‘The opposite of that is, “If it was raining soup, you’d have a fork.” Or, as Cormac says, “If there was only a rasher of bacon to eat, I’d be Jewish”.’
He pulled me close, holding my head between his hands. The skin on his palms was curiously rough and wrinkled. ‘Tell me what you know,’ he said, teasingly.
I stretched my fingers against his chest. ‘I know that the world’s my oyster and that an elephant never forgets and . . . I know that there’s a man in the moon who eats the green cheese.’
As dawn broke in a lemon haze, revealing his face on the pillow, he said, ‘I have to tell you, I’m afraid, that an elephant has no memory at all.’ He stroked my hair back. ‘You’ll be my girl, then, you’ll be my love.’
I agreed.
* * *
Matt was a generous boy with a trusting nature. He accepted my arrival in his life with equanimity. He was robust, with sturdy limbs, fair hair and Nathan’s tender, washed-blue eyes. His energy was boundless. He was picking up French on his stays in Paris and would lapse into a form of Franglais when he was cross: ‘Du pain, Daddy, I want du pain!’
‘May’s a funny name,’ he said the day Nathan introduced me.
‘I’m called May because I was born in May,’ I told him.
‘Then There’s May blossom, Our Lady of the May, Maypole, Mayfair, May queen, nuts in May and may I have this dance,’ Nathan said, picking Matt up and whirling him through the air.
‘Maymaymaymaymaymay,’ Matt chanted, delirious with pleasure, hiccupping.
We picked him up from nursery on that first day. When he saw Nathan he raced to the gate, his legs pumping. He sat on his father’s shoulders, pulling his ears, demanding samosas for tea. He had learned to count to twenty in both English and French and repeated the numbers over and over, until Nathan told him to put a sock in it, which caused him great amusement. We stopped at an Indian take-away for the samosas. While we waited for them we tried morsels of the sweets set out for tasting on the counter. I preferred the coconut wedge, Nathan the milky slice flavoured with cardamom. Unusually for a child, Matt didn’t ask for sweets. Nathan told me that this might be because Veronica never allowed him to have them and I thought how odd it must be to have a part-time parent who pulled strings from afar.
We ate the samosas with chutney and yoghurt in front of the television while Matt watched cartoons. My tongue still held a trace of coconut and this added to the strangeness of sitting at five o’clock in the day with the curtains half drawn against the sun, watching Spiderman and crunching spices. It was like an afternoon visit to the cinema, which always seemed an illicit pleasure. I licked my fingers and drew air into my mouth to cool me down.
Matt turned time around and there were traces of him everywhere, like a remorseless tide: toys, vests and Tshirts, battered books, pictures of blobs executed in watercolours, bits of crisps, half-eaten apples. He smelled of cinnamon, his favourite topping on toast. When he was tired, he became pale and irritable. He tolerated me then, but it was Nathan he wanted, Nathan he cried for.
I stayed for weekends and during half-terms. We established a haphazard routine, punctuated by my returns to Dublin and Nathan’s work schedules, which involved several weeks away followed by a period at home. Occasionally, I found something of Veronica’s still in the flat: a pair of tights stuffed at the back of the airing cupboard; a silk scarf in a kitchen drawer; a frayed swimming costume at the bottom of the laundry basket, long body, high leg. I held them in my hands, absorbing their texture. The scarf smelled of a musky scent. I had a sudden feeling of vulnerability, as if I was an intruder, then I threw them away without mentioning them.
Matt had two photographs of his mother by his bed; she was tall, with short blonde hair and a direct gaze. In one, she held him on her jutting hip, laughing at the camera. In the other, she was in smart uniform, standing in the doorway of a plane and holding a tray. It struck me that Veronica and I were physical opposites. Matt had her wide mouth and hair and referred to her as ma belle maman.
* * *
We agreed to marry in early April. I resigned from my job and packed my possessions. Cormac took me for a drink on the night before I left Dublin. He looked at my trunk and suitcases stacked in the living-room of my flat and nodded.
‘Time to move on,’ he said. In the bar, he toasted my future. For once, his gaze wasn’t constantly flitting, taking in any promising talent. ‘I think you’re brave, by the way,’ he told me.
‘Brave? Why?’
‘Taking on a man with a kid. Taking on Veronica.’
I didn’t understand, of course. Then, I thought that marriages ended with divorce. I knew no better, didn’t have any friends who were divorced, wasn’t aware of the tightly knotted skeins that can still bind.
