Make Yourself at Home Read online

  ‘Is that our hot chocolate?’ said the smaller one, standing on his toes to peer over the edge of the tray.

  ‘Introduce yourselves before you start tormenting her,’ the angry young woman shouted at them, her eyes still closed.

  ‘Sheldon,’ the taller one said, pointing to his chest. ‘Eight. He/him. Second class. He’s Harrison. Five. He’s only in Senior Infants.’

  ‘I can say my own name,’ said Harrison, hotly.

  ‘Yes, this is your hot chocolate,’ said Marianne, lowering the tray before Harrison, who had formed a tiny fist with his hand, could land a punch on his brother’s skinny arm. The boys lifted their mugs and sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling their boxes over their heads.

  ‘Ah, Marianne, lovely to see you again,’ boomed Bartholomew, approaching her with his arms outstretched. Marianne grabbed the Chippendales mug and thrust it at him. ‘You already know my mug,’ he said, beaming.

  ‘Is there any semi-skimmed milk?’ enquired the skin-and-bone man with the worried face. He pushed his wire-framed glasses up his nose and peered at Marianne through small, round lenses. Freddy, Marianne remembered.

  ‘I’ll fetch some,’ Rita said.

  ‘And some cake?’ Bartholomew asked hopefully. ‘That meditation has given me an appetite.’

  ‘Applying lip gloss gives you an appetite,’ said Shirley, grabbing the #mefuckingtoo mug off the tray. ‘No offence.’

  ‘There should be cake,’ said Rita as she trotted out the door. ‘Gerard is gluten-intolerant so I don’t think he ate much of the lemon drizzle I made.’

  ‘Aren’t you having a cuppa, dear?’ asked the little old lady, lifting the china cup and saucer from the tray and smiling at Marianne.

  ‘No,’ she said, taking a step back and standing on Shirley’s foot. Shirley glared at her.

  ‘Sorry,’ mumbled Marianne.

  ‘You look like someone who understands theorems,’ Shirley said. ‘No offence.’

  ‘Eh …’ began Marianne. ‘None taken.’

  ‘Rita said you’re an accountant,’ said Shirley.

  ‘I used to be.’

  ‘So can you explain what that prick Pythagoras was on about?’ said Shirley.

  ‘Do you mean now?’ said Marianne. She felt vaguely foolish.

  ‘I’m doing the leaving cert in June so sometime before then would be handy,’ said Shirley.

  ‘I’m helping her with French,’ said Bartholomew proudly, rushing to occupy the seat closest to the fire.

  ‘Yes,’ said Freddy. ‘He knows the French for entrepreneur and cul-de-sac, I believe. Oh, and bureau de change.’

  ‘And I also know the French for imbecile,’ retorted Bartholomew.

  ‘Are you staying for the meeting?’ Shirley barked at Marianne as she strode over to Bartholomew. ‘That’s my chair,’ she told him.

  ‘Could we not take turns?’ asked Bartholomew, more in hope than expectation.

  ‘No,’ said Shirley. He got up and Shirley sat down, crossed her legs so her short skirt rode even further up her legs, revealing a large rip in her fishnet tights. She glared at Marianne. ‘Well? Are you?’

  ‘No,’ Marianne said, and her voice was louder than she’d intended. More like a shout. A wail.

  ‘You’d be more than welcome,’ said Freddy. ‘It might be beneficial for those bona fide addicts in the group to hear from someone who is not an alcoholic but who has been affected by alcoholism.’ He gestured at Bartholomew, Ethel and Shirley.

  ‘You actually said something that makes sense, Frederick,’ boomed Bartholomew, who appeared to have recovered himself after his abrupt eviction from Shirley’s chair. ‘And your capacity for self-delusion is exemplary, may I say.’

  ‘I take exception to—’ began Freddy, reddening.

  ‘The more the merrier,’ cut in Ethel, smiling.

  ‘Hardly merry,’ fumed Shirley. ‘Given how fucken sober we all are.’

  ‘Sobriety is a—’ began Bartholomew.

  Freddy stood up. ‘I swear, if you say “Sobriety is a gift that keeps on giving”, I will have no choice but to box your ears.’

  ‘Ooh, Frederick, I’m quaking over here,’ said Bartholomew, bravely standing behind Ethel.

