Sweet Home

by Wendy Erskine

  The paramedics needed information from Gavin about the little boy. When the police arrived, they did too. But, when he eventually could speak, all Gavin could say was that the boy was Carl. He didn’t know his surname. If he had ever known it, he couldn’t remember it. He was astounded that he didn’t know it. Bucky, he said, was in Lurgan. But he didn’t even know what Bucky’s proper name was. He kept saying it, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, as though the incantation would summon him. He didn’t know Emma’s other name either. He couldn’t remember it ever having been said. He tried to phone Susan but he was shaking so much the policeman took the phone from him to find her number. The policeman spoke to Susan: had she a phone number for a man called Bucky? There had been an incident involving his son. Once the police phoned Bucky, they phoned Emma. But when the phone call came nobody could hear it with the noise of the salon, which was buzzing with the prospect of Saturday night. There was one missed call, then another missed call. So the police had to go round in a car. The one who came in to the salon was so handsome that half the women there thought he was a stripper. People turned to look. And then the boss called Emma over. She went out still wearing the latex gloves she had put on to apply some woman’s tint.

  When Emma arrived in Accident and Emergency, she saw Gavin. Where is he? What in the name of God happened? she screamed. Where’s Bucky? What did you do? How could he just have run into the road? The veins in her neck stuck out. How? Why weren’t you holding on to him? You couldn’t have been holding on to him, you useless bastard, you—

  She might have hit him had a nurse not come over and taken her by the arm. Just get him out of here because he’s the one caused it. Get him out!

  But he did not go. There was a row of chairs jammed in between a trolley and a folded up screen, and this was where Gavin took a seat. Wherever he looked, he saw the boy in the air. When he closed his eyes he saw it. He stared at his hand, turned it over, turned it back. Susan arrived and he began to describe what had happened, how they were on the road and Carl had just slipped away.

  He just moved so quickly! One minute he was there and then next thing—

  I know what happened. The police told me.

  She sat down beside him. I do think he’ll be alright though, she said. I do think that.

  Bucky had been waiting in the car outside a house in Lurgan when he got the phone call. When they said it was the police, he thought at first it was some pals mucking around, but not when they said that there had been an incident involving his son. That conversation with Emma about Gav, oh Jesus what sort of incident? When they said a car accident he was almost relieved, but then Carl could die! He banged on the door of the house, shouted Dale! Dale!

  Took him a while to answer. What’s up?

  The police!

  Dale had looked around for them.

  No, on the phone, Bucky said.

  They’re phoning us? said Dale.

  Jesus no fuck’s sake there’s been a car accident with Carl.

  They drove back at crazy speed and when he arrived they took him to the room where they had put Emma.

  This is your fault, this is your fault! she shouted. You should’ve been looking after him! Why the fuck weren’t you?

  Oh Bucky, she said and started crying, long, shuddering sobs.

  It was the first time that Gavin and Susan had both been in a hospital since their daughter died. They had each been there alone: Susan once cut her hand almost to the bone with a tin opener; Gavin broke his ankle. Susan sat next to the folded up screen and ran her hand along the faded material that over the years had sectioned off sleep and pain and all the rest. The room that Orla had been in and its perpetual twilight. Those last few hours, Orla had known that it was the end. Susan had seen it. That square room was the last thing that she would know. That chair beside the bed, wooden arm rests, green plastic seat. Was Gavin sitting beside her? She wouldn’t remember where Gavin was? Was he even in the room? Of course he was. She couldn’t recall him being there.

  She only realised she was crying when she saw Gavin looking at her. He wanted to pull her to him, kiss her, but then a bright young doctor appeared. Mr and Mrs Marsh? The doctor told them that Carl had multiple fractures. Certainly he would be in hospital for some days, but he was going to be alright. His parents had been in to see him. Gavin had been in shock when he arrived; the doctor said he’d need a further examination before he left.

  Susan went outside to wait for him. She leant on the rail and looked over the car park, saw the glow of the burger restaurant. There were some patients outside in dressing gowns and slippers and a few wheeled along their drips on trolleys. Most were on their phones. And then, because he was dying for a smoke, Bucky appeared. When he saw her he nodded over.

  Looking alright for the wee man, he said. Thank Christ. But that sure is one of his nine lives gone.

  Susan nodded. Such a relief to hear.

  Yeah. Too right. See when I got that call, never going to forget it.

  No.

  Should see him lying up there, see the state of him. But he’s going to live to see another day and that’s the main thing.

  I’m just waiting for Gavin, Susan said. He’ll be down in a minute.

  Bucky too leaned over the rails and looked out at the burger restaurant while he smoked the rest of his fag.

  Better head back in, he said.

  Sure. So glad he’s okay.

  The week after, Bucky called round to say that Carl was on the mend. He had a broken leg and a broken hip; he would have blurred vision for a while but he would be alright. Gavin gave him a bag of presents for Carl, sweets, DVDs and a few toys. Bucky shuffled from one foot to the other. He said that Emma wouldn’t be able to clean for them anymore because she was having to spend more time with Carl now. He said that he would still do the garden if that suited, and it did, but he worked quietly and efficiently. He didn’t have time to stop for a drink afterwards.

