Martha looked at Cillian. ‘Ten years? That’s about a third of the rest of my life, I’d say.’
‘You reckon you’re shuffling off your mortal coil before you hit sixty-five? Seems a little premature.’
‘Not if you take the wine, fags and sausage rolls into account.’
‘You have a point.’
‘Are they my socks you’re wearing?’ she asked.
‘Sorry. I didn’t bring a spare pair to your apartment yesterday.’
Martha blushed, which he knew she hated. She said it made her hair seem even redder. And while she referred to herself sometimes as Big Foot, Cillian knew she could be a little sensitive about the length of her limbs and their attachments.
Cillian waved a foot at her. ‘Look, it doesn’t fit. The heel is halfway down my foot.’
‘What?’ She looked confused.
‘I figured you were blushing because you thought your socks fit my feet.’
‘Oh.’ She looked at his raised foot, shook her head. ‘No. And I’m not blushing, why would I be blushing?’
‘Right.’
‘I was just thinking ... you might want ... I mean, I have a few spare drawers in my place, you could ... if you wanted to ... it might be handy ...’
‘Are you offering me a drawer to put my smalls in? At your apartment?’
Oliver returned with two delicate china cups on saucers, which he handed to them. ‘I was making a pot anyway,’ he explained. ‘I’ll be at the desk doing a spot of paperwork if you need me, alright?’
Martha thanked him, pushed her finger through the cup’s tiny handle. ‘I’ll have to buy the couch now,’ she said, taking a sip of tea.
‘Do you like it?’ Cillian asked.
‘I love it.’
‘And the size ... you don’t think it’s too—?’
‘No.’
‘Great. And yes, a drawer would be ... handy. Thank you.’
Martha’s smile always took a while to get going. It started as a twitch at the corners of her full, red lips before spreading slowly across her mouth and onto her face, during which time she shook her head, as if denying it. ‘Grand. I’ll sort that out.’
They sat on the couch with their china cups and their shoes and jackets discarded on the floor beside them and drank their tea and said no more about that or any other matter. They were the only customers in the place and the scratch of Oliver’s pencil against a page in a ledger was the loudest sound in the shop.
That was when it happened.
A thought rose to the surface of Cillian’s mind. Burst. Like an air bubble. And the thought was a simple one, as sometimes the best thoughts are. And it was simply this:
Happiness.
Which, Cillian acknowledged, was more like a feeling than a thought but that’s what he thought nonetheless.
That’s when it happened. That exact moment. And he knew, despite the few relationships he’d had over the years, that it had never happened to him before.
There was no anxiety attached to the feeling. Nothing attached to it at all. It was just there. A stand-alone feeling.
Oliver accepted the card Martha handed him. ‘You can pay a deposit now and the balance when it’s delivered, alright?’
Martha shook her head. ‘I want to pay it all now. While I have the cash in my account.’
Oliver nodded and assured her that she and Cillian had made a wise decision and, in his sonorous voice, it sounded profound and true. Martha smiled at him as if she thought so too.
‘Cillian?’ She was pulling on her jacket now, glancing at him over her shoulder.
‘Yes?’ Cillian raised himself into a sitting position. He was still absorbed by the thought – the feeling, he supposed – that had barged through the door of his head. That had answered, ‘Indefinitely,’ when Cillian had asked how long it would be staying.
‘Are you coming?’
‘Yes.’ He struggled out of the couch, shoved his feet into his runners, shook hands with Oliver – something he had never done before when leaving a shop – and walked outside to where Martha was waiting for him. The crowds – thicker now – moved around them, like a coordinated flash mob.
‘Why are you looking at me so funny?’ Martha leaned towards him with the look he most associated with her. Her curious look. He cleared his throat.
‘I ...’
‘Are you hungry? You look hungry.’
‘Yes. Yes, I think so.’
‘You think so? How can you not know for sure? You either are or you’re not.’
He reached for her then, pulled her against him. ‘I am,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Martha.
