Can I go to Eoin’s house to play? He says I can go.”
James regarded his daughter over his not-very-good cheeseburger. “We’ll see. Are you going to eat those chips, or just play with them?”
She bit the top off a skinny chip. “He lives with his granny and granddad.”
“Who does?”
“Eoin.”
“Oh.”
“And his dad is in heaven.”
“Ah.” James lifted the lid on his burger and sniffed the bright orange slice of cheese. It smelled of nothing. “That’s a pity. So his mum brings him to school.”
“Yeah.”
Charlie never talked about Frances now, never mentioned her at all. James remembered the incessant questions, right after it happened: Where’s Mummy? Why isn’t she coming back? Where did she go? Why is she taking such a long time? He remembered not knowing what to say, how he’d wanted to be honest with her. But how could he be honest, how could you explain “disappeared” to a four-year-old?
He tried to recall when the questions had finally stopped, when she’d given up trying to get answers. He wondered if she remembered her mother at all now, if she recalled her face, or her voice, or her smell. Two years in the life of a six-year-old would, he supposed, be long enough to banish a whole lot of memories.
“She has purple boots.”
“Who?”
“Eoin’s mum.”
James smiled. “Has she? Maybe she’s a witch.”
Charlie threw him a pitying look. “She’s not a witch, she works in a shop.”
“Maybe they sell magic spells.”
“Daddy.”
He heard voices and looked across at the counter. The girl who’d served them was in conversation with a man who’d just appeared, and who seemed to be taking over from her. James caught his eye and nodded at him. The man nodded back, giving a brief grin, but James wasn’t sure if he remembered him.
“Do you know that man?” Charlie asked.
“I do,” James told her. “He goes to my drawing class.”
Charlie studied him. “Is he your friend?”
“He is. He’s very good at drawing.”
What had surprised James was how much he’d enjoyed the class. Oh, not that he’d produced a single worthy specimen—his efforts had been laughable, although the teacher had done her best to be encouraging. He seemed to remember her talking about the energy of his drawings, which he suspected was the kind of phrase people used when there was absolutely nothing positive to say.
But the clean smell of the paper, the tiny scratching sounds of his pencil, the squeak of the charcoal, the comforting squidgy feel of his putty rubber, the peaceful atmosphere in the room as everybody worked—all this he’d found wonderfully soothing. In fact, when the teacher had announced a break, he hadn’t been able to believe that they were halfway through.
Not that it had started off well. Her late arrival had been annoying—was she going to make a habit of this, were they going to be twiddling their thumbs every Tuesday waiting for her? James had found himself obliged to make some effort at conversation with the Pole, who sat next to him. Thankfully, the man’s broken English meant that they were limited to the smallest of small talk.
But when she’d eventually shown up, the teacher’s obvious discomfiture aroused his sympathy—they could hardly blame her for a moped breakdown. All things considered, the evening had been much more pleasant than James had anticipated.
He’d still kept his distance from the others—although he couldn’t avoid the odd glance at the Polish man’s work, and he’d registered the much more accomplished drawings there. He’d also noted the nervousness of the model—you could hardly miss it, she’d looked like she was about to throw up. Clearly her first time, poor thing.
He had to admit that it felt good to be in the company of others who made no demands on him. It was the first step he’d taken towards having a social life in two years, and while he recognized the need to be part of society again, if only for Charlie’s sake, he was wary at every turn.
He was glad now he hadn’t signed up for French. In a language class there’d be conversations to be had, and probably other oral exercises to tackle. Inevitably, attention would have been focused on James from time to time—whereas in the drawing class he could work away on his own, with little need for conversation for the whole two hours.
The rest of them probably thought he was antisocial, which didn’t bother him half as much as it probably should have. Over the past two years, he’d become adept at dismissing other people’s opinions. When anonymous letter writers had sent him messages that were soaked in hate, when whispered conversations had stopped abruptly every time he walked into a shop, when people he’d known all his life had crossed the street to avoid him, he’d learned quickly enough to ignore it all, and he now realized how much it had hardened him.
“Finished,” Charlie announced, pushing three chicken nuggets under her serviette.
“I saw that.”
“What?” Smiling, not at all disconcerted. He was far too soft on her. “What, Daddy?”
