Three Little Truths

by Eithne Shortall

‘You took our son with you.’

  ‘Babe, it was a one-off.’

  ‘He missed preschool, Eddy! I didn’t know where he was and I couldn’t call the cops because, you know, obviously, and . . .’ Robin pushed the phone away from her face for a moment and gathered herself. ‘Jesus Christ!’

  ‘I’m sorry about that, Robin.’ His voice was quieter now, more serious. ‘It couldn’t be helped. I told you that. It just came up. He was fine. He was asleep in the back of the car the whole time. I would never let anything happen to him, or to you. I’m addicted to you.’

  That’s what Eddy always said. I’m an addict, babe, and you’re my fix.

  ‘We just need to get this mess sorted and then we can go back to normal.’

  ‘What mess?’

  ‘That night, when I was out with Jack, there’s a bit of a misunderstanding about where I was and someone’s saying I was somewhere I wasn’t. I’ve told the guards we were at home watching Hocus Pocus – that’s your favourite, isn’t it? See, I remember. You just have to tell them the same thing.’

  ‘The guards, Eddy?’

  ‘It’s nothing. But if they ask you about it – you say the same thing, yeah? The three of us were watching Hocus Pocus and then we got up the next morning and Jack wasn’t feeling great so we kept him at home. That’s all. It’ll be over then and we can go back to normal.’

  ‘To normal . . .’

  ‘The way it was before.’

  ‘I’m not lying to the guards for you.’

  ‘Oh now, Robin.’ She could hear him smile. She pictured the skin of his lips slowly stretching until smooth and pale. ‘Sometimes I think you’ve really convinced yourself you never did anything. When we both know that’s not true at all.’

  In the few hours since Martha had returned from Island Stores with weed killer and dogfood, she’d had three callers. And every time someone new rapped on the door, she dropped whatever it was she’d been holding.

  The first person to come knocking was Ellis. The only upside to their whole ordeal was that she was now living near her son again. Of course, she didn’t know it was her son at the door until she opened it. She dropped a photo frame that time.

  ‘I’m here to help unpack,’ he declared, hanging his bag on the bottom of the banister and allowing her to hug him tightly.

  ‘I’m not unpacking boulders, sweetheart.’

  He followed her gaze to the steel-toed safety shoes peeking out from under his black trousers. ‘I’ve got an hour before my shift. But I’m not here to talk about work so don’t say a word.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to.’

  Ellis was a waiter with vague aspirations to write. But he could be much more. Martha had managed to successfully broach the subject the last time they met and he told her he was considering going back to college. She thought she’d reacted with enough enthusiasm that he might actually see it through this time.

  The second person to come calling was a neighbour named Ellen Russell-Something. Her angry knock cost Martha a perfectly good slice of toast. She declined a cup of tea but stayed for half an hour anyway, asking persistent questions and informing Martha, while sizing up Oscar, that a child from the road had recently been maimed by a rogue dog. The child was the daughter of Bernie Watters-Reilly. Martha only recognised the name because of her conversation with the saucer-eyed girl outside the shop, but Ellen took it as a given that she was intimately familiar with this woman’s work. Things were cordial enough until Ellen mentioned a road-wide drive to lay rat poison. All Martha said was she’d have to check it was dog-friendly, but Ellen seemed to take this as a slight, not so much on her, weirdly, but on this Bernie woman. She spent a lot of time looking around Martha’s kitchen and offered phone numbers for a fumigator, gardener and various cleaners.

  When she left, Martha closed the blinds in the kitchen, but still she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. The hairs on her body refused to lie flat. When the knocker went for the third time, Martha sent the entire cutlery drawer clattering to the floor.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ she muttered before plastering on a smile and shunting open their banjaxed front door.

  Carmel-From-Across-the-Road declined the offer of tea but said she’d have a glass of wine. So Martha produced a bottle from one of the few unpacked boxes.

  Carmel – red-faced, friendly, probably about sixty – told Martha that her information was being carefully compiled by the women of Pine Road’s WhatsApp group.

