‘And you sound like a smug, narcissistic arsehole!’ That wiped the smile from his face. ‘And if I do sound hysterical, Robert, then it’s your fault. This’ – Martha picked up the printout from the floor and waved it in his face – ‘is your fault!’
‘I don’t think that’s fair—’
‘None of it is fair!’ Martha was so full of rage now she could barely get her thoughts into sentences. ‘You have no idea what your daughters, and I, went through when you were off playing the hero.’
‘I know you—’
‘You don’t know anything! I have never felt so powerless in my life and Sinead . . .’ The thought of it, the memory of her daughter. ‘Sinead was humiliated.’ She would not cry. She let this sink in. She was done crying. ‘It was horrendous and we are all struggling to come to terms with it, and Sinead can’t. She thinks all men are out for themselves, that they’re a threat to her, and she can’t see anyone contradicting that.’
‘I don’t know what you mean by that, but I am certainly not a threat to my daughter.’ Robert was angry now too. Good, thought Martha. Show me you’re not okay! I know I’m not being fair to you. I know you’re not that bad. Don’t just take this shit; throw it back at me! ‘I do the best for Sinead and you and Orla. I took a massive risk and you act like—’
‘You put us at risk!’
Robert jumped at the ferocity. She was screaming now, screaming aloud for all the times she had done so silently into whatever material was lying about.
But she did not want to wake the girls. She took a deep breath and calmed herself.
Robert, too, spoke more calmly. ‘I know you blame me for what happened and I get it,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t have come to our house if I didn’t work in the bank. I was the target and you were collateral. But I don’t think it’s fair, Martha. I didn’t ask for this.’
Martha looked at him, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘I don’t blame you because they came to our house, Robert!’ How did he not get this? How was he so bloody obtuse? ‘I blame you because you left us! We should have been in it together but you were in it for yourself. You saw the chance to play the hero and you took it.’
‘And it worked.’
‘Yeah! But what if it hadn’t? What if your risk hadn’t worked?’
‘I knew—’
‘Stop saying that! You didn’t know. None of us knew anything. You said it yourself. You took a risk – you. On your own. You took a risk with our lives. You couldn’t just do what they said. You couldn’t just be the subordinate one for once, for me. For the girls. For your family!’ Martha closed her eyes and waited.
It fizzled up, bursting to the surface. ‘You lied! You said you would go and get the money and come back, but you lied, to me. You lied to me!’
‘I lied to the crooks. I was saying what they wanted to hear.’
‘No, Robert. You were speaking to me. You lied to me! I thought – we thought—’ She saw her girls falling to pieces, tasted the sick in her mouth. Those few minutes, when it was technically all over, when they still didn’t know.
‘Everyone thinks you’re the hero and it sickens me so much that I can’t even look at you.’ She spoke softly, watching the words pierce Robert, relieved at least to know he could still hurt. ‘You put us in jeopardy and then you were the one rewarded. Medal, promotion, all of it, everything worked out for you. But me and the girls, we’re still struggling.’ She picked up the printout off the floor. ‘And some are struggling more than others.’
Robert opened his mouth but in the time it took to formulate a response, Martha had left the room. She climbed the stairs, Sinead’s phone in hand, but stopped herself when she got to her daughter’s door. It was nearly midnight. Sinead would be asleep and it wouldn’t do any good to wake her. It would still have happened in the morning and Martha would be a little calmer.
She diverted her path towards her own bedroom, catching her reflection in the mirror. Lines showed around her eyes, and new ones formed at the side of her mouth. She smiled, then dropped it. Smiled, then dropped it again. She sat heavily on the bed and exhaled loudly. For a moment, she let her hands cover her face. Aware, then, that the curtains were still open, and how Carmel across the road had once been able to see right into this bedroom, she walked across to the window.
She put her hand on the curtain and glanced outside. She went to pull the thick material across, but she froze.
Her insides tightened and her arm, outstretched towards the curtain, went rigid.
She stared and she stared but the vision did not change.
Out there, on her new street, was the man with the soulful eyes.
