‘She’s fairly wound up, all right.’ Ellen had stopped referring to residents by name, only by house number, and had told Trish that the only acceptable excuse for street party non-attendance was a death notice.
‘She always has to be the best,’ sighed Camel. ‘Did you see the Easter decorations in her garden? Jesus on the cross I can handle, just about, but the fountain that keeps his palms constantly bleeding? It’s a bit much.’
‘I hate the giant wicker rabbit,’ said Robin. ‘It’s the same size as Jesus, and wearing more clothes. That’s not cute. It’s creepy.’
‘I wouldn’t look down the end of the road so,’ said Trish.
Robin frowned and Trish checked her watch. ‘The helium man is late.’
‘Two Names won’t like that.’
‘No,’ agreed Trish, watching as the front door of Martha’s house opened and Ellen stepped out, two stopwatches swinging around her neck. ‘She’s already started using the military twenty-fourhundred-hour clock. Oh, hang on now; is that him?’
A young man with dark hair was walking up the other side of the road carrying a bag for life. Trish had envisaged a big cylinder, like something you’d see in a hospital, possibly on wheels. The young man turned into Martha’s garden, said a polite hello to Ellen, and looked over at the Dwyers’ garden.
He lifted a hand, and Trish waved back as Carmel squinted. Robin, meanwhile, walked straight into her house.
‘That’s Cormac,’ said Carmel, pulling her glasses up from around her neck. ‘Or Ellis. Whatever his name is, he’s Martha’s son.’
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘Don’t be silly, Ellis,’ said Martha, shooing her son into the kitchen where Orla was at the table, making animal ears and flicking through a booklet. ‘Family were invited. And you’re our family.’
‘Hello, brother,’ said Orla, looking up from what she was reading just long enough to check if Ellis had brought her anything. She eyed the bag for life with some interest.
‘Hello, sister. That beauty sleep is paying off for you. You don’t look a day over thirteen.’
‘I’m twelve!’
‘Oh right. My bad.’
Orla scrunched up her face and Ellis leaned over to engulf her in a half-hug, half-headlock.
‘Who’s doubting that you’re our family?’ said Robert, coming into the kitchen from the utility room with a punnet of strawberries. ‘Are these the ones, darling?’
‘Yes, perfect. Thank you, love,’ said Martha, taking the fruit and smiling at her husband. It didn’t always come naturally, but Martha was enjoying the effort that went with rekindling their relationship. Forgiving Robert had resulted in a sort of modest second-honeymoon period. There was a lot to be said for waking up in the morning and not loathing the person lying next to you. ‘Nobody’s doubting it, except maybe Ellis. He’s wondering if he should have come.’
‘Of course you should have come. They’re doing an Easter egg hunt. Lots of chocolate. It’ll be fun.’
‘It’s not an Easter egg hunt, Dad,’ said Orla, brushing her long hair out of her face as she peered at the booklet. ‘It’s an Easter egg treasure hunt. There’s going to be clues that we have to figure out.’
‘I thought it was just scrummaging around for chocolate eggs.’
‘No.’
‘It requires brain power?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, in that case, I bagsy being on Orla’s team,’ said Robert, and his daughter’s chest physically expanded with pride.
‘Everyone will be dying to meet you,’ said Martha, still trying to wipe the worry off Ellis’s face. ‘You’ll be the sacrificial lamb for this particular Easter feast. Expect lots of questions. Pine Road makes the Spanish Inquisition look like an amateur operation. They’ll be delighted to have someone new to interrogate.’
‘Robin didn’t look delighted. As soon as she saw me, she went running into her house.’
‘I’m sure you’re exaggerating,’ said Martha, checking the pavlova base in the fridge. ‘Anyway, you’ll barely see her. Ellen was just saying she reckons there could be more than a hundred people at this.’
‘A hundred people? Out on that street?’ exclaimed Robert. ‘Jesus. Good thing we moved the car.’
‘Mum?’ called Orla from the dining table.
‘Where did you leave the car?’
‘Down in that lot at the end of the road,’ said Robert. ‘This massive rabbit was flapping his paws at me. I know how to park my own car, buddy.’
