Semi-Sweet

by Roisin Meaney

  Una straightened up, holding the empty dustpan. “No, no, don’t do that—if you stay here I’ll just feel useless. I’ll be fine, honest.”

  “But maybe,” Hannah said gently, “you’d like to talk.”

  Una shook her head. “No…thanks, Hannah, I really appreciate the offer, but I think I need a distraction.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Una nodded. “I’m sure. See you at twelve.”

  “Ring me if you need to.”

  So Hannah left the shop, for once not relishing her two hours of freedom. As she walked down the street, a taxi drove by, the driver lifting a hand in greeting. Hannah waved back, not recognizing him until he’d passed.

  Wally, the taxi-driving keyboard player. Maybe nobody could afford to be a full-time musician anymore. She remembered him making some remark about sexy buns, and she smiled.

  She turned a corner and saw with a sinking heart that Nora O’Connor was walking rapidly in her direction, too close for Hannah to pretend not to have seen her and duck into the nearest doorway.

  “Hi there,” Nora said as she approached. “I was just on my way to your little shop, actually.”

  Dark green skirt that hugged her hips and fishtailed out beneath. Black fitted jacket over snow-white blouse. Black boots, snug on her calves.

  Dressing up for Patrick Dunne. The thought popped, completely unbidden, into Hannah’s head. She wished she were wearing something slightly more fashionable than her old blue top and gray trousers. “Did you want me for some reason?”

  Adam never talked about his sister’s job at the newspaper. Hannah couldn’t imagine that working for the Clongarvin Voice held too many attractions for Nora O’Connor—apart from its editor, maybe.

  “I wanted to pick up some of your cupcakes for a meeting,” Nora said now. “Thought they’d add a nice fancy note.”

  “Oh…” Hannah immediately felt ashamed. Why should she assume that Nora would make a play for Patrick? Who was she to judge Adam’s sister—whom she hardly knew, after all? “That’s nice of you. Una is in the shop, she’ll look after you.”

  “Yes, Adam mentioned you’d taken on an assistant. Business must be going well.”

  “Not bad,” Hannah said. “It’s hard work, but it’s keeping me solvent—more or less.” She began to edge away. “Well, I’d better…”

  “Me, too—catch you later.” And Nora was gone, leaving behind a whirl of something that smelled expensive. Off to buy cupcakes for a meeting that Patrick would most likely be attending. Hannah wondered if he’d notice them, if he’d recognize them as hers. Surely he’d remember her cupcakes, after all the sample recipes she’d presented him with once she’d made up her mind about opening the shop.

  They’d still had only one encounter in the months since they’d parted, but she’d caught sight of him a few times. Across the aisles in a supermarket as she stood in the queue with her cart. Sitting in the front seat of a taxi once, thankfully not looking in her direction. Flicking through the pages of a golfing magazine in the barber’s as he waited for the hot-towel shave that was his weekly treat to himself.

  And once with his arm curved around Leah Bradshaw’s waist as he shepherded her across the street. Hannah couldn’t be sure if they’d spotted her and chosen to avoid a meeting. Probably—and under the circumstances, she supposed quite understandable—but it had hurt nonetheless.

  She still felt a lurch when she saw him. She still loved the look of him, the thick, dark hair, the wonderfully deep brown eyes, the stubble that crept back a couple of hours after he’d shaved, the tallness of him, the solidity of his body. She remembered his smell, the musk of his aftershave, the sharp tang of his sweat.

  She turned another corner and realized she’d walked toward Glass Slipper without intending to. Might as well check out the new stock—not that she could afford a pair of tights, let alone shoes, but a look wouldn’t hurt.

  A sign on the window read EVERY THING 10% OFF. Another read ALL STOCK REDUCED. Geraldine sat alone on a stool behind the counter, reading a magazine. She looked up as Hannah walked in. “Hello, love—nothing wrong?”

  “No—I’m just at a loose end. Una came back this morning.”

  “Yes, you were saying. How is the poor girl?”

  “Still very upset, of course, but I think it’ll do her good to be back at work.” Hannah looked around. “It’s quiet here, isn’t it?”

