Sam’s disappearance had brought back her old sense of rootlessness. In the days that had followed, a series of memories of London life had engulfed her. Crossing Waterloo Bridge on a bus and seeing the Thames Clippers churning their way down towards Greenwich. Wandering round Tate Modern or Whitechapel Gallery, or choosing from dozens of cinemas when you fancied seeing a film. Crocuses in Kew Gardens and Green Park in springtime, and ice skating at Somerset House under twinkling Christmas lights. More than once when she’d been trying to read Brooklyn, she’d found herself dreaming of Hampstead and Marylebone High Street, pop-up boutiques in Smithfield and street food in Hackney. She’d even woken up one night from a dream of Columbia Flower Market and winced at the memory of the scent of lilies the night Sam had left.
‘So why not go back to London?’
‘Because I’ve got a job here. And family. And I’ve been mad enough to agree to be a head bridesmaid at a huge double wedding next year.’
She’d realised recently that the wedding stuff was beginning to do her head in. Still, she couldn’t leave poor Eileen in the lurch just because Sam had walked out.
‘No family over there?’
‘My dad. Who’s the reason I ended up here, actually. He and my mum split up.’
‘I’ve got Irish family, though I’ve never been here before. I can’t think why not. It’s stunning.’ He was lolling comfortably in the heather not showing any inclination to go.
Jazz tucked Brooklyn into her bag and relaxed beside him. ‘So, what do you mean you’re a marathon man?’
‘I run them. London. Paris. Los Angeles next year, if I’m lucky.’
‘That’s cool.’
‘It allows me to travel. That’s the point of the travel journalism too.’
‘I used to work for an airline.’
‘Now, that’s really cool.’
‘Not really. It was a budget airline, and most of my flights were to places like Alicante. I did share a flat in France with a bunch of other trolley dollies, though.’
‘A bunch of what?’
‘Cabin crew. That’s what my dad called us. He’s such a snob.’ She turned her head and looked at Mike, half surprised at how willing she felt to confide in him. It was almost as if his easy, self-contained air was in some way familiar. ‘You know, I keep thinking I’ve moved on from all that crap and then it ambushes me again. Still, it’s behind me now. I’m here in Lissbeg with a different job and a flat that’s all my own.’
And no Sam, said her mind, so what’s the point of any of it?
Suddenly she felt awkward. ‘Is this what they taught you in journalism school? How to grill people for the story of their lives?’
‘Was I grilling you? Sorry, I don’t mean to. Anyway, no, that’s not what they taught us. It was mainly software and microphone add-ons, and what kind of filter to use for African sunsets. That sort of thing.’ He indicated the ocean. ‘Literally, that sort of thing.’ The setting sun was producing spectacular effects on the sky behind the island, framing its rocky outline with streaks of crimson light. ‘It’s amazing. Very Bali Ha’i.’
‘As in South Pacific? You’re on the Wild Atlantic Way here, remember? That’s not Bali Ha’i, mate, it’s Hy-Brasil.’
‘Really? That’s what it’s called?’
‘No, not really. Hy-Brasil is Ireland’s mystical, magical island. It appears every seven years, wreathed in mist. Same sort of thing as Bali Ha’i, though. The Land of Heart’s Desire. The idea of a dream place on the horizon must be some kind of universal theme.’
‘Every seven years, huh? You’ve got to admire our timing.’
Instinctively they leaned forward, as if drawn by the shimmering island.
‘What’s its actual name?’
‘Big Rock.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yup. Carraig Mór. I love how people who invented romantic notions like Hy-Brasil came up with prosaic place names like Big Rock and High Hill.’
‘I’ve never been to a musical, but we saw the film of South Pacific at college. It’s a kind of watershed moment in movie history. A crossover point between stage lighting and film. Lots of pink, blue, and gold filters, and an island out in the distance creating unreal effects.’
‘Like that?’ Jazz gestured at the ocean where a shivering path of blood-red light stretched from below the cliff where they sat out to Carraig Mór. The sky was now streaked with blue and gold and, as they watched, the clouds round the island shifted and it disappeared in a swirl of amber mist.
