Something in Common

by Meaney, Roisin

  ‘You’ll be well able.’ She dusted Martha with talc, stroked it onto the soft, warm skin. ‘By the way, I invited you-know-who to the party and he’s coming.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know, the person I told you about, for N-o-r-e-e-n.’

  ‘What does that spell?’ Martha asked.

  ‘It spells “only for grown-ups”,’ Neil replied, getting to his feet, lifting Stephen into his arms. ‘Right, Mister, let’s get you to bed.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Sarah called after him.

  His voice drifted back. ‘Fine, if you want.’

  She turned back to Martha, who was pushing her feet into her rabbit slippers. ‘OK? All set?’

  He could show a bit more enthusiasm for her idea – and it would have been nice if he’d said he was glad he’d married her too. That was men for you, hopeless.

  Helen

  She pulled the sheet from her typewriter and set it on top of the others: five thousand words on Ireland beginning to drag itself out of recession for a new magazine she’d approached last month. Unemployment at its lowest in years, emigration and inflation down, exports up, all the signs there for the long-awaited recovery. She’d pitched the idea to them and they’d gone for it, and now it was done.

  She glanced at her watch. Send it off this afternoon, catch the half-four collection if she didn’t delay. They’d have it a couple of days before the deadline, a mark in her favour.

  She’d never delivered anything early to Breen – it was more fun to let him wait, let him sweat a bit. She remembered their testy exchanges, neither of them giving an inch. ‘Don’t push me, O’Dowd,’ he’d warn, and she’d push a bit more, see how far she could go.

  There were no heated exchanges with his successor at the newspaper, a younger man named Ryan. There weren’t very many exchanges at all – these days she was contacted by various sub-editors, all of whom were terribly official, none of whom she could distinguish from any other. Breen, it would seem, had been unique.

  ‘I miss him,’ Catherine had confessed to Helen, a few weeks after his retirement. ‘He wasn’t always the easiest to work for, but at least he was interesting. Now everything’s so samey and organised and … ordinary.’

  Yes: whatever else you could accuse him of, Breen had never been ordinary.

  Helen slipped the pages into an envelope. She’d drop in on her mother after the post office: she was due a visit. Twice a week she called these days, sometimes more often.

  Different now, without her father and Alice around, just her and her mother. Easier, in a way – or maybe Helen was mellowing. Maybe she was finally learning to loosen her hold on the resentments of the past. For whatever reason, she didn’t dread the visits to her family home like she used to.

  Helen had heard the news of her father’s death – less than two months after his stroke, and only a few weeks after Alice had left for Wales – with a detached sadness, the kind of one-degree-removed sympathy you might feel on hearing of a distant relative’s death, or a fatal car accident on the news involving some perfect stranger.

  Her mother, on the other hand, mourned him with a deep and genuine grief, often opening the door to Helen in those first few weeks with reddened eyes, or breaking off in the middle of a sentence to press a hand to her mouth. Her grief made her gentler, rubbed her corners soft. It also caused her, after the fierce rawness of it had passed, to draw her only daughter closer, to welcome her with what seemed like genuine warmth when she called.

  ‘How’s Alice?’ she would ask. ‘How’s the job going in Wales? What are you working on now? Why don’t you stay for dinner? Where did you get that lovely sweater?’

  Showing an interest, listening to Helen’s answers as if she cared. For Helen, lonesome after Alice, gone four months now, it was oddly comforting. She and her mother had no one around them now but one another, and they must make do with that, and be satisfied with it.

  She slipped the envelope into her bag and took her umbrella from its stand – rain off and on for the past week – and walked to the front door. As she reached to open it the bell rang, startling her.

  ‘Oh – hello there. That was quick.’

  The man standing on her doorstep smiled, showing large, even teeth. He was a big, white-haired, white-bearded bear of a man, with the reddish-brown complexion of someone who spent more time out of doors than in. His grey corduroy trousers were bald in several places, his faded blue T-shirt strained over his wide chest.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Helen asked. A van was parked on the road outside that struck a faint chord. F&G Garden Centre: maybe they touted for business around the neighbourhood. Maybe he was hoping to flog her a few shrubs today. If that was the case he’d be in for a big disappointment.