‘I’m not “taking on” Veronica,’ I said lightly, sipping my wine, ‘I think Michel’s done that.’
Cormac looked shrewd. ‘It’s a jigsaw and you’re another piece fitting in, let’s say. She might not like you, might have a different picture of Nathan and Matt in her mind’s eye. You can still be possessive about what you’ve thrown away.’
This hadn’t struck me. I’d envisaged a civilized exchange of courtesies between two sets of lives.
‘I suppose that’s possible, but it’s not as if we’re going to have to see much of each other, I’m sure we can manage the situation. Nathan often takes Matt to the airport to meet her when she’s having him for the week and once he’s old enough to fly unaccompanied, she won’t even have to travel over.’
Cormac smiled. ‘I meant more that she might not like the fact of you: a usurper. Another woman tucking her child in at night.’
I frowned at him. It wasn’t the farewell I’d been anticipating; evenings with Cormac were occasions of laughter and gossip, details of his multi-faceted love-life. The bar suddenly seemed too noisy.
‘She left Nathan, after all,’ I said. ‘She must have realized he’d meet someone else. I don’t see that she has any reason to resent his new partner.’ She’s happy, I was thinking, why wouldn’t she want Nathan to be?
‘Ah, logical May, rational May. If only people were always rational. If only I knew why I don’t fancy the guy over there who’s giving me the eye.’ He lit a cigarette. The smoke mingled with his aromatic aftershave.
‘Stop being such a Cassandra,’ I said, annoyed. ‘I thought you brought me for a drink to wish me well.’
He apologized, said he was just an old moany queen and I should ignore him.
‘You know some of us gay men, always looking for the drama in a situation,’ he added, ordering us another carafe of wine, launching into a story about a Brazilian he’d met at the theatre.
FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/CHILD-compelling-novel-heartbreak-family-ebook/dp/B01CEWISEQ/
http://www.amazon.com/CHILD-compelling-novel-heartbreak-family-ebook/dp/B01CEWISEQ/
UK/US GLOSSARY (scroll down for Irish words)
A & E: accident and emergency department of hospital
Blighty: means England
Bookie’s: Bookmaker
Boxing Day: 26 December
Carer: person who looks after old or ill people
Chaps: men
Chip: fat French fry
Chipper: feeling positive
Civil servant: someone who works for the Civil Service
Civil Service: government departments which put central government plans into action
Council flat: public or project housing
Cross: upset or angry
Deputy head: deputy principal
Fella: man
Flat: apartment
Geordie: someone from Newcastle
GP: local doctor
Hack: newspaper journalist
Magistrate: a civil officer who administers the law
Mobile phone: cell phone
Mobile: cell phone
MP: member of British parliament
Overall: a one-
piece garment worn to protect clothes
Oxbridge: refers to Oxford and Cambridge universities
Plaster: Band-Aid
Post: mail
Puds: puddings/desserts
RC: Roman Catholic
Red Brick University: university founded in 19th and 20th centuries
Register office: a government building where you get married or register births
Ring: to phone
Rubbish: trash
Solicitor: lawyer
Sun cream: sun lotion
Takeaway: takeout food
The tube or underground: subway
To-do: a commotion
Torch: flashlight
Tweedledum and Tweedledee: characters in an English nursery rhyme
UHT: ultra heat treated milk for long life
Wee: little (Scottish)
IRISH WORDS
Alannah: darling
Bad cess: bad luck
Barm Brack: fruit loaf
Boreen: a path
Hooley: party
Palaver: nonsense
Seannachtai: story teller
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ALSO BY GRETTA MULROONEY
THE LADY VANISHED
http://www.amazon.com/LADY-VANISHED-gripping-detective-mystery-ebook/dp/B0170HJAMY/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/LADY-VANISHED-gripping-detective-mystery-ebook/dp/B0170HJAMY/
How can someone vanish without a trace?
Carmen Langborne is a woman who no one seems to like very much, and now she's gone missing. But there is no body, no leads and no real suspects. And the police have stopped investigating her disappearance.
Carmen's stepdaughter Florence hires private detective Tyrone Swift to find the missing woman. If the body is found, Florence will inherit half of a very valuable house. As Swift delves deeper into the family’s affairs, he discovers dark family secrets that threaten the reputations of powerful people. Will Swift get to the truth before those with much to hide stop him?
OUT OF THE BLUE a gripping novel of love lost and found Page 23