“Wrap them up,” he told her, “and we’ll bring them home to Monster.”
Monster was Eunice and Gerry’s aptly named black cat. He carried out regular forays of the neighborhood gardens, demolishing birds and mice alike. Maybe a few pieces of processed chicken would get a stay of execution for the thrushes.
“When can I go to Eoin’s house?” Charlie asked again as she bundled the nuggets into a clumsy parcel, and James knew the subject would have to be faced sooner or later.
“When I meet his mum,” he answered, getting up. “Here, give me your schoolbag.”
As they were leaving he caught the Polish man’s eye again, and nodded a farewell. The Pole raised a hand before turning back to the giggling teenage girls in school uniforms who were placing their order.
Someone who looked like him would have no problem getting women—and being foreign probably added to his attraction. Looked like he had to fight them off.
James wondered sometimes if he’d ever have another relationship, if Frances would be replaced in time. Would he ever be able to get past what had happened, would he find the courage to try again with someone else? Although, with his history, he couldn’t imagine any woman wanting to get involved with him.
He shepherded his daughter from the café, holding the door open for a young woman and a little boy who were just coming in. It was beginning to rain.
—————
Carmel stood to one side, pretending to read the menu, until the schoolgirls had finished flirting with the man behind the counter. When they’d gone she walked up to him and said, “Large chip.” As he ladled the chips into a cardboard box she counted out the amount from the coins she’d been given at the bus station.
“Can I have a burger?” Barry asked. It sounded like “bugguh” when he said it.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The chips’ll be enough, you’ll be full after them.”
She handed the man her heap of coins, waiting for his sigh of impatience at all the copper, but he simply counted them into the various compartments of his cash register. When he had finished, Carmel said, “There’s a sign in the window: ‘Help Wanted.’”
“Okay,” he replied, reaching under the counter and pulling out an application form. She liked that he was polite, that he didn’t look at her the way most people did, as if she had no right to ask.
He passed the form across the counter. “You fill this, please. You need pen?”
Carmel looked at the form, and then back at him. “Can’t I jus’ talk to the manager?”
“No, sorry—manager is gone home now. She will come back tomorrow.”
She. Carmel imagined a woman in high heels and red lipstick who’d dismiss her before she opened her mouth. “Will you hang on to the chips?” she asked the man, taking the form and folding it. “I’m just going into the toilets.”
“Of course.”
In the toilets she put the form in the bin and washed Barry’s face and hands, using soap from the dispenser, and ran wet fingers through his hair.
“Do you have to wee?” she asked him, and he shook his head. She washed her own hair with a sachet of shampoo from the euro shop and rinsed it as best she could under the tap. She held her head under the hand dryer until Barry whimpered that he was hungry.
When they went back outside she saw the man looking at her damp hair, but he said nothing. She took the chips from him and sat with Barry at a table by the wall. Her hair smelled of oranges, but she could feel that the shampoo wasn’t rinsed out properly. It would look greasy when it dried.
“I’m thirsty,” Barry said, and she returned to the counter.
“Can I get some water?” she asked. “Jus’ from the tap.”
The foreign man filled a big paper cup and handed it to her. Back at the table she ate a chip as slowly as she could, her stomach growling, and counted the money she’d left, and got €4.27. They’d go to Dunnes and she’d get another bag of the mandarin oranges if they were still on special offer for €1.50, and a pack of Fig Rolls, which they both liked.
She tried to give Barry fruit every few days but it was dear in most places, and Lidl was far for him to walk to, so they only got there about once a week. They needed toothpaste too, but she’d get that in the euro shop when the older woman who saw nothing was on duty.
She thought of how her grandmother would feel if she knew Carmel was begging, and lifting things she couldn’t afford to pay for. The thought of her grandmother made her want to cry. She rubbed her face hard until the feeling went away.
“My legs are tired,” Barry said.
“I know, but you’re sitting down now so they’ll get a rest.”
She glanced around the room. Only three other tables were occupied. The window to the left of them was spotted with rain. Most people would have finished work by now and would be on their way home, planning what to cook for dinner, and what to do for the rest of the evening.
Warm clean houses with televisions and hot running water, and families who were happy together. She felt a piercing loneliness for what she’d lost, and for what she’d never had.