‘A massive what?’ Martha slapped Ellis’s hand away from the strawberries – ‘They’re frozen’ – as she emptied them into a Pyrex dish.
‘Muh-ummm!’
Martha sighed. ‘Yes, Orla?’
‘Whose team is Ellis going to be on for the Easter egg treasure hunt?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Martha, tapping in the microwave settings. ‘He can go with you and Dad, or me and Sinead. Whichever.’
‘It says here it’s two per team.’
‘It says where? What are you reading?’
Orla held up the booklet so Martha could see the front.
‘Pine Road’s inaugural Easter Egg Treasure Hunt: The Rules. By founder Ellen Russell-O’Toole.’ Martha frowned. ‘Did that come through the letterbox?’
‘It was in yesterday’s pile.’
‘Well, I’m sure it doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘It’s a street party, not the Olympics.’
‘I think I should just go . . .’
‘No,’ said Martha decisively, coming around the island to kiss her son on the cheek. ‘No way. You’re here and you’re staying. I’m making pavlova. You love my pavlova. It’ll be fine. I promise. Stay.’
Ellis shrugged off his jacket and sat down beside Orla. He watched as she resumed work on the animal ears.
‘They’re cute. You’ll make a lovely Easter bunny.’
His twelve-year-old sister rolled her eyes. ‘Rabbits actually have nothing to do with Easter, Ellis. They can be born throughout a large section of the year. And new-born rabbits aren’t cute. They have no fur for a week and can’t even open their eyes. Like rats. These are lamb ears. They are smaller and go more to the side. See?’ Orla carefully fastened the band to her head. ‘Seasonally and anatomically correct.’
Sinead would be home from soccer training in a few minutes and then they were all going to a party on their new street, together. All her family was safe and well. Martha allowed her body to swell with contentment.
The boy who wrote the list up at the school had been caught and suspended. Martha thought he should have been expelled but she hadn’t pushed it. The family were neighbours and it wasn’t really her place; he hadn’t actually written Sinead’s name. She should probably be grateful Sinead hadn’t been in line for a suspension too. As far as Martha knew, Trish had kept what they had told her to herself. Martha, in turn, had signed Sinead – and herself – up for counselling.
Both the girls had come home from school that week with a piece of good news: Sinead had been appointed head of the debating team while Orla had made the mathletes. Some kids might be embarrassed but Orla had already added it to the CV she planned to distribute this summer when she was thirteen and thus, due to an agreement Martha barely remembered making when she was eight, allowed to look for babysitting jobs.
Robert came and leaned against the counter beside her, both of them watching Ellis and Orla. Carefully, she reached for his hand. She’d had two therapy sessions now and was all but convinced the man on the street had been a figment of her imagination, an accumulation of stress.
Things were good. Life was good. She didn’t need to dwell on the past.
‘Penny for your thoughts,’ murmured Robert.
‘I was just thinking how happy I am,’ she said, reminding herself not to shirk such declarations. They were a team again. She moved closer to her husband and tentatively rested her head on his shoulder. His body grew sturdier under her touch. ‘I’m happy with how things have turned out.
’
The microwave pinged and Martha straightened up.
‘Give me a hand with this, will you, Ellis? I’ve to have it out on the road in’ – she glanced at the clock on the oven and tried to remember the timetable she’d read in one of the early booklets – ‘eight minutes.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
It had been a month since she’d last seen Cormac, though she thought about him every day. Several times a day, Robin corrected herself, the back of her neck burning. She didn’t just recall things, she invented whole scenarios. She imagined bumping into him on the bus, him turning up at her door unannounced, discovering she had an STI and being forced to tell him; anything that resulted in contact. Every time she received a new message from him, she pounced on her phone, before remembering there was nothing he could say that would cancel out her guilt. She had the power to right a terrible wrong done to his family, and she wasn’t going to.
Contradicting Eddy’s alibi had given her enough reasons to worry without telling the police where he actually was that night. She would just have to live with the guilt. It would be easier to handle when she stopped living across the road from them.
