The trouble was, Wally thought as he drove back to the taxi stand, that for some time now his mind had most definitely been elsewhere. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“You still have time,” Geraldine said. “To change your mind, I mean. Tom isn’t home for another couple of weeks. You might have a change of heart between this and then. I won’t be a bit put out, really I won’t.”
“I’ve no intention of changing my mind.” Alice paused. “But maybe you’re having second thoughts? Because I can always—”
“Oh, no,” Geraldine said quickly. “No, no, not at all, I’m happy to take over. It’s just…I’m afraid you might regret your decision and think it’s too late to back out, and I’m just saying I’ll understand if you do, that’s all.”
“Thank you.” Alice took a custard cream from the plate between them and set it on the table by her cup. “I appreciate that.”
When the idea had first slipped into her head, as she lay sleepless in her single bed the night after she’d brought Tom to the clinic, Alice’s instinct had been to dismiss it. You didn’t run away from your problems. You faced them down until you beat them.
But the problem was Jason, and he was dead, and no amount of wishing would change that. So leaving Clongarvin wouldn’t be running away from anything, because wherever they went, Jason’s death would be there. It would never leave them.
New surroundings might help though. Putting physical distance between them and the nightmare might somehow make it a bit more bearable, might allow them to forgive each other, and themselves. It might make no difference at all, of course, but the possibility was there; the hope was there.
And so Alice had allowed the idea to take root. They couldn’t travel outside the country, not with the court case pending, but they could go to Donegal maybe, or West Cork, somewhere nobody knew them or remembered an accident that had happened in March in Clongarvin. Rent a small house somewhere, live simply. Look after each other, like they used to do.
And when she felt that the time was right, she’d bring up the subject of early retirement. She couldn’t see Tom going back to work, whatever happened at the trial, and he couldn’t take unpaid leave forever. What did the Americans call it? Closure, that was it. They needed closure. If he wasn’t sent to jail, she’d urge him to take early retirement.
They’d have to come back here for the court case, of course. Ellen would be home, and they’d need the house so they all had somewhere to stay. So they wouldn’t sell up, not yet anyway.
And naturally the outcome of the trial would have a bearing on what came next, but they’d deal with that when they had to. They’d deal with the future when they knew what it held for them.
The shop door opened, and Geraldine got to her feet. “I’ll go.”
Business hadn’t picked up. There was no need for both of them to be there. It made perfect sense for Geraldine to run the place on her own when Alice left. It would make perfect sense for her to take over the lease completely if Alice never returned to it. Time would tell.
Alice put her untouched custard cream back on the plate. She hadn’t much of an appetite lately.
Adam pressed “save” and flipped open his mobile. A number he didn’t recognize was displayed.
“Hello?”
No response.
“Hello there,” he said. “Can you hear me?”
“I think you should come back.” All in a rush, the words running into each other. “I’d like to teach you again.”
“Vivienne?”
But of course it was Vivienne. Adam watched goldfish swim across his computer screen. He wondered what it had cost her to pick up the phone and dial the number on his business card—which hadn’t, it would seem, ended up in her bin after all.
“Well, the thing is,” he said, “I’ve sold the clarinet. I sold it yesterday, in fact. On eBay.”
“Oh.”
Silence.
“Hello?” he said again.
“You could try the piano,” she said.
“Hey, maybe I could try the piano,” he said, at exactly the same time.
Another long pause. He watched the goldfish and tried to summon his thoughts, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“You know,” he said then, “that’s not a bad idea. I’m not sure that the clarinet was my instrument, actually. I think I’d be more suited to the piano.”
Dead silence.
“Are you still there?” he asked.
“You’ll need one to practice on,” she said. “I could ask my brother if he’ll lend you a keyboard. He has some old ones.”
Adam’s smile broadened. “That certainly sounds like a plan,” he said.
A further long pause, and then: “All right.”
“All right?”
“Yes.”
“Right then,” he said, watching the fish. “The piano it is. Does Thursday still suit you?”
“Yes.”
“Same time?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, remembering. “Would your mother be terribly offended if I didn’t have the milk at break time? Milk…gives me a headache.”
Another pause. “All right.”
“Right then,” he repeated. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
She hung up without saying good-bye. Adam folded his phone slowly.
She had called him. She had dialed his number, and she had asked him to come back. Even when he’d told her about selling the clarinet, she had found another way to get him back.
She wanted him to come back.
“She wants me to come back,” he said to Kirby, and the sound of his voice caused the dog’s tail to sweep the floor in lazy arcs. “She misses me. Can’t say I blame her, really.”
Thursday was three days away. He thought about seeing her again in three days, and the delight bubbled up in him.
Hannah didn’t recognize her at first. All she saw was another mother with a baby, struggling to maneuver the wheels of her baby buggy over the edge of the path. Two shopping bags hung from the handle.
It wasn’t until she had almost reached her that Hannah realized who the mother was. She bent and lifted the front wheels of the buggy onto the path, meeting the baby’s blue eyes as she did so. He regarded her calmly.
“Hello,” Hannah said softly. He had Patrick’s mouth, Patrick’s nose.
