Make Yourself at Home Read online

  Marianne had to concede that Patrick’s system allowed her to find a hammer quickly. She picked it up, felt the heft of it in her hand, placed her phone on the ground and knelt down, raised the hammer. What gave her pause was the thought that this bore all the hallmarks of something Rita would do. It would make a noise, create a mess and, yes, while it would solve her immediate dilemma of Brian’s message, it would also mean that she would no longer get text alerts from CPA Ireland, keeping her abreast of all things accounting. Or from her bank if there was unusual activity on her credit or ATM card.

  Not that there had been any activity on either, unusual or otherwise.

  Rita would insist on calling that a ‘positive’. Marianne clenched the hammer tighter, lifted it higher.

  The door swung open and there was Rita.

  ‘Marnie!’ she said, and she sounded delighted, like Marianne was exactly the person she had been hoping to see.

  She had changed her clothes and now wore a sheer white ballet-length strapless dress with a bright green sash around the middle, the same colour as her turban – but, beneath her make-up, Marianne thought her mother looked tired.

  She lowered the hammer. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Rita, casting about the shed. Her eyes lit on a screwdriver. ‘I was looking for a screwdriver,’ she said, pointing at it.

  ‘No you weren’t.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Rita, nodding towards the hammer clutched in Marianne’s hand.

  ‘I asked you first.’

  ‘Okay, fine,’ said Rita, holding her hands up in surrender. ‘I came in to see what you were doing.’

  They were both distracted by an enormous spider, which was making a valiant effort to crawl up Rita’s dress. Rita bent and scooped the spider into the curve of her palm, set it down gently in the corner of the shed furthest from the door.

  ‘So,’ she said, turning back towards Marianne. ‘Do you need help with anything?’

  ‘No,’ said Marianne, hiding the hammer behind her back.

  ‘You were about to demolish your phone, yes?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You have a voicemail,’ said Rita, picking up the phone and pointing at the message on the screen.

  ‘I’m well aware of that,’ said Marianne.

  Rita nodded then, as if Marianne had explained everything. ‘I could listen to it,’ she said then. ‘If you like.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Marianne.

  ‘To see what it says,’ said Rita.

  ‘What will you do after you listen to it?’ said Marianne.

  ‘What would you like me to do?’ asked Rita.

  ‘It depends,’ said Marianne.

  Rita nodded as if this made perfect sense. She pressed a button on the phone.

  ‘Wait,’ shouted Marianne, scrambling to her feet.

  Rita paused, looking at Marianne as she waited.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what it depends on?’ said Marianne.

  Rita took a moment to consider this. ‘I suppose,’ she said after a while, ‘if it’s a life or death situation I’ll tell you?’ She looked at Marianne for confirmation.

  ‘What about if he says he—’ Marianne began.

  Rita interrupted. ‘How about I listen to the message, see what he says, and then I’ll synopsise it for you. Or, if you decide you don’t want to hear it, I’ll just delete the message. Or I could help you smash the phone, if you prefer.’ Rita smiled at Marianne. ‘Okay?’ She lifted her – mostly drawn on – eyebrows as she waited.

  Marianne put down the hammer and nodded. Rita pressed a few buttons before raising the phone to her ear. Marianne leaned against the wall and tried not to clench as Rita got into her voicemail and listened to the message. Her face was impassive as she listened. Even at this remove, Marianne could hear the careful monotone of Brian’s voice.

  Rita hung up.

  ‘Did you delete it?’ Marianne asked her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well?’

  Rita took a breath. ‘The babies were born.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Why did he ring to tell me that?’ said Marianne.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t want you finding out from anyone else?’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rita, shrugging. ‘Maybe one of your work pals?’

  ‘I don’t have work pals.’

  ‘Did you never go for lunch with anyone?’ asked Rita.

  ‘I ate at my desk.’

  Neither of them spoke for a bit after that. It had never bothered Marianne; not having work pals, eating alone at her desk. It was just, now, saying it out loud, it sounded a bit, well, pathetic, she supposed.