*** Pine Road Poker ***
Fiona:
Anyone see a blue hairbrush on the road? Willow thinks she dropped it earlier. If y’all could keep a lookout, maybe check outside your houses, that’d be great. Thanks, gals! XXX
Carmel:
Didn’t see one.
Fiona:
OK. Thanks anyway, Carmel XXX
Ruby:
Had a look outside our gate, no sign.
Fiona:
Thanks for checking, hun! XXX
Ellen:
I swept our path this evening and didn’t see anything.
Fiona:
Thanks, Ellen. XXX
Edie:
Just home. No sign.
Fiona:
Thanks for looking, Edie hun. Hope you had a fab night. XXX
TWENTY-ONE
‘Jesus Christ, Eddy!’
Robin brought her hand to her heart, but kept her keys clenched in her fist as she turned to face her ex. ‘Why are you creeping about outside my house?’
She caught her breath and watched as Eddy stepped out from the side of the tree. He was wearing the coat she’d bought him last winter. She’d bought it but, just like everything else, he’d paid for it.
‘I told you not to be stalking my parents’ house.’
Eddy looked up at her parents’ bedroom window. ‘How’s my son?’
‘He’s asleep. Everyone’s asleep.’
‘You’re not,’ he said, looking her up and down. ‘Out somewhere nice?’
‘That’s none of your business. If you want to see Jack, then fine, phone me tomorrow, at a reasonable hour. But other than that . . . we don’t have anything to say to each other.’
Eddy just kept nodding. Robin clenched her keys tighter.
‘So that’s it? I look after you and your kid—’
‘Our kid, Eddy.’
‘—for five years and then, that’s it?’
How had she been so in thrall to this man, and for so long? When Robin and her college friends started going to club nights, they’d met Eddy and he’d invited them back to his place for after parties. He had a penthouse. They thought it was the coolest fucking thing, and when he put his eye on Robin she was honoured. It was like she’d proven the thing that mattered so much to her – that she was sexier, more desirable, cooler, than all the others.
She knew why she’d been in thrall for so long. She’d had a nice life, and she’d done nothing to earn it.
‘What do you want, Eddy?’
‘I asked you to do one thing for me. Do it and I’ll stop turning up like this. It’s nothing, Robin. Just say we were watching films Halloween night. I’ve already told the cops I was with you, so if you don’t go to them, they’re going to come and ask for your side, sooner or later.’
Even though he wasn’t saying anything new, something about it niggled.
‘You, me and Jacko watching Hocus Pocus, your favourite, then we went to bed and woke up together, happy families, on the first of November. It’s easy, Robin. Do you hear me?’
‘November first?’
‘Halloween to November first, yeah. No big deal.’
‘You need me to cover for where you were on the morning of November first.’
‘Right, and the night before, yeah.’
Robin looked across the road at Martha’s h
ouse where all the curtains were closed and the lights off. What were the chances? Surely not. Still, she pulled Eddy back behind the tree.
‘I thought it was to do with the Bye Bye TV Bills Dot Com boxes. But—’
‘It doesn’t matter what it’s to do with, babe.’
Fuckedy fuck.
‘Did you rob a house, Eddy?’ she hissed. ‘Did you? Do you need me to cover for a fucking robbery?’
‘It doesn’t matter what it was,’ he said emphatically. ‘You don’t need to know. It’s easier. I promise it was nothing bad. I swear on Jack’s life.’
‘Do not swear on his life, you shit! Oh Jesus. Was it a . . .’ But if she said ‘tiger raid’, he’d know. Presumably he had no idea his victims had moved in across the road. Poor Martha and the girls.
‘You just go into the station and tell them—’
‘Do you swear it wasn’t a robbery?’
‘Jesus, babe. It doesn’t matter what it was . . .’
Oh fuckedy fuck fuck fuck.
‘I have to go in.’ Robin turned back towards her house, but Eddy caught her arm.
‘Ow, Eddy. Christ!’ She tried to reef it from his grasp.
‘I’m not fucking around, Robin,’ he whispered. ‘The guards will be asking you to verify my whereabouts and you better not let me down.’