And when he kissed her, she kissed him back instead of pushing him away and referring to her views on Public Displays of Affection, which she might ordinarily have done.
Perhaps she sensed that there was something out of the ordinary about the day.
Something extraordinary.
He pushed his hands through the thick flow of her hair, kissed the pale skin of her neck, before he collected himself, stepped away from her.
She looked at him as she adjusted the scarf around her neck, her serious green eyes fixed on his face, like she knew. But then she shook her head and said, ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Cillian Larkin.’
Cillian shrugged, even though he knew what had gotten into him. Martha Wilder had gotten into him. Had crept up on him, slow and careful, like a B-side on a single that you always knew was there but never got around to playing. And then one day, you flip the record on the turntable, lay the needle down and there it is. The song that turns out to be the best thing about the single. The best thing about the band. But it’s more than a great song. It’s more than a set of notes positioned haphazardly along a score. It’s like the song was written for you. Is about you. Tells the world who you are. Tells you.
And when the song ends, you lift the needle again, place it back on the groove, play it again.
And again.
Sixteen
The hearing on Monday morning was in a small room in the courthouse. Mama was there. She’d worn her best clothes: a skirt and jacket. Not quite matching but close enough. The charity shop had tried to pass it off as a set but Roman had put it under scrutiny, managed to knock five euro off the asking price. Mama had been embarrassed at his haggling. She hated drawing attention to them.
She had taken the time to blow-dry her hair today, instead of plaiting it as she usually did. ‘Easier for work,’ she’d told him when he’d asked why she always tied it up. He thought of her then, bent over a stranger’s toilet bowl, scrubbing at their shit stains with a long handled brush that could never be long enough for a job like that.
She waved frantically at him and he nodded, grateful when the guards on either side of him marched him towards the top of the room, indicated a line of chairs, sat him between them. He couldn’t see his mother then. Could almost pretend she wasn’t there.
He hoped she wouldn’t have to say anything. He imagined her on the stand, saying something awful like, ‘My son is a good boy.’
She might cry and Roman would want to put his hands over his ears so he wouldn’t have to hear the sound. It was the worst sound in the world, his mother crying.
The hearing was nothing like the court cases he had watched on the telly. Nothing much happened. Guards spoke in clipped monotones, using vocabulary Roman was unfamiliar with. ‘The defendant was apprehended at twenty-three hundred hours near Blessington. He resisted arrest and was subsequently ...’ The voices droned on. Hot air blasted from two ancient storage heaters and the man in charge – was he the judge? – wore no wig, no black gown and smiled a lot, as if he were somewhere else, listening to something else entirely. Something lovely. Like his numbers being called out by that woman who does the lottery on the telly on Saturdays. Roman couldn’t remember her name. She had long wavy hair and wore tight dresses – that was all he remembered. He didn’t know why he was thinking about her. Why he wa
sn’t concentrating on the hearing. It was going on and on. He tried to tune back in when he realised he was thinking about the woman who called out the lottery numbers and about the man who might be the judge and why he wasn’t wearing a wig and a gown like judges did on the telly. Nobody mentioned the old man. If he was alive or dead.
If he died, would Roman be charged with murder? He hadn’t asked Cillian that.
He wondered if Meadhbh knew about the hearing. If she believed that he had shot the old man.
She probably wasn’t thinking about him at all. Why would she be? It wasn’t like she was his girlfriend. It wasn’t like he’d said anything.
He’d thought about it. About saying something. The day of the party. Everybody was going. Mama told Roman he could go so long as he had all his homework done and got a lift home with Adam’s mother. Mama was much better by then. She had returned to some of her jobs. The house cleaning jobs. The women didn’t seem to mind Rosa cleaning their toilets with only one hand, so long as the bowls were spotless afterwards.
And she could go back to the Moon & Stars, Penneys and the nursing home, once her cast came off. Which meant that Roman could stop being a delivery man for Jimmy.
‘I’ve a job for you,’ Jimmy had said that evening.
‘I’ve been invited to a party,’ said Roman. He immediately wished he hadn’t mentioned the party.