  Geraldine closed the magazine. “There’s been nobody in yet today.”

  “Nobody at all? Even just looking?”

  “Not a soul.” Geraldine lifted her shoulders. “We’ve been blaming the recession, but…” She shook her head. “I’m wondering now if that’s all there is to it.”

  Hannah stared at her. “You think people are avoiding the shop, after what happened?”

  Geraldine shook her head. “I really don’t know what to think, love—but in a place the size of Clongarvin word doesn’t take long to get around.”

  The shelves were filled with brightly colored shoes and sandals. There was an assortment of boots labeled FINAL REDUCTIONS—UP TO 70% OFF. There were two rows of slippers and a selection of sports shoes.

  “Where’s Alice?” Hannah asked.

  “Gone to the doctor. She says she’s having trouble sleeping.”

  “I’m not surprised…How is she in general?”

  Geraldine considered. “Well, she’s improved a bit since she came back, and she’s doing her best to put a good face on it, but she looks terribly worn out—she must be worried sick about what’s ahead of them. No wonder she’s finding it hard to sleep. I’ve tried inviting them round to dinner, but she keeps making excuses.”

  “What about Tom?”

  “He seems to have gone to ground—Alice changes the subject whenever I ask her about him, and Stephen says he’s made no effort to contact the clinic about going back to work.” She got to her feet and walked toward the back of the shop. “Will you have tea?”

  “Only if you want some yourself.”

  But the shop door opened just then, and Geraldine stayed to attend to a woman who entered and began walking slowly past the footwear on display. Hannah drifted around the shop, picking up and trying on various shoes. A red peep-toe sandal with a woven wedge sole, a lime green stiletto that would probably look a lot better below Nora O’Connor’s slender ankles.

  “You’ll come for lunch on Sunday, won’t you?” Geraldine asked when the woman had left, empty-handed. “I’m doing lamb.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Sunday was Easter Sunday. Last year she and Patrick had spent Easter in a small house on Achill Island. They’d driven up early on Good Friday and stayed till Easter Monday evening. By prior agreement he’d given her a gold-wrapped Lindt chocolate rabbit, and she’d given him a six-pack of Walkers Cheese & Onion crisps. They’d eaten Easter Sunday lunch in the local hotel and walked it off on the beach afterward.

  “When do you expect Alice back?” she asked as they were drinking their tea.

  “Not for another hour, I’d say. It was after ten when she left, and you know what doctors’ waiting rooms can be like.” Geraldine paused. “Anyone nice come into your shop?”

  “Not really, no one out of the ordinary.”

  Hannah knew that her mother was thinking about John Wyatt. She wondered if he was traveling to Scotland for Easter. If not, they could well have been spending Easter Sunday together, or part of it at least. He hadn’t been back to Cupcakes on the Corner since they’d met in Vintage. Of course it didn’t matter, she hardly knew him—but still it irked, this feeling that she’d been hasty, that she’d thrown something away without considering its worth. Maybe she’d visit Vintage again sometime with Adam.

  When she got back to the shop, Una reported that a woman had bought two dozen cupcakes and asked for a written receipt.

  “Curly auburn hair, well dressed, American accent?”

  “Yes. You know her?”

  “I know her.”

&
nbsp; Two dozen cupcakes, easily their biggest order to date. It occurred to her suddenly that Patrick might specifically have asked his PA to shop at Cupcakes on the Corner. Salving his conscience, maybe, by throwing some business her way? Not that it mattered a damn whose decision it had been—an order was an order, wherever it came from.

  Still, it would be nice to know.

  “I’ve invited my mother for lunch on Sunday,” Leah said. “I couldn’t leave her on her own at Easter.”

  “Fine,” Patrick answered, thinking about the way his PA’s fingers trailed across the skin of her throat as she spoke on the phone. Back and forth, back and forth, across that smooth, polished-looking skin.

  “Will you pick up some antacid tablets on your way home?” Leah asked him. “The original ones, not flavored.”

  “No problem.”

