in the mirror. Standing on a footstool so that he could reach, the more intensely he stared, the more his face began to morph into one he was wholly unfamiliar with. It wasn’t the face his mind had so stubbornly convinced him he had, but instead he saw the real him: eyes further apart than he’d thought, one eyelid lower than the other, one nostril also ever so slightly lower, the corner of one side of his mouth turning downward, as though there was a line going through the centre of his face and with the drawing of that line everything was dragged south, like a knife through sticky chocolate cake. The surface, once smooth, drooped and hung. A quick glimpse and it was unnoticeable. Careful analysis, before brushing his teeth at night, revealed he wore the face of a stranger.

Now he takes a step back from those two words, circles them a few times and views them from all angles. Just as with paintings in a gallery, the words themselves dictate the height at which they should be displayed, the angle from which they should be approached and the position from which they should best be contemplated. He has found the correct angle now. He can now see the weight they hold, like pigeons, and the messages they carry, oysters with their pearls, bees on dutious guard of their queen and honey, with their barbed stings attached. They have a sense of purpose, the strength of beauty and ammunition. Rather than a polite utterance heard a thousand times a day, ‘Thank you’ now has meaning.

Without another thought about Bea, he flips his phone closed and approaches the man holding the sign. ‘Hello.’

‘Mr Hitchcock?’ The six-foot man’s eyebrows are so dark and thick Justin can barely see his eyes.

‘Yes,’ he says suspiciously. ‘Is this car for a Justin Hitchcock?’

The man consults a piece of paper in his pocket. ‘Yes, it is, sir. Is that still you or does it change things?’

‘Ye-es,’ he says slowly, contemplatively. ‘That’s me.’

‘You don’t seem so sure,’ the driver says, lowering the sign. ‘Where are you going this morning?’

‘Shouldn’t you know that?’

‘I do. But the last time I let somebody in my car as unsure as you, I delivered an animal rights activist directly into an IMFHA meeting.’

Unfamiliar with the initials, Justin asks, ‘Is that bad?’

‘The President of the Irish Masters of Fox Hounds Association thought so. He was stuck at the airport with no car, while the lunatic I collected was splashing red paint around the conference room. Let’s just say, in terms of a tip for me, it was what the hounds would call a “blank day”.’

‘Well, I don’t think the hounds would call it anything, necessarily,’ Justin jokes, ‘unless they go “Ooo-ooo”.’ He lifts his chin and howls into the air, playfully.

The driver stares at him blankly.

Justin’s face flushes. ‘Well, I’m going to the National Gallery.’ Pause. ‘I’m pro the National Gallery. I’m going to talk about painting, not turn people into canvases as a method of venting my frustration. Though if my ex-wife was in the audience I’d run at her with a paint brush,’ he laughs, and the driver responds with another glare.

‘I wasn’t expecting anybody to greet me,’ Justin yaps at the chauffeur’s heels, out of the airport into the grey October day. ‘Nobody at the Gallery informed me you’d be here,’ he tests him as they hurry across the pedestrian walkway through the parachuting raindrops, which pull on their emergency cords as they plummet towards Justin’s head and shoulders.

‘I didn’t know about the job until late last night when I got a call. I was supposed to be going to my wife’s aunt’s funeral today.’ He roots around his pockets for the car parking ticket and slides it into the machine to validate it.

‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.’ Justin stops wiping away the raindrop parachuting casualties that have landed with a shplat on the shoulders of his brown corduroy jacket, and looks at the driver grimly, out of respect.

‘So was I. I hate funerals.’

Curious response. ‘Well, you wouldn’t be alone in thinking that.’

He stops walking and turns to face Justin with a look of intense seriousness on his face. ‘They always give me the giggles,’ he says. ‘Does that ever happen to you?’

Justin is unsure whether to take him seriously or not but the driver doesn’t crack even the slightest smile. Justin pictures his father’s funeral, goes back to when he was nine years old. The two families huddled together at the graveyard, all dressed head to toe in black like dung beetles around the dirty open hole in the ground where the casket was placed. His dad’s family had flown over from Ireland, bringing with them the rain, which was unconventional for Chicago’s hot summer. They stood beneath umbrellas, he close to his Aunt Emelda, who held the umbrella in one hand and another tightly on his shoulder, Al and his mother beside him under another umbrella. Al had brought along a fire engine, which he played with while the priest talked about their father’s life. This annoyed Justin. In fact, everything and everybody annoyed Justin that day.

He hated Aunt Emelda’s hand being there on his shoulder, though he knew she was trying to be helpful. It felt heavy and tight, as though she was holding him back, afraid he’d escape from her, afraid he’d scuttle into the big hole in the ground where his father was going.

He’d greeted her that morning, dressed in his best suit, as his mother had requested in her new quiet voice, which Justin had to put his ear to her lips to hear. Aunt Emelda had pretended to be psychic just as she always did when they met one another after their long stints apart.

‘I know just what you want, little soldier,’ she’d said in her strong Cork accent, which Justin could barely understand and was never sure whether she’d just broken into a song or was speaking to him. She’d rummaged in her oversized handbag and dug out a soldier with a plastic smile and a plastic salute, quickly peeling off the price, and with it ripping off the soldier’s name before handing it to him. Justin stared down at Colonel Blank, who saluted him with one hand and held a plastic gun in the other, and immediately mistrusted him. The blank-shooting plastic gun got lost in the heavy pile of black coats by the front door as soon as he’d pulled open the packet. As usual, Aunt Emelda’s psychic powers had been tuned into the desires of the wrong nine-year-old boy, for Justin had not wanted this plastic soldier on this day of all days, and he couldn’t help but imagine a young boy across town waiting for a plastic soldier for his birthday and instead being handed Justin’s father by the tuft of his jet-black hair. However, he accepted her thoughtful gift with a smile as big and sincere as Colonel Blank’s. Later that day, as he stood beside the hole in the ground, maybe for once Aunt Emelda could read his mind as her hand gripped him tighter and her nails dug into his bony shoulders as though holding him back. For Justin had thought about jumping into that damp dark hole.

He thought about what it would be like in the world down there. If he could escape the strong hand of his Corkonian aunt and leap into the hole before anybody could catch him, maybe when the ground was closed over on top of them, like a grass carpet being rolled over, they would both be together. He wondered if they would have their own cosy world under the ground. He could have him all to himself, without having to share him with Mom or Al, and there they could play and laugh together, where it was darker. Maybe Dad just didn’t like the light; maybe all he wanted was for the light to go away so that it wouldn’t make his eyes squint and his fair skin burn and freckle and itch, as it always did when the sun came out. When that hot sun was in the sky it annoyed his dad, and he would have to sit in the shade while he and his mom and Al would play outside, Mom getting browner and browner by the day, his dad getting paler and more irritated by the heat. Maybe a break from the summer was all he wanted; for the itch and the frustration of light to go away.

As his casket was lowered into the hole, his mother let out howls that made Al cry too. Justin knew that Al wasn’t crying because he missed his dad, he was crying because he was scared of Mom’s reaction. She started crying when his grandma, his father’s mother’s sniffles became loud wails, and when Al started crying it broke the hearts of the entire congregation to see the young child left behind in tears. Even Dad’s brother, Seamus, who always looked like he wanted to laugh, had a trembling lip and a vein that jutted out of his neck like a body-builder, which made Justin think there was another person inside Uncle Seamus, just bursting to get out if Uncle Seamus would let him.

People should never start crying. Because if they start … Justin felt like shouting out for them all to stop being so stupid; that Al wasn’t crying because of his dad. He wanted to tell them that Al had little idea of what was really going on. He’d been concentrating on his fire engine all day and occasionally looking to Justin with a face so full of questions that he had to keep turning away.

There were men in suits that carried his dad’s casket to this place. Men that weren’t his uncles or his dad’s friends. They weren’t crying like everyone else, but they weren’t smiling either. They didn’t look bored but they didn’t look interested. They looked as though they had been to Dad’s funeral a hundred times already and they didn’t care so much that he had died again but also didn’t mind having to make another hole, carry him again and bury him again. He watched as the men with no smiles threw handfuls of soil onto the coffin, making drumming sounds against the wood. He wondered if that would wake his dad up from his summer slumber. He didn’t cry like everyone else because he felt assured that Dad had finally escaped the light. His dad would no longer have to sit alone in the shade.

Justin realises the driver is staring at him intently. His head moves in close as though he’s awaiting the answer to a very personal question concerning a rash and whether Justin has ever had one too.

‘No,’ Justin says quietly, clearing his throat and adjusting his eyes to the world of thirty-five years later. Time travel of the mind; a powerful thing.

‘That’s us over there.’ The driver presses the button on his keys and the lights of an S-class Mercedes light up.

Justin’s mouth drops. ‘Do you know who organised this?’

‘No idea.’ The driver holds the door open for him. ‘I just take the orders from my boss. Thought it was unusual having to write “Thank You” on the sign. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Yes, it does but … it’s complicated. Could you find out from your boss who’s paying for this?’ Justin sits into the back seat of the car, places his briefcase on the floor beside him.

‘I could try.’

‘That would be great.’ I’ll have gotcha then! Justin relaxes into the leather chair, stretches his legs out fully and closes his eyes, barely able to hold back his smile.

‘I’m Thomas, by the way,’ the driver introduces himself. ‘I’m here for you all day so wherever you want to go after this, just let me know.’

‘For the entire day?’ Justin almost chokes on his free bottle of chilled water, which was waiting for him in the hand rest. He saved a rich person’s life. Yes! He should have mentioned more to Bea than muffins and daily newspapers. A villa in the South of France. What an idiot he was not to have thought more quickly.

‘Would your company not have organised this for you?’ Thomas asks.

‘No.’ Justin shakes his head. ‘Definitely not.’

‘Maybe you’ve a fairy godmother you don’t know about,’ Thomas says, deadpan.

‘Well, let’s see what this pumpkin’s made of,’ Justin laughs.

‘Won’t get to test it in this traffic,’ Thomas says, braking as they enter Dublin traffic, worsened by the grey rainy morning.

Justin presses the button on the door for heated seats and reclines as he feels his back and behind warming. He kicks off his shoes, reclines his chair and relaxes in comfort as he watches the miserable faces of those in buses glaring sleepily out of the fogged-up windows.

‘After the Gallery, do you mind bringing me to Street? I need to visit somebody in the blood donor clinic.’

‘No problem, boss.’

The October gust huffs and puffs and attempts to blow the last of the leaves off the nearby trees. They hang on tight, like the nannies in Mary Poppins, who cling to the lampposts of Cherry Tree Lane in a desperate attempt to prevent their airborne competition from blowing them away from the big Banks job interview. The leaves, like many people this autumn, are not yet ready to let go. They cling on tight to yesterday, unable to have controlled their change in colour but, by God, putting up a fight before giving up the place that has been their home for two seasons. I watch as one leaf lets go, dances around in the air before falling to the ground. I pick it up and slowly twirl it around by its stalk in my hand. I’m not fond of autumn. Not fond of watching things so sturdy wither as they lose against nature, the higher power they can’t control.

‘Here comes the car,’ I comment to Kate.

We’re standing across the main road from the National Gallery, behind the parked cars, shaded by the trees rising above and over the gates of Merrion Square.

‘You paid for that?’ Kate says. ‘You really are nuts.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know. Actually, I paid half. That’s Frankie’s uncle driving – he runs the company. Pretend you don’t know him if he looks over.’

‘I don’t know him.’

‘Good, that’s convincing.’

‘Joyce, I have never seen that man in my life.’

‘Wow, that’s really good.’

‘How long are you going to keep this up, Joyce? The London thing sounded fun but really, all we know is that he donated blood.’

‘To me.’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘I know that.’

‘You can’t know that.’

‘I can. That’s the funny thing.’

She looks doubtful and stares at me with such a look of pity, it makes my blood boil.

‘Kate, yesterday I had carpaccio and fennel for my dinner, and I spent the evening singing along to practically all the words of Pavarotti’s Ultimate Collection.’

‘I still don’t understand how you think that it’s this Justin Hitchcock man that’s responsible for it. Remember that film Phenomenon? John Travolta just suddenly became a genius overnight.’

‘He had a brain tumour that somehow increased his ability to learn,’ I snap.

The Mercedes pulls up by the gates of the Gallery. The driver gets out of the car to open the door for Justin and he emerges, briefcase in hand, a beam from ear to ear, and I’m happy to see that next month’s mortgage payment has gone to good use. I shall worry about that, and everything else in my life, when the time comes.

He still has the aura I felt from the day I first laid my eyes on him in the hair salon – a presence that makes my stomach walk a few flights of stairs and then climb the final ladder to the ten-metre diving platform at the Olympics final. He looks up at the Gallery, around at the park, and with that strong jawline he smiles, a smile that causes my stomach to do one bounce, two bounce, three bounce, before attempting the toughest dive of all, a reverse one-point-five somersault and then one, two, three and a half twists before entering the water, with a belly flop. My unsophisticated entry into the water shows I am not a seasoned nervous wreck. The dive, while terrifying, was quite pleasant and I’m open to taking those steps again.

The leaves around me rustle as another soft breeze blows and I’m not sure if I imagine that it carries to me the smell of his aftershave, the same scent as from the hair salon. I have a brief flash of him picking up a parcel wrapped in emerald-green paper, which sparkles under Christmas tree lights and surrounding candles. It’s tied with a large red bow and my hands are momentarily his as he unties it slowly, carefully peels back the tape from the paper, taking care not to rip it. I am struck by his tenderness for the package, which has been lovingly wrapped, until his thoughts are momentarily mine and I am in on his plans to pocket the paper and use it on the unwrapped presents he has sitting out in the car. Inside is a bottle of aftershave and a shaving set. A Christmas gift from Bea.

‘He’s handsome,’ Kate whispers. ‘I support your stalking campaign one hundred per cent, Joyce.’

‘It’s not a stalking campaign,’ I hiss, ‘and I’d have done this if he was ugly.’

‘Can I go in and listen to his talk?’ Kate asks.

‘No!’

‘Why not? He’s never seen me; he won’t recognise me. Please, Joyce, my best friend believes she is connected to a complete stranger. At least I can go and listen to him to see what he’s like.’

‘What about Sam?’

‘Do you want to mind him for a little while?’

I freeze.

‘Oh, forget that,’ she says quickly. ‘I’ll bring him in with me. I’ll stay down the back and leave if he disturbs anyone.’

‘No, no, it’s OK. I can mind him.’ I swallow and paste a smile on my face.

‘Are you sure?’ She looks unconvinced. ‘I won’t stay for the entire thing. I just want to see what he’s like.’

‘I’ll be fine. Go.’ I push her away gently. ‘Go in and enjoy yourself. We’ll be fine here, won’t we?’

Sam puts his socked toe in his mouth in response.

‘I promise I won’t be long.’ Kate leans into the stroller, gives her son a kiss and dashes across the road and into the Gallery.

‘So …’ I look around nervously. ‘It’s just you and me, Sean.’

He looks at me with his big blue eyes and mine instantly fill.

I look around to make sure nobody has heard me. I mean Sam.

Justin takes his place at the podium in the lecture hall in the basement of the National Gallery. A packed room of faces stares back at him and he is in his element. A late arrival, a young woman, enters the room, apologises and quickly takes a place among the crowd.

‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you so much for making it here on this rainy morning. I am here to talk about this painting. Woman Writing a Letter, by Terborch, a Dutch Baroque artist from the seventeenth century who was largely responsible for the popularisation of the letter theme. This painting – well, not this painting alone – this genre of letter-writing is a personal favourite of mine, particularly when in this current age it seems a personal letter has almost become extinct.’ He stops.

Almost but not quite, for there’s somebody sending me notes.

He steps away from the podium, takes one step towards the audience and looks at the crowd, suspicion written upon his face. His eyes narrow as he studies his audience. He scans the rows, knowing that somebody here could be the mystery note-writer.

Somebody coughs, snapping him out of his trance, and he is back with them again. He is mildly flustered but continues where he left off.

‘In an age when a personal letter has almost become extinct, this is a reminder of how the great masters of the Golden Age depicted the subtle range of human emotions affected by such a seemingly simple aspect of daily life. Terborch was not the only artist responsible for these images. I cannot go further on this subject without paying lip-service to Vermeer, Metsu and de Hooch, who all produced paintings of people reading, writing, receiving and dispatching letters, which I have written about in my book The Golden Age of Dutch Painting: Vermeer, Metsu and Terborch. Terborch’s paintings use letter-writing as a pivot on which to turn complex psychological dramas and his are among the first works to link lovers through the theme of a letter.’

He studies the woman who arrived a little late as he says half of this and another young woman behind her for the second half, wondering if they are reading deeper into his words. He almost laughs aloud at himself at his assumption that, first, the person whose life he saved would be in this room; secondly, that it would be a young woman; and thirdly, attractive. Which makes him ask himself what exactly was he hoping to come out of this current drama?

