Grace After Henry

by Eithne Shortall

  I looked at her. ‘You said you were sanding at twelve.’

  ‘I was. The summer we left primary school, I did all the floors in the Portmarnock Hotel for Da. I just haven’t done it since, is all. Don’t worry,’ she said, circling the intimidating-looking contraption, ‘I’ll figure it out.’

  It turned out Telly Bingo was on several days a week and I played with Betty when I wasn’t on earlies. There was no point lying about when I was or wasn’t working because she monitored all of Aberdeen Street’s comings and goings with the dedication of the Gestapo from her sitting room window. When I grew a little braver, I would tell her she might as well do away with the net curtain entirely. Although I think she enjoyed the twitch.

  The Blonde One, it seemed, was going to see out the spring and we often missed the Home Phone Player, the opening game of every episode, because Betty was busy critiquing her outfit.

  ‘Imagine paying full price for that skirt and only getting half it. The gombeen!’

  ‘In my day only streetwalkers wore lipstick . . .’

  ‘Must be a lot warmer out in the television studio than it is on Aberdeen Street . . .’

  Betty wanted to know what age The Blonde One was and I looked it up on my phone. I found a recent interview where the presenter, who came across as a lovely woman, said she was approaching forty.

  ‘But from what direction?!’ Betty snorted as she jiggled a biscuit in front of her mouth.

  Betty didn’t believe in the Home Phone Player game anyway. ‘It’s too political,’ she said, munching another digestive. ‘The winners are always from the west.’ She regarded me like I was a simpleton. ‘If you think that’s a coincidence, then you’re even stupider than you look.’

  Betty didn’t ‘believe in’ a lot of things and I had learnt not to challenge them because they were built on an ideology as opaque as faith. Climate change, recycling, type two diabetes, foreign-sounding foods, deodorant, scarves on men, jeans on women and sandals on anyone would all be greeted with a scoff of disbelief. Ditto free-range eggs; any meal that called itself dinner but didn’t involve potatoes; yoghurt; feminists; and gyms, mainly because she couldn’t get her head around what people did in them and this made her deeply suspicious. She was only giving homosexuality the benefit of the doubt because she’d seen what that entailed on the soaps. There was a gay couple currently causing a stir on EastEnders and Betty was distraught that such fine-looking men would not be procreating.

  ‘Such a waste,’ she said with a wistful shake of the head. And I didn’t bother to correct her on that either because I wasn’t sure where she stood on acting.

  But I liked being in her place. This was a home, somewhere gallons of life had flowed through, as opposed to my residence, which was very much a house. There were photographs everywhere of her grown children, all of whom lived abroad, and every inch of surface was covered in trinkets and ornaments bought by her children and grandchildren. There was a snow globe of the Virgin Mary standing beside Santa’s sleigh that the Polish home-help woman had brought back from a trip the previous summer. Betty kept it beside her armchair all year round.

  I talked very little about Henry when I was there and was unsurprised to learn that Betty didn’t believe in grief counselling either. ‘How are you supposed to get over it if you keep bringing it up?’ she said. ‘What you want to do is keep busy. When my husband Patrick, God have mercy on his soul, died I hadn’t a minute to think never mind cry. And then by the time I had a moment, I’d gotten over it. And if it does get into your head, and you really can’t get past it, have a drink. And if that doesn’t work, have a couple more.’

  I went to explain the theories behind talk therapy but The Blonde One had started calling out the numbers for the Snowball. In the breaths the presenter took between numbers, Betty got in key words like ‘mutton’ and ‘lamb’. I, however, was only allowed to speak when the game was over.

  THIRTEEN

  The sander was broken. At least, that was Aoife’s theory. Larry had given us a faulty sander, most likely as part of some sort of scam, and while she wasn’t entirely sure what his game was I could rest assured all would be revealed when the bill for my table arrived.

  ‘And if that’s the kind of workmanship you can expect from him . . .’ Aoife gave a scornful laugh as she shook her head at the bulky piece of machinery. ‘I wouldn’t be putting my legs under it in a hurry anyway.’