Robin shook her hair out of the high bun it had been in since the night before and reached for the hairbrush. Her mother came back into the house and Jack went running out from wherever he’d been hiding.
‘Mammy, Mammy, Mammy!’
‘Upstairs, Jack!’ Robin called. His footsteps grew louder until he eventually burst into their bedroom. ‘Careful.’
‘Can we go to the party now? If we don’t go now, all the eggs will be ate!’
‘Eaten,’ said Robin. ‘We’ll go in ten minutes.’
‘Counting to how many is that?’
‘It’s too many to count for kids, but it’s not long. I promise.’
‘Cross your heart!’
Robin dutifully did as she was told. ‘Ten minutes.’
Jack leapt from her bed to his own and down on to the ground. ‘I’ll ask Granny to count to ten minutes!’ He ran from the room, making vague fighting sounds and banging something against the banisters. Robin winced. This was what he was like before he’d consumed his weight in chocolate.
She opted for a no-make-up make-up look – tinted moisturiser, mascara on the top lashes only, eyebrows filled in – and pulled on the green fitted jumper Cormac had complimented when they went to the theatre but which was plain enough that he probably wouldn’t remember. She wore it with jeans and runners, so it didn’t look like she was making an effort.
Anyway, he wasn’t here for her, she reminded herself as she made her way downstairs. He was here for his family.
‘Okay,’ said Carmel, standing in the hallway with a large metallic dish in her hands. ‘Are we right?’
Johnny was beside her holding what looked like a Bunsen burner, while her dad had a cooler at his feet and a basket of torn-up bread resting on top. Jack was weaving in and out between their legs mumbling to himself and occasionally swiping at the floor: ‘One egg, two eggs, three eggs, four . . .’
‘I’m just going to get a glass of water.’
‘I’ll wait for Robin,’ said Johnny.
‘You will not,’ barked Carmel. ‘Get out there and make polite small talk with the elderly neighbours. Ask Mrs Birmingham to tell you about how she has no tear ducts now, she’ll love that. And wipe that puss off your face. You’d swear you were being sent to a day’s hard labour.’
Mick put his hand on the door. ‘Are we ready?’
‘Yes yes yes yes yes yes!’ shouted Jack, running back and forth, banging against the door then the banisters, like their old dog used to do when he knew he was about to be taken for a walk.
Her dad opened the door and Jack went flying out of the trap. Robin went down to the kitchen, filled a glass from the tap and knocked it back. She gave herself a once-over in the hallway mirror – practising a smile and then an I-don’t-know-you’re-watching-me look – and stepped out on to Pine Road.
Only this didn’t look a thing like Pine Road.
In the ninety minutes Robin had been inside, the place had been transformed. There were balloons tied to the street lights and bunting draped across all the trees. A long line of tables had been laid down the middle of the street as if for a wedding banquet and they were covered in pink tablecloths. Some sort of dead animal had been impaled at the very top of the line of tables and was turning slowly over a fire pit. The street was packed with people – eighty, at least – and, most remarkable of all, there wasn’t a single car.
Robin ran her eye over the crowd. Jack was messing with two other kids and her mam was cackling away in a group of women. Johnny sat at one of the tables, eating cake and trying to protect it from the spittle of an older woman who was pulling at the skin around her eyes and speaking right into his ear. A few chairs down was someone dressed in a full-scale rabbit costume. He was tapping his paws despondently, out of time with the unidentifiable pop music floating through the air.
Robin was distracted from the anthropomorphic bunny by a door opening directly across from her. Martha walked out carrying a cake and Cormac was right behind her. He was laughing and joking with his sisters. A heat rose in her body. It hurt to look away.
‘Edie!’ she said with far too much enthusiasm, as she spotted her friend. Were they friends? Well, whatever. She needed someone to talk to. ‘Hi, Daniel.’
The couple drew up beside her, holding hands.
‘Isn’t this amazing!’ enthused Edie. ‘It’s like a different place completely. All the tables have matching tablecloths and oh my God did you see the lamb?’
Daniel smiled at his wife, then at Robin, who grinned back.