  ‘We’ve even got the hours at which your husband goes to and returns from work,’ she said. ‘If he’s having an affair we’ll probably know before you do.’

  Martha did her best to smile at this.

  ‘And don’t be surprised if an older woman comes calling asking about missing newspapers. In fact, she might just help herself and start rooting through your recycling bin. Might actually be an idea to keep the bins in the back garden for a bit, if you put anything personal in there.’ Carmel downed the wine with a smack of her lips, as Martha tried to figure out if she was joking or not.

  Robert and the girls arrived home just as Carmel was giving her the lowdown on Ellen ‘Two Names’. At the sound of the front door opening and the children squabbling, Carmel got up to leave, still talking. ‘The woman spends her whole life cleaning her house. She was plain old Ellen O’Toole until Bernie started using two surnames – only because it takes up more room on TV screens and in the paper, that’s the kind of ego we’re dealing with here – so Ellen went and added the Russell. Bernie is a C-list media personality, at best, but Ellen acts like she’s living two doors down from Beyoncé.’

  ‘Oh, pardon me,’ said Robert, walking into the kitchen as Carmel went to walk out. Martha caught a glimpse of Sinead stomping up the stairs. Orla walked right past the stranger, as if she was part of the furniture, and headed for the fridge.

  ‘This is Carmel. She lives across the road. Carmel, this is my husband Robert.’

  Robert smiled widely. ‘Lovely to meet you. My favourite aunt was called Carmel.’

  ‘It’s an old person’s name,’ the woman conceded.

  ‘So what are you doing with it?’

  It took Carmel a second, then she started to laugh. ‘You charmer. He’s a charmer!’ She looked back at Martha whose cheeks creaked reluctantly upwards.

  ‘I was just seeing Carmel out.’

  In the hallway, Carmel gave Martha some parking tips and explained that nobody paid any mind to the man at number one Pine Road who used old furniture and traffic cones to stop people parking in the open yard beside his house. ‘We call it the Occupied Territory,’ said Carmel. ‘Shay Morrissey says his deeds give him the right of use to nine feet out from his property but nobody’s ever seen these deeds so we just move the stuff out of our way. You’ll find parking is a bit of a Pine Road obsession.’

  In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Martha invited the woman on their Interiors World excursion. For the old, organised her, arranging social outings had been a particular speciality.

  ‘You and Edie?’ Carmel looked up from buttoning her coat. ‘That wasn’t on the WhatsApp chat.’

  ‘We’re going Thursday morning, leaving around nine thirty.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring my daughter. She’s been lying around the house moping over her ex for weeks. It’ll be something to do.’

  When the woman was across the road, Martha closed the door.

  The kettle boiled in the kitchen and she heard Robert remove it from its stand. Martha wondered if she was always going to hate her husband.

  Robin made a sound somewhere between mirth and laughter, or at least that was what she was aiming for. ‘I took a few calls, Eddy. That was it. I never touched anything or saw anything – I was busy minding our child – and I have nothing to do with wherever you were that night.’

  ‘I’ll tell you where I was, if you like.’

  ‘I don’t want to know. You have nothing to do with me any more. You’re only calling because
you need an alibi. Well, I’m not lying to the guards for you.’

  ‘That’s not why I’m calling. Didn’t I come looking for you in the park before this? I’m only asking a small thing. It’s fucking nothing. The guards are just looking for something to do.’

  The remorseful tone was gone and, from inside the house, Robin could hear the front door slamming and her mother calling.

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Hang on.’

  ‘It’s Mam. She’s going to wake Jack.’

  ‘But you’ll tell the guards we were at home, yeah? If they call. The three of us watched Hocus Pocus then we stayed at home the next day because Jack was sick.’

  Robin pulled the phone away from her ear, took a breath, and returned it.

  ‘So all right, yeah? Okay?’

  ‘Bye, Eddy.’

  She hung up just as the back door opened.

  ‘Robin!’ The wind chime jangled freely and her mother appeared, framed by the kitchen’s harsh fluorescent light. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  ‘Mam! Shh. You’ll wake Jack.’

