by Aoife Walsh
‘I’m not fussy.’
‘Because we’ve got all kinds of restaurants round here. There’s a nice Moroccan, and an Italian that looks OK, and a Thai … Well, we’ll see how we feel. Harriet is out tonight with some people from work. She said she’d give us this evening just the two of us, and we’re all going to do something together tomorrow.’ Minny walked beside him, looking round at the colourful scruff.
The flat was in a tall thin Victorian house with deep bay windows, in a street full of them. They lived up on the first floor. Her father held the door open and she walked through it straight into the big light sitting room. There was a smell of paint and incense and a massive empty fireplace with a huge mirror above it.
‘It’s a bit sparse at the moment,’ Des said, watching her. ‘And a bit studenty. We drove up to Harriet’s mum and dad’s last weekend to get some furniture. They’ve got one of those huge houses people have when they live in the countryside, up on the Wirral, so I thought we were going to come back loaded with chintzy sofas and antique lamps, but actually Harriet just raided her old bedroom. Which was as she left it when she left home at twenty-one.’ There were great piles of CDs on the floor in the corner, and books against another wall as well as stuffing the one bookcase, and even posters pinned up with famous landscapes on them. Minny peered at the nearest one. ‘We’re going to get frames,’ he said. ‘Next time you come it’ll be a bit more in order.’
The mantelpiece was covered in photographs: some of Harriet looking even younger and wearing silly clothes with other girls the same age, but mostly of Aisling and Minny and Sel. There was a copy of the one they had at home of the day of Aisling’s First Communion. Ash had such a beautiful dress; Minny remembered the biting envy, even though Nita had sneakily bought her a new dress too – pink, although she pretended to hate pink. On the actual morning it was cold for June and Nita had made her wear a cardigan over the top. Ash’s hair was pulled back just a little bit so you could see the roses in the circlet on her head. She looked very serene. Minny was squinting because the sun was behind whoever was taking the picture, and her face was all screwed up. The next year of course it was her turn to wear the white dress, but she’d known it wouldn’t look the same. Nita had toyed with the idea of getting her a new one, but Des had said that was ridiculous – he’d paid this extraordinary amount last year for an absurd flouncy white dress for a seven-year-old on the understanding that at least it would do for both of them.
There was one of herself she didn’t even recognise, grinning on the front step of the flat the day she’d started secondary school, and a baby picture of Selena sitting on the old blanket of knitted squares that Raymond had had in his pram till this spring, and several others. Minny wondered if her mother had sent him more recent pictures, or if he’d kept up on Facebook, and if so what he’d thought.
She was sleeping in what was going to be the baby’s room, he told her, because the one they’d designated as hers for the future – and Ash and Selena’s – was all primed for painting. ‘We thought you could have a look at the colour charts and pick a colour. Then we can start. If you’re swift and decisive, we could get the paint tomorrow and you might give us a hand.’
Minny couldn’t help but melt that weekend. She knew she was being spoiled, but it was working. She kept remembering things she hadn’t thought of for years, because the time after he left had come on top of the time before he left, when he was miserable and he and Nita did nothing but argue, and the world was rocky. But now memories of before, and of when he had been just with her and Aisling, came creeping back.
He took her for dinner in a Lebanese restaurant that evening, accompanied by a bottle of wine, which made him even more talkative, and he told her a lot about his time in New York and what had made him not come back. Minny listened and ate her way through more unbelievably tasty dishes than the waiter could easily squeeze onto the table top. He said they needn’t do more than scratch the surface unless she wanted to just then, but the thing about depression was that it could make you feel that you were poisoning everyone’s life and that you should get yourself out of the way. He said it had taken him months and months to shake it off in America because it got worse, missing them all so much and knowing, deep down, he’d done a terrible thing leaving them. He said he’d felt so guilty that even when he started being able to think properly he couldn’t bring himself to disrupt their lives again by coming back. ‘Harriet got me there in the end,’ he said, mopping up the baba ganoush with a strip of pitta. ‘Harriet listened to me for months, Minny. I was constantly full of self-pity and self-loathing and maundering on about how much I missed you all, but how afraid I was to come home and see you; she was so patient. Until one night a few months ago she lost it and told me I was the only one who could change things and I needed to before it was too late. It was the kick up the arse I needed to get me out of that spiral.’