  Susan undertook a major project involving the construction of a new shopping complex in Dubai. Over the following six months, it involved periods of time away. And after that she was more frequently required in the London office. The nights she spent in Belfast became fewer and fewer. Bucky and Emma split up. A week before Carl’s fourth birthday, Emma moved in with Dale. The first time Bucky saw Dale with Carl, walking down the street, he thought he was going to die, it was ridiculous. But he found a great solicitor, a ferocious woman with a crew cut, who made sure he got reasonable access. Bucky ended up half in love with her. He kept on working with Ernie but Colin retired. Gav continued for a while in the new house, sitting in the glass box in the mornings, waiting for the day to turn right. But with Susan hardly ever there the place was too big for one person, and so they sold up and bought a flat in a new development down by the Lagan. On the rare occasion that Susan stayed there, Gavin fell asleep on the sofa. The neighbours complained when he played his music late into the night. In the nursing home, Gavin’s mother refused to die.

  The people’s centre won third prize in an architectural award and featured in a national newspaper. Some teenagers and a doctor were interviewed about its functionality as a building and there was a profile of Thanasis, the architectural practice. There was a small photo of Susan. And then with no more ado the people’s centre became part of the backdrop just like everything else, and in the untended patches at the back of the building, the knotweed grew towards the sun.

  Last Supper

  The six-inch gash in the sofa’s vinyl has been done with a blade, and whoever was responsible dug a hand into the foam to pull out a sizeable hunk as a souvenir. Now, no matter how carefully the sofa’s taped up, it’s going to look like it’s been in the wars. Who was sitting at that spot today—table four, the low one, by the window? There were those young guys fresh out of the barber’s who’d ended up wrestling with each other in a bout of laddish high spirits but unfair to judge because it could have been anybody.

  Andy points it out to Jake.

 
I don’t know anything about it, he says. I didn’t see nothing.

  Jake, I know that. I’m just saying, look what somebody’s gone and done.

  Rosaleen shakes her head.

  The church is not sure whether to retain the coffee shop, which is run in collaboration with a mental health charity to provide a supportive workplace for those who need it. Good, but there are so many other worthy projects which could offer assistance to a greater number of people. This place loses too much money. Even members of the congregation, while considering the cafe as a generally worthwhile enterprise, tend not to frequent it. The older churchgoers prefer a little more ease and comfort, and the younger ones a venue near the church where in the evenings singer-songwriters, often pretty ones playing the keyboards or on occasion the ukulele, sing songs that could be about Jesus or their boyfriend.

  The coffee shop is called Jesters. The pictures on the old menus were of a medieval jester, but when Andy got the new menus done, the graphics studio showed him a picture of a joker and asked if that would do instead. Sure, Andy had said, because it looked more or less the same. When the menus came back from the printers they featured the joker, but in addition the liberty had been taken of incorporating other playing cards into the design. Above sweet treats there was the queen of hearts and over breakfast there was the king of diamonds.

  A member of the church who happened to call in was appalled. The new menus, he pointed out, were highly inappropriate: how could Andy have thought them acceptable when the Bible was so very, very against games of chance? Did Andy not know his Bible? Andy had said that it was just a menu, nobody was actually playing any card games in the place, but the church representative was adamant that the menus should not be used. To get them redone would have been both expensive and a hassle, so Andy had gone to Shop Kwik for a few black markers and made everyone colour in the offending images. Rebekah and Jake had messed about, swiping each other, tagging each other on the face with the pens. Rosaleen had coloured in with total precision. JD watched them do it. He said that the outlines, especially the joker and the jack now looked positively satanic. And he was right. The silhouettes did hold a slouching menace.

  Andy has no doubt that the people he worked with over the years in other cafes and restaurants had their difficulties and problems too, but they just weren’t made official in the way that they are in this place. In this place they keep it simple—soup, scones, toasties, baked potatoes, wraps, cakes—and no one is required to display culinary flair. When he first started, Andy saw that Rosaleen always went around with damp cuffs because she wore a sweatshirt under the Jesters polo shirt. Roll those sleeves up there Rosaleen would you? he had said. You’re getting them soaking there. And when she had slowly rolled them up Andy realised, oh. Maybe roll them down again. Rebekah’s polo shirt is tied in a big knot at the back so that it’s stretched tight across her chest. It certainly improves the fit but it seems a bit unnecessary. Andy doesn’t want to say anything about it though.

  Come four o’clock it isn’t likely that there will be too many more customers.

  Can we turn off that racket now? JD asks.

  It’s Avicii, says Jake.

  I’m not asking who it is. I’m asking can we turn it off?

  It’s young people’s music, JD, says Rosaleen.

  It’s deaf people’s music.

  Oh don’t worry about him, Jake, says Rosaleen. He’s still stuck back in the eighties.

  If only that was the case, says JD. If only.

  Now don’t you be going turning that off, Jake, says Rosaleen. Just you keep it on if you like it.