I push Sam’s stroller into Merrion Square, and we’re instantly transported from the Georgian centre of the city to another world, shaded by mature trees and surrounded by colour. Burned oranges, reds and yellows of the autumn foliage litter the ground and, with each gentle breeze, hop alongside us like inquisitive robin redbreasts. I choose a bench along the quiet walk and turn Sam’s stroller around so that he faces me. In the trees bordering the walk I hear twigs snapping as homes are being constructed and lunch prepared.

I watch Sam for a while, as he strains his neck to see the remaining leaves that refuse to surrender their branch, far above him. He points a tiny finger up at the sky and makes sounds.

‘Tree,’ I tell him, which makes him smile, and his mother is instantly recognisable.

The vision has the same effect as a boot hitting my stomach. I take a moment to catch my breath.

‘Sam, while we’re here we should really discuss something,’ I say.

His smile widens.

‘I have to apologise for something,’ I clear my throat. ‘I haven’t been paying much attention to you lately, have I? The thing is …’ I trail off and wait until a man has passed us by to continue. ‘The thing is,’ I lower my voice, ‘I couldn’t bear to look at you …’ I trail off as his grin widens.

‘Oh, here.’ I lean over, remove his blanket and press the button to release his safety straps. ‘Come up here to me.’ I lift him out of the buggy and sit him on my lap. His body is warm and I hug him close. I breathe in the top of his head, candy, his wispy hairs so silky like velvet, his body so chubby and soft in my arms, I want to squeeze him tighter. ‘The thing is,’ I say quietly to the top of his head, ‘it broke my heart to look at you, to cuddle you like I used to, because each time I saw you, I remembered what I’d lost.’ He looks up at me and babbles in response. ‘Though how could I ever be afraid to look at you?’ I kiss his nose. ‘I shouldn’t have taken it out on you but you’re not mine, and that’s so hard.’ My eyes fill and I let the tears fall. ‘I wanted to have a little boy or girl so that just like when you smile, people could say, oh look, you’re the picture of your mummy, or maybe that the baby would have my nose or my eyes because that’s what people say to me. They say I look like my mum. And I love hearing that, Sam, I really do, because I miss her and I want to be reminded of her every single day. But looking at you was different. I didn’t want to be reminded I’d lost my baby every single day.’

‘Ba-ba,’ he says.

I sniffle. ‘Ba-ba gone, Sam. Sean for a boy, Grace for a girl.’ I wipe my nose.

Sam, uninterested in my tears, looks away and studies a bird. He points a chubby finger again.

‘Bird,’ I say through my tears.

‘Ba-ba,’ he responds.

I smile and wipe my eyes as yet more stream down.

‘But there’s no Sean or Grace now.’ I hug him tighter and let my tears fall, knowing that Sam won’t be able to report my weeping to anybody.

The bird hops a few inches and then takes off, disappearing into the sky.

‘Ba-ba gone,’ Sam says, holding his hands out, palms up.

I watch it fly into the distance, still visible like a speck of dust against the pale blue sky. My tears stop. ‘Ba-ba gone,’ I repeat.

‘What do we see in this painting?’ Justin asks.

Silence as everyone views the projected image.

‘Well, let us state the obvious first. A young woman sits at a table in a quiet interior. She is writing a letter. We see a quill moving across a sheet of paper. We do not know what she is writing but her soft smile suggests she is writing to a loved one or perhaps a lover. Her head tilts forward, exposing the elegant curve of her neck …’

While Sam is back in his buggy, drawing circles on paper with his blue crayon, or more likely, banging out dots on the paper, sending wax shrapnel all over his buggy, I produce my own pen and paper from my bag. I take my calligraphy pen in my hand and imagine I’m hearing Justin’s words from across the road. I don’t need to see the work of the Woman Writing a Letter on the canvas for it has been painted in my mind after Justin’s years of intensive study during college and again during research for his book. I begin to write.

As part of a mother/daughter bonding activity when I was seventeen years old, during my goth phase, when I had dyed black hair, a white face and red lips that were victim to a lip-piercing, Mum enrolled us both in a calligraphy class at the local primary school. Every Wednesday at seven p.m.

Mum read in a rather new-age book that Dad didn’t agree with that through partaking in activities with your children they would more easily, and of their own accord, open up and share things about their lives, rather than being forced to in a face-to-face, formal and almost interrogative-style sit-down, which Dad was more accustomed to.

The classes worked and, though I moaned and groaned when learning this uncool task, I opened up and told her all. Well, almost all. The rest she had the intuition to guess. I came away with a deeper love, respect and understanding of my mother as a person, a woman and not just as a mum. I also came away with a skill in calligraphy.

I find that when I put pen to paper and get into the rhythm of quick upward flicks, just as we were taught, it takes me back to those classes, transports me to those classrooms where I sat with my mother.

I hear her voice, I smell her scent and I replay our conversations, sometimes awkward as, because I’m seventeen, we dance around the personal, but we talk about it in our own way, finding a way of getting to the point in spite of that. It was a perfect activity for her to choose for me at seventeen, better than she ever knew. Calligraphy had rhythm, roots in Gothic style, it was written in the vigour of the moment and it had attitude. A uniform style of writing, but one that was unique. A lesson to teach me that conformity may not quite mean what I once thought that it had meant, for there are many ways to express oneself in a world with boundaries, without overstepping them.

Suddenly I look up from my page. ‘Trompe l’oeil,’ I say aloud with a smile.

Sam looks up from his crayon banging and regards me with interest.

‘What does that mean?’ Kate asks.

‘Trompe l’oeil is an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects really exist, instead of being two-dimensional painting. It’s derived from French, trompe meaning “trick” and l’oeil meaning “eye”,’ Justin tells the room. ‘Trick the eye,’ he repeats, looking around at all the faces in the crowd.

Where are you?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

‘So how did that go?’ Thomas the driver asks as Justin gets back into the car after his talk.

‘I saw you standing at the back of the room. You tell me.’

‘Well, I don’t know much about art but you certainly knew how to talk a lot about one girl writing a letter.’

Justin smiles and reaches for another free bottle of water. He’s not thirsty but it’s there, and it’s free.

‘Were you looking for somebody?’ Thomas asks.

‘What do you mean?’

‘In the crowd. I noticed you looking around a few times. A woman, is it?’ he grins.

Justin smiles, and shakes his head. ‘I have no idea. You’d think I was crazy if I told you.’

‘So, what do you think?’ I ask Kate as we walk around Merrion Square and she fills me in on Justin’s lecture.

‘What do I think?’ she repeats, strolling slowly behind Sam’s buggy. ‘I think that it doesn’t matter if he ate carpaccio and fennel yesterday because he seems like a lovely man anyway. I think that no matter what your reasons are for feeling connected to him or attracted to him, they’re not important. You should stop all this running around and just introduce yourself.’

I shake my head. ‘No can do.’

‘Why not? He seemed to be interested when he was chasing your bus down the road, and when he saw you at the ballet. What’s changed now?’

‘He doesn’t want anything to do with me.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I know.’

‘How? And don’t tell me it’s because of some mumbo-jumbo thing you saw in your tea leaves.’

‘I drink coffee now.’

‘You hate coffee.’

‘He obviously doesn’t.’

She does her best not to be negative but looks away.

‘He’s too busy looking for the woman whose life he saved; he’s no longer interested in me. He had my contact details, Kate, and he never called. Not once. In fact, he went so far as to throw them in a skip, and don’t ask me how I know that.’

‘Knowing you, you were probably lying in the bottom of it.’

I keep tight-lipped.

Kate sighs. ‘How long are you going to keep this up?’

I shrug. ‘Not much longer.’

‘What about work? What about Conor?’

‘Conor and I are done. There’s nothing more to say. Four years of separation and then we’ll be divorced. As for work, I’ve already told them I’m going back next week – my diary is already full with appointments – and as for the house – shit!’ I pull up my sleeve to find my watch. ‘I have to get back. I’m showing the house in an hour.’

A quick kiss and I run for the nearest bus home.

‘OK, this is it.’ Justin stares out of the car window and up to the second floor, which houses the blood donor clinic.

‘You’re donating blood?’ Thomas asks.

‘No way. I’m just paying somebody a visit. I shouldn’t be too long. If you see any police cars coming, start the engine.’ He smiles, but it is unconvincing.

He nervously asks for Sarah at reception and is told to wait in the waiting room. Around him men and women on their lunch breaks from work sit in their suits and read the newspapers, waiting to be called for their blood donations.

He inches closer to the woman beside him, who’s flicking through a magazine. He leans over her shoulder and as he whispers, she jumps.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

Everyone in the room lowers their papers and magazines to stare at him. He coughs and looks away, pretending somebody else said it. On the walls around him are posters encouraging those in the room to donate, and there are also thank you posters of young children, survivors of leukaemia and other illnesses. He has already waited half an hour and checks his watch every minute, conscious he has a plane to catch. When the last person leaves him alone in the room, Sarah appears at the door.

‘Justin.’ She isn’t icy, she isn’t tough or angry. Quiet. Hurt. That’s worse. He’d rather she was angry.

‘Sarah.’ He stands to greet her, is locked in an awkward half-embrace and a kiss on one cheek, which turns into two, a questionable third but is aborted and almost becomes a kiss on the lips. She pulls away, ending the farcical greeting.

‘I can’t stay long, I have to get to the airport for a flight, but I wanted to call by and see you face to face. Can we talk for a few minutes?’

‘Yes, sure.’ She enters the reception and sits down, arms still folded.

‘Oh.’ He looks around. ‘Don’t you have an office, or something?’

‘This is nice and quiet.’

‘Where is your office?’

Her eyes narrow with suspicion and he gives up that particular line of questioning and quickly takes a seat beside her.

‘I’m here, really, to apologise for my behaviour the last time we met. Well, every time we met and every moment after that. I really am sorry.’

She nods, waiting for more.

Damn it, that’s all I had! Think, think. You’re sorry and …

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you. I got very distracted that day with those crazy Vikings. In fact, you could say I’ve been distracted by crazy Vikings almost every day for the last month or two and, uh …’ Think! ‘Could I go to the men’s room? If you wouldn’t mind. Please.’

She looks a little taken aback but directs him. ‘Sure, it’s straight down the hall at the end.’

Standing outside, which has a newly hammered ‘For Sale’ sign attached to the front wall, Linda and her husband, Joe, are pressing their faces up against the window and gawking into the living room. A protective feeling comes over me. Then as soon as it comes, it vanishes. Home is not a place – not this place, anyway.

‘Joyce? Is that you?’ Linda slowly lowers her sunglasses.

I give them a big wobbly smile, reaching into my pocket for the bunch of keys, which is already minus my car keys and furry ladybird that used to be on Mum’s set. Even the set of keys have lost their heart, their playfulness; all they have now is their function.

‘Your hair, you look so different.’

‘Hi, Linda. Hi, Joe.’ I hold out my hand to greet them.

Linda has other plans and reaches out to offer me a huge, tight hug.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry for you.’ She squeezes me. ‘Poor you.’

A nice gesture, if perhaps I’d known her a bit longer to than show her three houses over a month ago, and even then she’d done the same with her hands on my practically flat stomach on learning I was pregnant. My body suddenly becoming everybody else’s property, I’d found entirely annoying during my only month of being able to talk about it.

She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘Did they do that at the hospital?’ She eyes my hair.

‘Eh, no.’ I laugh. ‘They did that at the hair salon,’ I chirp, my usual Lady of Trauma coming back to save the day. I turn the key in the door and allow them to enter first.

‘Oh,’ she breathes excitedly, and her husband smiles and takes her hand. I have a flashback of Conor and me ten years ago, coming to view the house, which had just been deserted by an old lady who had lived alone for the previous twenty years. I follow my younger self and him into the house and suddenly they are real and I am the ghost, remembering what we saw and listening to our conversation, replaying the moment again.

It had reeked inside, had old carpets, creaking floors, rotting windows and wallpaper that was so old it had just gone out of fashion for the third time round. It was disgusting and a money pit, and we loved it as soon as we stood where Linda and her husband stand right now.

We had it all ahead of us back then, when Conor was the Conor I loved and I was the old me; a perfect match. Then Conor became who he is now and I became the Joyce he no longer loved. As the house became more beautiful, our relationship became uglier. We could have lain on a cat-hair-infested rug on our first night in our home back then and would have been happy, but then every minute detail of what was wrong in our marriage we attempted to fix by getting a new couch, repairing the doors, replacing the draughty windows. If only we’d put that much time and concentration into ourselves; self-improvement rather than home improvement. Neither of us thought to fix the draught in our marriage. It whistled through the growing cracks while neither of us was paying attention until we both woke up one morning with cold feet.

‘I’ll show you around downstairs, but, em,’ I look up at the nursery door, no longer vibrating as it had when I first returned home. It is just a door, quiet and still. Doing what a door does. Nothing. ‘I’ll let you wander around upstairs by yourselves.’

‘Are the owners still living here?’ Linda asks.

I look around. ‘No. No, they’re long gone.’

As Justin makes his way down the hall to the toilet, he examines each of the names on the doors, looking for Sarah’s office. He has no idea where to start but maybe if he can find the folder that deals with blood taken from Trinity College in early autumn, then he’ll be closer to finding out.

He sees her name on the door, raps on it gently. When he hears no response he enters and closes it quietly behind him. He looks around quickly, piles of folders on the shelves. He runs immediately to the filing cabinets and starts rifling through them. Moments later the door knob turns. He drops the file back into the cabinet, turns towards the door and freezes. Sarah looks at him, shocked.

‘Justin?’

‘Sarah?’

‘What are you doing in my office?’

You’re an educated man, think of something smart.

‘I took a wrong turn.’

She folds her arms. ‘Why don’t you tell me the truth now?’

‘I was on my way back and I saw your name on the door and I thought I’d come in and have a look around, see what your office is like. I have this thing, you see, where I believe that an office really represents what a person is like and I thought that if we’re to have a future tog—’

‘We’re not going to have a future.’

‘Oh. I see. But if we were to—’

‘No.’

He scans her desk and his eyes fall upon a photograph of Sarah with her arms around a young blonde girl and a man. They pose happily together on a beach.

Sarah follows his gaze.

‘That’s my daughter, Molly.’ She tightens her lips then, angry at herself for saying anything.

‘You have a daughter?’ He reaches for the frame, pauses before touching it and looks to her for permission first.

She nods, lips loosening, and he takes it in his hands.

‘She’s beautiful.’

‘She is.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Six.’

‘I didn’t know you had a daughter.’

‘You don’t know a lot of things about me. You never stuck around long enough on our dates to talk about anything that wasn’t about you.’

Justin cringes, his heart falls. ‘Sarah, I’m so sorry.’

‘So you said, so sincerely, right before you came into my office and started rooting around.’

‘I wasn’t rooting—’

Her look is enough to stop himself from telling another lie. She takes the photo frame from his hands, gently. Nothing about her is rough or aggressive. She is filled with disappointment; not for the first time an idiot like Justin has let her down.

‘The man in the photo?’

She looks sad as she studies it and then places it back on the table.

‘I would have been happy to tell you about him before,’ she says softly. ‘In fact, I remember trying to on at least two occasions.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats, feeling so small he almost can’t see over her desk. ‘I’m listening now.’

‘And I’m sure I remember you telling me you had a flight to catch,’ she says.

‘Right,’ he nods, and makes his way to the door. ‘I am so truly, very, very sorry. I am hugely embarrassed and disappointed in myself.’ And he realises he actually means it from the bottom of his heart. ‘I am going through some strange things at the moment.’

‘Find me someone who isn’t. We all have crap to deal with, Justin. Just please do not drag me into yours.’

‘Right.’ He nods again and offers another apologetic, embarrassed smile before exiting her office, rushing down the stairs and into the car, feeling two foot tall.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Just give it a wipe.’

‘No, you do.’

‘Have you seen something like that before?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’

‘What do you mean, maybe? You either have or you haven’t.’

‘Don’t get smart with me.’

‘I’m not, I’m just trying to figure it out. Do you think it will come off?’

‘I’ve no idea. Let’s ask Joyce.’

I hear Linda and Joe mumbling together in the hallway. I’ve left them to their own devices and have been standing in the galley kitchen, drinking a black coffee and staring out at my mother’s rose bush at the back of the garden and seeing the ghosts of Joyce and Conor sunbathing on the grass during a hot summer with the radio blaring.

‘Joyce, could we show you something for a moment?’

‘Sure.’

I put the coffee cup down, pass the ghost of Conor making his lasagne specialty in the kitchen, pass the ghost of Joyce sitting in her favourite armchair in her pyjamas, eating a Mars bar, and make my way to the hall. They are on their hands and knees examining the stain by the stairs. My stain.

‘I think it might be wine,’ Joe says, looking up at me. ‘Did the owners say anything about the stain?’