She knew the odds were stacked sky-high against her. The chances of anyone giving her a job without an application form filled out were next to nil. But she still looked, she kept on asking wherever she went, hoping for some kind of miracle to get her out of this nightmare, to keep her from being sucked back into the much worse place she’d been when she’d met Ethan.
Coming off drugs as soon as she realized she was pregnant had been hard, it had nearly killed her, but she’d done it. She was ashamed that she’d turned to dealing, ashamed that she’d survived at the expense of others, but she couldn’t see a different way out. And if they hadn’t gotten the stuff from her, they’d have gone somewhere else.
She’d never pushed it on anyone, she’d just sold it when she was asked. She hadn’t charged over the odds, she’d been charitable where she could, but still she’d been a drug dealer, she’d paid for Barry’s nappies and food by feeding the habits of addicts, and that was something she’d have to live with.
And then Ethan had died, and she’d almost gone back then, she’d almost given everything up. She would have, if she hadn’t had Barry.
And realizing in the past few months that he’d soon be old enough to understand how his mother made her living, she’d decided to get out. That hadn’t been easy either, there had been plenty of inducements to stay, and it would be a lie to say she hadn’t been tempted.
But in the end Barry had made up her mind for her again—and because there’d been no question of her going back to her own family, not when Granny wasn’t there anymore, she’d taken her courage in both hands and gone to see Ethan’s father.
She’d known there wouldn’t be a welcome for her—Ethan had rarely mentioned his family, but the little he’d said had been enough. Carmel had had a fair idea of how his father would be with them, and she hadn’t been wrong.
The way he’d looked at them that first time, as if he was afraid of catching whatever they had. She supposed she couldn’t blame him, the state of them. A smell off them too, she could get it herself. And it was only her word about Barry belonging to Ethan, so why would he believe her? She should have known it wouldn’t do any good going back to him a second time.
And now they were sleeping in the old shed she’d discovered at the back of a house that was boarded up, in a street full of people you didn’t want to look at you, and she was scrounging money from strangers and stealing what she had to, to survive.
And winter was coming. She sank her head into her hands, weary of trying to go on.
“Mammy.”
She looked up.
“I have to do wee.”
She got to her feet. “Come on.” She took his half-eaten chips to the counter. “Can you mind these?” she asked the man. “He needs the toilet again.”
They had over two hours to kill before it would be dark enough for them to sneak into the shed. They’d have to make the chips last. And maybe the rain would stop, maybe they’d at least get that.
—————
Irene walked into the kitchen, causing her daughter and the au pair to look up simultaneously. Passing the table on her way to the fridge she saw, in no particular order, a jam jar of muddy-colored liquid, a large page sitting on an opened newspaper and smeared with puddles of colors, two vivid red splotches on the table to the left of the newspaper, various opened pots of poster paints, and a scattering of brushes.
She decided to concentrate on the red spills. “Pilar, please wipe that paint off the table before it dries in.”
A beat passed, not unnoticed by Irene, before the au pair got to her feet. As she reached for the dishcloth that dangled from the tap mixer Irene added sharply, “Not that—please use damp kitchen paper. The dishcloth is only for washing up.” How many times did the woman have to be told?
“Sorry,” Pilar muttered, reaching for a paper towel.
“Irene,” Emily said, “look at my picture.”
Irene took a can of Diet Coke from the fridge before turning to regard the mess of watery colors running into each other. No outline that she could see, nothing remotely recognizable. Should three-year-olds not be a little more accomplished? Surely they should make a stab at drawing objects, rather than just slathering colored water on a page?
“Very nice,” she said, popping the tab on her can. “Get Pilar to roll up your sleeves, they’re getting wet.” Anyone with an ounce of common sense would have done that before the painting started.
Irene regarded the top of the au pair’s head as Emily’s sleeves were rolled to the elbow, as the spilled paint was cleared away. She couldn’t see why anyone who had hair as naturally dark as Pilar’s would imagine they could get away with going blonde.
“Next time you’re painting, please cover the table fully with newspaper,” she said before turning toward the door. Well aware, as she left the kitchen, that the atmosphere she left behind was considerably cooler than the one she’d walked into. Training in a new au pair was always such a thankless task.