  She cleared her throat, transferred the hammer from one hand to the other.

  ‘Are they all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The babies.’

  Rita had a think. ‘Well, he didn’t say they weren’t all right so I imagine they’re fine,’ she said.

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Marianne, eyeing Rita suspiciously. ‘Isn’t there?’

  Rita glanced at the hammer, still clenched in Marianne’s hand, shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘Tell me,’ said Marianne.

  Rita expelled air from her mouth in a lengthy breath. ‘He mentioned your house,’ she said. ‘There’s a “For Sale” sign outside. And he wondered if you were okay. He hoped you were okay.’

  ‘Which is it? Wondered or hoped?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rita had another think. ‘Hoped,’ she said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘One other thing,’ said Rita in a surprisingly good imitation of Brian’s generic accent. ‘I was driving down Carling Road earlier and I noticed your house for sale. I just … I’m sure you are but … I hoped you were okay.’

  ‘He’s sure I am what?’ snapped Marianne.

  ‘He’s sure you’re okay,’ said Rita. ‘Then there’s a sizeable pause at the end before a fairly rushed, “Okay well, I’d better go, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.”’

  Marianne couldn’t help feeling impressed at Rita’s attention to detail. Five byes. Brian always said five of them in a row like that.

  ‘Could you hear the babies in the background?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ said Rita.

  ‘A “For Sale” sign,’ said Marianne.

  Rita nodded.

  ‘It used to be our house,’ Marianne said, almost to herself. She hated the way her mother looked at her then, like she felt sorry for her. She supposed she couldn’t blame her.

  ‘You also got a message from Shirley,’ said Rita, brisk now. ‘She said tomorrow suits her fine.’

  ‘For what?’ asked Marianne.

  ‘She didn’t say,’ said Rita, ‘but I think it’s something to do with maths. She mentioned looking up calculus in the urban dictionary and the definition is “legalised torture”.’

  Marianne nodded. There was nothing torturous about calculus. Calculus made a lot more sense than most things.

  Rita held the phone towards Marianne. ‘Do you want it back?’

  Marianne flushed. ‘You must think I’m pretty childish.’

  Rita shook her head. ‘I’ve never thought that about you,’ she said.

  Marianne took the phone, slipped it back into her pocket.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ said Rita. She touched Marianne briefly on her arm before opening the shed door and bustling away.

  Chapter 13

  The thing was, after Brian left her, nothing much changed in Marianne’s life. She went to work, came home in the evenings, made dinner, watched nature programmes on the television and went to bed.

  The weekends were spent catching up on housework, doing her weekly shop, restoring a piece of furniture she might have bought at a market and going for brisk walks in the p
ark.

  ‘How are you managing on your own?’ asked Rita, during one of their sporadic meetings in a café not in Marianne’s catchment area, when Marianne eventually told her that Brian had left.

  ‘Fine,’ said Marianne.

  ‘Really?’ said Rita.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marianne. It was true for the most part. She had papered over the crack that Brian had made in the wall in her life and got on with things. Apart from those few, inoffensive, maintenance-level shoplifting episodes. And then of course, the one where she hadn’t paid as much attention as she should. Not nearly as much attention as the security guard.

  The babies arriving did not fell her as much as the house being sold.

  Her home.

  She supposed she would paper over this crack, too.

  The next morning, she was jolted awake by the rooster – Declan, she thought – crowing. It was a broken, ragged sound, more obligation than enthusiasm, as if the rooster’s heart wasn’t quite in it. She lay in bed, momentarily startled by her surroundings before she remembered that she had returned to Ancaire with no prospects and no plans, and no chance of any of that changing in the near, or indeed far, future.