‘The lamb?’ Robin stood on her tippy-toes and peered around. It was hard to see anything with all the people, yet she managed to immediately lock eyes with Cormac, who was looking up from his sister at the same moment. Her insides flipped and she pulled her gaze away. She made a show of searching the crowd now and lifted her hand to shield her eyes, like a sailor seeking land. ‘Is that a lamb? The dead thing on the stick with . . . does it have a tennis ball in its mouth?’
‘Hmm?’ Edie followed her line of vision. ‘Oh no. That’s the pig on the spit, and an apple. No, look.’ She tugged Robin’s attention so she was peering up the road. ‘See? In Ruby’s garden?’
Robin peered up the row of gardens until—
‘Oh, shit! Look at that!’
It was a real live lamb eating grass from a Pine Road garden. It had a bell around its neck and everything. ‘Where did that come from? I have to show Jack.’
‘Ruby’s sister is married to a farmer and they rent them out for fancy Easter parties. Some social influencer cancelled theirs this morning – she changed the colour scheme for her party at the last minute and the lamb no longer matched – so they let Ruby have it for free. Oh gosh, what time is it?’ Edie patted down her pockets before glancing at her husband.
‘Twenty-five past eleven,’ said Daniel.
‘Twenty-five past . . .’ mumbled Edie. ‘We’re supposed to be doing light mingling . . . Okay, perfect. I’d call this light mingling. Five more minutes and then it’s time for light snacking. I think. I meant to bring the timetable with me.’
‘You seem kind of hyper, Edie.’
‘Do I?’ she beamed, as if Robin had given her a massive compliment. ‘I guess I’m just happy.’ She looked at Daniel who smiled back. ‘I’ve had a lovely morning. I made Daniel his own treasure hunt. Have you ever made one? It was so fun.’
Daniel looked less convinced.
Robin excused herself and went to get Jack. She had to drag him away from the girls he was playing with but once she explained there was a real live baby sheep, he moved more willingly.
She asked the woman in charge of the lamb – Ruby – if Jack should approach the animal in a certain way, but she hadn’t a clue.
‘I’d say don’t poke her in the eye or tell her she looks like mutton and you’ll be grand.’
>
‘Have you antiseptic maybe?’ asked Robin.
Ruby looked around from where she sat on her doorstep. ‘I have gin?’
Jack had just worked up the courage to touch the animal, when the deafening, echoing sound of an alarm rang out and everyone – including the lamb – jumped in fright.
‘That bloody autocrat . . .’ began Ruby as Robin covered Jack’s ears and steered him out of the garden.
Edie reappeared beside Robin and they watched as a woman with a megaphone stood on a garden chair and struggled to stick some sort of wire back into what looked like a car fob.
‘Is that a rape alarm?’ whispered Edie.
‘Now that I have your attention,’ the woman boomed into the speaker, ‘I want to officially welcome you all to the Pine Road pre-Easter street party. We’ve had a few of these before, but I think you will all agree that today marks the beginning of a new, more exciting, more morally upstanding chapter. For the visitors among you, I’m Ellen Russell-O’Toole and I’m the organiser of today’s event—’
‘Yes, queen!’ came a roar from somewhere in the crowd.
‘And for the first time in Pine Road history,’ continued Ellen, ‘we will be having a Pine Road Easter egg treasure hunt!’ She moved the megaphone away from her mouth and looked around until a few people – including Edie – started to clap.
Edie looked at her wrist, where she now wore Daniel’s watch. ‘Eleven fifty-one,’ she marvelled. ‘Right on time.’
‘The Pine Road Easter egg treasure hunt will begin at noon . . .’
‘I love Easter egg hunts!’ came another voice from the crowd and a few people hollered in agreement.
‘Gonna catch me a couple of those chocolate bad boys!’
‘No egg left behind!’
‘This is not an Easter egg hunt,’ said Ellen into the megaphone, ‘this is an Easter egg treasure hunt. I want to assure you all, especially the parents among us, that the eggs involved are dairy-free and wrapped in biodegradable foil . . .’
Robin glanced at Edie who studied the ground.
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