‘Lookin’ to sow your wild oats, are you? My little Romeo.’ Jimmy laughed. Roman didn’t say anything. He knew he’d have to do the job.
‘I need you to do a little drop for me and you going to the party will be the perfect cover story, won’t it?’ Jimmy winked, his smile wide and toothy.
Little drops.
That’s what Jimmy called them.
One more little drop. Maybe his last one.
It was Meadhbh’s party. Her fifteenth birthday party. Roman wished he were six months older than her instead of the other way round. Adam was fifteen too although you’d never think it. He’d plucked at Meadhbh’s bra strap, visible beneath the thin fabric of her shirt, pulled it before releasing it so that it snapped against her skin in a way that, Roman felt, must hurt. Instead of telling Adam he was immature and stupid, Meadhbh chased him around the classroom and, when she caught him, she wrestled him to the ground and sat on him. Adam pretended to struggle. He ended up tickling her and when she tickled him back, he laughed way too loud. Adam was always doing stuff like that these days. Real kid’s stuff. Roman and Meadhbh never carried on like that. They talked about books mostly, when it was just the two of them. They both loved books. Roman wrote fan fiction. Stories about Hermione. Meadhbh was the only person who knew. She had read one of his stories and told him it was good. She told him that he could be a writer some day. He had changed the subject. It had been one of the happiest days of his life.
‘So,’ said Meadhbh, sitting on the desk and putting her feet on the edge of the chair where Roman sat. The left side of her left shoe pressed against his thigh in a way that was sort of alarming. He shifted over on the seat, producing a narrow gap between her foot and his leg. ‘What are you wearing to the party?’
‘It’s not for another week,’ Roman had said. He knew exactly what he was wearing. His black jeans. Mama had already washed them and they were in his half of the drawer, ironed and ready. The Gryffindor hoodie Mama had given him the Christmas before Lech died. It still mostly fit him, if he pulled up the sleeves. The runners from TK Maxx that almost looked the same as Converse.
‘I can tell you what I’m wearing, if you like,’ said Adam, jumping onto the desk beside her, sliding along the top of it till his hip bumped against hers.
‘Don’t bother,’ said Meadhbh, taking her feet off Roman’s chair and pushing herself off the desk with her hands. ‘I’m not sure I could take the excitement.’ She smirked at him, shook her head. Roman made sure he didn’t look at her as she walked away.
Adam looked. He kept looking till Meadhbh slid into her seat near the top of the classroom.
‘I’ll have the delivery for you at eight,’ Jimmy had said.
‘I’m supposed to be at the party at eight,’ Roman reminded him.
Jimmy laughed. ‘No self-respecting party starts at eight, my son,’ he said. ‘Now, as I said, I’ll give you the gear at eight. Yer man said he’ll be at the pick-up spot at ten o’clock.’
‘Ah, Jimmy—’
‘At ten o’clock,’ Jimmy kept going, raising the volume of his voice so Roman would know he was supposed to be listening, not talking. ‘It’s only round the corner from your little girlfriend’s gaff so you’ll be able to nip out and back and no one will be any the wiser, am I right?’
Roman nodded. There was no point telling Jimmy that Meadhbh wasn’t his girlfriend.
Jimmy assumed Roman had done all kinds of things with all kinds of girls.
‘Make sure he gives you the full whack for it. Not like last time. I’m not running a credit union here.’
‘OK.’
‘And you’re to come back here with the money. I don’t want you going back to the party with it. Someone might nick it.’
Roman reckoned the party would be nearly over by the time he had dropped off the money and come back but there was no point in mentioning it. He’d seen Jimmy mess people up. He had glimpsed him, through the crack in the door that led into the garage one day. Jimmy, with a strip of cotton wrapped around the knuckles of his right hand, beating the face of a man held up by Tommy and Lenny on either side of him. He’d done it in the middle of the afternoon, when Mama and the Lithuanians were at work. They’d put masking tape over the man’s mouth so the neighbours wouldn’t hear. Men scream like girls when they’re in that kind of pain, Roman found out. The three against one kind.
