Two Fridays in April

by Roisin Meaney

  Daphne dropped the damp tea towel onto the draining board and sat next to her. ‘Mo, would you collect the other cake tomorrow and bring it to the charity shop for the tea break? It’s already paid for and I’d hate it to go to waste.’

  Mo looked doubtful. ‘I’d have to give you something for it.’

  If she knew how much it had cost, she’d faint. ‘No need, I don’t want money.’ Before they could say any more about it the doorbell rang and it was Daphne’s father, so they made tea and cut the pink cake and waited for Una.

  And now it’s nearly half nine, and still no sign of her.

  ‘Who did you say she’s with?’ Mo asks.

  ‘Ciara, one of her friends.’

  ‘Have you a number for her, or an address?’

  ‘No.’

  After a year, Daphne can hardly recall what Ciara looks like – long auburn hair is all she can picture. It hits her that she has no way of getting in touch with Una, apart from a mobile phone that’s proving useless. For the first time she feels a tiny twitch of apprehension. What if Una doesn’t show up, and continues to ignore her phone? What then?

  ‘What’s Ciara’s surname?’ Jack asks. ‘We could look them up in the phone book’ – but again Daphne draws a blank.

  ‘I don’t remember ever hearing it,’ she replies, knowing how pathetic it must sound to them. Una’s best friend, and she doesn’t even know her last name.

  Finn knew it, of course. He knew where Ciara lived too – he’d often been at her house, either dropping her home or collecting Una from there. But Daphne had never thought to look for that information while he was alive, never imagined she’d need it.

  It strikes her suddenly that she must have met Ciara’s parents: they would certainly have come to Finn’s funeral. They would have lined up and shaken her hand like everyone else; they might even have called to the house in those first nightmarish days – but her memories of that time are blessedly indistinct, all the hushed voices and clasped hands and bowed heads blurring together.

  ‘What about the school principal?’ her father suggests. ‘They’d be able to tell you the surname, and maybe they’d know the address too.’

  ‘The principal …’

  For a few seconds her mind refuses to supply a name, or even a gender, for whoever is in charge at the comprehensive. No, she knows this – she’s been to events at the school, cake sales and parent-teacher meetings and end-of-term things. She knows this.

  She racks her brain, aware of the other two looking expectantly at her, and finally remembers two Christmases ago, the school’s annual variety concert, Una singing carols with a few others. The principal introduced it, acted as MC for the night – yes, a lanky, balding man in a tuxedo. Mr Dunphy – no, that’s not right. And then all of a sudden it’s there: Dunworth. John, or maybe Joseph, Dunworth.

  It takes her three phone calls to locate him. A woman answers on the fifth ring.

  ‘Who will I say is calling?’ she asks, and when Daphne gives her name she goes off without further enquiry – resigned, maybe, to his being pestered by parents when he’s off duty.

  The principal pretends to remember her when he comes to the phone, although she doubts that he could. Did he attend Finn’s funeral? She has no idea. If he’s annoyed at being contacted outside school hours he gives no sign. He tells her immediately that Ciara’s last name is O’Mahony, and that she lives on Morefield Terrace. A few hundred students in his care: can he possibly know where every one of them lives?

  ‘I don’t know the house number – all that information is at the school – but you should be able to find them in the phone book,’ he says. ‘Call me back if you have any problems.’

  Daphne thanks him and hangs up. What must he think of her, not having contact details for Una’s friends? It’s probably one of the most basic rules of parenting.

  For the second time she searches the phone book while Mo continues to try Una’s mobile – and there the O’Mahonys are as promised, on Morefield Terrace. Daphne dials the number, wondering how Una will react to being checked up on. Her own fault for ignoring her phone, but she might still—

  ‘Hello?’ A man’s voice.

  ‘Mr O’Mahony?’ She hasn’t a clue what his first name is, only that his initial is B.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Daphne Darling here, Una’s stepmother. I was just—’

  ‘Ah, Daphne – hello there. Everything all right?’ From his tone they might have met yesterday.

  ‘I just wanted a word with Una. I’ve tried her mobile a few times, but she’s not answering.’

