Semi-Sweet

by Roisin Meaney

  “Hannah sells cupcakes,” John said, his eyes on her. “She makes them herself.”

  “Cupcakes,” Wally said. “They’re some kind of fancy buns, are they?”

  Hannah laughed. “That’s exactly what they are. ‘Cupcakes’ is just a sexier name.”

  “Well, I’m all for sexy buns. Can’t have too many of those.”

  John turned toward the counter and signaled to the barman. He pointed at Hannah’s almost-empty wineglass questioningly, but she shook her head. She didn’t fancy ruining her one day off with a hangover.

  “What’s your shop called?” Wally asked, nodding as he accepted a bottle of water, setting aside the accompanying glass.

  “Cupcakes on the Corner,” Hannah told him.

  He considered. “Yes, I remember it now. It’s yellow, isn’t it?” Raising the bottle to his lips.

  “It is.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Yellow’s a good color for a cupcake shop.”

  “I like your music,” she could hear Adam saying to John. “A nice mix of instruments, and you play well together.”

  She threw him a mocking smile—trying to sound as if he knew the first thing about music—but he ignored it.

  “I’m afraid I’m just the blow-in,” she heard John reply. “The other three are the real musicians—especially Vivienne.”

  “‘And now you’ll have to excuse me.” Wally waved his half-empty bottle at them. “She’ll be waiting for me to drive her home. Nice to meet you both. Johnny, see you next week.” And he was gone, weaving his way through the tables toward the rear of the pub.

  John turned back to Hannah. “So what do you think of our music?”

  “I love it—I had no idea you were a musician.”

  He really was quite good-looking. And it wasn’t as if there were the smallest hope that Patrick would be back now. She wondered if there was any chance she’d be asked out again, or if she’d burned her bridges with John. Maybe she should take the initiative—but even as the thought occurred, she knew she didn’t have the courage. She’d never had that confidence around men, could never imagine putting herself into the vulnerable position of asking someone out and risking rejection—just as she’d rejected him.

  “I’ve always wanted to play an instrument,” she told him. “Anything really, I wouldn’t mind.”

  Which wasn’t true at all, of course—the thought of making music had never, as far as she could remember, crossed her mind. She’d never pressed the keys of a piano, or plucked a guitar string, or even put a tin whistle to her lips. But he wasn’t to know that.

  “You should take lessons,” he said. “Vivienne’s a music teacher.”

  “Oh—is she?” Her bluff was being called. She searched for an excuse and found one. “The trouble is, I’m just so busy with the shop.” Thank goodness for the shop.

  “Where does she teach?” Adam asked.

  “In her own home, as far as I know.”

  “She looks a bit fierce,” Hannah said. “I’m not sure I’d want her teaching me anything.”

  John laughed. “I can’t think of anyone less fierce than Vivienne—she’s as timid as a deer. And she’s a beautifully sensitive player, totally focused.”

  “I might take a few lessons myself,” Adam said. “I fancy the clarinet.”

  Hannah looked at him in astonishment. “You, take lessons? You’ve no interest in music.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I’d like to give it a go.”

  She laughed. “I’d love to see that—as long as you practice in the shed.” She turned to John. “Adam is my housemate,” she explained. “He moved in to keep me solvent. We’ve known each other forever.”

  “And your shop is going well?” John asked. Giving no sign at all that the status of her relationship with Adam was of the slightest interest to him.

  “Fine,” she said. “It’s hard work, some weeks better than others, but I’m still there and managing to pay the bills, just about.”

  “Well done,” he said. “That’s pretty good going, these days.”

  “And how’s the carpentry business?”

  “Could be better, but I’m surviving too.”

  “How did you get to be in the band?” Adam asked him.

  John told them about Patsy in the woodworking store, who’d put him in touch with Wally. “I was lucky—it’s a good group. I think we play well together, and everyone gets along.”

  Yes, she had definitely been too hasty. He was probably exactly what she needed to help her forget about Patrick Dunne.