Minny nibbled another golden chicken wing. ‘So it wasn’t just that she wanted to have the baby in England?’
He looked shocked. ‘No. No, Minny, no.’
‘All right then.’
‘Is that what you’ve been thinking? I’m sorry, Minny, I’m so sorry. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life and I have been sick with it ever since I left. How you can eat that, I will never know. That is the worst thing about coming back, finding you such a rabid carnivore. It’s a change I wasn’t expecting.’
‘What were you expecting?’
‘I don’t know, to be honest. Luckily you’re still recognisable.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘The reading, the mouth on you. You always had a fierce sense of justice. The guitar. How protective you are of your sisters.’
Minny let that pass.
They went back to the flat then and Des told her to have a look through the DVDs and pick one to watch. She got the giggles, lying under the desk where they were piled, because they were all so super-girly. ‘I’m getting the feeling that either you or Harriet has a thing for Leonardo DiCaprio.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, putting down the two mugs of tea he’d just brought in and peering under the desk. ‘Oh God, you’re right. God, this is terrible.’
Minny crawled out to make more room, and slurped the tea. ‘It could be worse.’
‘Minny, Leonardo DiCaprio is five.’
‘He is not, he’s like your age.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘What don’t you believe?’ Harriet asked, bursting through the door with a big paper bag in her arms.
‘Your secret passion for Leo,’ Des said, climbing up from the floor. ‘I’ll never feel secure again.’
‘You’ll have to deal with it,’ she said. ‘I loved him from age ten to age twenty at least, so that is my longest ever romantic relationship. I’ve got ice cream.’
She had proper ice cream from a special ice-cream café, three tubs of it: chocolate, banana and pistachio. They watched Point Break and ate it all. ‘It’s brilliant being pregnant,’ Harriet said, scraping out the banana pot with her fingers. ‘You can be really disgusting.’
‘Bed,’ Dad said when the FBI badge hit the tide at the end. ‘No staying up all night reading just because your mother isn’t here to check on you. What are you reading at the moment anyway?’
‘I’m just starting The Grapes of Wrath.’ It was Kevin’s recommendation, pretty slow getting going but she could see it was heading somewhere. No need to mention that she was rereading What Katy Did Next alongside it.
‘Is that for school?’ Harriet had ice cream round her mouth.
‘No, but I’ve got to read Jane Eyre for next term.’
Her father looked up, his hands full of spoons and empty tubs. ‘But you’ve already read it, haven’t you?’
‘Yeah, but ages ago.’
‘Yeah, I remember. She was only ten,’ he told Harriet, tipped his head and went out carrying cushions.
‘Ten?’ Harriet said to
her. ‘Hanging out with your family kind of makes me feel stupid.’
Minny went to bed feeling quite good about herself, except she wondered with some guilt whether Aisling and Selena would be there with her now if she hadn’t kicked up so much fuss to begin with. On the other hand it was luxurious sleeping in a room on her own. She couldn’t think of when that had ever happened before, not for a whole night. It wasn’t a real bed, of course, but it was squashy and it had three pillows. ‘Well, I use three pillows,’ Harriet had said. Minny lay in her Cookie Monster pyjamas under the duvet, which had no cover but was brand new so it wasn’t ratty or grey, and looked up at the blank ceiling. She wondered sleepily if it was OK to be happy, if her mother, and Selena, and Aisling would be pleased or sorry.
The next morning there was no one talking to her or telling her to get up and watch the baby; the only pressure was a full bladder which wouldn’t let her relax. When she did get up her father was already in the kitchen, slugging coffee and wearing a suit and a furious expression. It turned out he had to nip into work for a couple of hours but would be back for lunch. Minny had only seconds to feel awkward after he left before Harriet swept in in a silky lilac dressing gown with her hair piled up on top of her head, and went straight to the kettle. ‘Right, better get your clothes on Minny. You can have a piece of toast or a crumpet or something, and then we’ve got to get down to work.’