‘Eh …’ My legs wobble slightly and for a moment I think my knees are going to go. I lean out to hold on to the banister and pretend to lean down and look at it more closely. I close my eyes. ‘It’s been cleaned a few times already, as far as I know. Would you be interested in keeping the carpet?’

Linda makes a face while she thinks, looks up and down the stairs, through the house, examining my choice of décor with a ruffled nose. ‘No, I suppose not. I think wooden floors would be lovely. Don’t you?’ she asks Joe.

‘Yeah,’ he nods. ‘A nice pale oak.’

‘Yeah,’ she agrees. ‘No, I don’t think we’d keep this carpet.’ She turns her nose up again.

I haven’t intended to keep the owners’ details from them deliberately – there’s no point as they’ll see it on the contract anyway. I had assumed they knew that the property was mine, but it was their misunderstanding, and as they poked holes in the decorations, the choice of room layout, and funny noises and smells they weren’t used to but that I had stopped noticing by now, I didn’t think it would be necessary to make them uncomfortable by pointing it out now.

‘You seem keen,’ I smile, watching their faces aglow with warmth and excitement at finally finding a property they felt at home in.

‘We are,’ she grins. ‘We have been so fussy up till now, as you well know. But now the situation has changed and we need to get out of that flat and find somewhere bigger as soon as we can, seeing as we’re expanding, or I’m expanding,’ she jokes nervously, and it’s only then that I notice her small bump beneath her shirt, her belly button hard and protruding against the fabric.

‘Oh, wow …’ Lump to throat, wobble of knees again, eyes fill, please let this moment be over quickly, please make them look away from me. They have tact and so they do. ‘That’s fantastic, congratulations,’ my voice says cheerily, and even I can hear how hollow it is, so devoid of sincerity, the empty words almost echo within themselves.

‘So that room upstairs would be perfect.’ Joe nods to the nursery.

‘Oh, of course, that’s just wonderful.’ The 1960s surbuban housewife is back as I gosh, gee-whizz and shucks my way through the rest of the conversation.

‘I can’t believe they don’t want any of the furniture,’ Linda says, looking around.

‘Well, they’re both moving to smaller property and their belongings just won’t fit there any more.’

‘But they’re not taking anything?’

‘No,’ I smile, looking around. ‘Nothing but the rose bush in the back garden.’

And a suitcase of memories.

Justin falls into the car with a giant sigh.

‘What happened to you?’

‘Nothing. Could you just drive directly to the airport now, please? I’m a little behind time.’ Justin places his elbow on the windowledge and covers his face with his hand, hating himself, hating the selfish miserable man he has become. He and Sarah weren’t right for one another but what right had he to use her like that, to bring her down with him into his pit of desperation and selfishness?

‘I’ve got something that will cheer you up,’ Thomas says, reaching for the glove compartment.

‘No, I’m really not in the—’ Justin stops, seeing Thomas retrieve a familiar envelope from the compartment. He hands it over to him.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘My boss called me, told me to give it to you before you got to the airport.’

‘Your boss.’ Justin narrows his eyes. ‘What’s his name?’

Thomas is silent for a while. ‘John,’ he finally replies.

‘John Smith?’ Justin says, his voice thick with sarcasm.

‘The very man.’

Knowing he’ll squeeze no information from Thomas, he turns his attention back to the envelope. He circles it slowly in his hand, trying to decide whether to open it or not. He could leave it unopened and end all of this now, get his life back in order, stop trying to use people, take advantage. Meet a nice woman, treat her well.

‘Well? Aren’t you going to open it?’ Thomas asks.

Justin continues to circle it in his hand.

‘Maybe.’

Dad opens the door to me, his iPod in his ears, the control pad in his hand. He looks my outfit up and down.

‘OOH, YOU LOOK VERY NICE TODAY, GRACIE,’ he shouts at the top of his voice, and a man walking his dog across the road turns to stare. ‘WERE YOU OUT SOMEWHERE SPECIAL?’

I smile. Light relief at last. I put my finger on my lips and take the earphones out of his ears.

‘I was showing the house to some clients of mine.’

‘Did they like it?’

‘They’re going to come back in a few days to measure. So that’s a good sign. But being back over there, I realised there are so many things that I have to go through.’

‘Haven’t you been through enough? You don’t need to sob for weeks just to make yourself feel OK about it.’

I smile. ‘I mean that I have to go through possessions. Things I’ve left behind. I don’t think they want a lot of the furniture. Would it be OK if I stored it in your garage?’

‘My woodwork studio?’

‘That you haven’t been in for ten years.’

‘I’ve been in there,’ he says defensively. ‘Oh, all right then, you can put your things in there. Will I ever get rid of you at all, at all?’ he says with a slight smile on his face.

I sit at the kitchen table and Dad immediately busies himself, filling the kettle as he does for everyone who enters the kitchen.

‘So how did the Monday Club go last night? I bet Donal McCarthy couldn’t believe your story. What was his face like?’ I lean in, excited to hear.

‘He wasn’t there,’ Dad says, turning his back to me as he takes a cup and saucer out for himself and a mug for me.

‘What? Why not? And you with your big story to tell him! The cheek of him. Well, you’ll have next week, won’t you?’

He turns around slowly. ‘He died at the weekend. His funeral’s tomorrow. Instead we spent the night talking about him and all his old stories that he told a hundred times.’

‘Oh, Dad, I’m so sorry.’

‘Ah, well. If he hadn’t have gone over the weekend, he would have dropped dead when he’d heard I met Michael Aspel. Maybe it was just as well,’ he smiles sadly. ‘Ah, he wasn’t such a bad man. We had a good laugh even if we did enjoy getting a rise out of one another.’

I feel for Dad. It is such a trivial thing compared with the loss of a friend, but he had been so excited to share his stories with his great rival.

We both sit in silence.

‘You’ll keep the rose bush, won’t you?’ Dad asks finally.

I know immediately what he’s talking about. ‘Of course I will. I thought that it’d look good in your garden.’

He looks out the window and studies his garden, probably deciding where he’ll plant it.

‘You have to be careful with moving, Gracie. Too much shock causes a serious, possibly a grave decline.’

I smile sadly. ‘That’s a bit dramatic, but I’ll be fine, Dad. Thanks for caring.’

He keeps his back turned. ‘I was talking about the roses.’

My phone rings, vibrates along the table and almost hops off the edge.

‘Hello?’

‘Joyce, it’s Thomas. I just left your young man off at the airport.’

‘Oh, thank you so much. Did he get the envelope?’

‘Eh, yeah. About that: I gave it to him all right but I’ve just looked in the back seat of the car and it’s still there.’

‘What?’ I jump up from the kitchen chair. ‘Go back, go back! Turn the car around! You have to give it to him. He’s forgotten it!’

‘You see, the thing is, he wasn’t too sure on whether he wanted to open it or not.’

‘What? Why?’

‘I don’t know, love! I gave it to him when he got back into the car before we got to the airport, just like you asked. He seemed very down and so I thought it’d cheer him up a bit.’

‘Down? Why? What was wrong with him?’

‘Joyce, love, I don’t know. All I know is he got into the car a bit upset so I gave him the envelope and he sat there looking at it and I asked him if he was going to open it and he said maybe.’

‘Maybe,’ I repeat. Had I done something to upset him? Had Kate said something to him? ‘He was upset when he came out of the Gallery?’

‘No, not the Gallery. We stopped off at the blood donor clinic on D’Olier Street before the airport.’

‘He was donating blood?’

‘No, he said he had to meet somebody.’

Oh my God, maybe he’d discovered it was me who’d received his blood and he wasn’t interested.

‘Thomas, do you know if he opened it?’

‘Did you seal it?’

‘No.’

‘Then there’s no way of my knowing. I didn’t see him open it. I’m sorry. Do you want me to drop it at your house on the way back from the airport?’

‘Please.’

An hour later I meet Thomas at the door and he gives me the envelope. I can feel the tickets still inside and my heart falls. Why didn’t Justin open it and take it with him?

‘Here, Dad.’ I slide the envelope across the kitchen table. ‘A present for you.’

‘What’s in it?’

‘Front-row seats to the opera for next weekend,’ I say sadly, leaning my chin on my hand. ‘It was a gift for somebody else, but he clearly doesn’t want to go.’

‘The opera.’ Dad makes a funny face and I laugh. ‘It’s far from operas I was raised,’ though he opens the envelope anyway as I get up to make some more coffee.

‘Oh, I think I’ll pass on this opera thing, love, but thanks anyway.’

I spin round. ‘Oh, Dad, why? You liked the ballet and you didn’t think that you would.’

‘Yes, but I went to that with you. I wouldn’t go to this on my own.’

‘You don’t have to. There are two tickets.’

‘No, there aren’t.’

‘There definitely are. Look again.’

He turns the envelope upside down and shakes it. A loose piece of paper falls out and flutters to the table.

My heart skips a beat.

Dad props his glasses on the tip of his nose and peers down at the note. ‘“Accompany me”,’ he says slowly. ‘Ah, love, that’s awful nice of you—’

‘Show me that.’ I grab it from his hands, disbelievingly, and read it for myself. Then I read it again. And again and again.

‘Accompany me? Justin.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

‘He wants to meet me,’ I tell Kate nervously, as I twirl a string from the end of my unravelling top around my finger.

‘You’re going to cut off your circulation, be careful,’ Kate responds, motherly.

‘Kate! Did you not hear me? I said he wants to meet me!’

‘And so he should. Did you not think that this would eventually happen? Really, Joyce, you’ve been taunting the man for weeks. And if he did save your life, as you’re insisting he did, wouldn’t he want to meet the person whose life he saved? Boost his male ego? Come on, it’s the equivalent to a white horse and a shiny suit of armour.’

‘No it’s not.’

‘It is in his male eyes. His male wandering eyes,’ she spits out aggressively.

My eyes narrow as I study her closely. ‘Is everything OK? You’re beginning to sound like Frankie.’

‘Stop biting your lip, it’s starting to bleed. Yes, everything’s great. Just hunky-dory.’

‘OK, here I am,’ Frankie makes her announcement as she breezes through the door and joins us on the bleachers.

We are seated on a split-level viewing balcony at Kate’s local swimming pool. Below us Eric and Jayda splash noisily in their swimming class. Beside us Sam is sitting in his stroller, looking around.

‘Does he ever do anything?’ Frankie watches him suspiciously.

Kate ignores her.

‘Issue number one for discussion today is why do we have to constantly meet in these places with all these things crawling around?’ She looks at all the toddlers. ‘What happened to cool bars, new restaurants, shop openings? Remember we used to go out and have fun?’

‘I have plenty of fucking fun,’ Kate says a little too defensively and loudly. ‘I am just one great big ball of fucking fun,’ she repeats, and looks away.

Frankie doesn’t hear the unusual tone in Kate’s voice, or does hear it and decides to push anyway. ‘Yes, at dinner parties for other couples who haven’t been out for a month either. For me, that’s not so fun.’

‘You’ll understand when you have kids.’

‘I don’t plan to have any. Is everything OK?’

‘Yes, she’s “hunky-dory”,’ I say to Frankie, using my fingers as inverted commas.

‘Oh, I see,’ Frankie says slowly and mouths ‘Christian’ at me.

I shrug.

‘Is there anything you want to get off your chest?’ Frankie asks.

‘Actually, yes.’ Kate turns to her with fire in her eyes. ‘I’m tired of your little comments about my life. If you’re not happy here or in my company, then piss off somewhere else, but just know that it’ll be without me.’ She turns away, her cheeks flushed with anger.

Frankie is silent for a moment as she observes her friend. ‘OK,’ she says perkily and turns to me. ‘My car is parked outside; we can go to the new bar down the road.’

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ I protest.

‘Ever since you left your husband and your life has fallen apart, you’ve been no fun,’ she says to me sulkily. ‘And as for you, Kate, ever since you got that new Swedish nanny and your husband’s been eyeing her up, you’ve been absolutely miserable. As for me, I’m tired of hopping from one night of meaningless sex with handsome strangers to another, and having to eat microwave dinners alone every evening. There, I’ve said it.’

My mouth falls open. So does Kate’s. I can tell we are both trying our best to be angry with her but her comments are so spot on, it’s actually quite humorous. She nudges me with her elbow and chuckles mischievously in my ear. The corners of Kate’s lips begin to twitch too.

‘I should have got a manny,’ Kate finally says.

‘Nah, I still wouldn’t trust Christian,’ Frankie responds. ‘You’re being paranoid, Kate,’ she assures her seriously. ‘I’ve been around there, I’ve seen him. He adores you and she is not attractive at all.’

‘You think?’

‘Uh-huh,’ she nods, but when Kate looks away, mouths ‘gorgeous’ to me.

‘Did you mean all that you said?’ Kate says, brightening up.

‘No.’ Frankie throws her head back and laughs. ‘I love meaningless sex. I need to do something about the microwave dinners, though. My doctor says I need more iron. OK,’ she claps her hands, causing Sam to jump with fright, ‘what’s this session’s meeting been called for?’

‘Justin wants to meet Joyce,’ Kate explains, and snaps at me, ‘Stop biting your lip.’

I stop.

‘Ooh, great,’ Frankie says excitedly. ‘So what’s the problem?’ She sees my look of terror.

‘He’s going to realise that I’m me.’

‘As opposed to you being …?’

‘Someone else.’ I bite my lip again.

‘This is really reminding me of the old days. You are thirty-three years old, Joyce, why are you acting like a teenager?’

‘Because she’s in love,’ Kate says, bored, turning to face the swimming pool and clapping her coughing daughter, Jayda, whose face is half under the water.

‘She can’t be in love.’ Frankie rolls her nose up in disgust.

‘Is that normal, do you think?’ Kate, beginning to get worried about Jayda, tries to get our attention.

‘Of course it’s not normal,’ Frankie responds. ‘She hardly knows the guy.’

‘Girls, eh, stop for a minute,’ Kate tries to butt in.

‘I know more about him than any other person will ever know,’ I defend myself. ‘Apart from himself.’

‘Eh, lifeguard.’ Kate gives up on us and calls gently to the woman sitting below us. ‘Is she OK, do you think?’

‘Are you in love?’ Frankie looks at me as though I’ve just said I want to have a sex change.

I smile just as the lifeguard crashes into the water to save Jayda and a few kids scream.

‘You’ll have to take us over to Ireland with you,’ Doris says with excitement, placing a vase on the kitchen windowsill. The flat is almost finished and she’s arranging the finishing touches. ‘They could be a nutcase and you’d never know. We need to be nearby just in case something happens. They could be a murderer, a serial stalker who dates people and then kills them. I saw something like that on Oprah.’

Al begins hammering nails into the wall and Justin joins in with the rhythm, gently and repeatedly bashing his head against the kitchen table in response.

‘I am not taking you both to the opera with me,’ Justin says.

‘You took me along on a date with you when you and Delilah Jackson went out.’ Al stops hammering and turns to him. ‘Why should this be any different?’

‘Al, I was twelve years old.’

‘Still,’ he shrugs, returning to his hammering.

‘What if she’s a celebrity?’ Doris says excitedly. ‘Oh my God, she could be! I think she is! Jennifer Aniston could be sitting in the front row of the opera and there could be a place free beside her. Oh my God, what if it is?’ She turns to Al with wide eyes. ‘Justin, you have to tell her I’m her biggest fan.’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute, you’re starting to hyperventilate. How on earth have you come to that conclusion? We don’t even know if it’s a woman. You are obsessed with celebrities,’ Justin sighs.

‘Yeah, Doris,’ Al joins in. ‘It’s probably just a normal person.’

Justin rolls his eyes. ‘Yeah,’ he imitates his tone, ‘because celebrities aren’t normal people, they’re really underworld beasts that grow horns and have three legs.’

With that both Al and Doris pause from their hammering and hanging duties to stare at him.

‘We’re going to Dublin tomorrow,’ Doris says with an air of finality. ‘It’s your brother’s birthday and a weekend in Dublin, in a very nice hotel like the Shelbourne Hotel – I’ve, I mean Al has always wanted to stay there – would be a perfect birthday present for him, from you.’

‘I can’t afford the Shelbourne Hotel, Doris.’

‘Well, we’ll need somewhere close to a hospital in case he has a heart attack. In any case, we’re all going!’ She claps her hands excitedly.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

I’m on my way into the city to meet Kate and Frankie for help on what to wear to tonight’s opera, when my phone rings.

‘Hello?’

‘Joyce, it’s Steven.’

My boss.

‘I just received another phone call.’

‘That’s really great but you don’t have to call me when that happens.’

‘It’s another complaint, Joyce.’

‘From who and about what?’

‘That couple you showed the new cottage to yesterday?’

‘Yes?’

‘They’ve pulled out.’

‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ I say, lacking all sincerity. ‘Did they say why?’