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t just . . . done it wrong?’

  ‘Like how?’ she demanded.

  ‘Like, I don’t know. The thing looks like a prototype vacuum cleaner to me. I could look up some YouTube videos, see if they have any tips?’

  ‘Phone him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Phone First Name, First Name and ask him why he gave us a dud sander and what exactly his game is.’

  ‘I haven’t got a number for him,’ I said wearily. Aoife was at odds with everyone at her house so she was hiding out here for the evening. And I felt like I’d been tired for months.

  ‘Well, there you have it then.’

  ‘Have what?’

  ‘Doesn’t leave a number? Uh-uh-uh.’ Aoife shook her head. ‘Larry Paul,’ she spat, and I was actually impressed by how she managed to ridicule his name whilst simultaneously throwing doubt on its legitimacy, ‘you could not be up to this generation of builders; cowboys, the lot of them.’

  ‘I’m seeing him tomorrow. He’s calling around with a plumber and I can ask him about it then. All right?’

  Aoife gave a half-nod and went back to the Ikea couch she’d been trying to fix on-and-off since she arrived. I had, it seemed, managed to misplace one of its mini legs.

  I stifled a yawn. ‘I’m taking out the bins.’

  In the backyard, the air was still and I could hear two dogs chatting across gardens further down the row of houses. One of the animals was fierce angry, yapping away nonstop, and the other was giving little sympathetic howls in response. It sounded like he was shouting: ‘Oh I knooooow, I knooooow.’

  I felt my way to the door that led from the garden shed out to the lane, stopping when my hand hit upon the iron lock and, despite myself, waiting. I stood and listened but of course there was nothing but the dogs. I pulled the wheelie bins out into the laneway and trundled them around the side of the house. The recycling one was full of cardboard and plastic from all the New House purchases, but the general waste was practically empty. It was unnecessary, a big black container like this for one person. Myself and Betty could share a bin and still probably never have it full.

  ‘Depressing,’ I mumbled as I deposited the two bins at the front gate.

  ‘I swear on my mother’s life and all I hold dear that I am not laughing.’

  ‘That might wash if I wasn’t lying right here and if you didn’t have your head on my chest. I can literally feel you laughing, Grace, as well as hear it.’

  ‘It was a burp.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘I swear, Henry, I’m not laughing. Cross my heart and hope to die. Keep reading.’

  ‘This is the kind of thing that leads to trust issues.’

  ‘Just keep reading.’

  ‘If you say one word about my accent—’

  ‘Read! Please!’

  ‘Okay. Ahem . . . “You’ll want all day tomorrow, I suppose,” said Scrooge. “If quite convenient, sir.” “It’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for—” You’re laughing.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘I can feel you!’

  ‘You’re paranoid, Henry. I’m not laughing. Keep going.’

  ‘“If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound. And yet you don’t think me ill-used when—” What is . . . what is that noise? What are you doing with your throat? Grace McDonnell, you’re suppressing laughter!’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘The whole bed is shaking!’

  ‘I just wanted
to ask a question!’

  ‘Oh yeah? What?’

  ‘You know the way Scrooge has no friends, because he’s such a miserly old man?’

  ‘Okay . . .’

  ‘Okay. Well. I’m just wondering if he, possibly, somehow, knows Jason Statham?’

  ‘That’s it, no more.’

  ‘Maybe they play poker together, knock over an occasional bank, that kind of thing? Because that would absolutely explain the accent.’

  ‘I’m not reading any more. Goodnight, Grace.’

  ‘I like this vision. Sort of Guy Ritchie does Dickens. More geezer than Ebenezer. “Want Christmas Day off, Cratchit? Yuh, well, ask again and you’ll be brown bread!” Brown bread, Henry. That’s Cockney rhyming slang for dead.’

  ‘Goodnight, Grace.’

  ‘All right, all right. I’ll get the light on the way back from the bathroom. I’m just going for a little Jimmy Riddle. That’s rhyming slang for—’

  ‘Good! Night! Grace!’

