Three Little Truths

by Eithne Shortall

  ‘I do so care about Shay Morrissey. I care very fucking deeply. I hate the fucking arsehole.’

  ‘Okay fine, you hate him. But that’s not why you’re annoyed.’ Edie threw herself down on the stairs. ‘I don’t even think you are annoyed about last night. I think you’re annoyed because I want a baby and you don’t.’ She wiped at her nose. She was calling his bluff, looking to be reassured. ‘I thought you wanted kids but you didn’t. You don’t. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s that simple.’

  ‘I just see the realities, Edie. I realise how unsteady running my own business can be. I saw how easily a bad year could leave us broke.’

  Edie’s mind flashed to her favourite fantasy – her, Daniel and two kids, one girl, one boy, curled up in bed on a rainy Sunday afternoon watching Up – and she started to sob again. She brought the collar of her shirt to her nostrils and blew. She’d have to wash it at 40 degrees now, and the instructions said no higher than 30. Why didn’t she have a tissue? Someone like Martha would have a tissue.

  ‘Please stop crying.’

  ‘I don’t know why this is happening.’ A dull ache expanded in her chest. ‘We used to talk about having kids, years before we were married, it was always the plan.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Edie,’ he said, though he didn’t sound sorry. He sounded cross, bored even. He didn’t sound like her Daniel. ‘How many times do I have to say it? I’m sorry. Things happen. People are allowed to change their mind. And I’m not saying I never – I just – there’s a lot to consider. I’m not sure I’m the right person to be looking after a child. I’m not responsible enough.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Edie shrieked, flinching at her own pitch. ‘Where is this coming from? You’re just making stuff up now!’

  ‘I’m stressed enough as it is. Jesus!’ Daniel put his two hands on top of his head. ‘I don’t need this!’

  And before Edie could shout at him to stop being such a bloody martyr, he was storming into the kitchen. She heard the back door open and slam – as if they hadn’t given the neighbours enough to talk about already – and knew he was going out to throw around tools in his shed.

  Another ovulation weekend ruined.

  Edie sat on the stairs and felt the potential child evaporate into the ether.

  *** Pine Road Poker ***

  Rita Ann:

  Was that the guards just leaving Pine Road?

  Fiona:

  WHAT???

  Rita Ann:

  Squad car just left. I took its parking space. Anyone see what house they called to?

  Fiona:

  I actually feel a bit faint.

  This cannot be good for property values.

  Ruby:

  Probably calling to Shay Morrissey about this afternoon’s land grab.

  Unless you finally filed a missing report on your newspapers, Rita Ann?

  Ellen:

  I presumed they were heading for you, Fiona, about the stolen wheels.

  They weren’t going to Morrissey’s. They were walking up the road.

  Fiona:

  Definitely nothing to do with us! You saw them, Ellen?? How far up the road did they go? Was it our side or the other side??

  Ellen:

  How should I know how far they went? I have better things to be doing than standing on my doorstep all afternoon.

  I’m in the middle of a serious spring clean.

  My money’s on the new people. I always thought their sudden move had something to do with C R I M E.

  Ruby:

  You realise spelling out words doesn’t work in text, right, Ellen? Like, literally, makes zero difference.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Hey,’ said Cormac, stepping forward just as Robin pulled back.

  He turned the thwarted kiss into an uncertain smile. ‘Everything okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, still holding the door. ‘You’re early.’

  ‘Maybe a few minutes . . .’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I like your house.’

  ‘It’s exactly the same as your mam’s house, no?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘I haven’t been inside this one yet.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She forced her hand off the bolt. ‘Come in.’

  She stood to one side and Cormac entered. He kissed her on the mouth.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi,’ she replied, smiling, then immediately feeling awful again. ‘Martha said her son’s name was Ellis. I remember because the first dog we ever had was called Ellis. He was terrified of birds.’

  ‘Is that Mick?’ Carmel’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Did he get Jack—Oh, hello.’ Carmel stopped in the doorway between kitchen and hall. ‘Who’s this, then?’ she said, advancing quickly.