‘Yes, in fact they did. It seems a certain person in our company advised them that to recreate the look of the period cottage properly, they should demand that the builders carry out excess work. Guess what? The builders weren’t entirely interested in their list that included,’ I hear paper rustling and he reads aloud, ‘“Exposed beams, exposed brickwork, log-burning stove, open fires …” The list goes on. So now they’ve backed out.’

‘It sounds reasonable enough to me. The builders were recreating period cottages without any period features. Does that make sense to you?’

‘Who cares? Joyce, you were only supposed to let them in to measure for their couch. Douglas had sold this place to them already when you were … out.’

‘Evidently, he didn’t.’

‘Joyce, I need you to stop turning our clients away. Do you need to be reminded that your job is to sell, and if you’re not doing that then…’

‘Then what?’ I say haughtily, my head getting hot.

‘Then nothing,’ he softens. ‘I know you’ve had a difficult time,’ he begins awkwardly.

‘That time is over and has nothing to do with my ability to sell a house,’ I snap.

‘Then sell one,’ he finishes.

‘Fine.’ I snap my phone shut and glare out the bus window at the city. A week back at work and already I need a break.

‘Doris, is this really necessary?’ Justin moans from the bathroom.

‘Yes!’ she calls. ‘This is what we’re here for. We have to make sure you’re going to look right tonight. Hurry up, you take longer than a woman to get changed.’

Doris and Al are sitting on the end of their bed in a Dublin hotel, not the Shelbourne, much to Doris’s dismay. It is more of a Holiday Inn, but it’s central to the city and shopping streets and that’s good enough for her. As soon as they’d landed earlier that morning, Justin had been all set to show them around the sites, the museums, churches and castles, but Doris and Al had other things on their minds. Shopping. The Viking tour was as cultured as they got and Doris had howled when water had sprayed her in the face on entry into the River Liffey. They’d ended up rushing to the nearest rest room so that Al could wash the mascara out of her eye.

There were only hours to go until the opera, until he would finally discover the identity of this mystery person. He was filled with anxiety, excitement and nerves at the thought of it. It would be an evening of sheer torture or pleasantries depending on his luck. He had to figure out an escape plan if his worst-case scenario was to play out.

‘Oh, hurry up, Justin,’ Doris howls again and he fixes his tie and exits the bathroom.

‘Work it, work it, work it!’ Doris whoops as he strolls up and down the bedroom in his best suit. He pauses in front of them and fidgets awkwardly, feeling like a little boy in his communion suit.

He is greeted by silence. Al, who has been shovelling popcorn in his mouth at a serious speed, also stops.

‘What?’ he says nervously. ‘Something wrong? Something on my face? Is there a stain?’ He looks down, studying himself.

Doris rolls her eyes and shakes her head. ‘Ha-ha very funny. Now seriously, stop wasting time and show us the real suit.’

‘Doris!’ Justin exclaims. ‘This is the real suit!’

‘That’s your best suit?’ she drawls, looking him up and down.

‘I think I recognise that from our wedding.’ Al’s eyes narrow.

Doris stands up and picks up her handbag. ‘Take it off,’ she says calmly.

‘What? Why?’

She takes a deep breath. ‘Just take it off. Now.’

‘These are too formal, Kate.’ I turn my nose up at the dresses she has chosen. ‘It’s not a ball, I just need something …’

‘Sexy,’ Frankie says, waving a little dress in front of me.

‘It’s an opera, not a nightclub.’ Kate whips it away from her. ‘OK, look at this. Not formal, not slutty.’

‘Yes, you could be a nun,’ Frankie says sarcastically.

They both turn away and continue to root through the rails.

‘Aha! I got it,’ Frankie announces.

‘No, I’ve found the perfect one.’

They both spin round with the same dresses in their hand, Kate holding one in red, Frankie holding the black. I chew on my lip.

‘Stop it!’ they say in unison.

‘Oh my God,’ Justin whispers.

‘What? You’ve never seen a pink pinstripe before? It’s divine. Worn with this pink shirt and this pink tie, oh, it would be perfect. Oh, Al, I wish you’d wear suits like this.’

‘I prefer the blue,’ Al disagrees. ‘The pink is a bit gay. Or maybe that’s a good idea in case she turns out to be a disaster. You can tell her your boyfriend’s waiting for you. I can back you up on that,’ he offers.

Doris stares at him with loathing. ‘See, isn’t this so much better than that other thing you were wearing? Justin? Earth to Justin? What on earth are you looking at? Oh, she’s pretty.’

‘That’s Joyce,’ he whispers. He had once read that a blue-throated hummingbird had a heart rate of one thousand two hundred and sixty beats per minute, and he’d wondered how on earth anything could survive that. He understood now. With each beat, his heart pushed out blood and sent it flowing around his body. He felt his entire body throb, pulsate in his neck, his wrists, his heart, his stomach.

‘That’s Joyce?’ Doris asks, shocked. ‘The phone woman? Well, she looks … normal, Justin. What do you think, Al?’

Al looks her up and down and nudges his brother. ‘Yeah, she looks real normal. You should ask her out once and for all.’

‘Why are you both so surprised she looks normal?’ Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

‘Well, sweetie, the very fact that she exists is a surprise,’ Doris snorts. ‘The fact that she’s pretty is damn near a miracle. Go on, ask her out for dinner tonight.’

‘I can’t tonight.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve got the opera!’

‘Opera shopera. Who cares about that?’

‘You have been talking about it non-stop for over a week. And now it’s opera shopera?’ Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

‘Well, I didn’t want to alarm you before but I was thinking about it on the plane on the way over and …’ she takes a deep breath and touches his arm gently, ‘it can’t be Jennifer Aniston. There’s just going to be some old lady sitting in the front row waiting for you with a bouquet of flowers that you don’t even want, or some overweight guy with bad breath. Sorry, Al, I don’t mean you.’ She touches his arm apologetically.

Al misses the insult he’s so upset about the bombshell she’s dropped. ‘What? But I brought my autograph book!’

Justin’s heart beats the speed of a hummingbird’s heart, his mind now at the speed of its wings. He can barely think, everything is happening too fast. Joyce, far more beautiful up close than he remembers, her newly short hair soft around her face. She is beginning to move away now. He has to do something quick. Think, think, think!

‘Ask her out tomorrow night,’ Al suggests.

‘I can’t! My exhibition is tomorrow.’

‘Skip it. Call in sick.’

‘I can’t, Al! I’ve been working on this for months, I’m the damn curator, I have to be there.’ Thump-thump, thump-thump.

‘If you don’t ask her out, I will.’ Doris pushes him.

‘She’s busy with her friends.’

Joyce starts to move away.

Do something!

‘Joyce!’ Doris calls out.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Justin tries to turn round and scarper in the other direction but both Al and Doris block him.

‘Justin Hitchcock,’ a voice says loudly and he stops trying to break through their barrier and slowly turns round. The lady standing beside Joyce is familiar. She has a baby in a stroller beside her.

‘Justin Hitchcock.’ The girl reaches her hand out. ‘Kate McDonald.’ She shakes his hand firmly. ‘I was at your talk last week in the National Gallery. It was incredibly interesting,’ she smiles. ‘I didn’t know you knew Joyce,’ she smiles brightly and elbows Joyce. ‘Joyce, you never said! I was at Justin Hitchcock’s talk just last week! Remember I told you? The painting about the woman and the letter? And the fact that she was writing it?’

Joyce’s eyes are wide and startled. She looks from her friend to Justin and back again.

‘She doesn’t know me, exactly,’ Justin finally speaks up and feels a slight tremble in his voice. The adrenalin is surging through him so much he feels as if he’s about to take off like a rocket through the department store’s roof. ‘We’ve passed one another on many occasions but never had the opportunity to meet properly.’ He holds out his hand. ‘Joyce, I’m Justin.’

She reaches out to take his hand and static electricity rushes through as they get a quick shock from one another.

They both let go quickly. ‘Whoa!’ She pulls back and cradles her hand in the other, as though burned.

‘Oooh,’ Doris sings.

‘It’s static electricity, Doris. Caused when the air and materials are dry. They should use a humidifier in here,’ Justin says like a robot, not moving his eyes from Joyce’s face.

Frankie cocks her head and tries not to laugh. ‘Charming.’

‘I tell him that all the time,’ Doris says angrily.

After a moment, Joyce extends her hand again to finish the handshake properly. ‘Sorry, I just got a—’

‘That’s OK, I got it too,’ he smiles.

‘Nice to meet you, finally,’ she says.

They remain holding hands, just staring at one another. A line of Doris, Justin and Al standing opposite Joyce’s party of three.

Doris clears her throat noisily. ‘I’m Doris, his sister-in-law.’

She reaches diagonally over Justin and Joyce’s handshake to greet Frankie.

‘I’m Frankie.’

They shake hands. While doing so, Al reaches over diagonally to shake hands with Kate. It becomes a hand-shaking marathon as they all greet at once, Justin and Joyce finally releasing hold of one another.

‘Would you like to go for dinner tonight with Justin?’ Doris blurts out.

‘Tonight?’ Joyce’s mouth drops.

‘She would love to,’ Frankie answers for her.

‘Tonight, though?’ Justin turns to face Doris with wide eyes.

‘Oh, it’s no problem, Al and I want to eat alone anyway,’ she nudges him. ‘No point being the gooseberry,’ she smiles.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stick to your other plans tonight?’ Joyce says, slightly confused.

‘Oh, no,’ Justin shakes his head, ‘I’d love to have dinner with you. Unless of course you have plans?’

Joyce turns to Frankie. ‘Tonight? I have that thing, Frankie …’

‘Oh, no, don’t be silly. It doesn’t really make a difference now, does it?’ She widens her eyes. ‘We can have drinks any other time.’ Frankie waves her hand dismissively. ‘Where are you taking her?’ She smiles sweetly at Justin.

‘The Shelbourne Hotel?’ Doris says. ‘At eight?’

‘Oh I’ve always wanted to eat there,’ Kate sighs. ‘Eight suits her fine,’ she responds.

Justin smiles and looks at Joyce. ‘Does it?’

Joyce seems to consider this, her mind ticking at the same rate as his heart.

‘You’re absolutely sure you’re happy to cancel your other plans for tonight?’ Frown lines appear on her forehead.

Her eyes bore into his and guilt overcomes him as he thinks of whoever he is currently making arrangements to stand up.

He gives a single nod and is unsure of how convincing it seems.

Sensing this, Doris begins to pull him away. ‘Well, it was wonderful to meet you all but we really better get back to shopping. Nice to meet you, Kate, Frankie, Joyce sweetie.’ She gives her a quick hug. ‘Enjoy dinner. At eight. Shelbourne Hotel. Don’t forget now.’

‘Red or black?’ Joyce holds up the two dresses to Justin, before he’s pulled away.

He considers this carefully. ‘Red.’

‘Black it is, then,’ she smiles, mirroring their first and only conversation from the hair salon, the first day they met.

He laughs and allows Doris to drag him away.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

‘What the hell did you do that for, Doris?’ Justin asks as they walk back towards their hotel.

‘You’ve gone on and on about this woman for weeks and now you’ve finally got a date with her. What’s so wrong with that?’

‘I have plans tonight! I can’t just stand the person up.’

‘You don’t even know who they are!’

‘It doesn’t matter, it’s still rude.’

‘Justin, seriously, listen to me. This whole Thank You message thing could honestly be somebody playing a cruel joke.’

He narrows his eyes with suspicion. ‘Is it?’

‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘I have no idea,’ Al shrugs, beginning to pant.

Doris and Justin slow down immediately, taking baby steps.

Justin sighs.

‘Would you rather risk going to something where you have no idea what or who to expect? Or go to dinner with a pretty lady, who you are absolutely crazy about and have been thinking about for weeks?’

‘Come on,’ Al joins in, ‘when’s the last time you felt like this about anyone? I don’t even think you were like this with Jennifer.’

Justin smiles.

‘So, bro, what’s it gonna be?’

‘You should really take something for that heartburn, Mr Conway,’ I can hear Frankie telling Dad in the kitchen.

‘Like what?’ Dad asks, enjoying the company of two young ladies.

‘Christian gets that all the time,’ Kate says, and I hear Sam’s babbling echo around the kitchen.

Dad babbles back at him, imitating his non-words.

‘Oh, it’s called, em …’ Kate thinks, ‘I can’t remember what it’s called.’

‘You’re the same as me,’ Dad says to her. ‘You’ve got CRAFT too.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Can’t. Remember. A. Fuc—’

‘OK, I’m coming!’ I call down the stairs to Kate, Frankie and Dad.

‘Yahooo!’ Frankie hollers.

‘OK, I’ve got the camera ready!’ Kate calls.

Dad starts making trumpet noises as I walk down the stairs and I start to laugh. I keep an eye on Mum’s photo on the hall table as I walk down the steps, maintaining eye contact with her all the way as she looks up at me. I wink at her as I pass.

As soon as I step into the hall and turn to them in the kitchen, they all go quiet.

My smile fades. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Oh, Joyce,’ Frankie whispers as though it’s a bad thing, ‘you look beautiful.’

I sigh with relief and join them in the kitchen.

‘Do a twirl.’ Kate films with the video camera.

I spin in my new red dress while Sam claps his podgy hands.

‘Mr Conway, you haven’t said anything!’ Frankie nudges him. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

We all turn to face Dad, who has gone silent, eyes filled with tears. He nods up and down quickly, but no words come.

‘Oh, Dad,’ I reach out and wrap my arms around him, ‘it’s only a dress.’

‘You look beautiful, love,’ he manages to say. ‘Go get him, kiddo.’ He gives me a kiss on the cheek and hurries into the living room, embarrassed by his emotion.

‘So,’ Frankie says smiling, ‘have you decided whether it’s going to be dinner or the opera tonight?’

‘I still don’t know.’

‘He asked you out to dinner,’ Kate says. ‘Why do you think he’d rather go to the opera.’

‘Because firstly, he didn’t ask me out for dinner. His sister-in-law did. And I didn’t say yes. You did.’ I glare at Kate. ‘I think it’s killing him not knowing whose life he saved. He didn’t seem so convinced at the end, before he left the shop, did he?’

‘Stop reading so much into it,’ Frankie says. ‘He asked you out so go out.’

‘But he looked guilty to be standing the opera date up.’

‘I don’t know,’ Kate disagrees. ‘He seemed to really want you at that dinner.’

‘It’s a tough decision,’ Frankie summarises. ‘I would not like to be in your shoes.’

‘Hey, they’re my shoes,’ Kate says, insulted. ‘Why can’t you just come clean and tell him that it’s you?’

‘My way of coming clean was supposed to be him seeing me at the opera. This was going to be it, the night he found out.’

‘So go to dinner and tell him that it was you all along.’

‘But what if he goes to the opera?’

We talk in circles for a while longer, and when they leave, I discuss the pros and cons of both situations with myself until my head is spinning so much I can’t think any more. When the taxi arrives, Dad walks me to the door.

‘I don’t know what you girls were in such deep conversation about but I know you’ve to make a decision about something. Have you made it?’ Dad asks softly.

‘I don’t know, Dad.’ I swallow hard. ‘I don’t know what the right decision is.’

‘Of course you do. You always take your own route, love. You always have.’

‘What do you mean?’

He looks out to the garden. ‘See that trail there?’

‘The garden path?’

He shakes his head and points to a track in the lawn where the grass has been trampled on and the soil is slightly visible beneath. ‘You made that path.’

‘What?’ I’m confused now.

‘As a little girl,’ he smiles. ‘We call them “desire lines” in the gardening world. They’re the tracks and trails that people make for themselves. You’ve always avoided the paths laid down by other people, love. You’ve always gone your own way, found your own way, even if you do eventually get to the same point as everybody else. You’ve never taken the official route,’ he chuckles to himself. ‘No, indeed you haven’t. You’re certainly your mother’s daughter, cutting the corners, creating spontaneous paths, while I’d stick to the routes and make my way the long way round.’ He smiles as he reminisces.

We both study the small well-worn ribbon of trampled grass across the garden leading to the path.

‘Desire lines,’ I repeat, seeing myself as a little girl, as a teenager, a grown woman, cutting across that patch, each time. ‘I suppose desire isn’t linear. There is no straightforward way of going where you want.’

‘Do you know what you’re going to do now?’ he asks as the taxi arrives.

I smile and kiss him on his forehead. ‘I do.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I step out of the taxi at Stephen’s Green and immediately see the crowds flowing towards the Gaiety Theatre, all dressed in their finest for the National Irish Opera’s production. I have never been to an opera before, have only ever seen one on television, and my heart, tired of a body that can’t keep up with it, is pounding to get out of my body and run into the building itself. I’m filled with nerves, with anticipation, and with the greatest hope I have ever felt in my life, that the final part of my plan will come together. I’m terrified that Justin will be angry that it’s me, though why he would be, I’ve run through a hundred thousand times in my head and can’t seem to come to any rational conclusion.