—————
“‘There was once a little boy,’” Jackie read, “‘whose name was Charlie.’”
“Charlie is a girl’s name,” Eoin said.
“Well, normally it’s a boy’s name. Anyway, ‘Charlie lived with—’”
“Why is it normally a boy’s name?”
She lowered the book. “Because Charlie is short for Charles, which is a boy’s name, but sometimes girls are called Charlie for short, if their name is Charlotte, or…Charlene, or something. Ask your friend at school if her name is short for something else, and I bet she says yes.” She waited for another question but none came. “Will I go on with the story?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Charlie lived with his mum and dad in a small yellow house.’”
“Charlie’s mum got lost.”
Jackie stopped again and looked at him. “Did she?” The first mention he’d made of Charlie’s mother.
“Yeah, a long time ago. Everybody looked for her, but nobody could find her.”
“Oh…that’s too bad. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Got lost” sounded like a peculiar way to explain death to a child—wasn’t it a bit odd, didn’t it leave the possibility open in the child’s mind that the mother might suddenly reappear someday?
“I said my dad is in heaven,” Eoin added, “so maybe her mum went there.”
“Yes, maybe,” Jackie said quickly. “Let’s get on with the story, will we?”
What else could she have said when he’d asked about his father? It had seemed the simplest explanation—although she wondered what she’d do in years to come if he decided he wanted to look up his father’s family. She’d deal with that when it happened.
“Can Charlie come to our house to play?”
“Of course she can, as soon as I meet her dad.”
Charlie was always in the classroom by the time they arrived—Jackie dropped Eoin to school on her way to work at the boutique, and they usually made it by the skin of their teeth. Jackie’s mother collected Eoin after school every day except Thursday, Jackie’s day off.
But there was never any sign of the father on Thursday afternoons either—not that Jackie had been actively looking for him up to this. She supposed she’d have to make it her business to make contact with him if Eoin insisted on his new friend coming to play.
“Next time I collect you,” she promised. “I’ll talk to her dad then. If he comes before I get there, ask him to hang on.”
But Eoin shook his head. “He doesn’t come at home time—she goes to Little Rascals.”
“Oh.”
She’d have to think of another way to track down the elusive father. Maybe she could ask the teacher to deliver a message, or at least pass on Jackie’s phone number so he could make contact. Arranging her son’s social calendar wasn’t proving too straightforward.
“I’ll talk to Mrs. Grossman next week,” she said, raising the book again. “We’ll figure something out. Now come on, or we’ll never get this done.”
They finished the story and she kissed him good night and went downstairs, leaving his bedroom door ajar and the landing light on. In the sitting room her parents were watching the news. Jackie sat next to her mother and thought about the good-looking man from the art class again.
She wondered what job he had. He’d been well dressed in the street: Maybe he worked in an office of some kind. He probably had a partner. Most people had found someone by the time they got to his age, which she guessed was somewhere in his late thirties or early forties.
They had yet to exchange a single word, and he’d seen Jackie fully undressed. How strange was that? Before the life drawing class she’d shown her naked body to exactly three men, and they’d all been similarly undressed at the time. And she’d had some degree of interaction with each of them before they’d taken off their clothes.
The first had been a boy she’d met at fifteen, the brother of a girl in her class, who’d walked her home from a teenage disco and become her first proper boyfriend. They’d deflowered each other when Jackie had been sixteen, late one night in the shed at the bottom of his parents’ garden.
The experience had been both embarrassing and painful for Jackie, and on the two occasions they’d repeated it, there had been no significant improvement. Shortly afterwards he’d ended the relationship, and she’d done her best to hide her relief.
Eoin’s father had followed, the summer she was seventeen, an encounter she could barely remember, and whose consequence understandably caused her to lose her taste for men for some time afterwards. When Eoin was three she met another man on a night out with some friends, who charmed her into his bed after a few dates, and dropped her abruptly after a few more.
Three men, a handful of sexual encounters: She was hardly what you’d call experienced in that area. Ironic, when people who heard she’d become a single mother at eighteen probably assumed she was jumping into bed with men every night of the week. In fact, the man at the art class was the first man to interest her in a long time. And chances were he was happily married.
But maybe he wasn’t.