  He bet she wore stockings, the ones with lacy tops that Leah used to wear. An inch or so of tanned, bare skin above them, before the other lace began.

  “What time will you be home?” Leah asked.

  “Around six, I’d say. Maybe a bit later.”

  He wondered if she’d had a job done on her breasts. He wondered if you’d be able to tell by touching them. She certainly took every opportunity to show them off. Not that he was complaining. He’d always been a breast man. It had been the first thing he’d noticed about Hannah—and the only positive effect Leah’s pregnancy was having on her body was that her breasts were fuller and more sensitive to his touch.

  “I’m doing lasagna,” Leah said.

  “Lovely.”

  After he’d hung up, Patrick sat for a few minutes behind his walnut desk. Then he pressed the intercom and said, “Can you come in?”

  There was always a letter that needed to be written, if you thought about it for long enough.

  It took Alice less than fifteen minutes to drive from Glass Slipper to Springwood. She pulled in to the curb on the first road of the estate—Springwood Park—and opened the Mass card she’d bought and wrote “Jason O’Brien” on the empty line and “Alice” in the space for her name. She slipped the card back into its envelope before getting out of the car.

  Springwood was a mix of terraced and semidetached houses with low iron railings separating their narrow front lawns. Some residents had replaced the grass with cement or paving to create a driveway, while others had bordered the lawn with flower beds. A few were terribly neglected—rented, probably—but most were fairly well cared for.

  “I’m looking for the O’Briens,” she told a woman with long blond hair who turned out of a gate and came toward her, but the woman shook her head.

  “They’re in Springwood Gardens,” Alice said. “David O’Brien.”

  But the woman said, “Sorry,” in a foreign accent and walked on.

  “The O’Briens,” she said to a man walking a small black-and-white dog. “Springwood Gardens.” The dog sniffed at her shoes, his tail wagging.

  “Dave and Claire, the ones who lost their little boy?”

  Alice nodded, heart thudding. “I have a Mass card,” she said, but he’d already turned away to gesture up the road.

  “Second next left is Springwood Gardens,” he told her. “They’re on the right, about halfway down.”

  “You wouldn’t know the number?”

  He shook his head. “Anyone will tell you,” he said. “Ask anyone up there.”

  But when she took the second left turn, there was no one to ask, except two small boys around seven or eight, sitting on the edge of the path eating crisps, a grubby white football trapped between the feet of one.

  “Do you know where the O’Briens live?” Alice asked, and they stared at her, still crunching. She didn’t want to say, Where the little boy was killed. “Dave and Claire O’Brien?”

  One of the boys took his hand out of his crisps packet and pointed. “That house,” he said, “with the flowers,” and Alice followed his finger and saw the red bunch of wilting roses tied to the gatepost with a faded white ribbon.

  “Thank you,” she said, crossing the road, feeling their eyes on her as she approached the gate. There was a plastic-covered note attached to the bouquet. Alice bent and read “To Jason, all our love forever, from the McCarthys” in a child’s careful script.

  She straightened and regarded the house. It looked much like its neighbors, the middle one in a terrace of five. The lawn was neatly mowed, the flower bed studded with hard-pruned rosebushes. The windows were bare except for an upstairs one whose curtains were drawn. The front door was dark green with a brass 37 on it.

  She walked up the cement path, pulling the Mass card from her pocket. She pushed it quickly through the letter slot and walked away, out the gate and back onto the path, past the two boys who were still eating crisps.

  When she returned to the shop, Geraldine told her she looked pale. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You had a long wait.”

  “I did.”

  “Did he give you a prescription? Did you get sleeping pills?”

  “Yes…I’ll make us a cuppa.”

  Alice filled the kettle, seeing the wilted roses tied to the gate, the carefully pruned rosebushes in the garden, the green door with 37 in brass screwed onto it. She’d felt resistance as she’d pushed the card through, a draft excluder on the other side. She hadn’t heard the card falling onto the floor.

  She thought about the mother picking it up, taking out the card, and reading “Alice.” Showing it to the father, who’d shake his head when she asked if he knew anyone by that name.