  ‘This is Cormac. Or possibly Ellis.’

  ‘Cormac,’ Carmel cooed. ‘We’ve heard a bit about you. The hipster journalist. Aren’t you handsome? Moustache wouldn’t be quite to my taste, mind, but still.’

  ‘Mam.’ Robin closed her eyes.

  ‘I know, I’m old. I don’t get why you’d want rips in your jeans or to wear runners without laces, but sure look. Nice to meet you, Cormac.’

  ‘Nice to meet you too, Mrs Dwyer.’ Cormac pushed back his fringe and held out a hand.

  ‘God, I remember when your father had hair like that. The sort of mane you could lose your fingers in, or more if—’

  ‘Mam, please.’

  ‘You from around here, Cormac?’

  ‘I’m from Limerick, originally . . .’

  ‘Very nice, very nice . . .’

  ‘But I’ve been living up in Dublin for seven years, since I went to college.’

  ‘Cormac is Martha Rigby’s son,’ said Robin, not wanting to invite a thousand questions but knowing Inspector Carmel would hit upon the key piece of information eventually.

  ‘Martha Rigby? Across-the-road Martha Rigby? Get away. I didn’t know that. Did you know that, Robin? You didn’t tell me that. She tells me nothing, Cormac.’

  ‘I just found out.’

  ‘Get away,’ Carmel said again. ‘I didn’t know – oh wait, I did know she had an older son, but hang on now. It wasn’t Cormac . . . What was it?’

  ‘Ellis,’ provided Cormac-slash-Ellis.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘My family are the only ones who call me Ellis. Everyone else uses my surname. Cormack. It’s my dad’s name.’

  ‘Ellis Cormack,’ said Robin, silently adding the ‘k’ to how she’d been hearing it. Cormack the surname, not the first name.

  ‘Three different surnames in the one family. You’re practically American! Of course, Pine Road has always been very progressive. We’ve two lesbians at number thirteen. Married. Did Robin tell you that? I was invited to their wedding. Very classy affair, gorgeous salmon. There’s a civil partnership on Elm Road, but what’s that to boast about? It’s not 2015, people. No, Pine Road is very diverse, we have two families with double-barrelled names, although their children won’t necessarily thank them for that bit of “progression”, especially if they already have ridiculous Frenchy first names . . .’

  ‘Okay, well, we might just go for a walk . . .’

  ‘Ah no. No, no, no. Youse go on into the kitchen. I’m going upstairs anyway to do my correspondences.’ Carmel waved her phone at them. ‘We had a bit of drama on the road today – over parking, of course. This yoke has been leaping ever since. Right, good luck,’ she said, heading for the stairs.

  On the third step, Carmel stopped. ‘You’re Martha’s son.’ It dawned on her, finally.

  ‘Yeah. Martha’s son. I just found out.’ Robin widened her eyes, telling Carmel to zip it. No matter how stealthy her mother thought she was being, she never was.

  ‘Right, well, let none of us do anything we might regret, especially when we don’t know anything for sure and it wouldn’t achieve anything anyway. As the old saying goes.’ Then Carmel winked at her daughter. Except the only place Carmel could wink was in her head. In reality,
she just leaned forward and blinked, slowly.

  Robin grimaced.

  ‘Is that a saying?’ whispered Cormac as they made their way down the steps into the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t mind her. She drinks at lunch. So. Tea?’

  ‘Yeah, great, thanks.’ Cormac stood beside the kitchen table, his hand idly rubbing the surface. ‘It is like my mum’s place. Different décor – they’ve got wooden floors, which make the stairs noisy, especially when my sisters are pounding up them – but the layout’s the same.’

  Robin busied herself with the kettle and cups. ‘We have coffee either,’ she said, opening and closing cupboards, even though the tea and coffee were already out on the worktop.

  ‘Tea is fine.’

  ‘Two teas. All right. Coming up.’ Robin glanced over her shoulder to see him flicking through one of her brother’s kayaking brochures. She opened the fridge and retrieved the milk.