  ‘Boys, please,’ said Ethel. ‘What will Sheldon and Harrison think?’

  But the two boys were too engrossed in making a Lego housing estate to pay any attention to the grown-ups. Marianne put ‘grown-ups’ in inverted commas in her head.

  ‘That better be a social housing estate,’ Shirley barked at them.

  ‘Yes, Mam,’ said the boys in unison, not looking up from their efforts.

  Shirley’s harsh expression softened like butter on a pan. ‘Look at my boys,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘They’re fucken deadly, so they are.’

  Everybody gazed at them and smiled. Beside the boys, sitting in a row and staring with glassy eyes, was a selection of soft toys that had once belonged to Marianne and Flo. Marianne bent to collect the boys’ now empty mugs and picked up the owl. It was smaller than she remembered, with stuffing oozing through the seams in places. The wings, once soft and golden, were rough to the touch now, and faded to a dull beige. Marianne hardly recognised her face in the owl’s brown eyes. She looked like a fainter version of herself; pale and wary.

  ‘I hate owls,’ declared Harrison, beside her all of a sudden with his little hands on his hips.

  ‘Why?’ Marianne couldn’t help asking. He seemed so adamant.

  ‘They eat mice, so they do,’ said Harrison grimly.

  ‘He loves mice,’ said Sheldon, bursting out the top of one of the boxes. He shook his head and rolled his eyes and looked alarmingly like his mother.

  ‘Just as well,’ said Shirley. ‘Since the kip we live in is inundated with them.’

  Marianne put the mugs on the tray and stuffed the owl into the pocket of her anorak.

  Rita returned with most of a lemon drizzle cake. Distributing it appeared to be a dangerous and thankless job.

  ‘Why is his slice bigger than mine?’ Freddy demanded, pointing at Bartholomew’s plate.

  ‘It is most certainly not,’ said Bartholomew, quickly taking an enormous bite of his portion of cake.

  ‘So, we’ll see you in the morning then, dear?’ said Ethel, reaching up to set her cup and saucer on the tray.

  ‘Why?’ said Marianne.

  Ethel smiled. ‘You’re very kind to agree to drive us while Rita is unable to.’

  ‘No,’ began Marianne, glaring at Rita. ‘I never—’

  ‘You don’t want me to break the law, surely?’ said Rita.

  ‘No, of course not,’ snapped Marianne.

  ‘It’ll just be until I get my licence renewed,’ said Rita in a bright tone.

  ‘Only a matter of weeks, I’d say,’ said Bartholomew. ‘A month, tops.’

  ‘A month?’ The cups on the tray slid to one side and Marianne struggled to straighten it.

  ‘It’ll be good for you to have something to do,’ said Freddy.

  ‘I have things to do,’ said Marianne hotly.

  ‘Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t count,’ said Shirley. ‘No offence,’ she added hurriedly as Marianne’s face contorted.

  ‘Let’s discuss the finer details later,’ said Rita, draining her cup and setting it on the tray.

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss.’

  ‘Oh, and, just so you know, I’ll need a lift to Hugh’s salon after the Tuesday and Thursday meetings,’ Shirley told Marianne. ‘I’m his apprentice,’ she added, unable to conceal a faint touch of pride.

  ‘She could probably give your hair a bit of a trim,’ said Freddy. ‘Only if you thought you needed one,’ he added hastily.

  Marianne could see her hair in the reflection of Freddy’s small, round lenses. It was like a foreign land, the dark, tangled shores of which had never felt the weight of a human foot.

  Shirley looked dubious. ‘I’d say I’d need more training.’

  Marianne was sudden
ly exhausted, the fight all drained out of her. How did these people manage to meet like this every day? How did they ever expect to Get Well Soon in this place? All anyone would achieve in this environment was a headache. And an addiction to caffeine and sugar.

  Chapter 9

  Marianne hated to admit it but Rita was right. Driving was like riding a bicycle. An ancient, buckled bicycle with a flat tyre and a rusted chain. ‘The engine just needs to warm up,’ Rita shouted from behind an enormous hydrangea bush that would prove scant protection if the Jeep were to make a lunge at it.