  The previous evening Alice had found two empty whiskey bottles pushed to the bottom of the bin. She’d pulled them out and brought them to the recycling station.

  She’d lied to Geraldine about going to the doctor. It was the first time she’d lied to Geraldine.

  Adam typed “clarinet” and pressed “search.” After a few seconds, the screen changed, and he read “2,234 results.” He scrolled slowly through clarinet mouthpieces and sheet music for clarinets and clarinet cases and the odd actual clarinet. He went back to the home page and typed “clarinet instrument” and searched again, and this time eleven results showed up.

  He studied an ebony clarinet that was being sold by George4234. The price quoted was forty pounds, which was considerably lower than the ones he’d seen scrawled on the tags attached to clarinets in Clongarvin’s one and only musical-instrument store, which also sold sound systems, TVs, and DVDs. George4234 was in the United Kingdom, which seemed close enough. There was a bid of forty-two pounds on the clarinet. Adam typed in a bid of forty-four and pressed “enter.”

  NOT AN EBAY MEMBER YET? the screen asked. REGISTER HERE. Adam chose a user ID and a password and filled in all the boxes with the information required for him to get his hands on a clarinet for forty-four pounds.

  However shy she was, a music teacher could hardly refuse a would-be eager pupil. If she said she was fully booked, Adam would ask to be put on a waiting list. He’d tell her that he’d just bought a clarinet and he was desperate to play it and that she’d been recommended to him. It wasn’t a complete lie—John Wyatt had called her a beautifully sensitive player, which was surely a recommendation. He’d also said she was as timid as a deer, which Adam liked.

  He’d be patient. He’d be gentle and nonthreatening, and he’d gain her trust, however long it took.

  And who knew? He might even learn to play the clarinet.

  In number 37 Springwood Gardens, a woman sits on a single bed, on top of a Spider-Man duvet. The curtains in the room are drawn, although it’s still early afternoon. Enough light filters through the unlined fabric—zoo animals on a yellow background—to pick out the small white wardrobe and matching chest of drawers, the red wooden toy chest, the shelf full of Mr. Men and Dr. Seuss and Thomas the Tank Engine books. The row of small footwear—his white runners, his red wellies, his blue slippers—underneath.

  The woman sees none of these. She sees him soaring on a
swing, shouting Higher! Higher! and laughing delightedly as she pushes him. She sees him squatting on a beach, filling a bucket with sand as the tip of his tongue pokes from his mouth, his blue trunks slipping down in the back to show an inch of his bottom.

  She sees his cheeks puff as he blows out four candles on a blue-and-white cake, a dribble of saliva plopping onto the icing.

  She feels his hand slipping out of hers as he runs onto the road because he’s just seen his friend Paul on the other side. She feels the terror, she sees the car, she hears the scream bursting out of her as he flies into the air.

  Higher! Higher!

  He is all she sees now.

  Adam handed her a boxed chocolate egg. “Happy Easter.”

  “Oh, yummy—thanks very much.” Hannah produced a similar box. “And for you, the usual.”

  “Ta.”

  They made coffee and settled at the kitchen table. “So,” she said, peeling the gold paper from her egg, “when are you off?”

  Adam and Nora were traveling the fifty miles to their parents’ house for Easter Sunday lunch.

  “I’m collecting Nora in an hour.” He broke a curved slab from his egg. “I suppose I should be working up an appetite.”

  “Me, too.” Hannah dipped a shard into her coffee mug. “We’ll just have half now.”

  “Listen,” he said then, his mouth full of chocolate, “guess what I did the other day.”

  “What?”

  He licked the tips of his fingers one by one. “I bought a clarinet.”

  Hannah turned to him, the melting chocolate halfway to her mouth. “What?”

  “I said—”

  “A real clarinet that you play?”

  He grinned. “Yes, a real clarinet. I bought it on eBay. It should be arriving in the next few days.”

  Hannah stared. “I don’t believe it. You were serious the other night, about wanting to play? But you’re about as musical as an elephant.”

  “Thank you.” He crunched chocolate loudly. “I’ll have you know I intend to take lessons.”

  Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Not from the woman in the bar?”