  ‘So, do you know my mum, then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say I know her. We have some biscuits too, if you like?’ An hour ago, Robin was dying to talk to this man about Martha. Now, there was nothing she wanted to discuss less.

  ‘My sister Sinead is finding it hard to fit in, but Dublin seems to be growing on Mum. She had such a busy social life in Limerick. It was a tough move, for all of them.’

  ‘She mentioned the tiger raid, all right,’ said Robin, handing him a mug of tea. She went to sit but was too fidgety. She leaned against the cooker instead.

  ‘She told you about that?’ Cormac was taken aback. ‘You must know her well enough, then.’

  ‘Well,’ said Robin, doing her best to shrug off the conversation, ‘another neighbour came across an article about it. Your mam only mentioned it briefly. Anyway, how are you? How was your Saturday morning? Oh! You got your hair cut. I didn’t even notice.’ Robin took a long loud slurp but the tea was far too hot. ‘It suits you,’ she managed to squeak out as her throat and mouth burned. ‘Very . . . short.’

  ‘Thanks?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘You saw me last night.’

  ‘That was good too. I like seeing you. I like you.’

  She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t carry on like she didn’t know anything. She liked him too – she really, really liked him – but it wasn’t right. Right?

  ‘How’s the tea?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good, good.’

  ‘Everything okay, Robin?’

  ‘Yeah. Fine. Why?’

  ‘You seem jumpy.’

  Robin pursed her lips and shrugged. Maybe she should just tell him; just go ahead and tell him that she knew who had done that to his family.

  ‘Is it this secret you’re keeping?’

  ‘What?’ barked Robin, the tea slopping in her mug. ‘There’s no secret. I’m not keeping any secret.’

  ‘Last night you said you had something to tell me, and I said I had something to tell you. A secret for a secret, remember?’ He got up from his seat and walked over to her. ‘It’s okay,’ he assured her, half-laughing. ‘It can’t be that bad.’ He took her face gently in his hand. ‘I’ll be able to take it.’

  Jack. He meant Jack.

  ‘I like you, Robin.’

  ‘I like you,’ she whispered, in spite of herself. And when he kissed her, she leaned in; she pressed her body against his and waited for his arms to reach around her. She let herself sink into the kiss. Why don’t people kiss more? she thought for the umpteenth time since meeting him. Cormac gave excellent kisses.

  ‘Better now?’

  The kindness in his voice and on his face bolstered her. She would tell him about Jack. She would start with that and then she would see.

  ‘Okay, come on,’ she said, picking up their barely touched mugs of tea and throwing the liquid down the sink. ‘I can’t sit in here, I can’t concentrate.’ She grabbed a jacket from the pile on the chair. ‘Let’s go for a walk and swap secrets.’

  Cormac followed her out of the kitchen and up the hall. ‘And that’s how you make an unappealing conversation sound romantic.’

  *** Pine Road Poker ***

  Ruby:

  Madeline says she saw them too. They definitely didn’t go to the new people because when she spotted them, they were across from us and still walking up.

  It must be someone at the top of the road.

  Ellen:

  Well, it certainly wasn’t us.

  Fiona:

  Did they call to you, Trish? Was it to do with the school? Or to you, Bernie? Or Edie?

  [Fiona is typing]

  I just hope everyone’s okay XXX

  Carmel:

  Hello all. I did not see the coppers but I *did* just meet Robin’s new man. Very handsome!

  Ellen:

  Is that little Jack’s father, or another man?

  Fiona:

  That’s great, Carmel hun. Delira for Robin XXX

  (Did he see anything, maybe? XXX)

  Carmel:

  Fiona – thanks. Ellen – it’s another man; I’ll draw you a chart so you can keep track.

  Re: The Fuzz: It was probably about earlier. Maybe they called to Edie and Daniel? Whoever it was, it’s none of our business.

  Ellen:

  I couldn’t agree more. Nothing as unseemly as gossip.

  Fiona:

  I just hope everyone’s okay XXX

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Trish’s phone was hopping. All the yelling had died down and everyone had gone back indoors, but the post-match analysis was only beginning.