There was sourdough, too beautiful to be toasted and too beautiful not to be, so she had a slice each way. Harriet was already poring over a paint colour chart. ‘Hurry up and decide,’ she said, sliding a cup of tea across the counter, ‘because we’ve got to run out and buy it so that we can make a start before Des gets back. Otherwise he won’t let me up the ladder, and he hasn’t got a clue how to paint a room, so if you want it to look decent HURRY UP.’
Minny had never chosen colours for a room before. When they first moved into Babi’s the bedrooms needed doing up, but Selena was only five and threw an immense strop anytime it was suggested it might not be pink. Minny had been so desperate to avoid it – especially because the kind Sel kept pointing at was fuchsia, Hello Kitty pink – that she’d let her choose as long as it was any other colour, so they ended up with yellow. It hadn’t worn all that well. Harriet said they had to buy new bedding too; she said Minny must choose the colours for Ash and Selena because she wanted to have the room all done and nice for the first time they all came. Minny picked out a very pale green paint, and pale pink for the edges, like windowsills. Selena would like that. She said she didn’t like pink any more but she really did. ‘And pink blinds?’ Harriet asked, slurping peppermint tea. ‘Have you ever tried herbal tea?’
‘I don’t know,’ Minny said doubtfully, ‘maybe green. Pink might be a bit …’
‘Much? Do you know what herbal tea is less disgusting than?’
Minny giggled. ‘No.’
‘Herbal cigarettes. My mother used to smoke them – they were supposed to help her give up the real ones. I stole one from her pack once and tried it and I thought I would die. Ugh, shouldn’t have thought about that while I still get morning sickness. Hurry, hurry and get dressed.’ She pulled the clasp out of her hair and ran her hands through it. ‘Quick, let’s go.’
They drove out to a retail park. Harriet was good at shopping. She knew exactly how much paint she wanted and got the counter man to get the pots carried out to the car. Then she whipped Minny into a big home-furnishings place, which had racks of duvet covers and sheets stretching to way above their heads. Minny chose green and blue for Ash, orange and blue for herself, lilac and yellow for Selena. Harriet was standing longingly in front of the nursery stuff, and Minny looked at the blankets because when she did a rundown of her family she ended up at Raymond. There was a nice blue and yellow quilt he would have liked, with fish and an octopus on it. Harriet said she wasn’t allowed to buy any more baby stuff yet because it was bad luck, but she ended up getting a Moses basket because she couldn’t resist it. The cloth parts were all white and lacey. Then she said she couldn’t possibly stand up any more and needed cake so they went to the café.
‘I’m sorry, Minny,’ she said, when they’d sat down with the tray and she’d prised off the top layer of her cherry Bakewell slice with a fork, rolled it up and stuffed it in her mouth. ‘Sorry about that basket. Today was supposed to be all about you girls and getting ready for you.’
Minny hadn’t minded at all. Nita had been the same when she was pregnant with Raymond, excited all the time she wasn’t deathly tired. And no one could not like a white lacy basket for putting a baby in.
‘You like your little brother, don’t you?’ Harriet said.
‘Yes.’
‘That’s nice. God, that’s nice. Go slow with the milkshake – after all that ice cream last night you’ll be having some kind of reaction.’
‘Sorry,’ Minny said, wiping her chin. ‘I don’t get this kind of stuff much because of Ash being dairy-intolerant.’
Harriet drank her juice. ‘It must be hard on you, having an older sister like Aisling.’
Because she didn’t say it judgementally, or with too much sympathy, Minny felt like she was right and that perhaps it was all right to admit it. ‘Sure,’ she said, and shut her inner eyes on the picture of Nita looking at her.
‘Is it rough at school?’
‘It can be.’