  George stood on his back legs with his front legs on the bed, pawing at whatever bit of Marianne he could reach until she gave up and got up, threw on several layers, comprising T-shirt, tracksuit, and fleece, and took him outside to do his business. George did his disappearing act down the treacherous moss-slick steps as soon as Marianne opened the back door. Marianne had heard people talking in an effusive manner about the benefits of sea air, using words like ‘bracing’ and ‘exhilarating’. One excitable man in the office had gone so far as to call it ‘life-affirming’. George, barrelling along the shoreline with his tail a blur of wags, possibly felt the same way. To Marianne, the sea air felt dark and damp, heavy with salt, and full to the brim with January. Loud, too, with the roar of the wind tearing at the manes of the horses on the beach and the strident cry of the herring gulls as they dived at the water, breaking the steely surface with their beaks.

  On her return from the beach, Marianne did her best to sneak past the kitchen window, where she could hear Rita clanking and banging and force-feeding anyone she came upon. But, in the stuttering effort of daylight, she was spotted by her mother, who rapped on the window, beckoning her inside.

  ‘Go and pull a brush through your hair if you can, and I’ll make you a cheese and tomato toastie before we go and collect my clients,’ said Rita.

  Rita’s cheese and tomato toasties were delicious. She made them in the pan with butter. The bread was crispy and sweet, and the cheese melted all over the circles of vine tomatoes, and the whole lot sort of sang and danced in your mouth in a bonanza of taste that could make you forget about almost everything. Just for a moment.

  It occurred to Marianne that her mother felt sorry for her. After yesterday. That scalded.

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ said Marianne. ‘And there’s no need for you to come with me,’ she added. ‘I can pick up the Get-Well-Sooners by myself.’

  ‘I know you can,’ said Rita.

  Pearl swept into the kitchen, soundless and swift, as if she were on casters, and issued a clipped, ‘Good morning’ to no one in particular.

  Then came Patrick with the eggs, still warm from the weight of the hens. He handed them to Rita, who kissed him on both cheeks, called him ‘my darling boy’, and steered a wooden spoon of whatever concoction she was stirring in a pot towards his mouth, which he ate obediently. Their effortless domesticity made Marianne want to throw something. Break it. She glared at the coffee pot. ‘Would you like me to make you some?’ said Patrick, picking up the pot.

  ‘No,’ said Marianne, striding towards the door.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Aunt Pearl from behind her newspaper, but Marianne had already left the kitchen.

  In the bedroom, she could smell Patrick’s coffee already and her mouth watered, its dense, earthy scent invading the furthest and dankest corners of the house.

  Marianne pushed as much of her hair as she could manage into a scrunchie and ate the banana she had filched from the bowl on the hall table. Above the table, a framed, blown-up photograph of Rita’s parents, Ruby and Archibald, standing in front of Ancaire with their arms wrapped around each other and not just smiling at the camera but laughing. There was something so unguarded about their happiness. As if they expected nothing less.

  Marianne made sure the keys didn’t jangle when she slipped them from their hook in the hall, but Rita heard her anyway.

  ‘Wait for me,’ she called, pouring her weed-choked tea into a portable cup. She ran after Marianne, as fast as her snake-print high-heeled ankle boots would allow her towards the Jeep, almost glorious in a full-length cream faux-mink coat with a matching turban wound round her head, and squashed herself into the front passenger seat beside George, who had no choice but to accommodate her. There was nothing else to be done. Not with Rita.

  ‘How are you feeling this morning?’ Rita asked, as Marianne waited for a tractor to pass before pulling out of the avenue, onto the main road.

  ‘Fine,’ said Marianne.

  ‘Now, you’re supposed to ask me how I’m feeling,’ said Rita.

  Marianne glanced at her mother, who nodded encouragingly at her.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Marianne asked.

  ‘I’d feel a lot better if you let me smoke in the Jeep.’

  ‘You’re not smoking in the Jeep.’

  ‘I know. I just said I’d feel better if I could.’ Rita took her vape pen out of her red velvet clutch bag, which did nothing but clash with the bright pink pinafore beneath her coat. She pulled on it with great enthusiasm, inhaling in large, loud gulps before breathing out, creating a vast cloud of vapour that filled the car and smelled of purple Fruit Pastilles.