  .........

  I slammed the shed door shut and double-checked the lock. From the back garden I could see all the way down the row of houses. Betty’s and mine were the only ones without some form of extension. I guess it was easier to give up a chunk of your garden with the park so near.

  ‘I sorted the sofa!’ called Aoife, as I came back into the house, through the kitchen and into the sitting room to find the couch standing perfectly balanced across from the TV.

  ‘Amazing! How’d you manage that? I thought I threw out that fourth leg?’ Then I looked at the foot of the couch and saw what was holding it up.

  ‘I found it in your bedroom,’ said Aoife. ‘It’s the perfect size.’

  ‘Take it out.’

  Aoife looked where I was looking. ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Take it out.’

  ‘But it’s a perfect fit.’

  ‘Take it out, Aoife!’

  She dropped the complaint. ‘All right.’ She moved towards the couch, looking at me like she had when I’d started sleeping in the hallway. ‘I’m taking it out.’

  ‘There are other books in the boxes in the study,’ I said, as she pulled A Christmas Carol from under the now lopsided furniture and handed it to me. It was unmarked.

  Aoife went to find a substitute in the room next door and I carried the book, carefully, back upstairs.

  FOURTEEN

  There was going to be an inquest. In the days after Henry died, everything beyond the next breath seemed impossibly faraway. Then his mother phoned Thursday morning to say the date had been set. Henry’s father was a lawyer and he explained that there had to be one if the death occurred due to unnatural causes. It often took up to a year for a hearing to be held so the fact that Henry’s case was due to be heard in six weeks was actually rather quick. It was different from a court case, Isabel explained, it just established the facts of what had happened.

  I missed his parents. I told them to call over, to see the house that was half bought by their son, but while Isabel seemed tempted, Conor thought it was best to leave me to it. Mam said they were letting me get on with my life. But she didn’t understand that that wasn’t a life I was particularly interested in getting on with. When Isabel phoned, I almost forgot Henry was dead.

  ‘Don’t cry, dear.’

  ‘I’m not . . . Well, I am, but it’s not the bad kind,’ I said, standing in the yard at the back of the Portobello Kitchen. ‘I’m so happy to hear from you.’

  ‘Conor and I were just talking about you. He stopped by the restaurant the other day for his lunch.’

  ‘I was in all week! He should have said hello.’

  ‘He said the food was scrumptious, and he could just tell Grace McDonnell was responsible.’

  I grinned, a memory swell of mealtimes spent with them and me and Henry. ‘Is Conor still making his famous Sunday stew?’ I asked.

  ‘Like clockwork,’ she replied, but I could hear her cutting herself short.

  ‘Isabel?’

  ‘I miss him, Grace.’

  And I could see her then, sitting at her dining table in Donnybrook like me on the bench at the back of the Portobello Kitchen, both touching our eyes to see if they were showing us up yet again.

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘And I miss you and Conor.’

  ‘I wanted to invite you for dinner but Conor thought, we both thought, it would be unfair.’

  ‘How could that be unfair? I want to see you.’

  ‘You’re young, with your whole life ahead of you. We love you, Grace. We can’t hold you back.’

  I knew what she meant and I wanted to tell her that no, there would be no other boyfriends, no other de facto parents-in-law, but Henry’s parents were not gushy people and this was already more than enough emotion for one phone call.

  ‘He was a good man, wasn’t he?’

  ‘The best,’ I told her, and I pinched myself through the stiff starched sleeve of my uniform.

  ‘Well,’ said Isabel, rousing herself. ‘We’ll see you for Sunday stew maybe, one of the weeks before the inquest.’

  ‘I’d love that. And tell Conor I said hello.’

  And when we hung up I pictured her shaking herself back to the present at her Donnybrook table, standing to test the resolve of her limbs before finding there was nothing worth doing and sitting right back down again.

  I wished they’d come to the house and tell me how they could see bits of him in it. Dermot had me working five days a week, varying hours, and I generally volunteered to stay late. Now that the others had stopped giving me bear hugs, I liked the silent companionship of splicing and dicing side by side.