  She had insisted on coming out of the house the next morning to see Marianne off, dressed in a purple kimono that clashed horribly with her orange turban. She’d acted pleasantly surprised at breakfast when Marianne told her she’d drive the Jeep, but she was fooling no one.

  They had both known Marianne would do it.

  Rita inserted a cigarette into a long, slim holder and lit it.

  ‘Give it a bit more poke,’ she roared.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Marianne screeched out the window, which had to be kept open to prevent the windscreen from misting over.

  ‘Accelerate,’ Rita yelled, smoke pouring out of her mouth and nose.

  ‘Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?’ shouted Marianne.

  She increased the pressure of her foot against the accelerator and the Jeep coughed and spluttered in protest, then seemed to accept its fate, moving in the direction dictated by Marianne’s steering of the wheel, more or less.

  Patrick walked out of his workshop, tucking a chisel into the tool belt slung low around his hips. He smiled at Marianne as he passed the hydrangea bush where Rita was now whooping and punching the air with her fist. Marianne noticed a modest sensation of achievement passing unchecked through her system.

  She was driving.

  It felt good to be in charge of something. To press a button here or push a pedal there and for that action to cause a reaction, however much it made the whole contraption shudder. Even the sight of George, sitting upright in the front passenger seat, his head leaning out the window so that the wind caught his ears and tossed them behind his head, like schoolgirl pigtails, did not irk her as much as it had every right to. He had followed Marianne into the Jeep and refused to get out. In the end, Marianne had no choice but to wrestle the seat belt around him.

  After some warm-up laps of the house, Marianne manoeuvred the Jeep down the avenue. The road was empty as far as the eye could see in both directions and she drove out the peeling wrought-iron gates and down the road.

  Marianne always held her breath when she passed the spot. There was a small wooden cross there, often with flowers propped against it. Marianne tried not to look but even so, she saw them on the periphery of her vision. On the grass verge at the side of the road.

  Today, the flowers were pink lilies. Marianne held her breath, accelerated past them.

  George barked. A brief, solitary bark.

  ‘Be quiet, George,’ Marianne said. He responded by stretching his head towards her and flicking his long, pink tongue along her hand, gripping the steering wheel.

  ‘Stop that,’ said Marianne, wiping the back of her hand on the leg of her tracksuit. George ignored her, leaned out the window, anxious not to miss anything.

  Ethel’s house was a semi-D in a housing estate on the outskirts of Skerries. The estate was called The Cedars, but there were no cedars as far as Marianne could see. In fact, there was no foliage of any kind. Number thirty-nine was crammed along a row of identical houses, each with a tiny square of grass in front, separated from the garden next door by a low line of box hedge.

  Marianne walked up the narrow driveway and rang the doorbell. It played an out-of-tune version of ‘God Save the Queen’. A door at the end of the hallway opened, spilling light along the linoleum floor and through the small square of glass in the front door, Marianne saw the slow-moving form of Ethel Abelforth. She removed a collection of keys on a ring from a deep pocket in an oversized cardigan, then spent an age selecting this key, then that one, turning them in various locks, then sliding bolts, following which the front door opened a slit before it was brought to a halt by the door chain. Ethel’s face appeared around the edge of the door.

  ‘Yes?’ said Ethel.

  ‘Hello, Ethel,’ said Marianne.

  ‘Hello,’ said Ethel, in a small, wary voice.

  ‘It’s Marianne Cross.’ Marianne did her best not to sound impatient. It was difficult at the best of times. ‘Rita’s daughter.’

  ‘Oh, yes, so you are,’ said Ethel, a smile widening across her face. ‘Sorry, dear. It’s just, I was hoodwinked recently and the nice policeman told me I should be careful, answering the door.’

  Marianne was aghast to feel the prick of tears behind her eyes. The kind that would fall if she blinked. She thought it might have something to do with Ethel’s use of the word ‘hoodwinked’. She was careful not to blink.

  ‘You’ll have to sit in the back,’ said Marianne as they walked towards the Jeep. ‘I can’t seem to persuade George out of the front seat.’

  ‘Dear George,’ said Ethel, opening the door to pull gently at his ears. ‘He’s much more settled since you arrived.’

  ‘He’s very needy,’ said Marianne, sighing.