I stand halfway between the Shelbourne Hotel and the Gaiety Theatre, no less than three hundred yards between them. I look from one to the other, close my eyes and don’t care how stupid I look in the middle of the road as people pass by me on this Saturday night. I wait to feel the pull. Which way to go. Right to the Shelbourne. Left to the Gaiety. My heart drums in my chest.

I turn to the left and stride confidently toward the theatre. Inside the bustling entrance foyer, I purchase a programme and make my way to my seat. No time for pre-performance drinks; if he shows up early and sees I’m not here I would never forgive myself. Front-row tickets – I could not believe my luck but I had called the very moment the tickets had gone on sale to secure these precious seats.

I take my seat in the red velvet chairs, my red dress falling down either side of me, my purse on my lap, Kate’s shoes glistening on the floor before me. The orchestra are directly in front of me, tuning and rehearsing, dressed in black in their underworld of fabulous sounds.

The atmosphere is magical, the balconies drip from the side. Thousands of people buzzing with excitement, orchestra fine-tuning and striving for perfection, lots of bodies moving around, balconies like honeycombs, the air rich with perfumes and aftershaves, pure honey.

I look to my right at the empty chair and shiver with excitement.

An announcement explains that the performance will begin in five minutes, that those who are late will be forbidden entry until a break, but are able to stay outside and watch the performance on the screens until the ushers tell them it is an appropriate time to enter.

Hurry, Justin, hurry, I plead, my legs bouncing beneath me with nerves.

Justin speed-walks from his hotel and up Kildare Street. He is just out of the shower but already his skin feels moist, his shirt sticks to his back, his forehead glistens with sweat. He stops walking at the top of the road. The Shelbourne Hotel is directly beside him, the Gaiety Theatre two hundred yards to his right.

He closes his eyes and takes deep breaths. Breathes in the fresh October air of Dublin city.

Which way to go. Which way to go.

* * *

The performance has begun and I cannot take my eyes off the door to my right-hand side. Beside me is an empty seat whose very presence sends a lump to my throat. While onstage a woman sings with such emotion, much to my neighbours’ annoyance beside and behind me, I can’t help but turn my head to face the door. Despite the announcement, a few people have been permitted entry and have moved quickly to their seats. If Justin does not come now, he may not be able to be seated until after the interval. I empathise with the woman singing before me, for the mere fact that, after all this time, a door and an usher being the only things separating us, is an opera in itself.

I turn round once more and my heart skips a beat as the door beside me opens.

Justin pulls on the door and as soon as he enters the room, all heads turn to stare at him. He looks around quickly for Joyce, his heart in his mouth, his fingers clammy and trembling.

The maître d’ approaches. ‘Welcome, sir. How can I help you?’

‘Good evening. I’ve booked a table for two, under Hitchcock.’ He looks around nervously, takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabs at his forehead nervously. ‘Is she here yet?’

‘No, sir, you are the first to arrive. Would you like me to show you to your table or would you rather have a drink before?’

‘The table please.’ If she arrives and sees he isn’t at the table, he will never forgive himself.

He is led to a table for two in the centre of the dining room.

He sits in the chair that has been held out for him and immediately servers flow to his table, pouring water, laying his serviette on his lap, bringing bread rolls.

‘Sir, would you like to see the menu or would you like to wait for the other party to arrive?’

‘I’ll wait, thank you.’ He watches the door and takes this moment of being alone to calm himself.

It has been over an hour. There have been a few moments when people have entered and been shown their seats but none of those people have been Justin. The chair beside me remains empty and cold. The woman next to it, glances occasionally at it and at me who is twisted round, eye obsessively and possessively on the door, and she smiles politely, sympathetically. It brings tears to my eyes, a feeling of utter loneliness, in a room full of people, full of sound, full of song, I feel utterly alone. The interval begins, the curtain lowers, the house lights are raised and everybody stands up and exits to the bar, outside for cigarettes or to stretch their legs.

I sit and I wait.

The more lonely I feel, the more hope that springs in my heart. He may still come. He may still feel this is as important to him as it is to me. Dinner with a woman he’s met once or an evening with a person whose life he helped save, a person who has done exactly what he wished and thanked him in all the ways he asked.

Perhaps it wasn’t enough.

‘Would you like to see the menu now, sir?’

‘Em,’ he looks at the clock. She’s a half-hour late and his heart sinks but he remains hopeful. ‘She’s just running a little late, you see,’ he explains.

‘Of course, sir.’

‘I’ll have a look at the wine menu, please.’

‘Of course, sir.’

The woman’s lover is ripped from her arms and she pleads for him to be let go. She wails and howls and hollers in song, and beside me the woman sniffles. My eyes fill too, remembering Dad’s face of pride when he saw me in my dress.

‘Go get him,’ he said.

Well, I didn’t. I’ve lost another one. I’ve been stood up by a man who’d rather have dinner with me. As nonsensical as it should be, it is crystal clear to me. I wanted him to be here. I wanted the connection I felt, that he caused, to be the thing that brought us together, not a chance meeting in a department store, a few hours before. It seems so fickle for him to choose me over something far more important.

Perhaps I am viewing this the wrong way, though. Perhaps I should be happy he chose dinner with me. I look at my watch. Perhaps he is there right now, waiting for me. But what if I leave here and he arrives, missing me? No. I am best to stay put and not confuse matters.

My mind battles on, as events do on stage.

But if he is at the restaurant now, and I am here, then he is alone, has been alone for over an hour. Why then, wouldn’t he give up on a date with me and run a few hundred yards to seek out the mystery date? Unless he has come. Unless he took one look through the door, saw that it was me and refused to come in. I am so overwhelmed by the thoughts in my head I tune out of the act, too muddled, completely ambushed by the questions in my head.

Before I know it, the opera is over. The seats are empty, the curtains are down on the stage, the lights are up. I walk out to the cold night air. The city is busy, filled with people enjoying their Saturday night out. My tears feel cold against my skin as the breeze hits them.

Justin empties the last of his second bottle of wine into his glass and slams it back onto the table unintentionally. He has lost all co-ordination by now, he can barely read the time on his watch but he knows it’s gone past a reasonable hour for Joyce to show.

He has been stood up.

By the one woman he’s had any sort of interest in since his divorce. Not counting poor Sarah. He had never counted poor Sarah.

I am a horrible person.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,’ the maître d’ says politely, ‘but we have received a phone call from your brother, Al?’

Justin nods.

‘He wanted to pass on the message that he is still alive and that he hopes you are, em, well, that you’re enjoying your night.’

‘Alive?’

‘Yes, sir, he said you would understand, as it’s twelve o’clock. His birthday?’

‘Twelve?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m also sorry to tell you that we are closing for the evening. Would you like to settle your bill?’

Justin looks up at him, bleary-eyed, and tries to nod again but feels his head loll to one side.

‘I’ve been stood up.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’

‘Oh, don’t be. I deserve it. I stood up a person I don’t even know.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘But they have been so kind to me. So, so kind. They gave me muffins and coffee, a car and a driver, and I’ve been so horrible to him or her.’ He stops suddenly.

It might be still open!

‘Here.’ He thrusts his credit card at him. ‘I might still have time.’

I stroll around the quiet streets of the neighbourhood, wrapping my cardigan tighter around me. I told the taxi driver to let me out round the corner so that I could get some air and clear my head before I return home. I also want to be rid of my tears by the time Dad sees me, who I’m sure is currently sitting up in his armchair as he used to do when I was younger, alert and eager to find out what had happened, though he would pretend to be asleep as soon as he heard the key in the door.

I walk by my old house, which I successfully managed to sell only days ago, not to the eager Linda and Joe, who found out it was my home and were afraid my bad luck was an omen for them and their unborn child, or more, that the stairs that caused my fall, would perhaps be too dangerous for Linda during her pregnancy. Nobody takes responsibility for their actions, I notice. It wasn’t the stairs, it was me. I was rushing. It was my fault. Simple as that. Something I’m going to have to dig deep to forgive, as it shall never be forgotten.

Perhaps I’ve been rushing through my whole entire life, jumping into things head first without thinking them through. Running through the days without noticing the minutes. Not that the times when I slowed down and planned ever gave any more positive results. Mum and Dad had planned everything for their entire lives: summer holidays, a child, their savings, nights out. Everything was done by the book. Her premature departure from life was the one thing they had never bargained on. A blip that knocked everything off course.

Conor and I had teed-off straight for the trees and had bogeyed, big time.

The money for the house is to be halved and shared between Conor and me. I will have to start hunting for something smaller, something cheaper. I have no idea what he will do – an odd realisation.

I stop outside our old home and stare up at the red bricks, at the door we argued about what colour to paint, about the flowers we’d thought deeply about before planting. Not mine any more, but the memories are; the memories can’t be sold. The building that housed my once-upon-a-time dreams stands for someone else now, as it did for the people before us, and I feel happy to let it go. Happy that was another time and that I can begin again, anew, though bearing the scars of before. They represent wounds that have healed.

It’s midnight when I return to Dad’s house and behind the windows is blackness. There isn’t a single light on, which is unusual, as he usually leaves the porch light on, particularly if I’m out.

I open my bag to get my keys and bump against my mobile phone. It lights up to show I have missed ten calls, eight of which are from the house. I had it on silent at the opera and, knowing that Justin didn’t have my number, I didn’t think to look at it. I scramble for my keys, my hands trembling as I try to fit the key into the lock. They fall to the ground, the noise echoing in the silent dark street. I lower myself to my knees, not caring about my new dress, and shuffle around the concrete, feeling for the metal in the darkness. Finally, my fingers touch upon them and I’m through the door like a rocket, turning on all the lights.

‘Dad?’ I call in the hallway. Mum’s photograph is on the floor, underneath the table. I pick it up and place it back where it belongs, trying to stay calm, but my heart is having its own idea.

No answer.

I walk to the kitchen and flick the switch. A full cup of tea sits on the kitchen table. A slice of toast with jam, with one bite taken from it.

‘Dad?’ I say more loudly now, walking into the living room and turning on the light.

His pills have all been spilled on the floor, all the containers opened and emptied, all the colours mixed.

I panic now, running back through the kitchen, through the hall, and run upstairs, turning on all the lights as I yell at the top of my lungs.

‘DAD! DAD! WHERE ARE YOU? DAD, IT’S ME, JOYCE! DAD!’ Tears are flowing now; I can barely speak. He is not in his bedroom, or the bathroom, not in my room or anywhere else. I pause on the landing, trying to listen in the silence to hear if he’s calling. All I can hear is the drumbeat of my heart in my ears, in my throat.

‘DAD!’ I yell, my chest heaving, the lump in my throat threatening to seize my breath. I’ve nowhere else to look. I start pulling open wardrobes, searching under his bed. I grab a pillow from his bed and breathe in, holding it close to me and instantly soaking it with tears. I look out the back window and into the garden: no sign of him.

My knees too weak to stand, my head too clouded to think, I sink onto the top stair on the landing and try to figure out where he could be.

Then I think of the spilled pills on the floor and I yell the loudest I have ever shouted in my life. ‘DAAAAAAD!’

Silence greets me and I have never felt so alone. More alone than at the opera, more alone than in an unhappy marriage, more alone than when Mum died. Completely and utterly alone, the last person I have in my life, taken away from me.

Then.

‘Joyce?’ A voice calls from the front door, which I’ve left open. ‘Joyce, it’s me, Fran.’ She stands there in her dressing gown and slippers, her eldest son standing behind her with a flashlight in his hand.

‘Dad is gone.’ My voice trembles.

‘He’s in the hospital, I was trying to call y—’

‘What? Why?’ I stand up and rush down the stairs.

‘He thought he was having another heart—’

‘I have to go. I have to go to him.’ I rush around searching for my car keys. ‘Which one is he in?’

‘Joyce, relax, love, relax.’ Fran’s arms are around me. ‘I’ll drive you.’

CHAPTER FORTY

I run down the corridors, examining each door, trying to find the correct room. I panic, my tears blinding my vision. A nurse stops me and helps me, tries to calm me. Knows instantly who I’m talking about. I shouldn’t be allowed in at this time but she can tell I’m distraught, wants to calm me by showing me he’s all right. She allows me a few minutes.

I follow her down a series of corridors and finally she leads me into his room. I see Dad lying in bed, tubes attached to his wrists and nose, his skin deathly pale, his body so small under the blankets in the bed.

‘Was that you making all that fuss out there?’ he asks, his voice sounding weak.

‘Dad.’ I try to remain calm but my voice comes out muffled.

‘It’s OK, love. I just got a shock, is all. Thought my heart was acting up again, went to take my pills but then I got dizzy and they all fell. Something to do with sugar, they tell me.’

‘Diabetes, Henry,’ the nurse smiles. ‘The doctor will be around to explain it all to you in the morning.’

I sniffle, trying to remain calm.

‘Ah, come here, you silly sod.’ He lifts his arms towards me.

I rush to him and hug him tight, his body feeling frail but protective.

‘I’m not going anywhere on you now. Hush, now.’ He runs his hands through my hair and pats my back comfortingly. ‘I hope I didn’t ruin your night, now. I told Fran not to bother you.’

‘Of course you should have called me,’ I say into his shoulder. ‘I got such a fright when you weren’t home.’

‘Well, I’m fine. You’ll have to help me, though, with all this stuff,’ he whispers. ‘I told the doctor I understand but I don’t really,’ he says, a little worried. ‘He’s a real snooty type.’ He ruffles up his nose.

‘Of course I will.’ I wipe my eyes and try to compose myself.

‘So, how did it go?’ he asks, perking up. ‘Tell me all the good news.’

‘He, em,’ I purse my lips, ‘he didn’t show up.’ My tears start again.

Dad is quiet; sad then angry, then sad again. He hugs me again, tighter this time.

‘Ah, love,’ he says gently. ‘He’s a bloody fool.’

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Justin finishes explaining the story of his disastrous weekend to Bea, who is sitting on the couch, her mouth open in shock.

‘I can’t believe I missed all this. I’m so bummed!’

‘Well, you wouldn’t have missed it if you’d been talking to me,’ Justin teases.

‘Thank you for apologising to Peter. I appreciate it. He appreciates it.’

‘I was acting like an idiot; just didn’t want to admit my little girl was all grown up.’

‘You better believe it,’ she smiles. ‘God,’ she thinks back to his story, ‘I still can’t imagine somebody sending you all that stuff. Who could it be? The poor person must have waited and waited for you at the opera.’

Justin covers his face and winces. ‘Please stop, it’s killing me.’

‘But you chose Joyce, anyway.’

He nods and smiles sadly.

‘You must have really liked her.’

‘She must have really not liked me because she didn’t show up. No, Bea, I’m over it now. It’s time to move on. I hurt too many people in the process of trying to find out. If you can’t remember anyone else you told, then we’ll never know.’

Bea thinks hard. ‘I only told Peter, the costume supervisor and her father. But what makes you think it wasn’t either of them?’

‘I met the costume supervisor that night. She didn’t act like she knew me, and she’s English – why would she have gone to Ireland for a blood transfusion? I called her and asked her about her father. Don’t ask.’ He sees off her glare. ‘Anyway, turns out her father’s Polish.’

‘Hold on, where are you getting that from? She wasn’t English, she was Irish,’ Bea frowns. ‘They both were.’

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

‘Justin,’ Laurence enters the room with cups of coffee for him and Bea, ‘I was wondering when you have a minute, if we could have a word.’

‘Not now, Laurence,’ Justin says, moving to the edge of his seat. ‘Bea, where’s your ballet programme? Her photograph’s in it.’

‘Honestly, Justin.’ Jennifer arrives at the door with her arms folded. ‘Could you please just be respectful for one moment. Laurence has something he wants to say and you owe it to him to listen.’

Bea runs to her room, pushing through the battling adults, and returns waving the programme in her hand, ignoring them. As does Justin.

He grabs it from her and flicks through it quickly. ‘There!’ he stabs his finger on the page.

‘Guys,’ Jennifer steps in between them, ‘we really have to settle this now.’

‘Not now, Mum. Please!’ Bea yells. ‘This is important!’

‘And this is not?’

‘That’s not her.’ Bea shakes her head furiously. ‘That’s not the woman I spoke to.’

‘Well, what did she look like?’ Justin is up on his feet now. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

‘Let me think, let me think.’ Bea panics. ‘I know! Mum!’

‘What?’ Jennifer looks from Justin to Bea with confusion.

‘Where are the photographs we took of the first night I stood in for Charlotte in the ballet?’

‘Oh, em—’

‘Quick.’

‘They’re in the corner kitchen cupboard,’ Laurence says, frowning.

‘Yes, Laurence!’ Justin punches the air. ‘They’re in the corner kitchen cupboard! Go get them, quick!’

Alarmed, Laurence runs into the kitchen, while Jennifer watches him with an open mouth. There is much shuffling of papers while Justin paces the floor at top speed and Jennifer and Bea watch him.

‘Here they are.’ He offers them forward and Bea snaps them out of his hand.

Jennifer tries to interject but Bea and Justin’s speech and movements are on fast forward.