  The lights went up in the bar just then.

  “Will we hit the road?” Adam asked, pulling on his jacket.

  “I suppose so.” She didn’t want to go, but there was no excuse to stay.

  “See you again,” John said, addressing both of them, “when you want to hear some good music.”

  She smiled. “And if you ever need a cupcake, you know where I am.”

  That was as much as she could do to try to reopen the door she’d shut in his face a few weeks ago. He might or he might not be willing to try again, but at least she could encourage him a little.

  “Safe home,” he said, lifting a hand.

  She wondered if he watched them walking out.

  Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. They slept in different bedrooms now.

  Ah, don’t, Tom had said when Alice had taken her nightdress from under her pillow, her toothbrush from the ensuite bathroom. Ah, don’t do this.

  But she’d been raw. She’d been angry and heartbroken and still full of tears, and she hadn’t answered him. Now she slept in the bedroom they still called Ellen’s, although it was years since their daughter had spent any time there.

  That first night Alice had lain awake in Ellen’s bed, afraid to close her eyes, afraid of the pictures that might appear. In the morning she’d gotten up at twenty to eight like she always did on a workday. She’d gone downstairs and put bacon and tomatoes under the grill, and when they were cooked Tom had appeared, and they’d sat down and eaten breakfast, and no mention had been made of the accident.

  She’d gone back to work the day after the funeral. It was a relief to have somewhere to go, something to set the alarm for—not that she’d needed an alarm, wide awake long before it had gone off. Tom hadn’t appeared for breakfast that morning, and she hadn’t called him.

  In the shop she watched the faces of people coming in, looked for a sign that they knew. Waited for them to spit in her face and call her a murderer—because wasn’t she as guilty as Tom, when you thought about it? Shouldn’t she have driven, shouldn’t she have insisted, knowing the state he was in?

  Geraldine was her savior. Geraldine chatted away when the shop was empty and smiled at customers when Alice couldn’t. Geraldine followed her into the back when she disappeared, and held her while she wept, and told her that there was nothing she could have done, nothing at all.

  When Alice got home in the evenings Tom was there, reading the newspaper or watching daytime television. She still cooked dinner, although he was the one with the free time now, but he’d always been hopeless in the kitchen so she didn’t push it. God knows what he’d serve up.

  They made small talk as they ate. The weather might be mentioned, the days getting nice and long now. He’d say if he was out of shaving foam or if next door’s dog had gotten into the back garden again. She’d offer more potatoes, another spoon of rice pudding.

  No mention was made, by either of them, of his returning to work. Geraldine had told her they’d gotten a temporary replacement for him at the dental clinic, but Alice didn’t pass this information on at home. She had no idea whether Tom was in touch with Stephen, or with either of his other colleagues, and some instinct stopped her from talking about it. She had to believe that he’d go back when he was ready.

  They had a visit from a guard who’d played golf with Tom occasionally. Your solicitor will be working away on your behalf, he’d said. Keep the spirits up, ke
ep busy, that’s the thing, and Alice thanked him and cut more coffee cake.

  She found it amazing that Tom hadn’t lost his license. The car had been returned to them a couple of days after the accident, and no mention had been made of taking Tom’s license away. He’d killed a child and failed a breath test, and he was still legally entitled to get behind the wheel of a car and drive.

  But he hadn’t driven since the accident. It had been Alice who’d taken his car to the garage to have the dent in the bumper straightened. She hated doing it—her fingers were white on the wheel, her body clenched so tightly she could hardly breathe—but the sight of the dent had been unbearable to her.

  She had no idea what Tom did all day. She didn’t know what time he got up or how long he stayed in his pajamas. He didn’t have to go out for the paper—they had it delivered. She was pretty sure he hadn’t been near a golf course, even with the nice mild weather they’d been having lately.

