“Staff meetings,” she murmured. “The tenth circle of hell.”
The dog would have been thrown into a pit or something, its torn lifeless body there to rot and be forgotten about. They’d find others, train others.
“And it’s a marking night too,” Brid said. “Jesus.”
Aisling seemed to have calmed down. His strength was coming back. He began to dandle her a little, bobbing and weaving gently.
“That can wait,” he said.
“It can’t,” she said without looking up.
“If people only knew,” he said, “how much work teachers actually do.”
She glanced up with that curious smile that had so aroused him in the past. Then her expression changed, and her eyes lost focus
“Breen,” she murmured. “I’d like his job. If that’s what you could call it.”
Fanning poured soup into bowls. He put an ice cube into Aisling’s and tested it with his little finger. She was crying again, and Brid was trying to humour her.
Brid found time on the weekends to make the soups for the week. It was something she liked doing, she said, because she knew that Aisling would be getting at least one solid part of her day’s food homemade and organic too.
Fanning admitted he was hopeless about food. He enjoyed a meal, and the more variety the better, but something happened to his brain when it came to organizing and cooking a serious meal. He’d liked to make Brid laugh back in their early days, about cavemen multitasking, cooking with fires and so forth.
Time had gone strange somewhere in the past few years. The clock ruled now, with things that had to be done, and by a certain time. Awkward bills came in the post, and everything cost so much. They’d had a few heart-to-hearts about it, the money / house / career — monster. It didn’t help really.
He and Brid had been together since third year — except for the summers when he had gone to London and Copenhagen, that is. They had just carried on after they got their degrees, even staying in the same flat. Both of them were vehemently for staying in Dublin while so many had left. There was not even a hint of any boom back then. He had always regarded himself as being on the ball, alert to social change, to the zeitgeist, no matter how small the signs. Being alert was his strength, he felt, noticing things, especially things that everyone else seemed to ignore.
He licked the soup off his finger and he took out a bib for Aisling. It was the only one she’d allow now, the one with the elephants. There was something sticky on the floor underfoot. A door closed hard in the adjoining flat, where the Spanish kids had arrived before Christmas, and he heard their television go on.
Aisling had stopped crying. He heard Brid’s footsteps in the hall. Aisling was asleep on her shoulder, her cheek almost flag-red now. Brid hadn’t even had a chance to get out of her school clothes. Gingerly, she edged onto the seat. Teeth, she mouthed at Fanning. He turned to the cooker and checked on the pizza. He glanced back at Brid to offer her a smile. It was a small way of saying thanks for all that she did. But her eyes were closed too now. Already her breathing had slowed. He wondered why she hadn’t put Aisling down if the child was so sleepy or aching with baby teeth? Even lie beside her a few minutes like at bedtime.
Was this what they called the terrible twos? Brid wondered if it was some separation anxiety thing and she felt guilty, especially at the babysitter’s. But even during their worst arguments she had never come out straight and told him that she wanted him to take over the breadwinning thing and let her stay at home with Aisling.
He pushed the edges of the hardening yolks as they began to flap. He’d lost count of the number of times Brid had fallen asleep with Aisling at bedtime only to wake up with a start herself and start marking student stuff until well after eleven. All the while he’d had his notebooks out pretending to work, or revising, or editing.
“I was having a dream,” she murmured. A small wistful smile appeared, and she opened her eyes.
“You’ll never guess,” she said, and yawned. “This guy knocks at the door. He wants to buy your script off you. ‘Any price,’ he says and he wants to make it. And we have to go with him to Hollywood so we can coach him getting the Irish accent right…”
She opened her eyes wide and stared at him.
“Brad Pitt auditioned” she whispered, “I’m ashamed to say.”
A surge of irritation swept through Fanning. He felt he was losing control of the muscles in his face and neck. He tried to hold a smile, but he had to turn away.
“It must be a good omen,” she murmured. He knew she was still smiling.
“Well,” he began to say, his throat almost too tight to let the words through. He stopped when the phone went.
Chapter 14
Hughes led the two women down to the foyer. Minogue followed. In the lift, Hughes was at pains to repeat something he had spent considerable time on earlier.
“I hope that Mrs. Klos leaves here certain that…”
Mrs. Klos nodded with the translation.
“Certain that we’ll do our best. We’ll treat this as we treat any murder.”
Hughes glanced at Minogue as Danute Juraksaitis translated this.
Mrs. Klos made a bleak, momentary smile and resumed her stare at the worn symbol on the Door Close button. There was awkwardness at the door out of the building.
“Mrs. Klos has a place to stay, I suppose,” Hughes said. “May I ask?”
“In Fairview,” Danute Juraksaitis said. “Bed-and-breakfast.”
“She has people here?” Minogue asked.
Danute Juraksaitis asked Mrs. Klos something.
“Yes. There is a priest. He is Polish. And she knows the Polish newspaper and shops.”
“And to contact Mrs. Klos it’s best I should…?”
“It is better you phone me first.”
Hughes took out her card and turned it over.
“Mobile. It is on always.”
No-one knew what to say or do then.
“Sure we can’t give you a lift?” Hughes asked.
“My car is parked a hundred metres down this street.”
There were no handshakes. The two women prepared to head out into Harcourt Street. Hughes said “God bless,” something Minogue could not remember hearing for many a year. He heard what sounded like the word “Christ” in the translation. A ruined smile came to Mrs. Klos’ face.
“Thank you, thank you. Yes, thank you.”
Both he and Hughes watched the women gain the footpath and soon disappear from view. It was nearly one o’clock.
“Jeeee-sus,” Hughes whispered then and let out a big breath. “Glad that’s over with.”
He turned to Minogue.
“So how do you think it went?”
“As good as it could, I suppose.”
“The language thing though — that’s a killer. Like, I don’t want her coming back at us, you know, ‘they didn’t explain this, they didn’t explain that.’ You know?”
“I daresay we’ll be okay on that one.”
Hughes cocked an eye at him.
“Not the mother. I mean the other one. Ms. Juraksaitis.”
Hughes’ tartly precise enunciation caused Minogue to turn from his covert survey of three detectives waiting on the lift.
“Well she didn’t exactly give off the best vibes,” Hughes said. “Did she.”
Minogue remembered her glasses, how she turned her hands when she translated.
“Well it was great you were there,” Hughes said then. “So thanks.”
Minogue tried to remember if Danute Juraksaitis had a Polish accent or not. It puzzled him that he had not noticed.
“Mind me asking a question?” Hughes asked. “Now, I’m sure you’ve been asked a thousand times.”
“Fire away.”
“Do you miss it, the Squad?
Minogue had had plenty of practice in prevaricating.
“Oh I don’t know,” he said, easily. “All the high tech and training nowadays? It was time to decentralize, I suppose.”
Hughes raised an eyebrow. Minogue felt the return of the hunger he had been ignoring during the interview.