  ‘This will probably sound a little odd,’ he said, his smile staying put, ‘but I was driving by just now and I spotted a cat in your front garden. It’s disappeared now – hopped over the wall when I opened the gate – but I’m just wondering if by any remote chance it’s Charlie’s.’

  What was he on about? ‘I don’t know anyone called Charlie,’ Helen told him, stepping out and pulling the door closed behind her, ‘and actually I’m in a bit of a—’

  ‘I beg your pardon, I should have made myself clearer. I meant Charlie Malone, who used to live next door.’

  Helen, about to step past him, stopped. Charlie Malone. Malone.

  ‘The thing is, this is going to sound a little strange, but we got a phone call at the garden centre – well, I did actually, a long time ago, two or three years it must be – asking about his cat …’

  Charlie Malone. She’d never known his first name – or maybe she had, years ago. Maybe Cormac had mentioned it way back. But for as long as she could remember he’d been Malone. But he was dead, wasn’t he? Why was this man, this stranger, looking for his cat now?

  ‘… and it’s a bit of a long story really, but he was trying to locate it, and he’d given the lady at the nursing home our number as a contact—’

  ‘Nursing home?’

  ‘Yes, he’d been sent there, apparently, when he came out of hospital, and the one thing that was bothering him was his cat. So of course I promised to keep an eye out for it, and I called around here a few times, we both did, my colleague and I …’

  A nursing home. He’d managed not to die in hospital then.

  ‘… but eventually we gave up, it just seemed pointless really, so much time had gone by. But then, like I say, I happened to be passing today, and I saw a cat in your garden, and of course it mightn’t be his at all – I never actually saw it myself, but the description …’

  Still alive in a nursing home, not dead like she’d assumed. Tough old Malone, not ready yet to shuffle off his mortal coil. She should have known.

  ‘… and I was just wondering if maybe you took him in when Charlie got sick. I know it’s a long shot, but I thought it was worth a try, you know?’

  He stopped talking, finally, and stood towering over her. His story was ludicrous – trying to track down a cat he’d never seen, years after its owner had moved away – and yet his expression was so open, his face so completely without guile, that she was inclined to believe him.

  ‘It is his cat,’ she told him. ‘I’m looking after it. I thought Malo—I thought Charlie was dead, so I put out food.’

  His grin widened, nearly split his face in two. ‘Well, that’s very good news,’ he said delightedly. ‘I’m sure Charlie will be thrilled to hear that you have it. I’ll give a call to the nursing home and—’

  ‘Let me,’ she said. ‘Would you? Let me have the number, and I’ll ring.’

  She’d get a kick out of telling Malone that his precious cat was alive and well, and that she was the one he had to thank. Let him put that in his smelly old pipe.

  The big man raised his eyebrows, which were growing as enthusiastically as his beard – such a very hairy face he had. ‘Well, if you like, I could do that, but the number is back at the garden centre
. I have it stuck on a notice board there—’

  ‘Here,’ she said, pulling a receipt from her bag and scribbling her number on it, ‘you could ring me with it. There’s an answering machine if I’m not at home.’ She wrote Helen under the number. ‘Thanks awfully.’

  ‘No problem at all,’ he said, the smile bouncing back onto his face as he pocketed the receipt. ‘You want to break the good news to him yourself.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Helen said, struggling to keep a straight face. He could get a job as Santa, no problem. Put him in a red suit, give him a sack and a queue of kids. No false beard required.

  ‘Charlie was a nice old soul,’ he told her. ‘And knew his stuff when it came to plants, a real expert.’ He gestured across the newly built brick wall to the paving stones that lay now in place of Malone’s precious lawn. ‘Look what they’ve done to his garden – wouldn’t do him good to see it.’