  But he went out sometime. Alice found the bottles by accident, searching in the trash for a receipt she’d thrown away. They’d been pushed right to the bottom, three empty Powers Gold Label whiskey bottles. She’d taken them out and brought them to the recycling bins at the roundabout, ten minutes’ walk away. She’d keep an eye out for others, because of course there would be others, and whenever she found them, she’d recycle them.

  She’d decided to say nothing to Ellen. Why worry her, so far away? Ellen might feel she should come home, which Alice dreaded. Imagine their daughter seeing Tom in this state, imagine her walking into this nightmare. Time enough to tell her when things began to happen, when telling became unavoidable, as it surely must do.

  So when Alice wrote her weekly letter, the day after Jason’s funeral—they phoned only on special occasions—she made no mention of a dead child. She didn’t talk about a court case, didn’t bring up the failed breathalyzer tests.

  She was convinced that Tom would be sent to jail. Why would anyone let him off, after what he’d done? Even if he hadn’t meant to do it, a child was dead and it was his fault. He’d have to be seen to be accountable.

  With every night she passed in Ellen’s room, moving back across the landing became more of an impossibility. She discovered that she liked the compactness of the single bed, after years of sharing a double. She was beginning to forget what it felt like to have another body lying beside you at night, to have someone else’s odor mixing with yours in the morning.

  She used a hot-water bottle in place of Tom’s warmth. She left the window open more than he would have liked. One night she left the curtains open, too, and stared out at a scattering of stars till morning. She slept little, some nights not at all, but during the days she seemed full of restless energy.

  She thought about the boy’s parents. They filled her head as she climbed the stepladder to take down a shoe box, as she peeled carrots, as she brushed her teeth. She thought about the grief Tom had visited on them. She imagined the mother taking little clothes off the line, knowing that there was nobody left to wear them. She thought about a football lying forgotten under a bush, the father remembering the last time they’d kicked it around the garden together.

  They filled her head, these two people. She’d never seen them—she’d been in no state to sympathize at the funeral, even if she’d felt she had any right to shake their hands. She didn’t know a thing about them, apart from their names and the fact that they’d once had a son.

  And she knew where they lived.

  “Springwood Gardens,” the death notice read. No house number, no name. Alice knew roughly where Springwood Gardens was, behind the town hall.

  “Beloved only son,” the notice said, “of David and Claire.”

  O’Brien was the surname. Jason O’Brien was the boy Tom had killed. It shouldn’t be too hard to find David O’Brien in Springwood Gardens. If there was confusion, she could say she had a Mass card to deliver.

  She folded the death notice and put it back into her bag. She took an onion from the vegetable rack and cut into its creamy, wet center.

  Vivienne. He loved the name. He was reasonably sure he’d liked it before he knew that it was hers, but now he loved it. Vivienne, who played the clarinet.

  He’d been thrown by the other man’s saying he was driving her home after the gig on Saturday night. What did that mean? Were they together? Was her home his home, too, or did they just live in the same direction and travel to the bar in one car simply because it made sense?

  Adam had no way of knowing—so he decided to assume she was single and proceed with his new plan.

  The intercom buzzed. Nora dropped the emery board and pressed the “receive” button. “Yes?”

  “Can you come in?”

  She heard the words in stereo as usual. Patrick’s actual voice on the other side of the door behind her was almost as audible as the more mechanical words that issued through the machine. She’d pointed out to him that he only had to raise his voice slightly to call her into his office and thereby do away with the need for the intercom, but he’d laughed.

  “On the way,” she replied.

  She released the button and got up, taking her pad and pen from the desk, smoothing her purple skirt, checking that her lipstick was in place.

  He sprawled in his chair, hair tousled, tie askew. She crossed to the window, dropping her pad and pen on his desk as she passed. She slid the window open, aware of his eyes on her as she leaned against the sill and reached upward.

  “Stuffy in here,” she said. “You need air-conditioning.”

  He waited until she’d taken a seat. “Like I keep telling you, you’re not in New York now.”