  Pause. ‘Una? I don’t think— Hang on there a sec, Daphne, would you?’ She hears the receiver being laid down, a distant exchange. She waits.

  ‘Is she there?’ Mo asks.

  Daphne nods. ‘He’s getting her now.’

  ‘Hello?’ But it’s not Una, it’s a different female voice. ‘Mrs Darling? It’s Ciara – Una’s not here.’

  ‘Oh – she’s left already? But she said your father was driving her home.’

  ‘Um … Una hasn’t been here today, Mrs Darling.’

  ‘Not there? Didn’t she have dinner with you?’

  ‘Um … no.’ Her voice filled with uncertainty now. ‘I haven’t seen her since yesterday.’

  ‘What?’ The conversation is making less and less sense to Daphne. She feels the tension of the afternoon returning, prickling her skin, tightening her jaw. She’s aware of the other two listening intently. ‘What are you talking about? Weren’t you at school today?’

  ‘Yes, but Una wasn’t.’

  ‘Of course she was. She was definitely there – I dropped her off myself.’

  ‘Um …’

  ‘Are you in different classrooms?’

  ‘Well, only when we split up for science and stuff – but we’re in the same room for most things.’

  ‘And you didn’t see her at all?’

  ‘No. I know it’s her birthday and … stuff, so I thought she just … stayed home today.’

  Daphne tries to make sense of it. Ciara didn’t see her at school, but Una was there. She must have skipped some classes, maybe couldn’t face meeting her friends today, which is probably understandable – but where did she go, and who was she with?

  Suddenly a light dawns: she’s not the right Ciara. Una must have two friends with the same name. There’s nothing wrong, it’s just a simple misunderstanding.

  ‘Is there another Ciara? I mean, has Una got another friend called Ciara?’

  ‘Um … not that I know of. I’m the only one in school.’

  Only one Ciara: of course there’s only one. Daphne’s palms have become damp. Was Una’s earlier text a lie, then? If she wasn’t in Ciara’s house, where was she? Where is she? There must be some simple explanation.

  ‘Ciara,’ she says urgently, ‘you’re not making this up, are you? I mean, Una isn’t putting you up to anything, is she? Playing a trick on us or something, a joke or something like that? Because if that’s what this is, please stop. I’m really very worried.’

  For a second, two seconds, there’s silence. ‘Um, Mrs Darling, I texted her this morning when she wasn’t at school, and she texted back to say she was at home, sick.’

  ‘What? What time was this?’

  ‘About … half nine.’

  And as the words register, Daphne’s insides begin to dissolve. No mistake then, no misunderstanding.

  Una is missing. She’s sixteen – no, barely seventeen, and she’s missing.

  ‘Daphne’ – Ciara’s father again – ‘Bill O’Mahony here. Look, I’ve heard the gist of that. Sounds like you’re having trouble tracking Una down. I think the best thing we can do is for me to get Ciara to ring around the pals, see if she’s in anyone else’s house … OK, Daphne?’

  She becomes aware that she’s nodding silently. ‘Yes,’ she says, her scalp tight, her mouth horribly dry. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘And we’ll get back to you as soon as that’
s done, OK? Give me your number there.’

  She recites the number of her mobile phone in a voice that won’t stop shaking. Una isn’t in anyone else’s house: they won’t find her. The certainty of this is terrifying.

  ‘Ciara will be as quick as she can,’ he says. ‘OK, Daphne?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Thank you.’ She hangs up and turns to the others.

  ‘They don’t know,’ she says. ‘She wasn’t at school, she sent Ciara a text—’ She breaks off, unable to finish for the fear that has clutched her, for the sudden wave of nausea that washes over her.

  ‘Could she be in the house?’ Mo asks, rising. ‘Have you checked her room?’

  Her room. Una’s room.

  Daphne takes the stairs two at a time, comes to a halt outside the bedroom door, gripped by a new terror.

  She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t do that. She’s not like that.

  She flings open the door. The room is empty. She slumps against the jamb, her whole body trembling, the facts slamming one after another into her head like the thump of a closed fist.

  Una ran away from school.

  It’s almost ten o’clock.

