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Una had dozed off early. She’d had an early and agreeable dinner at a restaurant not far from the Guesthouse, Quinn’s. The food was simple fare, but simple fare cooked well. At her age she couldn’t be doing with spice and there seemed to be an abundance of it about these days. The Irish digestive system was not designed for the likes of chilli. It had crossed her mind to give her compliments to the chef, but she decided not to. Her clean plate was compliment enough.
She’d laid her knife and fork down as the band had begun to unpack and had been sure to settle her bill before they could so much as strike a chord. She was not in the mood for music. The maître d’ had said the most peculiar thing to her as she counted out the notes from her purse. He’d said he’d known her when she was a girl, and that she and her twin sister used to love playing down by the Royal Canal. Impossible of course given he was only somewhere in the vicinity of his late thirties, but peculiar all the same and the hairs on the back of her neck had stood up.
The fresh air from her day spent observing Aideen’s house had made her sleepy and she’d climbed into the double bed with its crisp white linen sheets and plump pillows in eager anticipation of a restful sleep.
She was almost grateful tonight for the now familiar rattle and clatter that stirred her from her sleep. It had dragged her from a dream where Leo was berating her, he was calling her a stubborn selfish fool of a woman. Each time she opened her mouth to ask him to stop no sound would come out. It was most upsetting. She roused herself to peer out the curtains to the darkened courtyard below in time to spy the shadowy outline of a small creature creeping back toward the wall.
The moon came out from behind the clouds and for a moment it was as though a light had been switched on in the courtyard. She could see the fox had something in his mouth, a sausage she was fairly certain. It paused for a beat and looked up at her window. Their eyes locked and then with a flick of his tale he seemed to vanish into the wall. Una let the curtain fall and sighed.
She lay back down and watched the bedside clock, its red digits teasing her as they counted the seconds, the minutes until finally the digits rolled over to three a.m. The dregs of the dream lingered like a painful hangover and she tried to focus her mind on something other than Leo’s angry face. There were happy memories, lots of them and she chose the happiest of them all.