by Aoife Walsh
‘Can I still watch Pointless?’ Aisling was looking down at the ground.
‘Pointless, eh? What’s that – a game show? I bet you’re brilliant at that.’
‘No, Minny’s better than me.’
‘She just likes watching it,’ Minny said.
‘I see. Of course you can watch it, if that’s what you normally do.’
‘Let’s go then.’ Minny led the way around the corner to the main road, hoping they wouldn’t see anyone. As if it wasn’t enough for him to ambush them when their mother wasn’t even there, or Babi either, he had felt the need to bring his bimbo with him, to make her a witness to the first time they had seen him in almost three years. She could have spat on the pavement.
The walk home seemed longer than it normally did; it was less than a mile but it felt like ages. Minny found herself wanting to keep Aisling and Selena right beside her, almost hold their arms, which was weird since it wasn’t as if she was afraid her father would actually leap into a moving car and vanish with them. She couldn’t anyway. They couldn’t walk five abreast down the street, and Selena was sticking with her father; she hadn’t let go of his hand, though she seemed keen to keep him between her and the woman. Minny tried to walk beside Aisling, but she couldn’t keep running round the others when they got mixed up crossing roads. Luckily Ash kept stopping dead and waiting for Minny to catch her up.
Their father was trying really hard. The thing about him was that he was very funny, sometimes. He always had been. He had them laughing after five minutes. He was spoilt. Aisling didn’t laugh, not that that meant anything; you never knew which way she’d jump when something unusual happened. Sometimes she woke up a bit; this time she was more in her own world than usual, not even muttering. She only started talking when they got to the newsagents, because she wanted her ice lolly. The last thing Minny wanted was to prolong this walk, but she could tell there wasn’t any way she was getting Aisling past that shop so she asked the others to stop and started fishing for cash.
‘Oh, I’ll get them,’ her father said straightaway. ‘What a good idea, in fact why don’t we …?’ He waved towards the café next door, which sold fancy Italian ice cream in beautiful flavours.
‘Mmmm,’ said Selena, drooling over the window.
‘Aisling’s dairy-intolerant,’ Minny said.
‘Of course she is, how stupid of me.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘I had remembered, honestly. I’ve even brought dark chocolate. I just forgot for a second.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Aisling said. ‘I can just get a lolly. Minny, will you get it for me?’ She didn’t like buying things in shops; she got flustered. Minny went in with her. It was dark after the glare on the street, and tropically hot till she opened the freezer and leaned in.
They had to queue behind a bunch of loud sweary boys, who were really cool except that they all had to count pennies into the guy’s hand to pay for their sweeties. So by the time Ash and Minny came out, their father and his woman and Selena were standing on the curb licking ice creams. He held a cone out to Minny as she came up. ‘Selena said you still like chocolate.’
It took them ages to trail up the hill. Her father kept looking round and telling Harriet and Selena stories from the past, as if he was returning to where he spent his wartime childhood or something. Minny ate her ice cream and said nothing. She was wondering whether Babi would have got hold of her mother by now.
‘I thought you were English,’ Aisling said to Harriet. She was holding her sticky lolly stick awkwardly in front of her and stumping along looking at the ground.
‘I am,’ Harriet said. She didn’t sound it. ‘I spent some time in the States growing up, but I’m English, honest to God.’
‘Oh,’ said Ash, who still hadn’t looked up.
Babi was waiting by the front-room window, sucking her beautiful fingernails. When she saw them she stayed where she was, so Minny had to use her key, but she came into the hall as they filed through the door.
‘Hello again, Milena,’ their father said in a steely voice like James Bond.
‘I don’t know what you’re doing here, Desmond,’ she said. ‘Nita isn’t home from work. This is inappropriate at best.’
‘I can see your point of view. However, we walked home with the girls from school and I’m sure it’s best if, having come, and having seen my daughters, I wait and see their mother too.’