Mike burst out laughing. ‘Exactly like that.’
Scrambling to her feet, Jazz brushed dusty pieces of heather from her jeans. ‘You know, I really ought to go – I’ve been here ages.’
He stood up, too, and she wondered if he was planning to walk with her. Instead, he shook her hand again and smiled. Then, as he turned away, he glanced back. ‘How come you know South Pacific? It’s a bit ancient, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it’s based on a book of short stories.’
‘So?’
‘My mum was planning to show it at the library film club, so we watched it together one night. She decided not to show it in the end. I quite liked it, though.’
They’d watched it together in Mum’s house one evening last December, snuggled together in a shawl. Now, walking back towards Lissbeg in the warmth of the May evening, Jazz could almost feel the rough wool and smell its oily scent. She’d sat on the floor by the fireside chair with her arm across Mum’s knees. The wind was screaming so loudly through the ash trees that, at one point, they’d had to raise the volume to hear the film. Rain hurtled against the windows and occasional drops had spewed down the chimney, spattering the broad hearthstone with black spots. Mum had been burning black turf and salt-crusted driftwood, and spurts of blue and green had leapt through the red-gold flames as the scent of the woollen shawl had mixed with the scent of smoke from the fire.
As Jazz turned inland towards the town, the thought of that night sparked childhood memories of London, where Mum had read aloud to her as they’d sat together in an armchair in the conservatory. It had had velvet-covered feather cushions, and there was a polished table next to it where they used to stack their library books.
Maggie’s place was titchy compared to that tall terraced house in London. Jazz loved it, though. Its low ceilings, thick walls and little windows, and the wide stone hearth where firelight made coloured patterns, spoke to her of an adult, not a childish, sense of security and belonging. Finding out what a rat Dad had been had stripped both Mum and herself of a vital sense of assurance. Rediscovering and settling into Maggie’s house had been part of Mum’s healing process. Now, without Sam in her life, Jazz feared she might never complete her own.
Chapter Twenty
The next time Rasher was due to meet Saira, he was given the message by Martin. ‘She’ll be here at two.’
‘Right.’
‘So, make sure you’re punctual.’
‘Okay.’ He was getting a bit pissed off by all this fuss about timing. Living in the halfway house was far too much like being back at school.
Martin produced a letter from the piles on his big, messy desk. He beamed all over his craggy face and waved the page at Rasher. ‘What would you say if I told you I’d got you an interview for a job?’
Rasher looked at him cautiously, thinking this might be a joke. Ever since his bout of flu he’d felt mentally knackered, like he hadn’t the strength to cope when people messed him about. The trouble with Martin was that he went in for boisterous stuff, so half the time you couldn’t be sure he wasn’t having you on. Still, the letter looked convincing. It was headed ‘The Royal Victoria Hotel, Carrick’, in curly writing, and it turned out that Martin wasn’t holding it out to be read. It was more of a flourish, a sort of dramatic gesture, like the way he jumped up and came round the desk to give Rasher a thump on the chest. ‘There y’are now! This is the first step on a long road to where you want to be, boy. Make sure you pin back
your ears and listen to Saira. She’ll give you the low-down on how to make the right impression.’
‘So, what’s the job?’
‘It’s a foot on the ladder, that’s what it is. And that’s how you’ve got to see it. More to the point, it’s live-in, so it gives you a proper address.’
‘But what do I have to do?’
‘You’ve to keep your head down and your nose clean and give them no reason to sack you. D’you hear me? I spend half me life trying to place the likes of you, boy. Crawling to the feckers that run this town, telling them God will smile on their sins if they give a poor bastard a job. And, lookut, one eejit with his hand in a till can stymie things for everyone. So, I’m warning you, if you end up in a police cell, that’ll be the least of your troubles. Because when they let you out I’ll track you down and kill you. Have you got that?’