  Fiona thought it was like an episode of Ireland’s Crime Feuds and Ruby, who pointed out that Fiona hadn’t been there for the whole thing, said it was actually more like Gang Wars. Ellen said Ross Kemp looked quite like her Joe and Ruby had responded with a long line of those stupid crying-laughing emojis. Things were rarely crying-laughing funny.

  Trish would not be getting involved. Ted had gotten into an argument with Shay Morrissey’s daughters about parking once and the next day all the colour had been stripped from the bonnet of their car. She’d like to have put her phone on silent, but she was waiting on the call.

  She’d phoned the board of management chair that morning, not wanting to wake the man last night when Emily had come into Trish and Ted’s bedroom and told them what she knew. Normally she wouldn’t say anything, her daughter had said, making it clear this was a one-off and she was not spying on the student body for Trish, but several of the girls on that list were her friends.

  It actually hadn’t been that late. It was probably just after 11 p.m. when Emily came home from a party at a friend’s house and sat at the end of their bed and told them who’d written the list. A lot of gossip flew around Saint Ornatín’s – both the staffroom and the classrooms – but her daughter believed this story, and unfortunately so did Trish.

  She could have gotten out of bed there and then, gone downstairs, unplugged her phone from the kitchen and phoned Norman Roster, the management chair. But she hadn’t. She’d given herself the night to toss and turn and dwell on it. Even this morning when she finally brought herself to pick up the phone, she tried putting it off, tried telling herself it was a Saturday and to leave it until Monday. In the end, she had done the right thing – and the best thing for her career.

  She’d had as brief a conversation as she could, supplying Norman with the basic facts; he said he’d look into the best course of action and get back to her. So now Trish was playing the waiting game. Sitting at her kitchen island, staring out the glass walls into her beloved garden and willing the phone both to ring – so she could get it over with – and to spontaneously combust – so she could ignore the whole thing a little longer.

  Today had been the first day that Saint Ornatín’s had not appeared in any newspapers – although Virgin Media was making a documentary about Ireland’s Sexed-Up Teens, so no doubt they could look forward to a mention in that – and it would be good to draw a li
ne under it. If nothing else it would be the end of Bernie Watters-Reilly banging on her door demanding answers whenever she felt like it.

  At that, the knocker pounded and Trish jumped from the island stool. Had she invoked the devil through thought alone?

  But no, padding up the hallway in her stockinged feet, she could see through the frosted glass that it was two people, both too tall to be Bernie. She undid the latch.

  ‘Oh, hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ replied Martha Rigby, her eldest daughter standing half a foot behind her. ‘Do you mind if we come in?’

  TWENTY-NINE

  ‘Shay.’ Edie was still pressing the heel of her hand into the puffy skin beneath her eyes when she opened the door. ‘Eh . . . Hi.’

  Her neighbour stood on their step, scratching awkwardly at his face. The red shine to the left of his nose was already on its way to becoming a bruise. A lamentably vivid memory of his sad, pale arse flashed before her.

  ‘The guards weren’t calling to youse, then no?’ he said, raking his upper lip with his teeth as he peered into the hallway.

  ‘The guards? No. Why?’ Had he called the police? She told Daniel this would happen. This was exactly what she said would happen.

  What would Bernie Watters-Reilly say when she saw a squad car pulling up outside their house, sirens blaring? What would Fiona say? She was hosting the next poker game. Edie could forget about being invited to that, not once Fiona started looking up the effect residential disputes had on house prices.

  ‘Should we be expecting the guards?’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t call them,’ said Shay. ‘Just thought someone else might have. I saw a couple of them walking up the road. Thought I’d come and see.’ He stopped scratching. ‘Your hubby’s an animal and I’d be only delighted if his finger got stuck in his nose and the nail continued to grow but, you know, we’re neighbours.’ Shay shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t go ratting him out to the coppers.’

  ‘So you didn’t call them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. Phew.’ Edie exhaled. ‘Thanks.’

  He nodded. ‘No bother.’

  Edie looked out on to the street. The guards had been on Pine Road? Did the others know about this? She patted her pockets. Her phone was still in her jacket.