Babi nodded and went towards the kitchen, but turned back to say, ‘If this was still only my home, you would not be allowed over the threshold.’ He rolled his eyes, but Harriet, who was taking off her shoes because everyone else had, shook her head at him and he didn’t say anything.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Minny said, since she didn’t think Babi would be serving tea and she wanted to get away from them for a minute.
‘Look at this.’ Her father was standing transfixed in the hall. ‘I’d forgotten about this.’
He’d only been gone less than three years. Minny wasn’t sure how he could have forgotten it when it had hung on her mother’s wall since university. It was a blackboard topped by an enamelled green steam train, with enamel letters that said ‘Life is like a train so hop aboard!’ Her mother had had a party the last night of university or something, and all her friends had scribbled stupid things underneath, which Minny had been looking at her whole life – pretentious things mostly, like: ‘Life is like a train, you better make sure you know where you want to be going’; and ‘Life is like a train, it rushes past you if you’re not on board’. Some of them didn’t even make any sense, like ‘Life is like a train so mind the gap’. A couple were silly – ‘Life is like a train: mucky’ and ‘Life is like a train, covered in f***ing graffiti’. Her dad was squinting at the bottom; he gave a roar of laughter and turned to Minny, grinning. She blushed. When she was in a bad mood after her mother had told her she was pregnant, she had scribbled at the end: ‘Life is like a train, and mine is overcrowded’.
‘What about Pointless?’ Ash said. The others had gone into the back room, their father still laughing, but she was standing against the hall wall, looking at the floor.
‘It’s not on for more than an hour,’ Minny pointed out. With any luck they would be gone by then. Babi was in the kitchen, leaning against the sink and sucking her nails again. Minny switched the kettle on and they looked at each other.
‘Do you know that’s the first time I have said a single word to your father in three years? Since before I knew what he was going to do?’
‘Do you want tea?’ Minny asked.
‘For God’s sake,’ Babi muttered, sweeping the mugs out of Minny’s hands. ‘Get in there and look after your sisters, will you, and I will make the damn tea.’
Minny went reluctantly out and into the back room, where the only free chair was the one at the desk. She wished she could just turn on the computer and escape into it. For a minute she thought of Uncle Kevin, sat at his laptop in a room she’d never seen above a bar in a tiny town in Ireland, and wished she was there. Not that she would have been safe from her father there either; obviously he had nothing against popping up without warning in places he’d once lived.
Selena was sitting on the yellow sofa, squashed between her father and Harriet and looking uncomfortable. It looked as though she’d wanted to sit on his lap and then decided she was too old. Ash was in the big white chair with her feet tucked up.
‘When’s your mother back?’ Des asked.
‘Soon,’ Minny said.
‘She doesn’t work late then?’
‘She does a lot at home in the evenings.’
‘She goes out in the evenings too,’ Selena piped up.
Minny liked the idea of him imagining a really hot social life for her mother, but she clarified it. ‘That’s just for now. She’s putting on a play with her drama group.’
He looked interested. ‘What drama group? Is it at the school?’
‘No, not exactly. It’s through the school but it’s open to other di
sabled kids too.’ Nita taught part-time at a special school for kids with behavioural and social difficulties, visited other schools to do drama and music therapy and for the last two years had also run a drama group. ‘She’s got a lot of rehearsals because the performance is in a couple of weeks.’
‘How interesting,’ Harriet said.
‘Right up Nita’s street, that,’ Des told her. He was looking round the room. ‘I’m sorry we’re making you miss your programme, Ash.’
‘That’s all right, Des.’ Aisling had always called their father Des. Minny had never really known why. She had tried it herself once when she was a kid, but it didn’t catch on. ‘It’s not on till quarter past five.’
‘Hey, are you still as good at capitals as you were?’ he asked. ‘Listen to this, Harriet: what’s the capital of Kyrgyzstan?’
‘Bishkek,’ said Selena eagerly, looking up at his face and waiting for the next question.
