His stillness was absolute. Audrey had no idea how long he’d been there—she’d just gotten home from work and come upstairs to change into her gardening clothes—or how long he’d stay in that position, but she decided to take a chance. She grabbed her sketch pad and began to draw, her pencil flying across the page, her eyes flicking rapidly between the scene outside and the pad.
Kevin squatted on the lawn, feet planted solidly, forearms resting on his thighs, upper body tilted slightly forward. He peered downwards, totally preoccupied with something in the grass.
“He can watch something for ages,” Pauline had told her. “Ants, worms, a few earwigs—I’ve no idea what he finds so fascinating.”
His face was hidden from Audrey, her view of him foreshortened by her elevated position at the upstairs window. It was a challenging posture to capture, but Audrey did her best, scribbling busily until his head lifted suddenly and turned towards the house—and here came Pauline making her way across the lawn to him, bending to see what was engaging his attention.
Audrey closed her pad and dropped it on the bed. She began to change into her gardening trousers, hearing Dolly’s demanding yips from the kitchen. Another weekend, two lie-ins to look forward to, and only another week to the midterm break. She’d bring Dolly to the park after dinner; a quick trot around it would tire her out for the evening.
The park reminded her of Michael Browne. She wondered if he’d followed up on the playschool. She wouldn’t ask Meg on Tuesday, it was none of her business, but Meg might well mention it herself.
Audrey was just interested, that was all.
—————
“A playschool?”
Her expression wary, which immediately irritated him. Couldn’t the silly woman see what he was offering?
“He needs to mix with other children,” he said briskly. “It’s not good for him to be with just you or me all the time. And there’d be lots of books, and jigsaws, and other toys. He’d be learning, you’d be giving him a good start.”
She nodded slowly, biting at the nail of her index finger. Michael itched to tap it away, like he’d always done with Valerie as a child.
“It would be three mornings a week,” he said. “Wednesday to Friday. She’s doing us a favor, taking him in. I was lucky to find any place at all, this late in the year.”
She gnawed at the cuticle now with her teeth.
“Please stop doing that,” Michael said sharply, and she dropped her finger quickly.
“She’s holding a place open for him,” he said. “He could start this coming week, next Wednesday.”
It didn’t matter to him, it was nothing to him whether the boy went or not. So why did he feel like shaking her right now until her teeth rattled? What the hell was wrong with her?
“Well? What do you think? Are you happy to let him go?”
“It’s jus’ that…you don’t know yet.” Her color rose, her hand drifted to her mouth again until she saw him looking, and she let it fall.
“I don’t know what?” But he knew what she was talking about.
“If I’m tellin’ you the truth,” she answered, her face aflame. “About Ethan, if he’s the father.”
“Are you telling me he isn’t?” Michael asked quietly.
Suddenly, shockingly, he realized that he didn’t want to hear her admit that she’d made it all up.
She shook her head rapidly. “No, I’m not sayin’ that. I told you the truth—but you don’t know it’s the truth yet. So why are you doin’ this big thing for us? What if you change your mind in a few weeks, or a few months, after Christmas or somethin’, an’ Barry has to drop out because I can’t pay, an’ he got all that learnin’ that might just stop, an’ then we have to go back to nothin’ after all that?”
She stopped abruptly, pressing her lips together. Michael left the table and walked to the kitchen window and stood looking out at his excuse for a garden.
“I’m not going to change my mind,” he said evenly, keeping his back to her. “I’m prepared to pay for the full year. I’m doing it to help the boy, because I can afford it, and because I want to, and because he deserves a good start in life, whoever he is. Everyone does.” Looking at the old stone wall at the bottom of the garden, not looking at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said then, “if I don’t sound grateful. I am grateful, you done so much for us. I’m jus’ scared, that’s all. Nothin’ like this ever happened to us before. I jus’ think…it’s too good to be true, an’ it can’t last.”
Michael made no reply. What could he say to that?
“You read him stories,” she said then. “In the shop. He told me.”
He nodded, watching a robin dropping from the top of the wall to land lightly on the grass. “Yes,” he said. “I do.”
“He likes them.”
Michael tapped his fingers on the edge of the sink. “It’s good for him,” he said. “Stories feed the brain.”
A short silence followed, and then she spoke again. “When we met you first,” she said, “I thought you were really mean, but you’re not. You’re a good man. I knew Ethan would have a good father.”
Michael had no idea how to respond. He studied a cracked tile on the margin of wall above the sink.
“Thank you,” she said. He heard her getting up. “I’ll never forget what you done for us.”
She turned and walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs, to where Barry had already been put to bed.
Later, when he went up himself, Michael heard soft singing coming from Valerie’s room.
—————
She sat in the darkened cinema beside Eoin. On his far side was Charlie, and beyond her, James. The air was thick with the smell of popcorn. The volume was too high—why was it always set so high? Did the cinema staff think they were all deaf, or were they just trying to make them deaf?
The film, about a car that seemed to think it was human, didn’t interest her in the slightest. The plot was paper-thin, the ending apparent in the first two minutes. The acting was mediocre, the dialogue as predictable as the plot.
But if she closed her eyes she could pretend the children were at home, fast asleep. She could imagine that she and James were out on a date, his arm around her, his thigh touching hers. She could picture them leaving the cinema when the film ended and going to a restaurant for dinner. Or maybe they’d have eaten before the film, maybe they’d just go somewhere quiet for a drink afterwards.
His hand reaching across to touch hers as they chatted, the wine making her feel beautifully woozy. Going back to his place, or her place—her apartment, which of course existed in her imagination—
“Mum.”
She opened her eyes. Eoin was pulling at her sleeve. She dragged herself out of the apartment. “What?” she whispered.
“I have to go to the toilet.”
“Okay.” She stood up.
Back to reality, where James was three seats away from her, and they were on a play date.
—————
“We might go to the park on Sunday,” he said as they were getting out of the car. “Just if you’re around.”
She smelled of oranges, her shampoo maybe. She wore pale pink lipstick, and the neckline of her top sat just above her breasts, a hint only of cleavage visible, the suggestion of a shadowy dip, that was all.
But he knew what her breasts looked like, he knew the shape and color of her nipples. He had studied the dark triangle of pubic hair at the top of her legs, he had attempted to reproduce her body on paper.
“If the weather is fine,” she was saying, “we’ll see you there.”
“Grand,” he said, putting the car into gear.
“Thanks for this evening,” she said. “Eoin, what do you say to Charlie’s dad?”
Charlie’s dad, that’s what he was. If she only knew the thoughts Charlie’s dad had been having about Eoin’s mum. He drove off, leaving them waving on the path.