  She’s been missing for the whole day.

  She’s Daphne’s responsibility, and now she’s lost.

  She’s seventeen. She’s only seventeen.

  MO DARLING

  ‘I’m looking for a teddy,’ the woman says. ‘It’s for my little boy – he’s in a play at his school this evening. Well, not so much a play, just a musical thing. He’s in junior infants, and they’re doing “Ten in the Bed” – you know that song? He’s the little one, the one that tells them all to roll over. He needs a teddy, but he refuses point blank to use his own – you know what they can be like at that age – so I thought I’d pick one up here.’

  It’s clear she doesn’t remember Mo. She doesn’t remember the first time they met, a year ago today.

  He’s dead, Mrs Darling. Saying what had to be said, no beating around the bush. He was involved in a road accident this afternoon. He died instantly. Your daughter-in-law wanted to come and tell you, but she’s in no fit state—

  And even as the horror of it, no, no, no, even as the horror beyond horror of it was crashing, no, no, no, like a tidal wave into Mo, even as the words were lancing through her like spears, whooshing the breath out of her, no, no, no, making her heart go insane inside her, making nothing right, nothing the same ever again, Mo was grateful for the woman’s directness, for the way she didn’t shilly-shally around the truth. The compassion plain in her drained face, the reluctance for her task evident. Standing on Mo’s doorstep in her navy uniform beside her male colleague, looking much too young to be a guard, looking far too young to have to break such terrible news to anyone.

  For the first time in her life, Mo fainted. Not even a real faint, just a brief darkness, like someone drawing a blind down in her head, only for it to shoot up again, consciousness restored within seconds, and she was half lying, half sitting on the hall floor, the male guard crouching awkwardly beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his navy trousers straining across his broad thighs. His breath, too close to her face, smelling of coffee.

  Mrs Darling, he was saying, you’re all right, you just took a bit of a turn. As if she’d suddenly become senile instead of childless.

  I want to see him, she said to them, and they tried to talk her out of it. They wanted to call a neighbour, said she could wait and see him tomorrow, but she was having none of it, so they took her to the morgue, where she found an incoherent Daphne and a silent, white-faced Jack, and what was left of Finn.

  Over an hour dead by this time, his beautiful face waxy and still. A scream wanting to erupt at the sight of him but not coming out because she didn’t let it: she didn’t dare in case it went on forever, so she kept her mouth closed and shoved it back down inside her.

  And that night, that endless night after everyone had left, Daphne wanting her to come back to their place but Mo refusing. Sitting alone in her empty house that whole night, wrapped in a blanket as she kept vigil for him. Watching the moon as it came and went, as the stars shone down uncaringly on a world that didn’t contain him any more. Unable to cry, still too broken apart with shock to cry.

  The young guard phoned Mo the following week, a few days after the funeral. Just checking in, Mrs Darling, she said, to see how you’re doing. Nice, that – even if Mo was doing abominably badly, even if all of Mo’s seams were unravelling. The gesture still appreciated for all that.

  The next time they met was several months after Finn’s death, about a week after Mo had begun volunteering in the charity shop. The woman had come in with a little dark-haired boy; she’d smiled at Mo as they walked past the counter. Gave Mo a right land, the sight of her. Brought it all back, all the horror rushing right back, but she managed not to let on.

  The woman had bought a table lamp that day, had paid for it and waited while Mo wrapped it. She and her little boy had stood beside Mo for at least two minutes, and she’d never given the smallest sign that she was aware she’d met Mo before. Why would she remember, though? Probably had to give plenty of people that kind of news: how was she to recall them all?

  She knows Mo by sight now, of course. She drops into the shop every so often, sometimes with her boy, other times alone. The two women haven’t exchanged names or made any conversation other than what’s needed. Mo is a familiar face to her, that’s all.

  Plenty of people wouldn’t be caught dead going into a charity shop, but it doesn’t seem to bother her – and you’d think she could afford better on a guard’s salary. Mo approves of that, appreciates the lack of snobbery it shows. She’s been a fan of charity shops herself for years, hardly ever goes anywhere else to buy her clothes. So what if someone else wore it first, if it’s still fit to wear?