Bea shuffles through the photos at top speed. ‘You weren’t in the room at the time, Dad. You had disappeared somewhere but we all got a group photo and, here it is!’ She rushes to her dad. ‘That’s them. The woman and her father, at the end.’ She points.

Silence.

‘Dad?’

Silence.

‘Dad, are you OK?’

‘Justin?’ Jennifer moves in closer. ‘He’s gone very pale, get him a glass of water, Laurence, quick.’

Laurence rushes back to the kitchen.

‘Dad.’ Bea clicks her fingers in front of his eyes. ‘Dad, are you with us?’

‘It’s her,’ he whispers.

‘Her who?’ Jennifer asks.

‘The woman whose life he saved.’ Bea jumps up and down excitedly.

‘You saved a woman’s life?’ Jennifer asks, shocked. ‘You?’

‘It’s Joyce,’ he whispers.

Bea gasps. ‘The woman who phoned me?’

He nods.

Bea gasps again. ‘The woman you stood up?’

Justin closes his eyes, and silently curses himself.

‘You saved a woman’s life and then stood her up?’ Jennifer laughs.

‘Bea, where’s your phone?’

‘Why?’

‘She called you, remember? Her number was in your phone.’

‘Oh, Dad, that was ages ago. My phone log only holds ten recent numbers. That was weeks ago!’

‘Damnit!’

‘I gave it to Doris, remember? She wrote it down. You called the number from your flat!’

You threw it in the skip, you jerk! The skip! It’s still there!

‘Here.’ Laurence runs in with the glass of water, panting.

‘Laurence.’ Justin reaches out, takes him by the cheeks and kisses his forehead. ‘I give you my blessing. Jennifer,’ he does the same and kisses her directly on the lips, ‘good luck.’

He runs out of the apartment as Bea cheers him on, Jennifer wipes her lips with disgust and Laurence wipes the spilled water from his clothes.

As Justin sprints from the tube station to his house, rain pours from the clouds like a cloth being squeezed. He doesn’t care, he just looks up to the sky and laughs, loving how it feels on his face, unable to believe that Joyce was the woman all along. He should have known. It all makes sense now, her asking him if he was sure he wanted to make new dinner plans, her friend being at his talk, all of it!

He turns the corner into his drive and sees the skip now filled to the brim with items. He jumps in and begins sorting through it.

From the window, Doris and Al stop packing their suitcases and watch him with concern.

‘Damnit, I really thought he was getting back to normal,’ Al says. ‘Should we stay?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replies worriedly. ‘What on earth is he doing? It’s ten o’clock at night – surely the neighbours will call the cops.’

His grey T-shirt is soaked through, his hair slicked back, water drips from his nose, his trousers are stuck to his skin. They watch him whooping and hollering as he throws the contents of the skip onto the ground beside it.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to process my life. Dad is still in hospital undergoing tests and will be home tomorrow. With nobody around, it has forced me to think about my life and I have worked my way through despair, guilt, sadness, anger, loneliness, depression, cynicism and have finally found my way to hope. Like an addict going cold turkey, I have paced the floors of these rooms with every emotion bursting from my skin. I have spoken aloud to myself, screamed, shouted, wept and mourned.

It’s eleven p. m., dark, windy and cold outside as the winter months are fighting their way through, when the phone rings. Thinking it’s Dad I hurry downstairs, grab the phone and sit on the bottom stair.

‘Hello?’

‘It was you all along.’

I freeze. My heart thuds. I move the phone from my ear and take a deep breath.

‘Justin?’

‘It was you all along, wasn’t it?’

I’m silent.

‘I saw the photograph of you and your father with Bea. That’s the night she told you about my donation. About wanting thank yous.’ He sneezes.

‘Bless you.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything to me? All those times I saw you? Did you follow me or … or, what’s going on, Joyce?’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘No! I mean, I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m so confused.’

‘Let me explain.’ I take a deep breath and try to steady my voice, try to speak through the heartbeat that is currently at the base of my throat. ‘I didn’t follow you to any of the places we met so please don’t be concerned. I’m not a stalker. Something happened, Justin. Something happened when I received my transfusion and whatever that was, when your blood was transfused into mine, I suddenly felt connected to you. I kept turning up at places you were at, like the hair salon, the ballet. It was all a coincidence.’ I’m speaking too fast now but I can’t slow down. ‘And then Bea told me you’d donated blood around the same time that I’d received it and …’

‘What?’

I’m not sure what he means.

‘You mean, you don’t know for sure if it is my blood that you received? Because I couldn’t find out, nobody would tell me. Did somebody tell you?’

‘No. Nobody told me. They didn’t need to. I—’

‘Joyce.’ He stops me and I’m immediately worried by his tone.

‘I’m not some weird person, Justin. Trust me. I have never experienced what I have over the past few weeks.’ I tell him the story. Of experiencing his skills, his knowledge, of sharing his tastes.

He is quiet.

‘Say something, Justin.’

‘I don’t know what to say. It sounds … odd.’

‘It is odd, but it’s the truth. This will sound even worse but I feel like I’ve gained some of your memories too.’

‘Really?’ His voice is cold, far away. I’m losing him.

‘Memories of the park in Chicago, Bea dancing in her tutu on the red chequered cloth, the picnic basket, the bottle of red wine. The cathedral bells, the ice-cream parlour, the seesaw with Al, the sprinklers, the—’

‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop now. Who are you?’

‘Justin, it’s me!’

‘Who’s told you these things?’

‘Nobody, I just know them!’ I rub my eyes tiredly. ‘I know it sounds bizarre, Justin, I really do. I am a normal decent human being who is as cynical as they come but this is my life and these are the things that are happening to me. If you don’t believe me then I’m sorry and I’ll hang up and go back to my life, but please know that this is not a joke or a hoax or any kind of set-up.’

He is quiet for a while. And then, ‘I want to believe you.’

‘You feel something between us?’

‘I feel that.’ He speaks very slowly as though pondering every letter of every word. ‘The memories, tastes and hobbies and whatever else of mine that you mentioned, are things that you could have seen me do or heard me say. I’m not saying you’re doing this on purpose, maybe you don’t even know it, but you’ve read my books; I mention many personal things in my books. You saw the photo in Bea’s locket, you’ve been to my talks, you’ve read my articles. I may have revealed things about myself in them, in fact I know I have. How can I know that you knowing these things is through a transfusion? How do I know that – no offence – but that you’re not some lunatic young woman who’s convinced herself of some crazy story she read in a book or saw in a movie? How am I supposed to know?’

I sigh. I have no way of convincing him. ‘Justin, I don’t believe in anything right now, but I believe in this.’

‘I’m sorry, Joyce,’ he begins to end the conversation.

‘No, wait,’ I stop him. ‘Is this it?’

Silence.

‘Aren’t you going to even try to believe me?’

He sighs deeply. ‘I thought you were somebody else, Joyce. I don’t know why because I’d never even met you, but I thought you were a different kind of person. This … this I don’t understand. This, I find … it’s not right, Joyce.’

Each sentence is a stab through my heart and a punch in my stomach. I could stand hearing this from anyone else in the world but not him. Anyone but him.

‘You’ve been through a lot, by the sound of it, perhaps you should … talk to someone.’

‘Why don’t you believe me? Please, Justin. There must be something I can say to convince you. Something I know that you haven’t written in an article or a book or told anyone in a lecture …’ I trail off, thinking of something. No, I can’t use that.

‘Goodbye, Joyce. I hope everything works out for you, really I do.’

‘Hold on! Wait! There is one thing. One thing that only you could know.’

He pauses. ‘What?’

I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. Do it or don’t do it. Do it or don’t. I open my eyes and blurt it out, ‘Your father.’

There’s silence.

‘Justin?’

‘What about him?’ His voice is ice cold.

‘I know what you saw,’ I say softly. ‘How you could never tell anyone.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I know about you being on the stairs, seeing him through the banisters. I see him too. I see him with the bottle and the pills closing the door. Then I see the green feet on the floor—’

‘STOP IT!’ he yells, and I’m shocked to silence.

But I must keep trying or I’ll never have the opportunity to say these words again.

‘I know how hard it must have been for you as a child. How hard it was to keep it to yourself—’

‘You know nothing,’ he says coldly. ‘Absolutely nothing. Please stay away from me. I don’t ever wish to hear from you again.’

‘OK.’ My voice is a whisper but it is to myself as he has already hung up.

I sit on the steps of the dark empty house and listen as the cold October wind rattles the building.

So that’s that.

One Month Later

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

‘Next time we should take the car, Gracie,’ Dad says as we make our way down the road back from our walk in the Botanics. I link his arm and I’m lifted up and down with him as he sways. Up and down, down and up. The motion is soothing.

‘No, you need the exercise, Dad.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ he mutters. ‘Howya, Sean? Miserable day isn’t it?’ he calls across the street to the old man on his Zimmer frame.

‘Terrible,’ Sean shouts back.

‘So what did you think of the apartment?’ I broach the subject for the third time in the last few minutes. ‘You can’t dodge it this time.’

‘I’m dodging nothing, love. Howya, Patsy? Howya, Suki?’ He stops and bends down to pat the sausage dog. ‘Aren’t you a cute little thing,’ he says, and we continue on. ‘I hate that little runt. Barks all bloody night when she’s away,’ he mutters, pushing his cap down further over his eyes as a great big gust blows. ‘Christ Almighty, are we gettin’ anywhere at all, I feel like we’re on one of those milltreads with this wind.’

‘Treadmills,’ I laugh. ‘So come on, do you like the apartment or not?’

‘I’m not sure. It seemed awful small and there was a funny man that went into the flat next door. Don’t think I liked the look of him.’

‘He seemed very friendly to me.’

‘Ah, he would to you, and all.’ He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. ‘Any man would do for you now, I’d say.’

‘Dad!’ I laugh.

‘Good afternoon, Graham. Miserable day, isn’t it?’ he says to the neighbour passing.

‘Awful day, Henry,’ Graham responds, shoving his hands in his pockets.

‘Anyway, I don’t think you should take that apartment, Gracie. Hang on here a little longer until something more appropriate pops up. There’s no point in taking the first thing you see.’

‘Dad, we’ve seen ten apartments and you don’t like any of them.’

‘Is it for me to live in or for you?’ he asks. Up and down. Down and up.

‘For me.’

‘Well, then, what do you care?’

‘I value your opinion.’

‘You do in your—Hello there, Kathleen!’

‘You can’t keep me at home for ever, you know.’

‘For ever’s been and gone, my love. There’s no budging you. You’re the Stonehenge of grown-up children living at home.’

‘Can I go to the Monday Club tonight?’

‘Again?’

‘I’ve to finish off the game of chess I started with Larry.’

‘Larry just keeps positioning his pawns so that you’ll lean over and he can see down your top. That game will never end.’ Dad rolls his eyes.

‘Dad!’

‘What? Well, you need to get more of a social life than hanging around with the likes of Larry and me.’

‘I like hanging around with you.’

He smiles to himself, pleased to hear that.

We turn into Dad’s house and sway up the small garden path to the front door.

The sight of what’s on the doorstop stops me in my tracks.

A small hamper of muffins, covered in plastic wrapper and tied with a pink bow. I look at Dad, who steps right over them and unlocks the front door. His movement makes me question my eyesight. Have I imagined them?

‘Dad! What are you doing?’ Shocked, I look around behind me but nobody’s there.

Dad winks at me, looks sad for a moment and then gives me a great big smile before closing the door in my face.

I reach for the envelope that is taped to the plastic and with trembling fingers slide the card out.

Thank you …

‘I’m sorry, Joyce.’ I hear a voice behind me that almost stops my heart and I twirl round.

There he is, standing at the garden gate, a bouquet of flowers in his gloved hands, the sorriest look on his face. He is wrapped up in a scarf and winter coat, the tip of his nose and cheeks red from the cold, his green eyes twinkling in the grey day. He is a vision; he takes my breath away with one look, his proximity to me almost too much to bear.

‘Justin …’ Then I’m utterly speechless.

‘Do you think,’ he takes a step forward, ‘you could find it in your heart to forgive a fool like me?’ He stands at the end of the garden, beside the gate.

I’m unsure what to say. It’s been a month. Why now?

‘On the phone, you hit a sore point,’ he says, clearing his throat. ‘Nobody knows that about my dad. Or knew that. I don’t know how you did.’

‘I told you how.’

‘I don’t understand it.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘But then I don’t understand most ordinary things that happen everyday. I don’t understand what my daughter sees in her boyfriend. I don’t understand how my brother has defied the laws of science by not turning into an actual potato chip. I don’t know how Doris can open the milk carton with such long nails. I don’t understand why I didn’t beat down your door a month ago and tell you how I felt … I don’t understand so many simple things, I don’t know why this should be any different.’

I take in the sight of his face, his curly hair covered by a woolly hat, his small nervous smile. He studies me back and I shiver, but not from the cold. I don’t feel it now. The world has been heated up entirely for me. How kind. I thank beyond the clouds.

Frown lines appear on his forehead as he looks at me.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. You just remind me so much of somebody right now. It’s not important.’ He clears his throat, smiles, trying to pick up where he left off.

‘Eloise Parker,’ I guess, and his grin fades.

‘How the hell do you know that?’

‘She was your next-door neighbour who you had a crush on for years. When you were five years old you decided to do something about it and so you picked flowers from your front yard and brought them to her house. She opened the door before you got up the path and stepped outside wearing a blue coat and a black scarf,’ I say, pulling my blue coat around me tighter.

‘Then what?’ he asks, shocked.

‘Then nothing.’ I shrug. ‘You dropped them on the ground and chickened out.’

He shakes his head softly and smiles. ‘How on earth … ?’

I shrug.

‘What else do you know about Eloise Parker?’ He narrows his eyes.

I smile and look away. ‘You lost your virginity to her when you were sixteen, in her bedroom when her mom and dad were away on a cruise.’

He rolls his eyes and lowers the bouquet so that it faces the ground. ‘Now you see, that is not fair. You are not allowed to know stuff like that about me.’

I laugh.

‘You were christened Joyce Bridget Conway but you tell everyone your middle name is Angeline,’ he retaliates.

My mouth falls open.

‘You had a dog called Bunny when you were a kid.’ He lifts an eyebrow, cockily.

I narrow my eyes.

‘You got drunk on poteen when you were,’ he closes his eyes and thinks hard, ‘fifteen. With your friends Kate and Frankie.’

He takes a step closer to me with each piece of knowledge and that smell, the smell of him I’ve dreamed to be near gets closer and closer.

‘Your first French kiss was with Jason Hardy when you were ten, who everyone used to call Jason Hard-On.’

I laugh.

‘You’re not the only one who’s allowed to know stuff.’ He takes a step closer and can’t move any nearer now. His shoes, the fabric of his thick coat, every part of him touches me.

My heart takes out a trampoline and enrols in a marathon session of leaping. I hope Justin doesn’t hear it whooping with joy.

‘Who told you all of that?’ My words touch his face in a breath of cold smoke.

‘Getting me here was a big operation,’ he smiles. ‘Big. Your friends had me run through a series of tests to prove I was sorry enough to be deemed worthy of coming here.’

I laugh, shocked Frankie and Kate could finally agree on something, never mind keeping anything of this magnitude a secret.

Silence. We are so close, if I look up at him my nose will touch his chin. I keep looking down.

‘You’re still afraid to sleep in the dark,’ he whispers, taking my chin in his hand and lifting it so that I can look nowhere else but at him. ‘Unless somebody’s with you,’ he adds with a small smile.

‘You cheated on your first college paper,’ I whisper.

‘You used to hate art.’ He kisses my forehead.

‘You lie when you say you’re a fan of the Mona Lisa.’ I close my eyes.

‘You had an invisible friend named Horatio until you were five.’ He kisses my nose and I’m about to retaliate but his lips touch mine so softly, the words give up, fainting before they reach my voice box and sliding back to the memory bank where they came from.

I am faintly aware of Fran exiting her house and saying something to me, of a car driving by with a beep, but everything is blurred in the distance as I get lost in the moment with Justin, as I create a new memory for him, for me.

‘Forgive me?’ he says as he pulls away.

‘I have no choice but to. It’s in my blood,’ I smile, and he laughs. I look down at the flowers in his hands, which have been crushed between us. ‘Are you going to drop these on the ground too and chicken out?’

‘Actually, they’re not for you.’ His cheeks redden even more. ‘They’re for somebody at the blood clinic who I really need to apologise to. I was hoping you would come with me, help explain the reason for my crazy behaviour, and maybe she could explain a few things to us in turn.’

I look back to the house and see Dad spying at us from behind the curtain. I look to him questioningly. He gives me the thumbs-up and my eyes fill.

‘He was in on this too?’

‘He called me a worthless silly sod and an up-to-no-good fool.’ He makes a face and I laugh.