‘Let go,’ Robin stressed, yanking her arm away. She marched back up the path and, ignoring the tremor in her hand, pushed the key into the lock and opened the door.
She got inside and she leaned against it. Deep breaths, nobody panic. She was okay. She was fine.
She wasn’t fine. Her heart was pounding.
An armed gang . . .
Balaclavas . . .
Tied to radiators . . .
She put her hand to her chest to stop her heart busting out.
Martha whipped the curtains across so quickly she worried she might pull them down.
How had he found them?
Was he here because she’d seen his face? Was it because she’d gotten in touch with the police again? Were they closing in on him? Had he come to shut her up?
The bedroom door opened and Robert walked in, already starting to unbutton his shirt.
‘Martha? What are you doing?’
She looked at her husband but she couldn’t speak.
‘What?’ he said, dropping his hands from his shirt. ‘What is it?’
*** Pine Road Poker ***
Fiona:
False alarm, gals! Willow just found the brush in her schoolbag. Thanks for checking everyone. You’re all KWEENS!! xxx
TWENTY-TWO
The snap in the backyard is the first thing. The familiar sound of Oscar padding back to the house post morning pee, trampling on a twig, breaking it under paw. Martha will let him in in a minute, when she is done assembling lunches and straining her vocal cords in an attempt to rally the rest of the house.
‘Come on, girls! You’re going to be late!’
She grabs three oranges from the punnet beside the fruit bowl – she really needs to clear out that bowl and start actually using it for fruit – and fires them into the lunchboxes: Sinead, Orla, Robert.
Each easy-peeler lands neatly in its intended plastic container.
Hat-trick.
‘Robert! Don’t forget your shirt is hanging in the hot press!’
No butter on Sinead’s sandwich, crusts off Orla’s, extra ham for Robert.
‘Orla! Sinead! Let’s go!’
Tinfoil around the sandwiches and the right one dropped into each box: Sinead, Orla, Robert.
The sound of movement upstairs – finally – and then another stick breaking in the yard, this one closer to the back door. Martha goes to turn to let Oscar in but Sinead enters the kitchen then, halfway through a sentence – ‘There’s no conditioner . . .’ – and Martha is annoyed to see she’s still in her pyjamas. In the same moment Martha remembers she hasn’t let Oscar out for his morning pee yet. The dog is still asleep where he shouldn’t be, upstairs at the foot of Orla’s bed, and so there is no pet to be breaking twigs at the back door.
Sinead is staring beyond her mother and Martha turns instinctively, not yet having time to be concerned. Glass smashes and she sees what her daughter sees. A man with impenetrable black where his face should be turning the handle of their back door – the door Martha chose when they had the kitchen redone so it was almost entirely glass and thus let in more light – and behind him two, three, four more men, all without faces, all coming into her home.
‘Oh.’ Martha’s hand flies to her dressing gown, as if these are breakfast guests who’ve arrived early and caught her before she’s had time to fix herself.
‘Robert,’ she says timidly.
But her husband isn’t with her. He’s two storeys above in the master bedroom, searching everywhere but the hot press for his shirt.
‘Get out!’ Sinead shouts, waving her arms in front of her, like she’s batting away flies. ‘Get out!’
Her daughter’s outrage jolts Martha to life. ‘Robert!’ She shouts it this time. Then she roars: ‘Robert!!!’
The first man grabs Martha, twisting her hand until she drops the lunchbox lid – Robert’s lunchbox lid – and placing her in a headlock. Another man grabs Sinead, who starts kicking and screaming: ‘Get off me! Get off me!’ The other three run past, through the kitchen, and Martha hears them on the stairs. The last one bangs the door against the wall and Martha, whose head is now bent downwards, sees the handle dent the wall and a shard of paint fall to the tiled floor.
‘Robert!’ she screams as best she can with such pressure on her neck. ‘Call the guards!’