  ‘Don’t suppose it would.’ Helen felt the conversation had gone on long enough. She began to move down the path. ‘I’m afraid I have to go. I’m trying to make the post.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said immediately, following her to the gate, nipping ahead of her to open it. ‘Would you like a lift?’

  Helen looked at him, amused. The proverbial good Samaritan. ‘Thanks, but I think I’ll make it on foot. Goodbye now.’

  ‘Much obliged to you.’ He put out his hand. ‘I’m delighted that the mystery is solved at last – thanks again for your help.’

  He seemed genuinely happy. Imagine looking for a cat that wasn’t yours, imagine keeping an eye out for more than two years, just because someone had asked you to. The male equivalent of Sarah, spreading goodness and light wherever he went.

  His handshake was as firm and warm as she’d expected. She put him in his mid-fifties, a few years older than her, and at least a foot taller. Not to mention several stone heavier.

  As she walked away she heard the van door slamming, the engine starting up. He drove past her, tooting the horn and waving cheerily.

  She made the half-four collection by a couple of minutes. She called to her mother afterwards and they drank coffee and talked about Brian Keenan, still in captivity after more than four years, and Cardinal Ó Fiaich dropping dead in France, and Alice’s description of the basic living conditions at the eco centre.

  When she got home, having declined her mother’s offer of a salmon steak, she grilled a couple of fish fingers – no motivation to cook a proper meal without someone to share it – and tossed a green salad to go with them. She watched a film and fed the cat—

  The cat. Malone.

  She checked her answering machine and saw the message light blinking. She pressed play and the bearded man’s big genial voice burst into the silence: ‘Hello Helen, Frank Murphy here, we met earlier when I was looking for Charlie’s cat. I have that nursing-home number for you.’

  The area code was Kildare: what had brought Malone all the way out there? Wasn’t there any nursing home good enough for him in Dublin?

  Sarah was in Kildare – maybe he’d ended up in her nursing home: some coincidence if he had. She’d ask him tomorrow if there was a cook called Sarah Flannery working there, tell him to say Helen said hi.

  She returned to the kitchen. ‘Remember Malone?’ she asked the cat. ‘Old man you used to live with. He’s still alive – can you believe it?’ But the cat continued snuffling into his bowl and ignored her. She made tea and wrote a letter to Alice as she drank it, and told her about Malone not being dead after all.

  Wait till he heard who had his cat.

  Sarah

  The door to Matron’s office was open, which meant she was on her morning rounds. As Sarah passed, the phone on the desk began to ring. She could leave it, and the answering machine would pick it up, but she hated to ignore it. She entered the office and lifted the receiver.

  ‘St Sebastian’s Nursing Home, may I help?’

  ‘Good morning.’ The voice was husky, hard to tell if it was male or female. ‘I’m looking for Charlie Malone. I believe he’s staying there.’

  Sarah’s heart sank. Why hadn’t she minded her own business and kept going to the kitchen? ‘Er, may I ask if you’re family?’

  ‘No, I’m not family.’ Marginally sharper. ‘I’m a neighbour – I was a neighbour of his. Are you telling me only relatives are allowed to speak to him?’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that, of course you could talk to him—’ Lord, a neighbour after all this time: maybe this was the person who’d found him. But why wait till now to look for him, years later?

  ‘Hello? Are you still there?’

  Say it, get it over with. ‘It’s just, I’m really sorry to have to tell you this’ – the words stuttering out – ‘but I’m afraid Charlie, er, he’d been ill, you see, a few years back, with pneumonia – well, maybe you know that already – and it had weakened his heart, and he … suffered a heart attack, I’m afraid, and he, well, he died, quite suddenly, just a few months ago. One of the other residents found him, in fact, in the garden here. He had made such a—’

  Stop, shut up, you’re blabbering. She stopped. There was silence at the other end.

  ‘Hello?… Hello? Can you hear me?’

  The silence stretched, and she realised that the line was dead. The caller, whoever she was, had hung up. She replaced the receiver and left the room.