Rasher didn’t know if he meant it. Though he had a feeling he might. The word on the street was that Martin had been what they called a late vocation and the bishop himself wasn’t sure what he might do if he was roused. Probably the Church had to take what they could get, these days. You wouldn’t find many normal people wanting to be a priest.
‘Two o’clock, right? And mind your manners with Mrs Khan. She’s a great woman altogether.’
That seemed to be that, so Rasher decided to wait and ask Mrs Khan what the job was. By the sound of things, it was likely to be shite.
Bang on two o’clock he turned up in the tearoom and found her at a table reading a book. ‘So, what’s this job, then?’ He hadn’t intended to sound abrupt but, having hung around, he’d got more and more nervous since the talk with Martin. The job was going to be awful. Or scary. Something he’d hate or wouldn’t be able to do. And even if it turned out to be fantastic, he’d have to go through an interview. He’d never had a job in his life, not even a paper round. His mum and dad had always said he’d be better off doing his homework and, anyway, there’d been plenty of money at home. Nothing off the scale, but two decent wages, and he’d been an only kid. So, he hadn’t a clue about interviews. Would whoever it was ask him awkward questions? Would they know before he arrived that he’d been living rough on the street?
His mind was so full of questions that he hardly heard the Khan woman asking him to sit down. And – Holy God – that was exactly the sort of thing that would go wrong. He’d turn up at the interview and they’d ask him something – his name, say, or what age he was – and his head would be all over the place and he wouldn’t hear the question. Because, look at him now with Mrs Khan smiling at him, and she’d just said something else and he hadn’t heard that either, and here he was, still standing up like a fool.
He sat down on the plastic chair and heard it give a loud crack, like he might have broken it. Mrs Khan closed her book and didn’t seem to notice he was sweating.
‘The Royal Victoria Hotel is looking for a kitchen porter. Martin has spoken to the management and they’re happy to speak to you.’
‘And that would be the interview?’
‘Yes, and it won’t be formidable, Adam, I assure you. Just a chance for them to meet you and see if perhaps you might suit.’
Rasher frowned. ‘So, what’s a kitchen porter?’
She spread out a piece of paper on the table. ‘Someone very, very low in the kitchen pecking order. But you won’t mind that. See for yourself.’
The page looked like a printout from the internet. It began with shouty red writing saying that being a kitchen porter could be the most important step in your life. Then it went on in smaller black writing to admit that it was what was called ‘an entry-level position’, requiring discipline, stamina, determination, and a pair of rubber gloves.
Underneath that was a list of FAQs. The first was ‘What will I actually be doing?’ Rasher checked out the answer and looked up at Mrs Khan. She turned the paper round again and read out another shouty red bit about how chefs such as Michel Roux recognised and celebrated the importance of a kitchen porter in helping a commercial kitchen to run smoothly.
‘You see? It says there is even an annual Kitchen Porter of the Year awards ceremony, to celebrate the vital role that porters play.’
‘Doing the washing-up.’
‘Collecting it. Doing it. Checking all the surfaces are clean. Organising the storeroom. It will all matter. And your attitude will be important, Adam. As it says here, no matter how great the chef may be, if there are no clean pans nothing is going to get cooked.’
‘Right.’
‘It says conditions are tough. You need to be fit. It’s hot and crowded. People shout and swear.’
‘Yeah? Well, I’ll be fine dealing with all the shouting and swearing. Plenty of experience there.’
‘Adam?’
‘What?’
‘It also says the next step up is being a kitchen assistant. That from there you could look to becoming a trainee chef.’
‘With no Junior Cert?’
‘You could study in your spare time for that. It’s not impossible.’
Against his will, Rasher found he was getting a bit excited. ‘Yeah, but they’re not going to take me, are they? Not if there’s other people up for it. They won’t want a guy who’s been living on the street.’
Mrs Khan pushed back her chair. ‘Don’t underestimate Martin’s powers of persuasion. Or your own abilities. Would you like some tea?’
Feeling he ought to show a bit of politeness, Rasher stood up and said he’d get them in. ‘What way do you want it?’
