Monday

Jesus.” Carmel immediately clapped a hand to her mouth. “Sorry.”

Michael looked at her. “Is it that bad?”

She shook her head, still staring at him. “It’s not bad, I jus’ got a shock,” she said. “I thought you were someone else.”

Michael turned to Barry. “It’s me,” he said. “It’s your granddad.”

Barry regarded him silently, eyes wide.

“I like it,” Carmel said. “You look better. You look younger.”

“Dinner will be ten minutes,” Michael replied—because how else did you respond to that?

In the kitchen he stirred gravy and rubbed his chin, hidden for so long under its hairy coat. His whole face had an exposed quality to it now, the part that had been covered by the beard a bit pink and raw looking. It put him in mind of a just-shorn sheep. He assumed he’d get used to it, although the thought of having to shave again each morning was mildly depressing.

Valerie would be happy. She’d never approved of the beard he’d started to grow shortly after Ethan had left home. Michael couldn’t remember now why he’d suddenly decided on it. He had no idea either what had prompted him to buy a new razor on the way home from work today, an impulse he’d followed without really knowing why.

“Well,” he said aloud, “it’s done now.”

“You look like Ethan,” Carmel told him, when they were eating bacon and cabbage a few minutes later. “He looked like you, I mean. I didn’t see it before.”

Ah yes, Michael thought, that was why. He’d seen his absent son’s face every time he looked in the mirror, and he’d covered it with a beard so it didn’t keep haunting him.

“Can I show you something?” she asked when the plates were cleared away.

“What?”

“Hang on.” She left the room.

Left alone with his grandson, Michael regarded him. “What did you do at school today? Did you draw a picture?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you draw?”

“The sun.”

Michael smiled. “Just for a change,” he said.

“An’ I made a Lego house with Em’ly.”

“Well done.”

Carmel reappeared with the tin box Michael recalled seeing on the bedside locker by her bed. Battered and dented, about half the size of a shoe box, the lid fitting uneasily. She pried it open and took out a photo, and handed it to Michael.

It took a few seconds to recognize Ethan. He looked horribly thin and he was unshaven, and he wore a shabby brown sweater whose sleeves were too short for his arms. But it was Ethan, and on his face was a smile.

And he held a baby in his arms.

Michael looked up. “Why didn’t you show me this before?”

“I thought you’d get mad,” she said, reaching into the box and taking out more photos. Her and Ethan, her and Barry, the three of them together. Less than a dozen images in total, a meager enough collection compared with Michael’s albums of Ethan and Valerie’s early years, but a record of them as a family, for the brief time they’d lasted.

“They’re not very good,” she said. “We only had one of them cameras you throw away.”

Michael regarded the handful of photos of his son. He wasn’t sure how it had come about, but he realized that somewhere over the past few weeks he’d made his peace with Ethan. He’d blundered his way through it the way he blundered through everything, but it was done now.

The sadness, of course, would always be there, but the guilt had left him. He’d done his best for Ethan, and now he was getting the chance to do his best for Ethan’s son. And that was a blessing he hadn’t expected—a blessing he’d never have gotten if Carmel hadn’t shown up in his shop that first day.

And Valerie, Valerie had come back to him. For the first time in over twenty years, Michael Browne could honestly say he was at peace—and yes, happy. He was happy.

After dinner he settled in his usual armchair and picked up the newspaper and pretended to read it, while on the couch across from him Carmel turned the pages of the Chicken Licken book she’d bought with her wages and went through it haltingly, and with many mistakes, for her son.

Tomorrow he’d buy a block of ice cream on his way home from the shop. No reason why they shouldn’t have dessert once in a while—and everyone loved ice cream.

—————

Anton mashed potatoes with crushed garlic, black pepper, butter, and warm milk as Pilar filled a jug with water. Zarek set the table and thought about the fact that he’d officially come out.

Just to one person, it was true—and telling Meg hadn’t really mattered, they hardly knew each other. But it was the first time he’d actually put it into words, the first time he’d said them aloud: I am homosexual.

He’d come out, and the world hadn’t ended. Meg had been a little taken aback, but that was to be expected, given the circumstances. He presumed she wasn’t too upset; he hoped there wouldn’t be awkwardness at their last life drawing class.

Maybe he should have said nothing—but saying nothing had suddenly become impossible. And so he had spoken, and it had been such a relief to finally say the words, such a letting go, such a weight rolling away.

Of course there were far more difficult challenges ahead.

He thought about his mother asking him, every time he rang home, whether he’d met anyone nice. He remembered her pointed references to any suitable female in their neighborhood, once he’d reached the age where he might reasonably be expected to bring home a girlfriend. He remembered her disappointment when no girl had ever been brought home.

He tried to imagine what her reaction to his news might be, and failed. He had no idea how she would feel, what she would say to him. He thought about his father, getting up for early-morning Mass every day of the week. What would the knowledge that his only son was gay do to him?

But he had to tell them, and it had to wait until he went home at Christmas. This wasn’t something that could go into a letter, or be said over the phone. He would tell them and they would cope, they would have to cope.

His sister, he felt, might not be too surprised. In her quiet way, Beata may well have figured out what Zarek hadn’t even admitted to himself up to quite recently.

But difficult as breaking the news to his family would be, the person whose reaction Zarek most needed, and most dreaded, was Anton. He glanced at his flat mate, who’d begun to spoon the silky mashed potatoes into a serving bowl, and the bowed, dark head, the line of Anton’s arm, the curve of his neck—​everything, everything—sent a wave of love and longing through Zarek.

When he’d first begun to feel for the Frenchman what he’d never felt for any female, Zarek had done his best to deny it. He’d struggled against these new and dangerous emotions, he’d tried to pretend they didn’t exist. He’d considered moving out of the apartment, even leaving Ireland altogether, but the idea of cutting ties with Anton was simply too painful.

