No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [36]
“I know.” There was nothing else to say.
Mary got home just after one. Mr Monkels was extremely put out that he had been outside for the entire evening, even though he had been well fed and there was a shed with a deluxe quilted dog bed at the end of the garden. He articulated his feelings with various forms of sustained groaning. He was not impressed with his owner’s timekeeping and was determined that she should be aware of it. Mary gave him a bar of chocolate to shut him up. This was the act of a bad mother, dogs being intolerant of chocolate, but he loved it and she only gave it to him on a very special occasion or as a response to guilt.
The light was on next door and when she went into the back garden to retrieve Mr Monkels’s bowl, she could hear Billie Holiday singing in her neighbour’s kitchen. She stopped to enjoy “April In Paris”.
Next door Sam was sitting, book in hand, having resumed his journey to Deptford and beyond. He didn’t worry about the cut above his eye or ponder on his new life in a small south Kerry town. He didn’t worry about those he’d left behind. He didn’t think about anything. By one a.m. he had long ago left Kenmare.
8. Sunday, bloody Sunday
It was Sunday and Ivan was having lunch with his parents, his twin brothers Séamus and Barry, Séamus’s wife Vicky, their four-year-old twins Beth and Bonnie, Barry’s boyfriend Steven and their puppy, Pluto. He was accustomed now to attending his mother’s lunches alone. He still found it hard. The friendly noise made it harder to go home to silence. He missed the familiar sounds of a full house and envied his older brother but, having said that, it was obvious that Séamus was at the end of his tether.
“Beth! Bonnie! Leave the dog alone!” Séamus shouted. Neither child heard him, so busy were they in trying to capture Pluto, who had managed to squeeze himself behind the TV.
Steven was beside himself: “Pluto! Daddy’s here!”
The girls were reaching in as far as their little arms allowed them and Pluto was squealing, waiting for Steven to save him. Steven, in haste to get to his pup, tripped over one of the girls’ Disney Princesses nearly knocking himself out on the edge of the coffee-table. Barry, seeing his partner crumpled on the floor, dropped his cup of coffee and slipped on it in his haste to get to his boyfriend. Séamus helped his brother up, still roaring at the girls who were still determined to catch the dog. Ivan attended to Steven while his mother attended to Barry. Séamus stormed out of the room with a little girl under each arm, calling to his wife, who yelled that she was in the bathroom. Well used to blocking out sound, Ivan’s father snoozed in his chair.
At the table Steven insisted on eating lunch with Pluto attached to his chest in a dog knapsack. Bonnie and Beth were strapped into their chairs, both a little too old for high-chairs but a little too hyperactive not to be tied down. Séamus and Barry talked about the Cork v. Kerry game. Steven, Ivan’s mother and Vicky complained to one another about the price of cashmere, then discussed Greece as an all-round holiday destination. Bonnie and Beth threw food at each other while Ivan and his dad silently enjoyed their meal.
Ivan’s mother had always known Barry was a little different from her other sons, and even his love of the GAA hadn’t encouraged her to look forward to grandchildren. The first indication that he might not marry had come when he was four. She would often find him asleep in her wardrobe with a face full of lipstick and wrapped in one of her dresses. At six he broke his leg while walking in a pair of her heels. His dad had taken him to the emergency room and told the doctor he had fallen from a tree but Barry had cheerfully corrected him. During his teenage years he had thrown himself into sport and his mother worried that he was doing so to escape himself. His other brothers, Séamus, Ivan and even the youngest, Fintan, were all sluts, each week a different girl, but not Barry. His father pretended that this was because he was studious and a consummate sportsman.