“Thank you,” the other woman said, and Hannah looked up and saw the slender, drawn face, the red dress that smocked out over the still-swollen abdomen, the hair a shade darker and longer now than when she’d sold Hannah the massage voucher. She’d changed a lot since then.
But that was a year ago. They’d both changed a lot since then.
Hannah stood up. For a second the two women looked at each other. Then Hannah turned and walked away.
“Bless us,” Mrs. O’Toole said. “He’s coming back?”
“Yes,” Vivienne replied. “He’s changing to the piano.” She kept her face turned away, so her mother didn’t demand to know what was so funny, and busied herself with the feather duster, pushing it between the piano keys.
“Changing to the piano?” her mother repeated. “Well, that’s a…well, I don’t know what that’s all about.”
“And he says he doesn’t want milk,” Vivienne added, flicking the duster at Pumpkin, causing the cat to dart at it with his paw. “He says milk gives him a headache.”
“What? He gets a headache from milk?” Mrs. O’Toole snorted. “Well, I’ve heard it all now.”
Vivienne pulled the duster back abruptly. Pumpkin, too late to stop his instinctive lunge after it, toppled from the top of the piano and landed on the floor in an undignified heap. Vivienne burst out laughing.
“Would you leave that poor cat alone,” her mother said crossly. “I don’t know what’s got into you today, I really don’t.”
“Sorry,” Vivienne replied, not sounding remotely apologetic. She crouched and gathered Pumpkin into her arms
and pressed her face into his furry warmth. “Sorry,” she murmured again, thinking about Thursday, and trying hard to keep from skipping around the room.
Bill Dunne had decidedly mixed feelings about being a grandfather. At fifty-eight he was far from ready to embrace the notion of middle age, and he worked determinedly to ensure that he kept any signs of degeneration at bay for as long as possible.
He started every other morning, whatever the weather, with a half-hour run. He drank alcohol with discretion and hadn’t smoked since his twenties. He ate fairly healthily— being left a widower with two young sons had encouraged him to upgrade his cooking skills—and every fourth Friday he traveled to a hair salon in Galway for another dark brown rinse.
And the fact that he had a job that gave him access to plenty of younger, beautiful females went a considerable way toward keeping him young at heart.
Bill Dunne had been talented enough, and lucky enough, to have made a better-than-average living as a freelance fashion photographer for most of his working life. Now he was in the enviable position of being able to pick the jobs he wanted—happily, he was still very much in demand—and reject the others. He worked eight or nine months of the year, and the rest of the time he enjoyed himself, generally in the company of some of the young females he met through his work.
So the notion of suddenly becoming a grandfather, of being thrust into that pipe-and-slippers category, struck him as more than a little premature. Not that he resented the arrival of Patrick’s son into the world—and Reuben looked remarkably and endearingly like Patrick had as a baby—but Bill simply wasn’t ready for anyone to call him Granddad. Not now, not yet.
Of course the Dunne name’s being carried on to the next generation would have been some consolation—but in this case, it seemed that wasn’t going to happen.
“She wants him to be Bradshaw,” Patrick had admitted the night before. “Just Bradshaw.”
Bill hadn’t been told—and hadn’t asked—why his son’s latest relationship had ended so abruptly, barely a fortnight after the baby’s arrival. Given his own healthy libido, he figured it was a safe bet that another woman was involved—and he was hardly qualified to criticize. He privately regretted Patrick’s betrayal of Hannah, whom he’d liked, but he figured it was none of his business, so he kept his feelings to himself.
Leah had seemed like a pleasant sort of woman, on the scant occasions they’d met—lunch in her small apartment on Bill’s return from his Greek cruise, a Sunday-afternoon stroll through the nearby park, a hospital visit to view his new grandson—but now she was gone, too, and so far there was no sign of a successor.
And clearly whatever had taken place to cause her breakup from Patrick had left her bitter enough not to want their son to carry his father’s name.
Would Patrick ever get to know his child in a meaningful way? Would he wander from relationship to relationship, never finding what Bill had had with Patrick’s mother, albeit for a shockingly brief dozen years?
And was it really that surprising that neither of his sons was showing signs of committing to a woman, given their father’s promiscuous lifestyle over the past two decades?
Bill sighed deeply as he ladled his famous chili into two warmed bowls and brought them into the sitting room, where his elder son, recently moved back home, sat watching television.
“You’re back.” Mrs. O’Toole regarded Adam without expression.
“I am indeed,” he told her, keeping his smile firmly in place.
“And you’re switching to the piano,” she said accusingly, her hand planted on the doorjamb.
“Yes,” Adam answered. “Vivienne thought it might be a good idea. If at first you don’t succeed, and all that.” He wondered if she was going to let him in.
She sniffed. “Vivienne tells me you don’t want milk anymore.”
“No,” Adam said, letting the smile slip a little, attempting to sound contrite. “I made an effort, because I didn’t want to offend you, but it really doesn’t agree with me.”
“The only other thing I have is dilute orange.”
“That would be perfect,” Adam said. “I look forward to it.”