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ said Ethel, using the headrest of the back seat to pull herself inside the Jeep.

  Marianne drove down the road, stopped at the end, looked left and right, then pulled away.

  ‘Are you all right, dear?’ Ethel asked, leaning forward.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marianne.

  ‘It’s just, you seem a little – and I hope you won’t mind my saying so – anxious?’

  Marianne tightened her hands around the wheel. ‘I haven’t done much driving.’

  ‘Well, you seem very competent to me,’ Ethel said. ‘Although what do I know? I haven’t driven in five years.’

  Marianne didn’t respond.

  ‘You’re probably wondering why?’ Ethel said.

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘I had an accident, you see,’ said Ethel. ‘It was my dear Stanley’s anniversary and I’m sorry to say that I marked it by getting rather intoxicated. We’ll be married fifty years this year.’ She paused there and Marianne was unsure if she was expected to say ‘Congratulations’. She didn’t say anything.

  ‘The driver of the other car will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The judge was lenient and gave me a fine and a lifetime driving ban.’

  Marianne could feel Ethel looking at her through the rearview mirror. She concentrated on the road. ‘That’s how I met Rita, you see,’ Ethel went on. ‘She was giving an art class to some patients in the hospital and I arrived to visit Gavin. That’s his name, dear. Gavin Enright. Do you know him?’

  ‘Should I?’ said Marianne.

  ‘It’s just everybody in Ireland seems to know everybody else, I find,’ said Ethel. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘his family were furious when they saw me. I had a bunch of grapes, of all things. Can you imagine? Rita heard the commotion and she rescued me, took me to Ancaire.’

  ‘Did you … ever get to speak to Gavin?’ asked Marianne.

  Ethel brightened. ‘Oh, yes, dear. Rita takes me to his house to visit once a month. We only go when he’s not expecting any of his family. Gavin has forgiven me, bless him, but they haven’t and I don’t blame them.’ Ethel looked out the window. ‘Take this next left for Balbriggan,’ she said. ‘We’ll pick Bartholomew up next. All right, dear?’

  Up ahead, the traffic lights changed from green to amber. Marianne slowed down.

  ‘We always go to the church dinner-dance to celebrate our anniversary, Stanley and I,’ Ethel announced.

  ‘I thought Stanley was …’

  ‘The dear man sends me a sign,’ said Ethel, beaming. ‘Every year, without fail.’

  ‘A sign?’

  ‘From the other side, dear,’ said Ethel, patiently.

  ‘Oh,’ sai
d Marianne.

  ‘I expect you’re missing your young man?’ Ethel said then, settling her head against the back seat.

  Marianne yanked on the handbrake. ‘I don’t think Brian was ever young,’ she said. ‘He by-passed childhood and went straight to adulthood.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Ethel.

  ‘I think that’s what I liked about him.’ This admission surprised Marianne – not just the fact that she told Ethel when she’d had no intention of telling Ethel anything, but the truth of it. She had never really known why she had decided to let Brian in when she had already resigned herself to being alone.

  ‘He made you feel safe,’ Ethel murmured from the back seat.

  Marianne glanced in the rear-view mirror. Ethel’s eyes were closed. Perhaps she had nodded off. Marianne squirted water onto the windscreen, turned on the wipers to clear it.

  The lights went green and Marianne drove on.

  Bartholomew was waiting outside a terraced house, on a quiet road just off Balbriggan’s main street. The house presented in a shabby, run-down kind of way, the wood of the window frames rotting in places and the net curtains, hanging limply across them, yellowed and thin. Even to Marianne’s unfamiliar eye, Bartholomew seemed less than his exuberant self when Marianne pulled up. It might have been his suspiciously black quiff, which did not seem as buoyant as yesterday. Or the shirt – the same pale blue as his eyes – tucked into the trousers of his three-piece suit, the tail of which had escaped and hung, like a flag on a windless day, below his jacket.

  ‘Thank you for picking me up,’ he said, opening the passenger door, trying and failing to persuade George out of the front seat. He sighed and looked at Marianne. ‘And just so you know, this place is merely a stop-gap. Until I get myself sorted out.’ He lowered his voice to a stage whisper. ‘I’m between lovers and jobs right now. A bit like yourself.’