‘Dessie told me something about what happened last week, with her clothes and all.’ She scraped some more icing off the plate with the edge of her fork. ‘And he said something once, or maybe it was your mum, about you getting into trouble for something …’
‘The time I was suspended? Yeah. For pushing David Fletcher down the stairs.’ She licked her fingers and saw Harriet’s expression. ‘Oh, I didn’t really push him down the stairs.’
‘Oh good.’
‘Yeah, of course. I just pushed him, and he fell down the stairs.’
‘Minny!’
‘Well. I was only eleven and he was massive. He was picking on Ash and I came along and I lost my temper and shoved him; he was twice my size. And he did this really dramatic fall and roll, and he happened to have been quite near the top of the stairs, so he slid down; he barely hurt himself. But they said they had a zero-tolerance policy for violence, so I got suspended. It was only for a day.’
‘I must remember not to get on the wrong side of you.’ Minny got the sense she was treading carefully. ‘Tough for you though, isn’t it, having to think like that? I mean, she’s your big sister. I think you seem to handle it incredibly well, when you’re not hurling boys down stairs, but it’s a lot. Of course, I don’t mean to say it’s not super-hard for Ash herself …’
‘Sure,’ Minny said.
‘But I hope you look after yourself too. I mean, in a way it’s none of my business. But – I hate to bring this up because it sounds, well, a bit of a cliché, maybe – but it’s not actually that long since I was your age. And it was tough, but I didn’t start off with anything like the baggage you have to deal with. Do you mind me talking about this stuff?’
‘No. It just feels a bit weird. I mean, I don’t normally. And, you know, I haven’t known you very long. I don’t mean to be rude at all, and I’m just saying – that it feels strange to talk about it. Not bad though.’
They went home. It was only twelve o’clock by the time Harriet had got the man downstairs to ‘help’ carry the paint, which actually meant him making three trips while Minny brought the towels and duvet covers and Harriet put the kettle on, so they got started on the painting. She found Minny an old grey shirt of her father’s to put on, and lent her a blue scarf to tie around her hair, as if they were painting a room in a film. It was fun. Minny found herself talking a lot, not just about Aisling and Selena but Raymond too – Harriet seemed curious about him, which made sense seeing that she was about to pop a baby out herself. Minny told her stories about Babi and Gil as well, and a bit about Penny.
‘But you’ve been friends since primar
y school?’
‘Yeah. But she’s always been really annoying. It’s just that now – she gets a boyfriend, who’s a real tosspot …’
‘Been there,’ Harriet murmured, shaking her head.
‘So I never see her except when she wants to talk about him and how much she lurves him. And then as soon as there’s someone new at school and I happen to know him and hang out with him just a little bit she’s all offended and feels abandoned. She doesn’t actually want to spend any time with me, she just doesn’t want me to have any other friends. Or even to do more stuff with Aisling actually. It’s pathetic.’
Harriet was painting carefully around the windowsill. ‘She doesn’t like Franklin? This is Franklin we’re talking about, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she give a reason?’
‘She says she thinks he’s a bad influence on me.’
Harriet raised her eyebrows at the window. ‘And is he?’
‘No, not at all. Honestly, I haven’t done a single bad thing while he’s been around. She’s crackers – she thinks that because he smoked weed once he’s making me do it now. I’ve never done it in my life, but what’s weird is that even if I had, I wouldn’t have expected her to think it was such a big deal, like the end of the world.’
‘Maybe she’s jealous.’
‘Yeah, I think she is. She doesn’t want me to have any friends.’
‘Actually, I meant jealous because Franklin is pretty cute.’
‘Oh.’
‘You like him?’
‘Yeah, he’s cool.’
‘But you like him like him?’
‘No. I mean, I’m not – it’s not like that.’
‘Not yet, anyway.’
She was joking but Minny felt uncomfortable. It really wasn’t like that. She didn’t see why it had to be like that.
Her father came back, not too late, just when they were finishing up sandwiches while the first coat was drying; the whole flat smelled of paint, even though all the windows were open. He had a bag of fancy fruit and a newspaper and he loved the room. ‘It’s like a sunny afternoon.’