Jazz sat on her nan’s kitchen table eating a piece of buttered brack. The Formica-topped table stood in the center of the room. Each of its chairs had a tie-on cushion in a crochet cover and a plastic seat. When the bungalow was built Mary had told Tom that she was all for a fitted kitchen. But as soon as they’d moved in, she’d demanded a proper dresser. What was the point of all her lovely ware, she’d said, and no way for the neighbors to admire it? The dresser stood between the fridge freezer and a picture of St. Padre Pio. Its varnished pine shelves, edged with a gingham paper trim, supported a collection of jugs, while its cupboard held dinner and tea sets and its drawers were crammed with cutlery. At the other side of the room, where Mary zoomed between the steel sink and the built-in cooker, the fitted units had become storage places for magazines, old plant pots, Christmas decorations, and a sewing basket. Jazz thought it was kind of cozy, though she knew her mum hated it.
When Hanna came into the kitchen, she put the paper bag of onions on the table and held out her arms to Jazz, who hugged her briefly. There had been a time when her arrival home had produced squeals of excitement and bear hugs. There was even a happy dance that Jazz had invented as a child and still sometimes indulged in as a teenager. Sighing inwardly, Hanna told herself that that was before the buildup of resentment, which, now that Jazz was older, had turned to polite reserve. Mary turned from the stove, where she was frying liver, and shook the contents of the bag onto the table. A bunch of sage tumbled out with the onions, and her lip curled in disdain.
“Well, isn’t that Johnny Hennessy all over, trying to get rid of old weeds!”
Jazz picked up a gray-green leaf and sniffed it. “Liver and sage are lovely together. Why don’t you use it, Nan?”
Mary tossed her head. “’Tis far from that we were reared round these parts, I can tell you. Eating bits of old grass and leaves!”
“Actually, Maggie used sage in lots of dishes, Mam. She made tea from it, too.” Hanna had sat down, shredding a leaf between her fingers. “She used all sorts of herbs, I think, I just can’t remember them.”
Mary swept the onions onto a chopping board and attacked them with a knife. “Sure, everyone knew poor Maggie was gone in the head. Living back there on the side of the cliff and slamming the door in your face if you dropped in to visit.”
Hanna’s lips twitched. She had forgotten the row that had taken place years ago when Maggie was growing old and Mary Casey had decided that the best place for her to end her days was the old folks’ home in Carrick.
Scenting a story, Jazz poured Hanna a glass of red wine and pulled up a chair to the table. “Who was Maggie?”
Mary sniffed loudly. “She was your granddad’s Auntie Margaret, pet, and a bad-minded old besom, too, God forgive me for saying so.”
Behind her grandmother’s back, Jazz raised her eyebrows at Hanna. “A bad-minded besom? Go on, Nan, tell us more.”
Hanna spoke before Mary could answer. “Oh, really, Mam! She might have been eccentric but she wasn’t bad-minded.”
With a grand gesture of contempt, Mary threw the onions in with the liver. Jazz sidled over with the bottle of wine.
“How about a splash of this, then, Nana?”
Ignoring her, Mary shook the frying pan vigorously, thickened the juices with cornstarch, and tipped the result into a heavy dish she had lined with streaky bacon. Jazz grinned, looked around for the oven gloves, and transferred the covered dish into the oven. Then, without being told, she switched the kettle on. Alcohol never appeared as an ingredient in Mary Casey’s cooking. In fact, it never crossed her lips before the stroke of nine, when she sat down for the evening news and weather forecast with her “little martini.” It was a ritual that Hanna remembered from the old days when the evening meal was called “tea,” not “dinner,” and Tom had carefully poured his wife’s drink into one of the cut-glass tumblers he’d bought for their wedding anniversary and joined her in front of the television with his own glass of stout. Now Mary joined Jazz and Hanna with a cup of tea, smoothing her apron over her knees and planting her elbows on the table.
“Well, what’s the story, then? How was Cork?”
This was the question that Hanna had been dreading. She hadn’t told her mother about her decision to go to London; instead she had invented an old friend’s birthday party in Cork and said that she’d stay there overnight. It was ridiculous not to have been honest but she’d been keyed up enough without having to face another row.
“Ah, the drive home was a bit tiring.” She turned hastily to Jazz. “How about you? I suppose you’ve been telling your nan all the good stuff about Malaga?”
“I’m fine. Why were you in Cork?”
There was a pause. Glancing across the table, Hanna saw Mary Casey eyeing her sardonically. Obviously, her hasty change of subject hadn’t gone unnoticed. Hanna’s mind went into overdrive. She had no intention of explaining to her mother in front of Jazz that, far from being in Cork, she’d been in London. What was needed was an immediate diversionary tactic. So, taking a deep breath, she dropped her bombshell.