  Helen

  Hi, Mum

  Thanks for the cheque. Big news – Jackie and I have left the centre. We both had enough of it, and it was too full of weirdos anyway. I didn’t tell you about them because I thought you’d freak out, but there was a guy who had a swastika tattoo and who wore a bulletproof vest all the time, even in bed, and a Dutch woman who thought someone was cutting her hair while she was asleep – and they were pretty normal compared to some of the others. Dermot is staying on there, but he’s a bit weird himself so he fits right in.

  We hitched a lift to Cardiff and we’re living there now. We’re sharing a house that belongs to Cait, who we met when she visited the centre a few weeks ago. When we told her we were thinking of leaving, she said we could stay with her till we got sorted. I’ve found a job in a pub, three nights a week to start, and Jackie is delivering groceries on a bicycle for a supermarket.

  And the other good news is that we’ve signed up for Saturday-morning art classes. They’re free, given by some student, and they’re held in the university, which is just ten minutes from the house, and we’re going to try and sell the stuff that we paint in a craft market that takes place every Sunday. Cait is a potter and has a stall there, and she says we can share it.

  Cardiff is cool, lots of free stuff to do. It’s freezing though – I bought a coat in a vintage charity shop for a fiver yesterday. It’s one of those sheepskin ones, weighs a ton but very warm. Jackie says I look like a hippie in it. And I’m letting my hair grow, it’s past my shoulders now and it goes a bit curly if I don’t blow dry it. I like it. You’ll see it when we come home at Christmas.

  I’ve put the address of Cait’s house at the top. You can write to me there for now, but as soon as we can afford it we’ll try and find a place of our own, because it’s a bit crowded here. Hope everything is OK at home. Tell Gran I said hi, and give the cat a hug.

  love Alice

  PS Stop asking me if I’ve met any nice boys. I keep telling you I’m not interested in boys. Seriously.

  Helen lowered the letter. All it had taken for them to stop fighting was for Alice to move away: put a sea and a few hundred miles between them and they got on fine.

  She found an envelope and copied the Cardiff address onto it. She’d get a postal order for two hundred pounds sterling next time she was in the post office. She had no idea how much apartment rental was in Cardiff, but it was all she could spare, and it would help.

  She wondered who else lived in Cait’s house, and if Alice had a bed to sleep in, or even a couch. Maybe she slept on the floor, and hadn’t mentioned it in case her mother freaked out. She
wondered what else wasn’t being mentioned.

  Saturday art classes, free because the tutor was a student, maybe with fewer hours of learning under his belt than Alice herself. A far cry from the fine-arts course Alice had turned her back on, but at least she was doing something arty. And if she sold a painting or two it might encourage her to go back and study properly again.

  Working in a pub, three nights a week. Helen wondered what class of Welshman it attracted, and how Alice got home after closing time, and if working there was better or worse than cycling a bicycle around Cardiff with someone else’s weekly shopping in the basket.

  But she sounded happy, and she had Jackie with her, and they were coming home at Christmas, only nine weeks away. As Helen was slipping the letter back into its envelope, the phone rang. She walked out to the hall.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  Sounding as happy as if he’d just won a million on the National Lottery, as usual. In four months she’d never known the man to be in a bad mood.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine, just reading a letter from Alice.’

  ‘All well in Wales?’ He had yet to meet her daughter but you’d never know it, the way he always asked after her, always showed an interest when Helen mentioned her.

  ‘She’s left the centre, her and one of the pals. They’re living in Cardiff now, sharing someone’s house. Alice is working in a pub, and her friend is delivering groceries on a bike.’

  ‘Good for them, having an adventure. That’s what you need at nineteen.’

  He turned everything into a positive. She could picture the beam plastered across his face, and the image made her smile too. He could do that to her, even over the phone.

  ‘You free later?’ he asked. ‘I got tickets for that play at the Olympia.’

  Another thing he did, book tickets and then tell her. She should be annoyed that he didn’t check to see if she was busy first, but getting annoyed with him was pointless – he never reciprocated, he was useless at arguments. If she told him she had something else planned, he’d simply laugh it off and pass on the tickets. Nothing bothered him.