And of course changing his location wouldn’t make the slightest difference—he was who he was, a gay man. Once he accepted the truth of this, all the uncertainties of his adolescence finally made sense. And so he made the decision to stay where he was, to bide his time and wait for the right moment to say what was in his heart, and suffer the consequences.

“I ’ave something to tell,” Anton announced, bringing the potatoes to the table and pulling out a chair. “Some news.”

Pilar began pouring water into their glasses. “Good news?”

Zarek took a seat and picked up the serving tongs and helped himself to a rosemary-scented lamb cutlet.

“Yes, it is good news. I ’ave decided,” Anton said, spooning potato onto his plate, “to return to France.” He reached for the black pepper. “My uncle will open ze new restaurant in Brittany next month and he invite me to work there, as his assistant chef. So I return.”

“You leave?” Pilar lowered the jug. “When you go?”

“Three weeks,” Anton replied, taking a cutlet. “November fifteen.”

“You become real chef,” Pilar said. “With job in important restaurant. With big white hat.”

Anton smiled. “I am not sure about ze ’at.”

“Yes, this is good news,” Pilar said. “You are good cook. I like your cooking very much. But Zarek and I will miss you—yes, Zarek?”

Zarek spooned potato onto his plate. “Yes,” he said.

“Zarek?” Anton asked.

Zarek looked up.

“You ’ave nothing to say me?”

“This is good for you,” Zarek replied. “Congratulation.”

“You will come to France maybe,” Anton said, “when you ’ave ze ’oliday?”

Zarek held his gaze. “Maybe,” he said. “If you like.”

“Oui,” Anton replied, a dimple appearing in his cheek. “I like.” He lifted his glass. “And maybe you stay, maybe you find ze job. Maybe my uncle need ze waiter.”

“Yes,” Zarek replied, hardly trusting his voice. His heart knocking in his chest. “I would like to be waiter.”

“Maybe I come too,” Pilar said, oblivious. “Maybe I meet nice French man with big house and plenty of euros.”

—————

Meg listened to her husband and daughter laughing at some cartoon in the next room, and she thought about how foolish, how incredibly silly she’d been.

She spread the pizza base with roasted tomato sauce. What on earth had made her run after Zarek like some infatuated teenager? She didn’t want another man, least of all a younger foreign one. Least of all a younger foreign gay one. It would be funny if it weren’t so excruciatingly mortifying.

She halved cherry tomatoes and scattered them over the sauce. For the past few weeks she’d treated her husband abominably. She’d pushed him away anytime he tried to get close, and she wasn’t even sure why. Maybe opening the playschool had caused it, maybe the stress of those first few hectic weeks had sapped her patience—she’d been so mad at herself for not sailing into it like she’d imagined—and her poor husband had been the one to bear the brunt.

She grated mozzarella and sprinkled it on the pizza, and topped it with slivers of smoked salmon and spoonfuls of sour cream. Or maybe she’d been going through one of those dips everyone felt now and again, where nothing seemed to be going right. What a bitch she’d been though, snapping at him for the least little thing, turning away from him in bed—God, it was a wonder he hadn’t walked out.

She shook oregano on top and opened the oven door and slid the pizza in. And then Zarek’s admission in the car, on the way home from Audrey’s party. Mortifying at the time, totally unexpected—but she’d realized, before she’d even gotten home, that it hadn’t mattered to her in the least, because Zarek meant nothing to her. He’d been a diversion, a distraction, that was all.

She took white wine from the fridge and levered off the cork. She filled a glass and sipped it, leaning against the kitchen table. She had a lot of making up to do, a lot of amends to make. She’d start tonight, after they’d put Ruby to bed.

And she’d skip the last life drawing class. She couldn’t face Zarek, knowing what a fool she’d made of herself. And anyway, she wasn’t really cut out to be an artist. She couldn’t draw to save her life.

—————

“Can I go to Charlie’s house? She came here, so now I should go to hers.”

Jackie tipped the plastic cup, and the die hopped out onto the snakes and ladders board. “Oh good, five.” She moved her yellow counter along its line. “You have to wait until Charlie invites you—you can’t just go to her house whenever you feel like it. I invited Charlie here, so that’s why she came. Your turn.”

Eoin shook the cup and tipped out the die. “But I have no school for a whole week and you have to go to work and I’m bored at home by myself.”

Jackie’s head was fuzzy from lack of sleep, most of the past two nights spent lying on her back, listening to recycled daytime radio. “We’ll see,” she said, picking up the cup.

Eoin groaned. “You always say that.”

“I’ll ask Granny if she’ll take you to Jungle Jim’s, or to the park, okay?”

She’d run a bath at ten to ten the previous morning; she’d been sitting in it when the doorbell had rung. She’d heard voices downstairs, James and her father, but she couldn’t make out the words. The talk hadn’t lasted long, a couple of minutes only. And thankfully her parents hadn’t spoken about him since—probably sensing, from the timing of the bath, that she didn’t want to.

She’d make more of an effort to get out and about with her friends. She’d dress up and look happy and talk to anyone who talked to her, she’d find someone who wanted her. She was only twenty-four.

She was dreading the last life drawing class, dreading his eyes on her body. She wished it was over. If Audrey was planning another class after Halloween, Jackie would tell her she wasn’t interested. She’d had enough of life drawing. Been there, done that.

And if James made contact for Charlie’s sake she’d respond, for Eoin’s sake. It would be hard to be in his company so she’d try to minimize that, arrange it so one or other of them took the two children. She’d manage, like she always did.

She slid her counter down a snake. And given time, she’d get over him.