At first, everything went according to plan. He collected the brown parcel from Jimmy and left the house. Meadhbh’s party was in her house. Roman thought he would like a house like Meadhbh’s one day. A house with a piano that people knew how to play, a garden that bloomed in the summertime, where people sat and read. Or just thought about whatever it was that people who lived in houses like these thought about. A house with photographs and copies of famous paintings on the wall. One print in particular caught Roman’s eye. He peered at it but the artist’s signature was not there. Meadhbh told him it was called Flowers and that nobody knew who had drawn it. It was a charcoal drawing of a terraced brick building on a main street that reminded Roman of Swords main street, an old-fashioned paper and sweet shop on the ground floor and two sash windows above, both filled with roses in a vase. The flowers were the only thing in the picture that were painted. A bright red. Nearly crimson. There was something sort of startling about them. Alive.
Roman hoped that Meadhbh would like the basket of bath bombs from the Body Shop. Fruity ones. He’d seen her smelling them in the shop a few weeks ago, returned on his own the next day. The woman in the shop remembered him. Gift wrapped the bath bombs. Threw in a tube of body lotion that smelled of watermelon. For free.
‘What are you getting for Meadhbh?’ Adam had asked the day before.
Roman had shrugged. ‘Not sure yet.’
Most of his class was at the party. Roman played pool with Adam. He won. Then he beat Meadhbh in darts. In one five-minute game of FIFA, he scored fifteen goals and no one had topped it yet. And then, when they stood in a circle and danced to ‘Sing’ and sang the words out loud, Meadhbh had looked right at him when she sang the line about finding someone and taking their hand. He knew it was just a song, just a line that everybody was singing, but the way Meadhbh looked at him when she sang it, it felt like she was singing it just for him. It felt like a true and certain thing.
She held her hands out in front of her and he grabbed them all of a sudden, without stopping to worry about whether or not he should. And now they were spinning, the two of them, around and around, and when they stopped they staggered like spinning tops before they collapsed on the sofa in the corner, and the muscles in Roman’s face ached
from laughing.
And then it was five to ten and Roman couldn’t delay any longer. He had to go. He didn’t bother with his jacket. He didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he was leaving. As he pulled the front door behind him, he could hear somebody suggest a game of dares and his heart clenched in his chest in a way that hurt, but it was the good kind of hurt and he imagined how Meadhbh’s lips would feel against his and, in his imagination, they were soft.
The man was waiting on the corner where he should be, the shadow of a cherry tree thrown across his face, making it featureless. Roman bent low, pretended to tie his shoelaces while scanning the street for any signs of trouble. He couldn’t wait to get rid of the package. He could feel it in his pocket, the rectangular bulk of it rasping against his leg in the tight jeans. An uncomfortable reminder of the difference between him and Meadhbh. Not even the thought of the crisp twenty euro note pulled taut in Jimmy’s hand could ease the discomfort of it. He knew Meadhbh wouldn’t understand. Her mam gave her twenty euro for tidying her room.
He rose to his feet, reached inside the pocket of his jeans, wrapped his fingers around the packet.
He stood there, felt himself sort of flooded, all of a sudden, like he had been lying down for ages and then stood up much too quick. In some way, he felt he was standing on the edge of his life, looking down at it. He felt a strange sense of certainty, like he was in charge of everything. He was calling the shots. This would be his last drop, he decided. Mama would go back to work properly next week and Roman would get a job doing something else. Delivering newspapers maybe? Something safe. They would save up, him and Mama. Move out. Into their own apartment maybe. Things would be different from now on. He would tell Jimmy to go stuff himself. They were nearly all paid up, him and Mama. Soon, they would owe Jimmy nothing. Roman would return to the party and kiss Meadhbh. On her lips. Keep on kissing her even when the standard ten-second countdown had petered out.
He had practised on the back of his hand. Loads of times. He would kiss her tonight and he would make sure it was a good kiss.
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