  Today, however, the plumber was calling and Simon, another of the chefs, was taking over for part of the lunchtime shift so I could run home and let him into the house.

  ‘I’ll only be an hour or two,’ I reassured Simon. ‘I’ll let him in, show him the boiler, and come right back.’

  ‘No worries,’ he said, pulling on his uniform. ‘I was coming this way anyway; I’m on after-school pick-ups this week.’

  Then Tina’s voice through the orders window: ‘Three hotpots, one special!’

  I took the docket from her and Simon took it from me.

  ‘Go on. If you start you’ll never stop.’

  I shuffled out of my whites and threw an oversized jumper on over my leggings. ‘Two hours,’ I repeated. ‘Tops.’

  I was home at noon – having argued Larry down from a commitment that the plumber would call during a three-hour window to a commitment he would call between twelve and one. I waved at Betty, but she immediately disappeared behind the curtain. I ate a yoghurt and tidied the kitchen a little, washing the same plate and knife that I used for every meal. I unpacked another box of books in the study, a mixture of mine and Henry’s. There were two copies of Animal Farm, and I opened them to see which was which. At the top of the first page of the more battered copy: Henry Walsh. 1R English. St Malachy’s Secondary School. I hugged it to my chest.

  There were two copies of quite a few books. I wondered how I’d never noticed. There was comfort in it, in the idea that our lives had parallel moments even before we knew each other. We figured out once that we had been at the same gig when we were fourteen. There must have been so many of those moments: same pubs, same parks, same long Dublin roads.

  Ding-dong!

  I left the books in a pile and pushed myself to my feet. But it wasn’t the plumber.

  ‘Betty.’

  ‘Are you asking, or are you telling?’

  I tried again. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘The postman left this.’ She handed me a small brown box. ‘You know that perfumed stuff gives you cancer? Nothing to do with your package, I’m just saying.’

  I looked down to notice the slight tear at the edge of the box and the bubbling brown tape spread over it. It was very like the tape used to hold Betty’s remote control together. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No problem. It does my arthritis goo
d to be getting up to open doors to postmen all day.’

  I threw the box (prescription shampoo and moisturiser for psoriasis) up the stairs with the intention of bringing it to the bathroom later, and as it landed at the halfway point, I could hear Henry.

  ‘Is it going to walk the rest of the way?’

  ‘Next time I’m going for a pee, I’ll get it.’

  And when it was still sitting there four days later: ‘Fair play to you, Grace. You must have a bladder like the Serra da Mesa Reservoir.’

  It was almost one. I considered phoning Larry before remembering I had no number for him. I was starting to think I’d have to give Betty a key, which I really didn’t want to do. She’d have the black knickers rooted out of my underwear drawer and my pay cheques memorised before the plumber had arrived. And then, thank God, the doorbell went again. When workmen say they’ll call within a given period, they always mean the last five minutes of said period. If you’re lucky. My bag was ready to go, everything locked up, so I’d just let him in and show him where the boiler was. I opened the door to two silhouettes and raised a hand to shade the strong midday sun.

  ‘All right, Grace,’ said Larry. ‘I’m legging it because I’ve another job I’m already late for. Andy knows what the story is, so you can leave him to it.’

  Larry disappeared back down the path saying something about money and this weekend and maybe the floors. But it was all nonsense because there were no floorboards or days of the week, no new house or pipes or boiler that could only manage lukewarm. There was just him standing in the garden. And even that was being sucked away now; the modest patch of grass, the thin mesh fence that separated my property from Betty’s, the broken slabs beneath his feet, Larry’s voice and everything else. All sucked away. And what was left was only him. Because it was him.

  Henry Walsh, alive and sun-kissed, and standing in our garden.

  FIFTEEN

  He took a step back, out of the sun, so his face was entirely visible. And still the truth prevailed.

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘No, mate,’ he replied, though it had not been a question. ‘Andy. How’re you going? Sorry I’m late. You’re having trouble with the boiler?’