  ‘Jesus, Rita, I can hardly see where I’m going,’ said Marianne.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere’ said Rita, pointing through the fug at the red light.

  ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ said Marianne drily.

  The two women glanced at each other. Long enough to notice the similarities between them, perhaps. The small hollow in the middle of their chins, the shape of their mouths, wide and full and a little too big in the pale circles of their faces.

  The traffic lights turned green.

  Marianne moved off but only got a couple of metres before the Jeep cut out. The driver of the car behind beeped. Marianne put on the hazard lights, turned the key in the ignition, stepped gently on the accelerator. The driver beeped again, leaning on the horn this time so that it blared.

  Marianne glared in the rear-view mirror. ‘Can he not see I’m having difficulty here?’

  ‘He’s being a dick,’ said Rita, adjusting the rear-view mirror the better to see the object of her derision.

  ‘Can you put that mirror back to the position you found it?’ said Marianne.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Rita, handing Marianne her vape pen and pulling down her window.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Marianne, suddenly nervous.

  Rita undid her seat belt, kneeled on her seat and leaned out of the window. She waited until she was sure she had the driver’s full attention before extending her hand with her middle finger up.

  ‘Will you get in before you get us killed,’ Marianne hissed at her. She turned the key again, floored the accelerator. The engine did not turn over. Behind her, the driver was leaning out his window now, shouting obscenities at Rita, who hadn’t budged from her blatantly antagonistic position.

  ‘I presume there’s no central locking system in the Jeep?’ Marianne stabbed at a few buttons, just in case.

  The driver was purple with rage by the time he manoeuvred his way past them. He glared at Marianne as he drove by and she bowed her head, although she could see his fist, shaking, in her peripheral vision. Another car drove up behind them and stopped. Marianne tried again to start the Jeep.

  ‘You have to talk ni
ce to it,’ Rita said, climbing back inside and resuming her seat beside George. She leaned forward. ‘Who’s a lovely Jeep then?’ she said, patting the dashboard. ‘Now try again.’

  ‘I think the engine is flooded,’ said Marianne, turning the key in the ignition and stepping cautiously on the accelerator. The engine wheezed and juddered, then turned over.

  ‘See?’ said Rita.

  Marianne drove on.

  She picked up Ethel, then Bartholomew, who was already waiting outside his house when she pulled up. He ran to the Jeep, flung open Marianne’s door, then jumped up and down on the spot several times. In one of his hands – both of which he waved above his head, like antennae gone berserk – he clutched a white envelope.

  Ethel leaned forward and peered at him. Marianne waited for him to run out of puff, which didn’t take long.

  ‘You are not going to believe it,’ he panted. He thrust the envelope under Marianne’s nose. ‘Guess,’ he said. ‘Go on, you’ll never guess.’

  ‘You got called for the interview at the theatre?’ said Ethel.

  ‘How did you guess?’ he demanded.

  ‘Darling Bartholomew.’ Rita clapped her hands. ‘I knew you could do it.’

  ‘I can only assume they haven’t contacted any of my references yet,’ said Bartholomew, deflating like a punctured balloon.

  ‘Could you get in?’ said Marianne, gesturing him inside the car. She was, after all, parked on double yellow lines.

  Freddy sprinted out of Razzle Dazzle when he heard the Jeep roaring up the road, his long, spindly legs a blur of speed. ‘Go, go, go,’ he hissed desperately at Marianne as he hurled himself into the back seat and slammed the door. In the rear-view mirror, Marianne could see Freddy’s mother, walking at a brisk clip towards the Jeep.

  ‘Whatever’s the matter, dear?’ asked Ethel.

  ‘Can we just please move?’ begged Freddy, adjusting his glasses, which had slipped down his nose in his haste. ‘Before she reaches us?’