She stood aside finally and allowed him into the hall, just as Vivienne and a young boy emerged from the room along the corridor.
“Hello,” Adam said, moving toward her, turning slightly to let the boy past him. “I’m back.”
“Yes.”
She wore a dark blue dress he hadn’t seen before, which ended just above her ankles. Her hair was drawn off her face with two blue slides. It fell to past her shoulders, and it was wavy. Her cheeks were pink. She gave him a small nervous smile. Adam stood in front of her and lifted his hands. “Look,” he said, “no clarinet.”
“No,” she answered, the smile staying put. She turned and walked ahead of him into the room. Her flowery scent wafted back to him.
The cat sat where it always had, tail twitching as it watched Adam walk in.
“Hello, Pumpkin,” Adam said. “How’ve you been?”
“You can sit at the piano,” Vivienne said, taking a sheet from the bundle on the table.
He wouldn’t admire the dress. He’d pretend he hadn’t noticed the new hairstyle. He’d be formal and polite and do nothing to make her feel uncomfortable.
He took off his jacket and slung it across the chair he used to sit on. He took a seat on one end of the long piano bench and waited, his eyes on the black and ivory keys in front of him.
“Would you believe I’ve never played a note on a piano?” he said.
“What you’ve learned so far will help you,” Vivienne replied. She sat on the other edge of the bench, leaving a gap of about six inches between them. Adam felt the minuscule shift in atmosphere, heard the small rustle her movements caused. She cleared her throat, a single sharp cough. He smelled flowers again.
“I’m glad you came back,” she said then, so quiet it was almost a whisper.
Adam kept his eyes firmly on the keys. “I’m glad you asked me,” he said.
“I was bullied,” she said in a rush. “At school, for years. It made me…the way I am. It’s not you, it has nothing to do with you.”
“Okay,” he said.
He waited. The silence lengthened. He didn’t look at her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pumpkin’s tail flick back and forth.
“See where I place my fingers,” she said finally. Her nails were painted the palest of pinks. The varnish was badly applied and smudged in several places. “Now you. Don’t press down, just curve your fingers and rest them lightly. Try to relax them.”
She slid her hands away to allow Adam’s to replace them. Their fingers made the briefest of contact as the switch was made, a feathery touch that caused her to draw away a fraction from him.
“So what now?” he asked, his fingers poised.
“Now we start with scales,” she said.
He couldn’t resist it. “Sounds fishy to me, but I’ll give it a go.”
A sound escaped Vivienne, somewhere between a giggle and a cough. “You should be serious,” she said, “or you won’t learn anything.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
It would take time. He might have to invest in a piano at some stage. It might even take a few more instruments and several series of lessons.
But they’d get there.
“Now, you really and truly shouldn’t have.” Geraldine watched in the mirror as Hannah fastened the string of creamy oval beads around her neck. “Darling, it’s gorgeous.” She turned and hugged her daughter. “I dread to think what you paid.”
“That’s none of your business,” Hannah told her. Much better to let her mother assume that the necklace had cost far more than the thirty-two euro Hannah had gotten it for on eBay. Who’d have guessed the bargains to be had on that Web site, if Adam hadn’t taken it into his head one fine day to look for a clarinet?
“By the way,” she said, “Adam’s just started taking piano lessons.”
&nb
sp; Geraldine stared. “Piano? I thought it was the clarinet. Didn’t you say he’d bought one?”
“He had, but it wasn’t working out, so he sold it again. Now he’s switched to the piano.”
“Funny, I had no idea he was musical,” Geraldine said. “He never struck me as someone who was interested in music.”
Hannah smiled. “Well, he’s very interested now.”
“But you don’t have a piano,” Stephen said. “How’s he going to practice?”
“He got the loan of a keyboard,” Hannah explained. “His teacher’s brother had an old one. So this time next year, he’ll be able to play ‘Happy Birthday.’”
Geraldine laughed. “I hope he’ll be able to play a lot more than that after a whole year. And speaking of birthdays, I think it’s high time we cut that cake before the candles set it on fire.”
“Isn’t Alice coming?” Hannah asked. “I thought you were going to invite her.”
“I did, but to be honest, I wasn’t surprised when she said no. She has a lot on her mind, with Tom coming home in a few days.”
“You might as well tell her,” Stephen said.
Hannah looked from one to the other. “Tell me what?”
“Alice has asked me to take over as manager in the shop when Tom gets out of the treatment center,” Geraldine told her. “Just temporarily—she’s planning to take him away till the case comes to court.”
“Take him away? Where?”
Geraldine shook her head. “She’s talking about the coast, but I don’t think she cares really. She just wants the two of them to have a change of scene for a while, which isn’t a bad idea.”
“And what does Tom think?”
“I have no idea—in fact, I don’t think she’s even mentioned it to him yet. But he’ll hardly object to moving out of Clongarvin for a while, after all that’s happened.”
“Well, no, I suppose not—but what about his job at the clinic?”
Stephen spread his hands. “Officially he’s entitled to six months’ unpaid leave, but however long it takes, his job will be there for him if and when he chooses to return—he knows that.”
Semi-Sweet Page 30
