The ball thumped past Hazel’s foot. John looked up the length of the garden at her.
‘Hey!’ he called.
‘What?’
‘The ball.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The ball!’
It seemed to Hazel that she could not hear him, even though his words were quite clear to her. Or that she could not be heard, even though she was saying nothing at all. She found herself walking down the garden, and she did not know why until she was standing in front of him, with the baby thrust out at arms’ length.
‘Take him,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Take the baby.’
‘What?’
‘Take the fucking baby!’
The baby dangled between them, so shocked that when John fumbled it into his arms, the sound of wailing was a relief — at least it turned the volume in her head back on. But Hazel was already walking back up to the ball. She picked it up and slung it low towards the apple trees.
‘Now. There’s your ball.’ Then she turned to go inside.
John’s father was at the sliding door; his stick clutched high against his chest, as he managed his way down the small step. He looked at her and smiled so sweetly that Hazel knew he had just witnessed the scene on the lawn. Also that he forgave her. And this was so unbearable to her — that a complete stranger should be able to forgive her most intimate dealings in this way — that Hazel swung past the tiny old man as she went inside, nearly pushing him against the glass.
John found her hunkered on the floor in the living room searching through the nappy bag. She looked up. He was not carrying the baby.
‘Where’s the baby?’ she said.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ he said.
‘I have to change my top. What did you do with the baby?’
‘What’s wrong with your top?’
Snots. Hazel could not bring herself to say the word; it would make her cry, and then they would both laugh.
But there was no clean T-shirt in the bag. They were staying in a hotel, because Hazel had thought it would be easier to get the baby asleep away from all the noise. But there was always a teething ring left in the cool of the mini-bar, or a vital plastic spoon in the hotel sink, and so of course there was no T-shirt in the bag. And anyway, John would not let her bring the baby back to the hotel for a nap.
‘He’s fine. He’s fine,’ he kept saying as the baby became ever more cranky and bewildered; screaming in terror if she tried to put him down.
‘Why should he be unhappy?’ she wanted to say. ‘He has had so few days in this world. Why should the unhappiness start here?’
Instead she kept her head down, and rummaged for nothing in the nappy bag.
‘Go and get the baby,’ she said.
‘He’s with Margaret, he’s fine.’
Hazel had a sudden image of the baby choking on a prawn-flavoured Skip — but she couldn’t say this, of course, because if she said this, then she would sound like a snob. It seemed that, ever since they had arrived in Clonmel, there was a reason not to say every single thought that came into her head.
‘I hate this,’ she said, eventually, sinking back from the bag.
‘What?’
‘All of it.’
‘Hazel,’ he said. ‘We are just having a good time. This is what people do when they have a good time.’
And she would have cried then, for being such a wrong-headed, miserable bitch, were it not for a quiet thought that crossed her mind. She looked up at him.
‘No, you’re not,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You are not having a good time.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Right. Whatever you say,’ and turned to go.
Margaret hadn’t, in fact, asked the baby to suck a prawn-flavoured Skip. She had transformed the baby into a gurgling stranger, sitting on the brink of her knee and getting its hands clapped. The baby’s brown eyes were dark with delight, and his mouth was fizzing with smiles and spit. At least it was, until he heard Hazel’s voice, when he turned, and remembered who his mother was, and started to howl.
‘Well, don’t say you didn’t like it,’ said Hazel, taking him on to her shoulder, feeling betrayed.
‘Sorry,’ said Margaret, ‘I was dying to have a go.’
‘Oh, any time,’ said Hazel, archly. ‘You can keep him if you like,’ listening already to her housewife’s camp.
Why not? She sat down at the table and threw a white baby cloth over the worst of the slug trails on her chest and lifted her face to the weak Easter sun.
‘How’s the new house?’ said Margaret.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Hazel. ‘You can’t get anything done.’
‘Five years,’ said Margaret. ‘Five years I have been trying to get carpet for the back bedrooms.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘I mean, five years I’ve been trying to get to the shop to look at the carpet books to start thinking about carpet for the back bedrooms.’
‘What did you used to have?’ said Hazel, then realised she shouldn’t ask this, because it was John’s parents’ house, and talking about the old carpet was talking about his dead mother, and God knows what else.
‘I mean, did you have lino or boards, or what?’
‘I couldn’t look at them,’ said Margaret. ‘I got down on my hands and knees and I got — you know — a claw hammer, and I prised them up.’
Hazel looked at the laughing children running after John, who was also laughing.
‘The dirt,’ said Margaret.
‘John!’ said Hazel. ‘Tea-time. Now please.’ Then she said to her sister-in-law, ‘A friend of mine found amazing stuff on the Internet. Stripes and picture rugs, and I don’t know what else.’
‘Really,’ said Margaret, and started to butter a round of bread.
* * *
John’s father turned to them, and either shook his fist, or just lifted his hand — he had such a bad tremor, it was hard to tell. And this was another thing that Hazel could not figure out: what part of him was affected by the Parkinson’s, or was it Parkinson’s at all? Was his speech funny? Truth be told, she never understood a word he said.
‘Hffash en silla?’
‘Well, they’re kids, Daddy,’ said Margaret without a blink — so maybe it was just her, after all. They watched him for a while, poking at the flower bed with his stick.
‘He used to love his sweet pea along that wall,’ Margaret said, like the man was already dead.
Hazel said nothing.
‘Will you take a bite to eat, Daddy, pet?’ but he ignored her, like all the rest.
Hazel had a sudden pang for her little garden in Lucan. The seeded grass was sprouting, and the tulips were about to bloom. She had planted the bulbs the week they got the keys: kneeling on the front path, seven months pregnant, digging with the little shovel from the fire-irons; a straight line from the gate to the door of fat, red tulips, the type you get in a park — ‘a bit municipal,’ as her mother had said, squinting at the pack — that were now flaming red at the tips, like little cups of green fire.
‘That’s what I love about this place,’ she said. ‘This wonderful stretch of garden.’
‘Yes,’ said Margaret, carefully.
‘John. Divorce! Now,’ shouted Hazel, and he finally brought the laughing children to the tableside.
The baby didn’t cry when she shouted. That was something she hadn’t known, that the baby didn’t actually mind shouting. Or maybe he just didn’t mind her shouting.
Still, it was an advance.
‘Who wants ham?’ Hazel said to the kids; loading it on to the bread, helping out.