He looked astonished and laughed. His laugh was a gurgle; if you leaned against him you could feel it at the top of his stomach. Minny could see his thoughts swirling. Selena was an oddball; people sometimes assumed, if they knew about Aisling, that Sel was on the autistic spectrum too, but she wasn’t, she was just a bit weird. The Bishkek answer came from living with Aisling; they all knew every world capital. And the ‘-stans’ were a gimme anyway, because there were only a few of them. Watching her father try to show off Ash, without knowing what was showy about her these days, was a strange feeling. They used to be really tight. And he’d always been the one who’d make her perform. Nita would look unconvinced, but he would say, ‘What better way to boost her self-esteem than people telling her how clever she is?’ They had a video of her at a cocktail party, reciting capitals and then singing ‘The Periodic Table Song’, when she couldn’t have been more than six or seven. So capitals were really old hat.
It was weird, having them in the house. No one Harriet’s age was ever there because why would they be, none of them knew anyone who was twenty-six. And her father, with Selena squashed up against him, as if one of the photos Nita insisted on leaving on the wall had come to life, only with Sel no longer a toddler. Or as if it was a photo of Des with Ash aged seven. They were both just like their mother. Minny wondered if she looked like he expected.
‘What about the old football, do you still follow it?’ He leaned back on the sofa, looking more at home.
‘Yes.’
‘Of course.’ She didn’t want him thinking he owned football. They were Manchester United fans in their own right, just as much as he was. It made her angry because she could remember the day she considered giving it up – as if it would get at him somehow.
‘And play it on the Wii?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘We never finished the season we were on when you left,’ Ash said.
He put his hand over his eyes and cleared his throat. Minny prayed he wouldn’t break down and drag them into some real emotional scene before her mother even got back, but he didn’t. ‘You won’t believe it,’ he said, ‘but this woman is a Liverpool fan.’ He smacked Harriet on the back. She groaned and beamed at them, obviously expecting someone to provide the punchline. But they were all silent. Minny didn’t spend much time predicting stuff about her dad, but she would never have expected him to hook up with a Liverpool fan.
Before any of them had stopped goggling, Babi brought in mugs of black tea and plonked them down on the table, with the old stainless steel jug of milk. It was probably off. ‘Thank you,’ Harriet said quietly, and looked at Des.
‘Harriet doesn’t actually drink tea,’ he said. ‘But I expect I’ll get around to drinking hers.’
Babi was bored by the situation now, Minny could tell. She didn’t have a great attention span. ‘You make her some coffee,’ she said to Minny. ‘I have to go upstairs.’
He laughed again, probably before she was out of earshot. ‘Your babička is just the same,’ he said. ‘I knew I could rely on her not to have changed.’
‘Well,’ Harriet said, ‘she’s probably angry with you. Not exactly surprising. Isn’t she beautiful though. Does she look after you a lot?’
‘She lives here,’ Sel said cautiously.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ Minny asked, standing up.
‘No, honestly, I’m fine. It’s too warm for me. I’ve got my flavoured water.’ She pulled it out of her squashy leather handbag, the kind with beads on it, and smiled at Minny. ‘Babička, is that right? Is that Polish?’
‘Czech,’ Aisling said. She hummed and squeaked. ‘CZECH! Yeah.’ He obviously hadn’t told Harriet anything at all about them if he’d missed out their mother’s mother being Czech, or her father having been South African and Norwegian for that matter. People’s families and where they come from, that’s important – that’s what everyone had always told them, including him. Even though they only went to Ireland that once, and even then hardly met any relatives as far as Minny could remember – they didn’t even stay with Granny and Grandpop, who was still alive then. They only visited their house once and that was the only time they met their grandfather; he was very big with silver hair and he didn’t say anything at all to Minny or Ash. Granny gave them lots of cake in the kitchen; they heard their father shouting, and Grandpop too, and then Des came out and said they had to leave, and they both cried because they weren’t allowed to finish their cake. But Granny came running out after them and gave them milk-flavoured ice lollies through the car window as they were driving off. Still – he was always talking about being Irish.