I blow Dad a kiss as I begin slowly to walk away. I feel him watching me, and feel Mum’s eyes on me too, as I walk down the garden path, cut across the grass and follow the desire line I had created as a little girl, out onto the pavement leading away from the house I grew up in.

Though this time, I’m not alone.

Extract of One Hundred Names

CECELIA AHERN

CHAPTER ONE

She was nicknamed The Graveyard. Any secret, any piece of confidential information, personal or otherwise, that went in never, ever came back out. You knew you were safe; you knew you would never be judged or, if you were it would be silently, so you’d never know. She was perfectly named with a birth name that meant consistency and fortitude, and she was appropriately nicknamed; she was solid, permanent and steady, stoic but oddly comforting. Which is why visiting her in this place was all the more agonising. And it was agonising, not just mentally challenging; Kitty felt a physical pain in her chest, more specifically in her heart, that began with the thought of having to go, grew with the reality of actually being there, and then worsened with the knowledge that it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a false alarm, this was life in its rawest form. A life that had been challenged, and would subsequently be lost, to death.

Kitty made her way through the private hospital, taking the stairs when she could take elevators, making deliberate wrong turns, graciously allowing others to walk before her at every opportunity, particularly if they were patients moving at a snail’s pace with walking frames or wheeling intravenous lines on poles. She was aware of the stares, which were a result of the current crisis she was in, and the fact she had at times walked in circles around the ward. She was attentive to any bit of conversation that any random person wished to have with her, anything and everything that she could do to postpone arriving at Constance’s room. Eventually her delaying tactics could continue no longer as she reached a dead end: a semicircle with four doors. Three doors were open, the occupants of the rooms and their visitors visible from where Kitty stood, though she didn’t need to look inside. Without even seeing the numbers, she knew which room contained her friend and mentor. She was grateful to the closed door for the final delay she had been granted.

She knocked lightly, not fully committing to it, wanting to make the effort to visit but truly hoping she wouldn’t be heard, so she could walk away, so she could always say she’d tried, so she could rest easily, guilt free. The tiny part of her that still clung to rationality knew that this wasn’t realistic, that it wasn’t right. Her heart was pounding, her shoes were squeaking on the floor as she moved from foot to foot, and she felt weak from the smell. She hated that hospital smell. A wave of nausea rushed through her and she breathed deeply and prayed for composure, for the supposed benefits of adulthood to finally kick in so she could get through this moment.

While Kitty was in the process of looking at her feet and taking deep breaths, the door opened and she was faced, unprepared, with a nurse and a shockingly deteriorated Constance. She blinked once, twice, and knew on the third time that she ought to be pretending, that it would not help Constance to see her visitor’s true reaction to her appearance. So she tried to think of something to say and words failed her. There was nothing funny, nothing mundane, nothing even nothing, that she could think of to say to the friend she’d known for ten years.

‘I’ve never seen her before in my life,’ Constance said, her French accent audible despite her living in Ireland for over thirty years. Surprisingly, her voice was still strong and solid, assured and unwavering, as she had always been. ‘Call security and have her removed from the premises immediately.’

The nurse smiled, opened the door wider and then returned to Constance’s side.

‘I can come back,’ Kitty finally said. She turned away but found herself faced with more hospital paraphernalia and so turned again, searching for something normal, something ordinary and everyday that she could focus on that would fool her mind into thinking she wasn’t there in a hospital, with that smell, with her terminally ill friend.

‘I’m almost finished there. I’ll just take your temperature,’ the nurse said, placing a thermometer in Constance’s ear.

‘Come. Sit.’ Constance motioned to the chair beside her bed.

Kitty couldn’t look her in the eye. She knew it was rude, but her eyes kept moving away as though pulled by magnetic force to things that weren’t sick and didn’t remind her of people that were sick, so she busied herself with the gifts in her arms.

‘I brought you flowers.’ She looked around for somewhere to put them.

Constance hated flowers. She always left them to die in their vase whenever anybody attempted to bribe her, apologise to her or simply brighten her office. Despite knowing that, buying them had been a part of Kitty’s procrastination, particularly as there had been an enticing queue before her.

‘Oh dear,’ the nurse said. ‘Security should have told you that flowers aren’t allowed in the ward.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s not a problem, I’ll get rid of them.’ Kitty tried to hide her relief as she stood up to make her escape.

‘I’ll take them,’ the nurse said. ‘I’ll leave them at reception for you so you can take them home. No point in a beautiful bouquet like that going to waste.’

‘At least I brought cupcakes.’ Kitty took a box from her bag.

The nurse and Constance looked at one another again.

‘You’re joking. No cupcakes either?’

‘The chef prefers patients to eat food which has come only from his kitchen.’

Kitty handed the contraband to the nurse.

‘You can take them home too,’ she laughed, studying the thermometer. ‘You’re fine,’ she smiled at Constance. They shared a knowing look before she left, as if those two words meant something entirely different – they must have done – because she wasn’t fine. She was eaten away by cancer. Her hair had begun to grow back, but sprouted in uneven patterns around her head, her protruding chest bones were visible above the shapeless hospital gown and she had wires and tubes connected to both arms, which were thin and bruised from injections and tube insertions.

‘I’m glad I didn’t tell her about the cocaine in my bag,’ Kitty said just as the door closed behind the nurse, and they heard her laugh heartily from the corridor. ‘I know you hate flowers but I panicked. I was going to bring you gold nail varnish, incense and a mirror, because I thought it would be funny.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ Constance’s eyes were still a sparkling blue and if Kitty could concentrate on just them, so full of life, she could almost forget the emaciated frame. Almost, but not quite.

‘Because then I realised it wasn’t funny.’

‘I would have laughed.’

‘I’ll bring them next time.’

‘It won’t be so funny then. I’ve already heard the joke. My dear …’ She reached for Kitty and they clasped hands tightly on the bed. Kitty couldn’t look at Constance’s hands, they were so sore and thin. ‘It is so good to see you.’

‘I’m sorry I’m late.’

‘It took you a while.’

‘The traffic …’ Kitty began and then gave up joking. She was over a month late.

There was a silence and Kitty realised it was a pause for her to explain why she hadn’t visited.

‘I hate hospitals.’

‘I know you do. Noscomephobia,’ said Constance.

‘What’s that?’

‘Fear of hospitals.’

‘I didn’t know there was a word for it.’

‘There’s a word for everything. I haven’t been able to poop for two weeks; they call it anismus.’

‘I should do a story on that,’ Kitty said, her mind drifting.

‘You will not. My rectal inertia is between you, me, Bob and the nice woman I allow to look at my bottom.’

‘I meant a piece on phobia of hospitals. That would make a good story.’

‘Tell me why.’

‘Imagine I found somebody who is really sick and they can’t get treatment.’

‘So they medicate at home. Big deal.’

‘Or what about a woman in labour? She’s pacing up and down on the street outside but she just can’t bring herself to go through the doors of the hospital.’

‘So she has the baby in an ambulance or at home or on the street.’ Constance shrugged. ‘I once did a story on a woman who gave birth whilst in hiding in Kosovo. She was all by herself and it was her first child. They weren’t found until two weeks after, perfectly healthy and happy together. Women in Africa have their babies while working the fields, then they go straight back to work. Tribal women dance their babies out. The Western world goes about childbirth the wrong way around,’ she said, waving her hand dismissively in the air, despite having no children herself. ‘I wrote an article on that before.’

‘A doctor who can’t go to work …’ Kitty continued to push her idea.

‘That’s ridiculous. He should lose his licence.’

Kitty laughed. ‘Thanks for your honesty, as usual.’ Then her smile faded and she concentrated on Constance’s hand wrapped around hers. ‘Or how about a selfish woman whose best friend is sick and she wouldn’t visit her?’

‘But you’re here now and I’m happy to see you.’

Kitty swallowed. ‘You haven’t mentioned anything about it.’

‘About what?’

‘You know what.’

‘I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about it.’

‘I don’t really.’

‘Well, then.’

They sat in silence.

‘I’m being torn apart in the newspapers, the radio, everywhere,’ Kitty said, bringing it up anyway.

‘I haven’t seen any papers.’

Kitty ignored the pile of papers on the windowsill. ‘Everywhere I go, all week, everyone is looking at me, pointing, whispering as if I’m the scarlet woman.’

‘That is the price of being in the limelight. You are a TV star now.’

‘I’m not a TV star, I’m an idiot who made a fool of herself on TV. There’s a distinct difference.’

Constance shrugged again as if it wasn’t a big deal.

‘You never wanted me to work on the show in the first place. Why don’t you just say “I told you so” and get it over with?’

‘They are not words that I use. They do nothing productive.’

Kitty removed her hand from Constance’s and asked quietly, ‘Do I still have a job?’

‘Haven’t you spoken to Pete?’ She looked angry with her duty editor.

‘I have. But I need to hear it from you. It’s more important that I hear it from you.’

‘Etcetera’s stance on hiring you as a reporter has not changed,’ Constance said firmly.

‘Thank you,’ Kitty whispered.

‘I supported you doing Thirty Minutes because I know that you’re a good reporter and you have it in you to be a great reporter. We all make mistakes, some bigger than others, but none of us is perfect. We use these times to become better reporters and, more importantly, better people. When you came to be interviewed by me ten years ago do you remember the story you tried to sell to me?’

Kitty laughed and cringed. ‘No,’ she lied.

‘Of course you do. Well, if you won’t say it, I will. I asked you if you were to write a story for me then and there about absolutely anything, what would it be?’

‘We really don’t have to go through this again. I was there, remember?’ Kitty blushed.

‘And you said,’ Constance continued as though Kitty had never spoken, ‘that you had heard of a caterpillar that could not turn into a butterfly …’

‘Yes, yes, I know.’

‘And you would like to examine how it would feel to be denied such a beautiful thing. You would like to know how it feels for the caterpillar to watch other caterpillars transform while all the time knowing he would never have that opportunity. Our interview was on the day of a US presidential election, and on the day a cruise liner sank with four thousand five hundred people aboard. Of the twelve interviewees I saw that day, you were the only person who did not mention anything about politics, about the ship, or about wanting to spend a day with Nelson Mandela, for that matter. What concerned you most was this poor little caterpillar.’

Kitty smiled. ‘Yeah, well, I was just out of college. I think I still had too much weed in my system.’

‘No,’ Constance whispered, reaching out for Kitty’s hand again. ‘You were the only person who truly told me in that interview that you weren’t afraid to fly, that in fact you were afraid that you wouldn’t.’

Kitty swallowed hard, close to tears. She certainly hadn’t fl own yet and was, she felt, further from it than ever.

‘Some people say that you shouldn’t operate from a place of fear,’ Constance went on, ‘but if there is no fear, how is there a challenge? Often that is when I’ve done my best work, because I have embraced the fear and challenged myself. I saw this young girl who was afraid she wouldn’t fly and I thought – a-ha – she is the girl for us. And that is what Etcetera is about. Sure, we cover politics but we cover the people behind the politics. We want them for their emotional journeys, not just so we can hear their policies but so we can hear the reason for their policies. What happened to make them believe in this, what happened to make them feel this way? Yes, we sometimes talk about diets, but not organic this and wholewheat that, but of why and who. We are all about people, about feeling, about emotions. We may sell fewer but we mean more, though that is merely my opinion, of course. Etcetera will continue to publish your stories, Kitty, as long as you are writing what is true to you and definitely not what somebody else is telling you will make a good story. Nobody can pretend to know what people want to read or hear or see. People rarely know it themselves; they only know it after the fact. That is what creating something original is all about. Finding the new, not rehashing the old and feeding a market.’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘It was my story,’ Kitty said quietly. ‘I can’t blame anyone else.’

‘There are more people involved in telling a story than the writer, and you know that. If you had come to me with this story, well, I would not have covered it, but hypothetically, if I had, I would have pulled it before it was too late. There were signs and someone above you should have been able to see them, but if you want to take the entire blame, well then, you ask yourself why you wanted to tell that story so badly.’

Kitty wasn’t sure if she was meant to answer then and there but Constance gathered her energy and continued: ‘I once interviewed a man who seemed increasingly amused by my questions. When I asked him what he found so entertaining, he told me that he found the questions an interviewer asked revealed much more about the interviewer than any of his answers revealed about himself. During our interview he learned far more about me than I about him. I found that interesting and he was right, on that occasion at least. I think that the story one covers often reveals more about the person writing it than perhaps the story is revealing itself. Journalism classes teach us that one must extract oneself from the story in order to report without bias, but often we need to be in the story in order to understand, to connect, to help the audience identify or else it has no heart; it could be a robot telling the story, for all anyone cares. And that does not mean injecting opinion into the pieces, Kitty, for that bothers me too. I don’t like it when reporters use a story to tell us how they feel. Who cares what one person thinks? A nation? A genre? A sex? That interests me more. I mean inject understanding in all aspects of the story, show the audience that there is feeling behind the words.’

Kitty didn’t want to have to think about what covering that story said about her – she never wanted to have to think or talk about it again – but that was impossible because her network was being sued and she was a day away from going into a libel court. Her head was pounding, she was tired of thinking about it, tired of analysing what on earth had happened, but she suddenly felt the need to repent, to apologise for everything she had ever done wrong just to feel worthy again.

‘I have a confession.’

‘I love confessions.’

‘You know, when you gave me the job, I was so excited, the first story I wanted to write for you was the caterpillar story.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course I couldn’t interview a caterpillar, but I wanted it to form the basis of a story about people who couldn’t fly when they really wanted to, what it meant to be held back, to have your wings clipped.’ Kitty looked at her friend fading away in the bed, big eyes staring up at her, and she fought the urge to cry. She was sure Constance understood exactly what she meant. ‘I started researching the story … I’m sorry …’ She held her hand to her mouth and tried to compose herself but she couldn’t, and the tears fell. ‘It turned out I was wrong. The caterpillar I told you about, the Oleander, it turns out it does fly after all. It just turns into a moth.’ Kitty felt ridiculous for crying at that point but she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t the caterpillar’s predicament that made her sad but the fact her research then as now had been appalling, something that had got her into serious trouble this time. ‘The network have suspended me.’

‘They’ve done you a favour. Wait for it to settle and you can resume telling your stories.’

‘I don’t know what stories to tell any more. I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong again.’

‘You won’t get it wrong, Kitty. You know, telling a story – or, as I like to say, seeking the truth – is not necessarily to go on a mission all guns blazing in order to reveal a lie. Neither is it to be particularly groundbreaking. It is simply to get to the heart of what is real.’

Kitty nodded and sniffed. ‘I’m sorry, this visit wasn’t supposed to be about me. I’m so sorry.’ She bent over in her chair and placed her head on the bed, embarrassed that Constance was seeing her like this, embarrassed to be behaving this way when her friend was so sick and had more important things to worry about.

‘Shush now,’ Constance said soothingly, running her hand gently through Kitty’s hair. ‘That is an even better ending than I originally wished for. Our poor caterpillar got to fly after all.’

When Kitty lifted her head, Constance suddenly appeared exhausted.

‘Are you okay? Should I call a nurse?’

‘No … no. It comes on suddenly,’ she said, her eyelids heavy and fluttering. ‘I’ll have a short nap and I’ll be all right again. I don’t want you to go. There is so much for us to talk about. Such as Glen,’ she smiled weakly.

Kitty faked a smile in return. ‘Yes. You sleep,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll be right here.’

Constance could always read her expressions, could dismantle her lies in seconds. ‘I didn’t like him much anyway.’

Within seconds Constance’s eyes fluttered closed.

Kitty sat on the windowsill in Constance’s hospital room, looking down at the people passing below, trying to figure out the route home where the fewest people would see her. A flow of French snapped her out of her trance and she turned to Constance in surprise. Apart from when Constance swore, in all the ten years she had known her, Kitty had never heard her speak French.

‘What did you say?’

Constance seemed momentarily confused. She cleared her throat and gathered herself. ‘You look far away.’

‘I was thinking.’

‘I shall alert the authorities at once.’

‘I have a question I’ve always wanted to ask you.’ Kitty moved to the chair beside Constance’s bed.

‘Oh, yes? Why didn’t Bob and I have children?’ She sat up in the bed and reached for her water. She sucked the tiniest amount from a straw.

‘No, know-it-all. You’ve killed every plant you’ve ever owned, I can’t imagine what you’d have been like with a child. No, I wanted to ask you, is there any story you wish you’d written but for whatever reason never wrote?’

Constance lit up at the question. ‘Oh, that is a good question. A story in itself perhaps.’ She raised her eyebrows at Kitty. ‘A piece where you interview retired writers about the story that got away, ha? What do you think? I should talk to Pete about that. Or perhaps we should contact retired writers and ask them to write the story that they never wrote, especially for the magazine. People like Oisín O’Ceallaigh and Olivia Wallace. Give them their opportunity to tell it. It could be a special edition.’

Kitty laughed. ‘Do you ever stop?’