  I might be stuck in the eighties, says JD, but with that haircut of yours, Rosaleen, you look like you were there at the birth of rock and roll. Oh look, it’s Bill Haley with his Comets. Oh no, hold on, it’s actually Rosaleen McCann.

  I don’t even like Avicii, says Jake. Turn it off if you want cos I don’t care.

  Andy calls Rebekah over to ask her to bring in the geraniums that sit outside in wooden boxes, and the tables and chairs for the smokers.

  Me do it? Rebekah says. Seriously? I actually find those things really difficult to move, Andy.

  Didn’t realise they were that heavy, says Andy.

  Oh they are, says Rebekah.

  They’re not, Rosaleen states.

  Well they might not be for you, but they are for me.

  That’s because you can’t be bothered making any kind of effort.

  Not everybody’s a big bloke like you, Rosaleen. Not everybody’s a big bloke who can lug things around.

  Not everybody’s spoilt.

  Ladies, ladies, please, Andy says.

  JD has started wiping everything down. Give it another five minutes, Andy says, and then turn the sign around. Only tables five and six are still occupied and their people are bound to leave soon. Rosaleen takes in the geraniums, the tables and chairs, and also the Jesters sign. Keep a quick eye on things while I nip down the road would you, Rosaleen? Andy says. He wants to buy some tape and get that sofa sorted before the end of the day because things can fall apart so quickly.

  Andy got the job at Jesters through the church. In those early days he was there almost every other night at one thing or another, discussions and seminars, workshops and praise nights. That was when he was still full of the newfangledness of it all. One evening at a meeting someone from the church had mentioned that they were looking for a person to work in their cafe in a supervisory capacity. Well he had nothing on at the moment. Would he be interested in doing something like that? Yes, but had he any experience? They needed someone who knew what they were doing. The upmarket Lebanese where Andy had been working, Byblos Nights, had just closed down. People in Belfast, it seemed, needed Byblos nights as much as people in Byblos needed Belfast nights. It wasn’t long before he found himself sitting in the office of the charity, where he was required to have a short, informal interview.

  On his way back to the cafe Andy sees the door open as a young guy and girl leave. They are both laughing and they stop to look through the window of the cafe before moving off up the road. And then out dashes Rebekah.

  Hey! Andy shouts. Rebekah! What’s up?

  When he goes inside, Rosaleen is sitting at one of the tables with two women.

  That, JD says, is a job for you.

  What do you mean?

  You’ll see.

  Andy, Rosaleen says, would you come here a minute because I think you need to speak to these ladies here.

  JD winks. Good luck, he says.

  One of the women is sipping a glass of water while the other looks on, solicitous. Well, the woman says, you come to a place like this and that’s not a sight that you expect to see. You think a place like this is going to be one thing and it turns out to be something else.

  You think, her friend says, you think that you’re doing your bit by coming to a place like this. Maybe you shouldn’t but you do. It’s not like there’s not loads of other places on the road that you couldn’t go to. Place is coming down with coffee shops.

  Has there been a problem? Andy asks.

  There’s been a problem all right. People! She flutters her hand. People! It’s not what I bargain on seeing when I go out to a cafe. And certainly not a religious place like this is meant to be. This is meant to be a religious place isn’t it?

  I’m sorry, I’m not getting this, Andy says.

  Just as we’re about to leave, she says, I thought I’ll go to the toilet sure before we go and when I open the door what is it you think I see? Do you know what I see? Two people in your toilet.

  They were having intercourse, her friend says. Do you know what I mean?

  No, says Andy. Really? In there? He looks in the direction of the only toilet in the place: unisex, cramped, the tiny washbasin that gets hit by the door, the gooey soap and that toilet brush that still has the barcode on it. Logistically difficult enough, but maybe those two that he saw leaving managed it.

  Are you sure? he asks. />
  Son, I’m sure, she says.

  Her friend says, They’re doing that and then they’re touching stuff like the sausage rolls. You know, they’re going out and working with the food.

  Hold on, says Andy. You’re not saying it was people working here?

  That’s exactly what I’m saying, she says.

  Andy turns around to look at the counter where JD and Rosaleen are standing watching.

  No, says the woman. Not them. That’s not who I mean. The young ones.

  They didn’t even lock the door, says her friend. Imagine not even locking the door. You’d lock the door if you were even just going to the toilet.

  They didn’t even see me standing there, says the woman. They were both so involved in it.

  This, it is clear, could make the papers: a solemn-faced photo of this woman with her hair just done, sitting in the safety of her living room, nursing a cup of tea that has been made in the non-sexual province of her own kitchen. And it would herald the end of the place.

  This shouldn’t have happened, Andy says. A shock, big time, for you and all I can say is that I am really sorry. He pauses. But what I am asking you, and this is me really asking you a big favour I know that, but could you just keep this to yourself? The people involved, they will be totally dealt with, trust me, this won’t happen again, but could you just let this stay between ourselves?

  Well… she says.

  The people involved will be dealt with and they’ll never do it again.

  Well, I don’t know, she says.

  Please, says Andy.

  Well I’d rather just forget what I saw, she says.