‘There’s so much you’ve got to tell me,’ he said, looking round at all of them. ‘It’s kind of like meeting three entirely new people – three completely fascinating people. I don’t know who your friends are any more, or what you like at school, or what you want to be.’
‘Selena wants to be the Pope,’ Minny said.
‘Wow.’ Selena’s face lit up at the idea.
‘Well, now, that’s something I want to hear about. I must say I’d picked up a few hints in your emails, Selena, that you might be into that kind of thing. But listen, before I can expect you to feel OK about us talking, I’ve got to say sorry, for being so far away for so long.’ Minny thought he caught the glint in her eye. ‘And I know that won’t really do, but I want you to know I mean it and I’m going to try to make it up to you from now on, though I might need some help figuring out the right way to do that. I want you to know you can trust me. Harriet and I have got a flat now; we’re moving in this week.’
‘Where is it?’ Selena asked, looking excited.
‘Ladbroke Grove, very handy for work and not too bad for here either. It’s quite nice and big, with three bedrooms so plenty of room if you all come and stay, which I hope you will. And the best news is it’s near the station, so when you’re used to it you’ll be able to hop on the Tube and come over any time you feel like it!’
Just then, before any of them had time to say what they thought of that idea, they heard the kind of loud grizzle from upstairs that meant Babi must have been changing the baby’s nappy. He didn’t like having his poppers done up again afterwards, and he was always grumpy when he’d just woken up.
‘Ah,’ their father said, twisting round and staring at the door, ‘the famous baby. Interested to meet him.’
Minny got up to go and get him. He liked to see her after she’d been out at school all day, especially when he’d been at nursery and Babi had picked him up. She stopped because her father said, ‘What’s his name again now?’
‘Raymond,’ Aisling and Selena said together.
Minny clenched her fists, literally. Because her father had that tone of voice on that meant he was gearing up to be sarcastic about her brother’s name.
Babi came clumping down the stairs and into the room. The baby was all damp sticky-up tufts of hair and rosiness after his nap and started squirming to be put down as soon as he saw Minny. Babi stalked over and he did his sideways fall
into Minny’s arms.
Des was staring. The sly look on his face had vanished and he’d shifted around on the sofa so that he was practically sitting on Selena’s lap. He looked astounded. ‘Aahh,’ said Harriet, like a matter-of-fact, hard-headed woman who can’t resist a coo at a particularly nice baby. Minny glared back at her father, her chin raised high over Raymond’s head. At precisely that moment they all heard Nita’s key in the door and she walked in looking flattened with tiredness.
She wasn’t at her very best, she never was after work, when her long hair had been fluffing itself up all day, and she was wearing a long skirt she’d had since she was married and a cheap red T-shirt Minny had bought by accident for herself before she realised it made her look like a balloon. She went cloud-coloured when she saw her husband, or ex-husband; still, Minny enjoyed the effect she had on Harriet. Her mother was very good-looking.
‘Des,’ she said, in a small voice. Raymond hadn’t stopped struggling, because he wanted her now, but she stayed put in the doorway. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Dad came to meet us outside school,’ Minny said. She had been waiting for the proper authorities to turn up so that she could get angry.
Her father had stood up. ‘Nita,’ he said, for all the world as if he had a reason to be annoyed with her, ‘can we have a word, please?’
‘Certainly,’ she said, and they went off into the other room. The baby wailed. The rest of them were left looking at each other; everyone was mortified except Aisling, who was just staring into space. Obviously Babi was determined not to be the one to break the silence, despite being the only actual grown-up present. She was bloody-minded. Selena thought up some small talk before anyone else.
‘So, Harriet,’ she said, edging away to a more polite distance before crossing her legs and folding her hands on her knee, ‘what is it that you do?’
To give her credit, Harriet giggled. ‘I work in advertising, like your dad.’ Selena nodded intelligently, and Minny found herself copying her. They were all copying her. ‘That’s where we met.’