Hello stranger Maisie says Long time no see
Someone’s got a spring in her step says Geraldine
And a bloom to her cheek says Roisin
It must be this new probiotic yoghurt you tell them
It’s not that Geraldine says I know well what it is
You freeze
It’s that you have Cass gone she says You’ve your life back I told you
You sit down Bojangles is hopping You shouldn’t have come you think
We were just talking about Big Mike Roisin tells you
Joan’s finally had enough Una says She’s off to her sister’s that’s what I heard Ten bob says she’ll not be back
About bloody time Roisin says He does the dirt and she’s still there cooking him his fry every morning
Why now Maisie says Isn’t your one long gone The maid Hasn’t he mended his ways
Once a cheater always a cheater Roisin says It must have dawned on her at last
He’s up the swanny in that case Geraldine says She’ll clean him out leave him naked as the day he was born
Oh him Una says It won’t be long till he finds some other mug to sponge off
Everyone knows the cut of his jib by now Roisin says Who’d be fool enough to throw their lot in with him?
You’d be surprised Maisie says No shortage of fools
No fool like an old fool Geraldine says
I don’t understand Do you want to stop is that it
No you say Speaking the word almost crushes you
Then why not he says What’s wrong with two people who care about each other being together
You have only ever been with Dickie you don’t tell him that You only say that it has to be right You don’t want your first time together to be in a car in a field
A hotel he says Somewhere far off The next county You say nothing A hotel seems worse even than a car you don’t know why Or how about this he says and he starts to tell you about a house he has on the edge of the woods In the half-built estate You can’t believe your ears It’s not a hundred per cent finished he says But there’s power A bit of furniture It’s the showhouse he says while you’re getting a cold dank feeling like you’ve sunk into a pond wondering did he bring her there the housekeeper Were they right the girls Are you only the next one The mug The fool
I hate those old woods you tell him Anyway that’s where Dickie’s building his whatever-it-is Let’s just leave it for now you say Then reach for the door to go back to your car
Wait says Mike wait He lets out a sigh Do you not think this is real he says Is that it
It’s not that you say
I don’t know if I can do it you say I don’t know if I can be with someone else then go home and lay down beside Dickie I’m not like you you say
Mike considers this then says Well if he’s off running around the woods most likely you won’t be laying down beside him at all
That’s not what you meant How can he not see it I should get back you say We’ll talk about it some other time
Wait Imelda Again he reaches after you
Joan’s going out of town he says Her sister’s not well She’s going to stay with her
Why don’t you come over to the house some night he says I’ll make you dinner Whatever you want
You can stay for an hour or you can stay for the night We can be together or not as you like Bring Dickie even And we’ll all play Scrabble if that’s what you want we’ll do that
Crows in the cornfield black yellow blue
His hand on your arm he says gently I want you to be part of my life Imelda Whatever way feels right to you We can go as fast or as slow as you like I just want to be near you
What do you think he says
You pause for a moment still facing away I can’t leave PJ on his own
Couldn’t Dickie look after him Mike says
Now you turn to him Oh right you say I’ll tell him to be sure he’s around to babysit so I can go and have my affair
Mike flinches Well PJ will be grand on his own for one night What is he twelve?
Turning away again Don’t tell me how to run my home you say
From behind you you hear him sigh Okay he says Well you’re right anyway Time to be getting back
You don’t hear from him for the rest of the day Usually he sends a message late in the evening to say he is thinking of you or just an X Tonight nothing You tell yourself it’s for the best but keep picking up your phone In the middle of the night even just to see Sometimes messages get delayed But no
Funny how soon you get used to it how quickly you come to rely on it A few kind words A single letter even Take them away and you feel like you’re falling apart
It’s for the best you tell yourself it’s for the best
Then next morning as you’re making breakfast PJ asks if he can stay over in Zargham’s house on Friday
The radio jabbers on about tax or traffic You stand there with your back to him stirring the porridge
You feel his eyes on you It seems like the whole world is gathered behind you waiting to hear what you will say You keep stirring Hmm? you say
Can I stay over in Zargham’s?
I thought you weren’t getting on with Zargham
Oh yeah we repaired our friendship
Didn’t he change his name
No that was just a temporary thing Anyway we’re doing this project together on crustaceans We need to finish it this weekend
Hmm you say again expressionlessly
I’m in love with you Imelda
Gazing into the porridge still you say Would you need me to drive you over
No his mam will pick us up after school
So she’ll be there They’ll be there his parents
Of course Mam obviously
The world gathered behind you gathered above you Balanced on a pinpoint
Let me think about it you say
It’s never too late to start again Clara Langan says You’re never too old to find love
The model designer and actress was thirty-seven when she met dashing London restaurateur Brian Boles after divorcing two years before from her childhood sweetheart Richie Nagle following his affair with his wellness advisor
It was hard to come back from that and put my trust in someone the beauty confirms She talks openly about the heartbreak of her marriage ending It nearly ended me with it she says
But now with Brian blue skies have returned
I’m not the type to go out and start dating left and right she says I didn’t think I’d ever be able to feel that way again But with Brian it’s like his love has woken the love in me He’s brought out the passionate person I thought was gone She laughs I feel like I’m eighteen again!
At Naancross you can still see where the flowers had been
After the crash someone tied a bouquet to the telephone pole It used drive you mad Every time you went out there the flowers had withered more till they were ragged Black You would have pulled them down but they were too high up Whoever did it must have come out there with a ladder
And on the telephone pole you can still see it Not the bouquet of course but the plastic tie that held it and now it’s the only way you can tell you’re in the right place
You used to come out here all the time In the weeks after he died Climb out Frank’s bedroom window and walk however many miles Sometimes it was the middle of the night Dickie never knew You’d squeeze through the straggling brambles Go on your hands and knees feeling around on the dark ground
Can I help you?
A man has come out of the blue shipping container that is the office He stands there looking at you with his hands on his hips
Oh you say rising to your feet I thought I dropped something that’s all
You smile brightly Glister your beauty at him Why not do him too Imelda in his shipping container Why not do everyone
The man pushes the cap back off his forehead scratches his scalp He is young in his twenties with a beard Are you wanting to rent a bike he says
Oh no you say Just looking around
He appears puzzled at this Looks around himself at the empty car park the rack of mountain bikes
A man died here once you explain My true love I used come out here to look for his ghost I was only a girl then I married his brother We were both sick with grief Out of our heads with it He is a good man We were happy or getting by anyway Then something changed
No
I used to have a friend lived here That’s what you say When this was a field
He looks at you quizzically You realize this does not sound quite right
It was a long time ago you say
You point to the racks of bikes Busy? you say
Not busy enough he says
Nice day all the same
They say we’ll have rain the man says
Do they
He nods soberly On firm ground at last Storms they say Friday night
Huh you say
Well you say
Good luck now he says
He waits there while you get back in the car
You start the engine Eye the tarmac wistfully as you pull out
You had never found anything anyway Probably the glass all melted when the car burned And his blood that you’d imagined went into the soil to feed the trees and grass It probably didn’t It probably turned straight to steam
But the plastic that’ll be there on that pole when you’re all dead and gone Isn’t that what the kids are always telling you Use it once then it’s hanging around for a thousand years Time doesn’t do what you think it will does it
You get your turn But they don’t tell you that’s all it is a turn a moment Everything explodes you’re nothing but feelings Your life begins at last You think it will all be like that Then the moment passes
The moment passes but you stay in the shape you were then In the life that’s come out of the things that you did The remainder of that girl you used be that is gone
They don’t tell you How could they How could anyone make any sense of that
A little way down the road you pull in again
Take out your phone and send a message to Mike: Friday night x