  ‘Oh right, yes, sorry.’ She dropped her voice slightly. ‘I’ve had a drink.’

  Robin stuffed her phone into her pocket and followed Carmel inside.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re doing out there. It’s feckin’ freezing.’

  Robin closed the door gently behind her. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Guess what we’re doing Thursday morning?’

  Her mother did indeed seem a little merry. Although it didn’t take much to send Carmel from sober to tipsy. One year she’d made a potent Christmas pudding and knocked herself out before they’d cleared the table.

  Robin worked her way through the TV schedule. ‘Watching Dr Phil?’

  ‘I do not watch Dr Phil every Thursday,’ admonished Carmel in a hushed tone. ‘I have it on in the background if anything, and if you go spreading that fib about the road, you’ll be looking for somewhere else to stay.’

  ‘All right, got it. So what are we doing?’

  ‘Interiors World!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Interiors World. On the Long Mile Road. I just called into the new neighbour – Martha Rigby, number eight.’

  ‘The Russian spy family,’ Robin nodded.

  Carmel tutted. ‘That was only a theory, Robin, and it wasn’t even mine, it was Edie Rice’s. You need to stop taking everything I say so literally. Anyway, no. I don’t think that any more. I called over to her there and the accent was very convincing. And actually, her and Edie – do you know Edie? She was a couple of years ahead of you at Saint Ornatín’s – they’re going to Interiors World on Thursday morning and I said we’d go too!’

  Carmel beamed. Robin rubbed her eyes.

  ‘I’m going to bed.’

  ‘Your father will mind Jack. I need to order a few tiles for the kitchen and maybe get some sheets. We can get a lift with Martha.’

  Robin, tired and desperate to be lying alone in the dark, or as alone as she could get sharing a room and probably a bed with Jack, gave Carmel a kiss goodnight. ‘Thanks, Mam. I appreciate the thought. But it’s not for me.’

  ‘It’s not a request, my dearest,’ her mother said sweetly, returning the kiss. ‘It’s a condition of continued tenancy.’

  *** Pine Road Poker ***

  Ruby:

  Okay, ladies, we’re all set for Friday. Madeline’s going to clear out for the evening. The stakes are high, so bring your A game.

  Fiona:

  I still feel bad about making Madeline leave her home. Technically, the rule is No *Husbands*, so if Madeline wanted to stay ...

  Ruby:

  It’s grand, Fiona. Don’t worry about it. My darling wife has more interest in the male anatomy than she has in poker.

  Edie:

  Really looking forward to it, Ruby! Thanks so much for hosting x

  Carmel:

  Looking forward to taking all your hard-earned cash, ladies!

  Ellen:

  Monthly reminder that you’ve never won, Carmel ...

  Carmel:

  Just call me Carmel the Card Shark.

  Trish:

  Hope to make it, Ruby, but very busy at school this week.

  Carmel:

  Running scared already, Trish? We sharks can smell fear.

  Ruby:

  Isn’t that dogs?

  Fiona:

  Should we invite the new woman? XXX

  Ellen:

  I doubt she’d be interested. She struck me as lacking a community spirit. Not to mention a basic understanding of dusting.

  Rita Ann:

  I won’t be playing cards with anyone until my newspapers are returned. This has gone beyond a joke. I’m one Tuesday Health supplement away from calling the police.

  Bernie:

  Everything okay at the school, Trish? Anything the chair of the Parents’ Association should know about? Regards, Bernie Watters-Reilly

  Trish:

  Everything’s fine, Bernie.

  [Is typing]

  [Is typing]

  Thanks.

  SIX

  The list had been up for an entire day before anyone thought to bring it to the attention of the principal. Or at least a supposedly responsible adult had known about it for an entire day. It could have been up longer; they couldn’t say for sure when it had been etched into the back of the third stall in the first-floor boys’ bathroom because they didn’t know who had written it. But Paul Watson, the gormless PE teacher now sitting in front of her, had been made aware of it yesterday. Yesterday! Twenty-four bloody hours! Trish Walsh wished being principal gave you the power to sack someone on the spot.