There was a light knock on the door and Constance’s husband, Bob, entered. He looked tired but as soon as he laid eyes on Constance, he softened.

‘Hello, darling. Ah, hello, Kitty. Nice of you to join us.’

‘Traffic,’ Kitty said, awkwardly.

‘I know the feeling,’ he smiled, coming around and kissing her on the head. ‘It often slows me down too, but better late than never, eh?’ He looked at Constance, her face all twisted up in concentration. ‘Are you trying to poo, my love?’

Kitty laughed.

‘Kitty asked me what story have I always wanted to write but never have.’

‘Ah. You’re not supposed to make her think, the doctors said so,’ he joked. ‘But that’s a good question. Let me guess. Is it that time during the oil spillage when you had the exclusive interview with the penguin who saw everything?’

‘I did not have an exclusive with the penguin,’ Constance laughed, then winced with pain.

Kitty became nervous but Bob, used to it, continued.

‘Oh, it was the whale then. The whale who saw everything. Told everyone who so much as inched near him about what he saw.’

‘It was the captain of the ship,’ she threw at Bob, but lovingly.

‘Why didn’t you interview him?’ Kitty asked, arrested by their love for one another.

‘My flight got delayed,’ she said, fixing her bedcovers.

‘She couldn’t find her passport,’ Bob outed her. ‘You know what the flat is like, the Dead Sea Scrolls could be in there, for all we know. The passports have since found their home in the toaster, lest we forget again. Anyway, so she missed her flight and instead of Constance’s great exclusive, the captain spoke to someone else who we shall not name.’ He turned to Kitty and whispered, ‘Dan Cummings.’

‘Oh, you’ve done it, you’ve killed me now,’ Constance said dramatically, pretending to die.

Kitty covered her face in her hands, feeling it wrong to laugh.

‘Ah, finally we are rid of her,’ Bob teased gently. ‘So what is the answer, my love? I’m intrigued.’

‘Do you really not know this?’ Kitty asked Bob. He shook his head and they watched Constance thinking, which really was an amusing sight.

‘Ah,’ she said suddenly, eyes lighting up, ‘I’ve got it. It’s rather a recent idea, actually, something I thought of last year before … well, it was somewhat of an experiment but it has occupied my mind since I’ve been here.’

Kitty moved in closer to listen.

Constance enjoyed making Bob and Kitty wait.

‘Possibly one of my greatest.’

Kitty groaned impatiently.

‘I’ll tell you what, the file is at home. In my office. Teresa will let you in if she’s not too busy watching Jeremy Kyle. It’s filed under N. Titled “Names”. You get it for me and bring it back and I’ll tell you about it.’

‘No!’ Kitty laughed. ‘You know how impatient I am. Please don’t make me wait.’

‘If I tell you now, you might never come back.’

‘I promise I will.’

Constance smiled. ‘Okay, you get the file, and I’ll tell you the story.’

‘It’s a deal.’

They shook on it.

CHAPTER TWO

Choosing the quieter back roads, and feeling like a rat scuttling along in the gutter, Kitty cycled home feeling exhausted. Initially on a high after spending time with a friend, she was back to feeling hopeless again now the reality of what lay ahead for both of them had sunk in.

Thirty Minutes, the television show Kitty had started working on the previous year, the show with which she had received her big break and which had then ironically broken her, had viewing figures of half a million, which was impressive for a country with a population of five million, but not enough for Kitty to become the next Katie Couric. Now, thanks to her disastrous story, she found herself suspended from reporting on the network and in court to face a charge of libel. The story had aired four months previously, in January, but it was the impending court case, merely a day away now, that had made headlines. Her face, her mistake, and her name were now known to many more than half a million people.

She knew she would be quickly forgotten in the minds of the public, but that her professional name would suffer in the long run; it had already been destroyed. She knew she was lucky that Etcetera, the magazine Constance had founded and edited, was continuing to employ her, though the only reason she had a job was because Constance was her biggest supporter. She didn’t have many of those right now, and though Bob was deputy editor and a good friend she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d keep her job without Constance there to throw her weight around. Kitty dreaded the day that her mentor wouldn’t be in her life, never mind her professional life. Constance had been there for her since the beginning, had guided her, had advised her and had also given her the freedom to find her own voice and make her own decisions, which meant that Kitty owned her successes, but also meant her name was stamped all over every single one of her mistakes, a fact that was glaringly evident now.

Her phone vibrated again in her pocket and she ignored it as she had been doing all week. Journalists had been calling her since news of the case going to trial had broken, people she had considered friends were close to harassing her just to get a quote. They’d all chosen different tactics. Some came straight out with asking for a quote, others had gone for the sympathy vote: ‘You know how it is, Kitty, the stress we’re under here. The boss knows we’re friends, he expects me to have something.’ Others had randomly and spontaneously invited her out for dinner, for drinks, to their parents’ anniversary parties and their grandfathers’ eighty-fifth birthdays without mentioning the issue at all. She hadn’t met or spoken with any of them but she was learning a lot and slowly crossing them off her Christmas card list. There was only one person who hadn’t called her yet and that was her friend Steve. They had studied journalism together in college and had remained friends since then. His one desire had been to cover sport but the closest he’d got to that so far was covering footballers’ private lives in tabloid newspapers. It had been he who had suggested she go for the job at Etcetera. He’d picked up a copy of the magazine in a doctor’s waiting room while she’d gone for the morning-after pill after their one and only dalliance, which had resulted in the realisation they were destined only ever to be simply friends.

Thinking about Steve and her constantly ringing mobile gave her a sixth sense and she stopped cycling and reached for her phone. It was him. She actually debated not answering. She actually doubted him. The consequences of the Thirty Minutes story had played havoc with whom she could and could not trust. She answered the phone.

‘No comment,’ she snapped.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said, no comment. You can tell your boss that you haven’t spoken to me, that we fell out, in fact we may be about to because I can’t believe you have the nerve to call me up and abuse our friendship in this way.’

‘Are you smoking crack?’

‘What? No. Hold on, is this part of the story? Because if they’re now saying I’m a drug addict then they can—’

‘Kitty, shut up. I’ll tell my boss that you, Kitty Logan, who he’s never heard of anyway, has no comment to make on Victoria Beckham’s new line because that is about the only thing that I am allowed to talk about to anybody today. Not the impending match between Carlow and Monaghan, which is critical because Carlow hasn’t been in an All-Ireland final since 1936 and Monaghan hasn’t been in a final since 1930, but nobody cares about that. Not in my office. No. All we care about is whether V.B.’s new range is a hit or miss, or hot or not, or two other words that mean the opposite but which rhyme, something I’m currently supposed to be inventing but I can’t.’ He finished his rant and Kitty couldn’t help it, she started laughing, the first proper laugh she’d had all week.

‘Well, I’m glad one of us thinks it’s funny.’

‘I thought you were allowed to write football stories now.’

‘She’s married to David Beckham, so apparently that qualifies it as a football story. Apart from needing help with the ridiculous piece I have to write, I was calling to make sure you weren’t decaying inside your fl at.’

‘Well, you were right. I was rotting away in the flat but I had to leave to visit Constance. I’m going back there now to continue where I left off.’

‘Good, I’ll see you soon. I’m outside your door. Oh, and, Kitty,’ his tone turned serious, ‘I suggest you bring some bleach and a good scrubbing brush.’

Kitty’s stomach churned.

‘Journo Scumbag Bitch’ was what Kitty found spray-painted across her door when she eventually made it to the top of the stairs with her bicycle in her arms. The studio flat was in Fairview, Dublin and the proximity to the city meant that she could cycle, sometimes walk, into the city. The fact that it was above a dry-cleaners made it affordable.

‘Maybe you should move,’ Steve said as they got down on their knees and started scrubbing the door.

‘No way. I can’t afford anywhere else. Unless you know of any available apartments above dry-cleaners.’

‘That’s a requirement for you?’

‘When I open any of my windows day or night, I am showered in dry-cleaning chemicals called tetrachloroethene, also known as tetrachloroethylene, perchloroethylene, PCE or, most commonly, PERC. Ever heard of it?’

Steve shook his head and sprayed more bleach on the door.

‘It’s used to dry-clean clothes as well as degrease metal parts. It’s considered a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Tests showed that short-term exposure of eight hours or less to seven hundred thousand micrograms per cubic metre of air causes central nervous system symptoms such as dizziness, sleepiness, headaches, lightheadedness and poor balance. The red is difficult to get off, isn’t it?’

‘You do the green, I’ll do the red.’

They switched places.

‘Exposure to three hundred and fifty thousand micrograms for four hours affects the nerves of the visual system.’ Kitty dipped her sponge into her bucket of water and continued scrubbing the door. ‘Long-term exposure on dry-cleaner workers indicates biochemical changes in blood and urine. PERC can travel through floor, ceiling and wall materials, and there was a study on fourteen healthy adults living in apartments near dry-cleaners that showed their behaviour tests were lower than the average score of unexposed people.’

‘So that’s what’s wrong with you. I take it from that verbal diarrhoea that you did a story about PERC.’

‘Not quite. I researched it, then I told the landlord downstairs that I was doing a story on it and that I’d circulate it to all the neighbours and I’d tell their staff about the effects of working with PERC, so he reduced the rent by one hundred euro.’

Steve looked at her, shocked. ‘They could just have got another tenant.’

‘I told them I’d tell the next tenant and every other tenant they found. They panicked.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re …’

‘Smart?’ she smiled.

‘A journo scumbag bitch,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should stop cleaning this now, they’re right.’ He continued looking at her as if he suddenly didn’t recognise her.

‘Hey! They’re the ones using PERC!’

‘Then move somewhere else.’

‘It would be too expensive.’

‘Kitty, you can’t just threaten people like that. You can’t use your job to get what you want. That’s called bullying, you know.’

‘Oooh.’ She rolled her eyes, but dropped the sponge into the bucket in frustration and opened the door to the flat. She left the door open, sat at the kitchen table and waited for him to follow her. She bit into one of the cupcakes she’d brought back home. Steve closed the door behind him but he didn’t sit down.

‘Is there something you want to get off your chest, Steve?’

‘I came by to make sure that you were feeling okay about the trial tomorrow, but the more you talk, the more I can’t help but not feel sorry for you.’

The cupcake felt like a rock in her mouth. She swallowed it quickly. And then, finally, it came.

‘You accused a well-respected PE teacher, who is married, with a young family, of sexually abusing two students and fathering a child. On television. In front of the entire country. And you were wrong.’

She looked at him, her eyes stinging. Her heart hurt from the way he was speaking to her, and though she knew she had been wrong, she had made a mistake, she still didn’t feel that she deserved to be spoken to like that.

‘I know all of this, I know what I did,’ she said more confidently than she felt.

‘And are you sorry?’

‘Of course I’m bloody sorry,’ she exploded. ‘My career is destroyed. Absolutely nobody will ever hire me again. I’ve cost the network who knows what, if he wins his case, which he probably will, and God knows how much in legal fees, and their reputation. I’m over.’ Feeling unnerved, Kitty watched her usually calm friend struggle with his composure.

‘You see, this is what bugs me, Kitty.’

‘What?’

‘Your tone, you’re so … flippant about it all.’

‘Flippant? I’m panicking here, Steve!’

‘Panicking for yourself. For “Katherine Logan, TV journalist”,’ he said, using his fingers as inverted commas.

‘Not just that,’ she swallowed. ‘I’m really worried about my job on Etcetera too. There’s a lot at stake, Steve.’

He laughed to himself but it wasn’t a happy sound. ‘That’s exactly what I mean, you’ve just done it again. All I’ve heard from you is how your name, your reputation and your profession are ruined. It’s all about you. When I hear of you doing stupid things like threatening your landlord with a story, then it bothers me.

You bother me.’ He stopped pacing back and forth and fixed his eyes on her. ‘You have for the past year.’

‘The past year? Oh, okay, I think somebody has definitely been hanging on to a few issues,’ she replied, shocked. ‘I made a mistake in my story. The thing about the apartment? That was harmless! Hold on, I remember you pretending to find a pubic hair in your burger on the very last bite just so you could get another one for free. And you did too. That poor manager, you embarrassed him so much in front of the other customers, he had no choice.’

‘I was eighteen,’ he said quietly. ‘You’re thirty-two.’

‘Thirty-three. You missed my last birthday,’ she added childishly. ‘It’s the way I am; I find stories in everything.’

‘Stories to use people.’

‘Steve!’

‘They used to be good stories, Kitty. Positive. A story for the sake of telling a good story. Not about exposing people, or setting people up.’

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t aware that your story about Victoria Beckham’s new line was going to change the world,’ she said cattily.

‘What I’m saying is, I used to like reading them, hearing about them. Now you’re just …’

‘Now I’m what?’ Her eyes filled.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘No, please, please tell me what I am because I’ve only been hearing it on every single news station, reading it on internet sites and graffitied on my own front door for the last week, and I’d really like to know what my best friend thinks of me because that would just be the icing on the cake,’ she yelled.

He sighed and looked away.

There was a long silence.

‘How am I supposed to fix this, Steve?’ she finally asked. ‘What do I do to make you and the rest of the world not hate me?’

‘Have you spoken to the guy?’

‘Colin Maguire? No way. We’re about to begin a court case.

If I go anywhere near him I’ll get into even more trouble. We made an apology to him at the start of Thirty Minutes, when it was discovered he wasn’t the father. We gave it priority to the show.’

‘Do you think that will make him feel better?’

She shrugged.

‘Kitty, if you did to me what you did to him, I would do a lot worse than they’ve done to your door. I would want to kill you,’ he said sternly.

Kitty’s eyes widened. ‘Steve, don’t scare me like that.’

‘This is what you’re not understanding, Kitty. This is not about your career. Or your good name. This is not about you. This is about him.’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said, struggling. ‘Maybe if I can explain what happened … The two women were so credible, Steve. Their stories matched up, the dates, the times, everything was so … real. Believe me, I followed it up over and over. I didn’t just run with it straight off. It took me six months. The producer was behind me, the editor, I wasn’t the only person who did this. And it wasn’t just about him. Did you even see it? It was about the number of paedophiles and sex offenders in Ireland who occupy roles in schools and other jobs with direct contact to children who have been reported and who have been charged with the crime of abusing students in their care.’

‘Apart from him. He was completely innocent.’

‘Okay! Apart from him,’ she said, frustrated. ‘All the other stuff I covered was perfectly accurate! Nobody ever says anything about that!’

‘Because that’s your job, to be accurate. You shouldn’t be congratulated for it.’

‘Any other journalist in that room would have done the same thing, but the letter came to me.’

‘It went to you for a reason. Those women set you up and they used you to set him up. You were covering bullshit stories so they knew you’d want to jump on this straight away, have your moment of glory.’

‘It wasn’t about me having my moment of glory.’

‘Wasn’t it? All I know is I’ve never seen you as excited as the day you got the job on the show. And you were doing a story about tea, Kitty. If Constance asked you to do a story about tea, you’d tell her to go and jump. Television made you excited.’

She tried to pretend it wasn’t true but she couldn’t. He was right. Thirty Minutes was made up of one large investigative story – the big one, the story everybody wanted to work on – and the remainder of the show was padded with smaller, local, not so ground-breaking pieces. Her first story had been to look into why consumers chose the brand of tea they bought. Numerous trips to tea factories, sweeping shots of supermarket tea aisles, and visits to morning community tea events led her to find that people simply followed the same brand their parents drank. It was a generational thing. It had been four minutes and fifty seconds long and Kitty believed she had a cutting-edge piece of art on her hands. Four months along in the job, when she received the letter, addressed to her, from the two women making claims against Colin Maguire, she had instantly, vehemently believed them, and she had worked with them and helped build a case against him. She had got lost in the drama, the excitement, the atmosphere of the TV studio offices, her opportunity to move from sweet harmless stories to the big time, and in her search for the truth had told a lie, a dangerous lie, and had ruined a man’s life.

Steve was looking around the fl at.

‘What now?’ she asked, completely drained.

‘Where’s Glen?’

‘At work.’

‘Does he usually take his coffee machine to work?’

She turned round to look at the counter, confused, but her phone interrupted them. ‘My mum. Shit.’

‘Have you spoken to them lately?’

Kitty swallowed and shook her head.

‘Answer it,’ he said, refusing to leave until she had answered.

‘Hello?’ She exaggerated the word for effect and then Steve was gone.

‘Katherine, is that you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Katherine …’ Her mother broke down in tears. ‘Katherine, you’ve no idea …’ She could barely get the words out.

‘Mum, what’s wrong?’ Kitty sat up, panicked. ‘Is it Dad? Is everyone okay?’

‘Oh, Katherine,’ Mrs Logan sobbed. ‘I can’t take it any more. We are just so embarrassed down here. How could you do it? How could you do that to that poor man?’

Kitty sat back and prepared for the onslaught. It was then she noticed Glen’s plasma TV had disappeared too and, on further inspection, so had the clothes in his wardrobe.