  “Don’t I know it.” She hitched up her skirt a fraction and crossed one knee over the other. “Am I taking a letter, sir?”

  Ten days down she was reasonably sure she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life—or even the rest of this year—working for the Clongarvin Voice. But it would do to pass the time for a while—and really, apart from the lack of any trace of glamour, she had no serious objections to the job.

  The paper was a weekly, which meant their only really busy day was Thursday, and even that had been easy enough last week, with the others still regarding her as the new girl who wasn’t expected to know her way around yet. Patrick’s schedule wasn’t too hectic most of the time, which suited her just fine—and compared to some of the scumbags she’d come across in New York, he was pretty much the ideal boss.

  He fancied her, of course. Men were rubbish at hiding that. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her chest, he watched her mouth when she talked, he probably lusted after her rear view when she walked away from him. And she fueled the attraction, enjoying the attention of a good-looking man while well able to keep him at a distance.

  The clothes she wore to work were carefully chosen to tease, to give just enough away without being too revealing. Her skirts were figure-hugging, but long enough to look suitable for the office. Her tops showed cleavage, but not too much—unless she leaned in and allowed a better view. Her blouses weren’t exactly sheer, but sufficiently fine to hint at what lay beneath. She kept a bottle of perfume in her desk drawer.

  She knew, as she scribbled down his words, that he was looking at her. Slouched in his chair, he was taking her in. Maybe even fantasizing a little. She felt his eyes on her body as she brushed a stray hair from her face, as she bit her bottom lip gently.

  “That’s it,” he said after two letters had been dictated. “Will you get those out before lunchtime?”

  “Of course.” She closed the pad and stood. “How’s Leah? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  She’d sent a text a few evenings ago, just to say hello and see the reaction. Leah’s reply, when it came, had been brief: UP TO MY EYES, HOPE ALL’S WELL. MUST MEET UP SOON.

  “She’s fine,” Patrick replied. “A bit tired, naturally.”

  “Naturally…When’s she finishing up?”

  “Oh, not for another month or so.” His eyes strayed t
o the neckline of her pale gray top. “No maternity leave when you work for yourself.”

  “Ain’t that the truth.” She pushed her hair behind her shoulders. “Well, I’d better get back to work.”

  “What about lunch?” he said as she reached the door. “Have you plans?”

  She turned, her face full of regret. “Actually, I have, sorry. Some other time.”

  She had no plans, of course. But it was fun to keep him at a distance—until he was gagging for it.

  Always such fun, the foreplay.

  Una came back to work a week after Jason’s funeral.

  Hannah took in the pale face, the determined smile. “Are you sure you’re ready for this? You can have longer.”

  Una shook her head. “Thanks, but I need to get back to some kind of a routine…And I think Claire and Dave would like to be on their own for a while. They’ve been surrounded by people since—”

  She broke off, pulling a tissue from her bag and pressing it to her eyes. “God, sorry—I’m not going to do this all morning, I promise.”

  “Go in and put the kettle on,” Hannah told her, “and make yourself a cuppa. I’m afraid there’s only boxed milk, I forgot to get fresh.”

  But Una pushed the tissue back into her bag and began to unbutton her jacket. “No, I’m okay, honestly. Just give me something to do and then you head off.”

  Hannah glanced around the shop. “Well, I didn’t get a chance to sweep the floor this morning,” she lied, “so you could do that.”

  Una hung her jacket and got the broom from the back room. “They’re devastated,” she said as Hannah began to untie her apron. “Completely in bits, the two of them.” She pushed the broom around the clean floor. “Dave told me Claire cries all night, just lies in bed all curled up and cries.” She gathered up nothing in the dustpan. “She sits in Jason’s bedroom for hours in the day. Dave hasn’t been near it—he says he just can’t bring himself.”

  Hannah made no move to put on her jacket. “Listen,” she said, “there’s nothing I have to do in town today. Why don’t I stay around here? Why don’t the two of us—”