The man holding Sinead slams the kitchen door shut. Her daughter tries to wriggle free and he takes his hand off the handle and slaps her across the face. It’s so swift Martha wonders if it happened at all. It seems incongruous. Nobody has ever raised a hand to her daughter. But the whole room is still now. Sinead goes quiet, limp, and Martha feels the sting on her own cheek.
Two of the other three come back through the kitchen door, the first shoving Orla ahead of him – Orla throws her mother an indignant look, as if this is all Martha’s doing, as if the battle to get them up for school on time has been taken up a notch – and between them, they’re holding Robert. Robert is wearing his suit trousers, shoes and a vest.
Three times she told him his shirt was in the hot press. Three times.
She’s glad Orla at least is in her uniform. Sinead’s threadbare Harry Potter pyjamas look so much flimsier against the thick black material of the men’s jumpers and balaclavas.
‘They locked Oscar upstairs. He hasn’t had his pee.’
‘Get in there,’ the one holding Robert growls, distorting his voice with depth. ‘Get the fuck in there.’
All four of them are shoved into the living room, Orla’s jumper catching on the door handle. ‘Ow!’ She is crying now. ‘You hurt me.’
‘Don’t hurt her!’
But they all ignore Martha. Or maybe they didn’t hear. Her own voice sounds so far away. The one holding Robert throws pieces of rope around and Martha watches as they start to tie Orla to the radiator.
‘No! No! No! N—’
A hand across her own face now and this time the pain is real: sharp, stinging, blinding her momentarily. She is shoved on to her hunkers, and then falls fully to one side. They are all being tied to the radiators. Her and Orla on one, Robert and Sinead on the other.
‘The heat,’ she stutters, wondering if her jaw is broken.
She opens and closes it. Sore but working.
‘The heat will come on in a minute,’ she says louder, her voice still sounding like she’s left it echoing in the kitchen.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ growls the man tying up Robert, the one clearly in charge.
Orla whimpers gently, in that sorry-for-herself way she does when she’s finished with the real tears but isn’t quite ready to shake hands. Her hair falls in sheets over her face so Martha can onl
y catch glimpses of the blotchy skin beneath.
Sinead stares into space, lost in a daze. It seems unnatural, even in this environment. Sinead always has something to say. Perhaps that man slapped the words out of her. If I’d known that I might have tried it sooner, Martha thinks, by way of a joke, and feels suddenly, violently ill. She can see the outline of her daughter’s breasts beneath Harry Potter’s face. There’s a toothpaste stain over the wizard’s scar. She wants to tell her daughter to lean forward slightly, to slacken the material, not to remind them of what she is, of what they have.
Martha looks at her daughter’s long, scrawny legs, the knees scratched from soccer, and is suddenly livid. Why didn’t you put on a jumper? Why didn’t you cover up?
A couple of the men leave the room and one returns with Robert’s shirt. He found it in the hot press without her having to say a thing. He unties her husband and watches as he dresses.
The man in charge is telling Robert what he has to do. He has to go to work, take money out of the safe – €240,000 is what they’re expecting, they don’t say how they know, just that they do – and bring it back to them.
‘Simple,’ says the boss man. They use that word a lot and Martha starts to believe them. Robert will return with the money and then the men will leave. Robert won’t breathe a word of it to anyone, and the men won’t kill his family. Simple.
Orla watches the men as they speak, her head like an umpire at a tennis match, and Sinead continues to stare into space.
They won’t turn on the heat if he comes back with the money, the boss man says. They won’t slit his wife’s throat, they won’t take turns fucking his little girls. ‘It’s simple, Robert.’ So, so simple.
Robert looks from one man to another, and Martha knows what he’s doing. He’s wondering if this is an inside job. He’s studying their eyes to see if he recognises them. There’s no point, she thinks, you’ll only make them mad. Who cares about the money? It’s not their money. Martha didn’t realise how similar eyes were until now; body shape is the only way she can tell these men apart.
‘Just do what they say,’ she tells Robert, not realising she’s been crying until the words get caught in phlegm. In her head, she is exceedingly calm and she’s surprised to find her limbs are shaking, her throat contracting, that her body has betrayed her.
Three Little Truths Page 17