  ‘Soft toys in that box there,’ she says, indicating, and the woman drops to a crouch and rummages among the jumble of sorry-looking offerings. Her hair has been cut since Mo last saw it: the reddish-brown bob has become a pixie crop. It suits her, makes her grey eyes appear larger, her face even younger than before. Instead of a wedding ring she wears a silver band, no wider than a piano wire, on each of her index fingers. They look wrong to Mo there; they jar like a picture crookedly hung. Those fingers weren’t made for rings.

  ‘This’ll do.’ The woman pulls out a rather raddled teddy, his toffee-coloured fur worn bald in several places. ‘Looks well loved, don’t you think?’

  ‘Certainly does.’

  Mo rings in fifty cents, even though the box is marked Everything €1. Couldn’t ask for a euro for that shabby old thing.

  But the woman insists on paying full price – ‘No, no, it’s cheap enough,’ and Mo accepts, knowing she’d do the same herself.

  A carrier bag is offered and turned down. ‘Chilly today,’ the woman says, stowing the toy in the black satchel that’s slung over her shoulder. ‘Big change from yesterday.’

  ‘That’s April for you,’ Mo agrees. Yesterday had been warm enough to sit in the garden for an hour with the paper when she got home. April brings dangerous weather, every day more unpredictable than the last. Who was it called April the cruellest month? She’s glad she put on her blue cardigan today, seven euro last week, a hundred per cent cashmere and not a mark on it, apart from a tiny stain on one of the cuffs.

  ‘Bye now.’ The woman zips her purse closed, lifts a hand in farewell. ‘See you again.’

  She strikes Mo as happy. Something bubbles within her, adding warmth to her eyes, giving her a ready, bright smile. Maybe she’s in love. Mo remembers how that feels, oh, she remembers it well.

  In the momentarily deserted shop she wanders back over the years to 1958; she sees the navy and white polka-dot dress she wore the first time Leo Darling took her to the cinema. She was nineteen years of age, in her second year of being an articled clerk at Twomey Accountants. It was three weeks since their first encounter, three weeks since she’d gone into Hadigan�
�s to look at tennis racquets, and Leo Darling the assistant who’d attended to her. And that night at the pictures she knew, yes, she was certain that she loved him.

  Four years her senior, not her first boyfriend but by far the most exciting. Pencil moustache that reminded her of Errol Flynn, wonderful dark blue eyes that Finn was to inherit. The marks of his comb still in the nut-brown hair that he swept straight up from his forehead like James Dean. Finn was to do that too, push his hair back in precisely the same style, but without Leo’s Brylcreem it would never stay put.

  I’m going to open my own shop some day, Leo told her, when the lights were on at the interval and she was eating the Palm Grove choc-ice he’d bought for her. A bicycle shop. And, even though she wondered where an assistant manager at Hadigan’s Sporting Goods Store could possibly get the money for a shop of his own, she didn’t doubt him for a second.

  When the place went dark for the second half, and a few minutes later she felt the warmth of his arm across her shoulders, she thought, I love him, just like that. And for the rest of the evening the happiness hummed and glowed inside her, warm as a coal fire. She was in love.

  And he did open the shop, after eight more years of him working all hours, even taking on a second job for a few months as night watchman at the railway station to put more money aside, snatching sleep where he could until Mo had put a stop to it, hating the pinched look on his face, his eyes sunk with tiredness into deep sockets.

  Of course all the scrimping meant him and Mo, and later Finn, living for years in the cramped one-bedroom converted garage they leased for some tiny amount from his cousin, but she didn’t mind – his dream had become her dream, and she grudged him nothing.

  Two Wheels Good – the name inspired by Animal Farm, his favourite book – opened on a blustery June day in 1966. Mo had stood beside him, holding four-year-old Finn by the hand as the ribbon was cut by a well-known cyclist, whose name escapes her now. Fine figure of a man, won Rás Tailteann more than once. She remembers a clutch of giggling, shoving youngsters asking for his autograph, the brand new shop full of people. Leo wearing a wide, wide smile as he walked among them, his wish finally fulfilled. Happy times.