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ she said, leaning forward in her swivel chair, elbows on the desk and death stare firmly focused on one of the simpler teachers to have passed through the doors of Saint Ornatín’s Secondary School, ‘is how I am only hearing about this now?’

  Gormless Paul hesitated. He looked around the small grey office as if someone might step in and provide him with a satisfactory answer. But it was only the two of them and she had told Rebecca, her secretary, that under no circumstances was anyone else to enter. She had to keep this contained until she figured out how the hell she was going to make it right.

  ‘I . . . I wasn’t sure what to do.’ His Adam’s apple quivered as he spoke. He was very thin, which she supposed was a good advertisement for physical education. Though teenage boys were no longer interested in being thin. They all aspired to buff now, even the smart ones. She went back to wishing she could fire him.

  ‘So, you thought you’d just do nothing? Is that it?’

  Stuck for anything constructive to say – though that didn’t usually stop him – Paul shrugged helplessly and gave a little laugh. It was more a whimper than an actual chuckle, and she knew it was largely the result of nerves, but it was still the entirely wrong response and she brought both hands down hard on the desk. If she could have gotten away with it, Trish would only ever have hired female staff – they had more basic cop on – but the rest of the board was always reminding her that this was a mixed school and boys needed role models too.

  Well, thought Trish, leaning back in her chair as Paul’s face continued to flinch between worry and jocular, if this was the kind of role model Saint Ornatín’s had to offer its male students then maybe she shouldn’t be surprised they were in the situation they were in.

  Trish already had more than enough on this week. Two girls in sixth year had now been hospitalised after fainting from a lack of food and the year head was at a loss for how to stop the epidemic from spreading. Trish had arranged for the Department of Education to send in two counsellors, but of course they had yet to arrive. A boy in second year had smacked another with a hurl after school on Monday, lamentably while still on school grounds, and broken his right leg; both lads said it was an accident but the invalid’s parents were threatening to sue. They also had an unprecedented number of new stu
dents joining them this term – including two girls who had moved on to her road – and though they were now a month into it, Trish hadn’t had a chance to introduce herself to any of them.

  And then there was the fact that they’d become the latest victim of the garden rat epidemic on Pine Road. There was a general relief among the neighbours that the rats had yet to make their way inside – and indeed Trish had no desire to arrive down for breakfast to find a dining companion already in situ – but she took such pride in her garden that the thought of the little fucker burrowing through her winter flower beds was a source of great distress.

  ‘Show me it,’ she said finally, rising to her feet and pushing back the chair. ‘I presume the bathroom is blocked off?’

  Gormless Paul scrambled to his feet too. ‘Well, I wasn’t sure if—’

  ‘Jesus Christ! Students are still using it? Have been using it since yesterday?’

  ‘I . . .’

  She threw up her hands. ‘We’re going to have to say something publicly. There’s no way parents haven’t heard. I’m surprised the media hasn’t already been in contact. This is just the kind of thing that would have the Sun or the Daily Mail launching a campaign to increase the level of supervision in schools.’ Trish halted at the side of the desk as her insides gave an involuntary lurch. She had said that to frighten Gormless Paul but as soon as it was out, she realised she wasn’t exaggerating. That was exactly what would happen. She’d read about it if it was somebody else’s school. God, she wished it was somebody else’s school.

  ‘Go and get Brendan,’ she barked, letting go of the edge of the desk. ‘Tell him to bring the keys for the bathroom, and I’ll meet you both up there.’

  There were twenty minutes left in the current period so the corridors were all but empty. A new student passed her on the stairwell – Trish recognised every teenager who had been in her charge before this term – but she hadn’t the time to stop and introduce herself.

  ‘Have you a pass?’

  The girl held up a toilet break card.

  ‘Right,’ she allowed, striding on. ‘Back to class.’

  Trish walked with confidence, stopping twice to pick up loose copybook pages and a well-chewed pen lid. She folded the lined paper and slid it into her back pocket and kept the lid for the bin. Her steps echoed along the first-floor corridor.