‘They’ll be back soon.’
‘Where are they?’
‘They were in the greasy spoon a few doors down a while ago, but I’m sure they’ve gone somewhere else by now.’
‘But where?’
‘Ask them yourself when they get back. And move over out of the way. You’re taking up a lot of room.’
Kay and Celia, sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bare floor, look up at me.
‘How old would you say I am?’ asks Aunty Evelyn.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘About the same age as my mam.’
‘No! I’m eight years older, but I don’t look as old as I am, do I? I use this cream. See here! It works. So, how old do you think I look? Not as old as I am, right?’
‘I suppose not.’
She stands. ‘Go up now, John, and get some breakfast.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You are hungry,’ she says.
‘Aunty Evelyn?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me one more story about Niagara Falls before I go upstairs?’
‘I’m busy now,’ she says.
It is ten past nine.
She tidies books on the shelves and serves the only customer who comes in. He is old, has one false eye, white, like a marble, and uses a walking stick. He buys a crossword puzzle book for 5p. When he leaves, she sits down again.
‘All right,’ she says. ‘Let me see. OK, there was a woman in one of the museums. It was night-time and the foyer was very dark …’ She puts a pile of books down on the counter and wipes her dusty hands on her apron.
‘Why was it dark?’
‘Because this was a museum of ghouls and ghosts and old medieval torture contraptions. Anyway, this woman had long painted fingernails, very long and painted orange, and the fingernails were painted with glow-in-the-dark polish. Can you imagine?’
I want more. ‘Can you tell me something else?’
She picks the biggest book off the counter and holds it to her chest. ‘If you’re not happy with the story I’ve told, there won’t be any more. Go on, get away with you. Up the stairs please and let me get on with my work.’
I go up to the kitchen. Liam is at the table, eating cereal. In between mouthfuls, he picks his nose, and then eats what he fetches from his nostrils.
‘It’s after ten,’ I say.
‘What’s it to you, goody-two-shoes?’
‘Nothing,’ I say.
He holds the bowl of cereal up to his face and slurps the milk; the noise makes me think of my grandmother and I wonder what she’s doing, what Crito is doing, and whether Brendan is still playing with Kate. And Mr Roche. I wonder has he asked about me.
‘For your information,’ says Liam with a mouth full of mush, ‘our school has two sessions, the morning and the afternoon.’
‘Why?’
‘Cause there’s too much kids.’
He has a Dublin accent and mumbles most of the time. I fiddle with the bowl of sugar, but I can’t eat. I’d like not to fight with Liam and so I keep talking, try to be friendly.
‘What time does the afternoon session start?’
‘Twelve,’ he says.
‘What’re you going to do till then?’
‘Kick the football over the road with me friends,’ he says. ‘I dunno.’
I am just about to ask him if I can join in when my mother and father arrive home.
My father is wearing a suit and tie.
I stand up. ‘Hello,’ I say.
‘All right?’ asks my mother.
‘All right,’ I say.
My father looks at me and frowns. ‘Not getting out of your pyjamas today?’
‘Why should I?’
‘You’re not sick, are you?’
‘No, but …’
‘Go and get dressed, please. Then come back and help your mother.’
When I come back, my father is gone again and my mother is at the sink, peeling potatoes. Aunty Evelyn comes up the stairs with some rashers from the grocery shop next door. ‘Sit,’ she says to my mother. ‘I’ll start the dinner nice and early. It’ll be ready by twelve.’
My mother sits next to me.
‘Where’s Da gone?’ I ask.
‘To see a man about a dog,’ she says.
‘Why won’t you tell me what’s happening?’
‘When your father gets home.’
‘We have to go back to Gorey,’ I say. ‘You have to help with the summer pantomime. You haven’t finished making the puppets.’
‘We’ll see,’ she says and, because I hate the expression unless it’s used as part of our game, I hate her for using it.
We sit in silence.
Aunty Evelyn moves quickly while she cooks, and seems nervous. She’s not normally a nervous person. She knocks a cup from the dresser and then a vase from the sideboard and catches both before they hit the floor; she moves very quickly for a woman with a body like Alfred Hitchcock’s.
‘Reflexes!’ she shouts.
‘Oh dear,’ says my mother, laughing in an odd way and putting her hands over her face.
While we eat, the conversation is about weather, weddings and christenings. I don’t speak. I get bored and go into the living room and watch TV. It is raining hard outside and the room is dark. But watching the television in the middle of day isn’t as much fun as it should be. I try to force myself to enjoy it but I think of Mr Roche and how I’d like to see him and how I was looking forward to sitting his first test and passing with flying colours.
I scratch at the scab on my head and stop when it bleeds.
It is nearly four o’clock when my father comes home. He smells of aftershave.
‘Your mother and I have to go out again. We’ve a few things to do,’ he says. ‘Keep yourself busy for a few more hours.’
‘But I’m bored. Can’t I come?’
‘Not this time,’ says my mother. ‘Read a book, or watch the television.’
My father throws a Mars bar at me but I don’t have time to catch it. It lands on the carpet about a foot away from me. I stare at it and he stares at it too. I’m not going to pick it up. ‘But where are you going?’ I ask.
‘To see a man about a dog,’ says my father.
My mother winks at me.
‘A different man about a different dog,’ she says, but I don’t want to join in with her joking.
* * *
When they leave I go back down to the bookshop to be with Aunty Evelyn. I sit on a chair behind the counter with her. She seems happy to have me with her and she offers me a bag of peanuts. The peanuts make me think of the zoo. I wonder if she might take me. Liam says it’s about fifteen minutes by bus. I wonder if anybody has ever helped an animal escape.
‘Could you take me to the zoo?’ I ask.
‘Not now,’ she says, without even thinking about it. ‘Maybe you’d like to go next door for a while.’
‘Why?’
‘I need to do something in private, that’s why.’
I walk down to the greasy spoon and go inside. The walls are covered in striped paper, red and yellow, and the radio is turned up loud. It is crowded with old men and old ladies and a few young women near the front with prams. Nearly everybody is facing the front, as though they are on a train. The tables are covered in plastic yellow cloths and every table has a bottle of HP and Worcestershire sauce. The smell of chips and sausages is a good smell and I feel hungry. I want to look at the red plastic menu book on the table near the door, but then I’d have to buy something even if I changed my mind.
The woman at the till looks at me and, even though she doesn’t speak or ask me anything, I say, ‘I’m just looking for my parents.’
‘Have you lost them, love?’
‘No. Thanks anyway. I’m going now.’
I don’t understand why I feel nervous.
I go into the grocery shop next door and as I walk in the bell rings.
Maureen, the old woman who works behind the counter, remembers me from the last time I visited. She comes rushing over. ‘John!’ she cries. ‘How you’ve grown! To the size of a man. Quite amazing.’