‘I won’t have any myself, thank you.’
He wondered if she thought he had fleas or something, but she smiled.
‘It’s Ramadan. I’m a Muslim and during this festival we fast until sunset. But get yourself some. Then we’ll talk.’
Rasher went and joined the queue at the counter. He’d gathered that Ramadan worked a bit like Lent. You didn’t just give up chocolate, though, or say you’d keep off the fags. It was cold turkey, nothing at all, not even a cup of tea. He didn’t know much more about it, though people often assumed he was Muslim. Which was ironic because Mum and Dad had always been totally down on religion. They’d sent Rasher to Catholic schools because there wasn’t any option but, like half the kids, he hadn’t paid any attention in religious instruction classes. At national school the religious stuff was mostly drawing pictures, anyway. That and boasting about how much money you’d got for your First Communion. And in secondary he’d always tuned out and sat at the back with his phone.
All of which made it really ironic when Fergal arrived, after Dad died, and began making comments. Rasher had hated the sight of him from the first day that Mum had brought him home from some pub. He was a freckled git with a big belly on him, and a snide way of talking even when he was sober. You could tell he was a user and a loser, but Mum had bought into his macho crap and the smarmy pretend sympathy, and his stupid boxes of chocolates and bunches of flowers. He was nothing like Dad. But because Dad had always teased Mum and kind of made fun of her, she hadn’t spotted, like Rasher did, that this guy who’d picked her up was a proper dangerous bully. And because she’d taken to drinking herself, to numb the way she was feeling, she’d been okay with him lying around, knocking back cans of beer.
More often than not, it was when he was pissed that Fergal would start on Rasher. Not much to begin with, mainly corny, heavy-handed stuff that just about passed as a joke. After a few weeks, though, he was calling Rasher a mongrel.
‘Rashid! What kind of name is that?’
The answer was ‘It’s Egyptian, you stupid, thick bastard’, though Rasher tried to keep his mouth shut. But if you ignored Fergal, like people said you should with bullies, he kept on needling until finally you’d crack. Mostly Rasher would slam doors and Mum would get all weepy. But one day he’d lost it with Fergal and thrown a six-pack of beer at him, and Fergal had knocked him across the room and given him a fractured wrist.
That was when he’d first called Rasher the son of a b
loody ISIS terrorist, and told Mum that she’d want to watch out or the guards would raid the house. Rasher had known damn well what that was really about. He’d gone into Mum’s room one day and found the stash of weed Fergal kept under the bed.
Then, because he was staying out a lot, to avoid the stupid bastard, your man went round warning the neighbours that Rasher was radicalised. Which was totally mad, because he’d never been in a mosque and he’d run a mile if a bearded weirdo came near him. But one guy a few doors down had always muttered about foreigners handing out drugs in Irish hospitals, and soon he’d begun throwing Rasher dirty looks. Then, next thing, someone at school had scribbled ‘Allahu Akbar’ on his desk.
For a while he’d hung in there, because sometimes he’d manage to protect Mum when Fergal got vicious. And when he couldn’t get between them, at least he’d be there to take her to A & E. He’d always had to cart her across to St James’s on the south side because she wouldn’t want them to see her in the hospital where she worked.
After six months or so of this she’d stopped going in to work altogether, and at the time Rasher had been furious because none of her colleagues seemed to care. Which wasn’t really fair of him, because what could they do? They’d been nice enough when she’d first started missing shifts after Dad died, and someone from HR had rung more than once, but she’d just cut them off.
His Irish grandparents had always been iffy about Mum’s marriage to Dad. If Rasher had turned out looking like Mum, things might have been different. But he hadn’t, so they weren’t. Anyway, the grandparents lived miles away and Mum never rang them, and after a couple more months she’d pretty much stopped going out at all. Mostly she lay around on the couch, drinking with Fergal, and Rasher could tell from the rows they had that money was getting low. He’d kind of got his hopes up then that, once there was nothing left, Fergal would leave.
The Month of Borrowed Dreams Page 12
