‘This was missing for a week, and then it turns up in her handbag this morning.’
I tap the table while I talk, hoping to hammer some importance into what I’m saying. But Ciara doesn’t know what to make of it. And, given a chance to think, neither do I. And so we look at each other a while, trying to make sense of these alarming but banal clues.
‘Something is up.’
‘Oh, definitely.’
Ciara takes another mouthful of the tart. I do the same, hoping to get to the bottom of it all, fast.
‘But what could it be?’
‘I don’t know.’
A part of me knows better than to say anything bad about the O’Learys, but I let myself.
‘I only know that Anna is quare out. And they’re keeping this poor girl’s death a secret.’
The tart stings at the back of my teeth.
‘Ciara, if I had listened to you in the first place. You said they were strange people! Strange doesn’t begin to describe it.’
She doesn’t want to boast that she was right, so she just nods as I go on.
‘I just want to put a distance between us, until I can figure it all out.’
‘Sure how will you do that, aren’t they always here?’
‘They are, I haven’t a clue what I’ll do.’
But Ciara has. She has several. We talk about getting Anna a job, or involving her with volunteer work, or landing her on another woman. We go around in circles, until something good arrives with us. Didn’t I promise her a man?
‘Liam Hennessey.’
‘Liam Hennessey!’
A young man, without a mother, who recently inherited his father’s farm. Not bad-looking, just not good-looking enough to have gottena girl yet. And so desperate for a wife, for any bit of company, that he’d take anybody we set him up with. And God knows that Anna is yearning for company.
I get the impression that Anna is the sort of woman who is proud to have never been touched by a man. All a bit old-fashioned, if you ask me. I feel sorry for her and her heavy virtue. Maybe this is just what she needs.
Yes, Liam will distract her for a while. In the best case, she will take to him, and they might get married, and I might never need to worry about this again. In the worst case, he will occupy her for just long enough for me to do some more digging and put these pieces together. When we reach a conclusion and plan it all out, Ciara sighs, finally going back to all that John has done wrong this week.
And I relax. It’s so good to have a plan in place. It is so good to have somebody to talk to who I can trust. Warm by the fire and eating slices of sweet tart, laughing over our husbands.
Tom
‘ARE YE SURE IT’S ALRIGHTto leave her with Minnie Keane? We hardly know the woman.’
Jack asks, fighting Anna for room in the mirror. I comb my fingers through Peggy’s hair, because Anna is too busy putting on lipstick to come and do this herself. Peggy wriggles around, trying to pull her head away from my hands. As though I’m running knives across her scalp.
‘Yeah, Betty said it’s fine.’
Anna says, impatience rising in her voice as Jack stands in her way. It’s strange to see what she looks like with makeup on, it’s been so long. Strange, too, to see Jack with a bottle of hair oil, preening himself.
‘Presumptuous, considering Betty has no children of her own.’
Jack mumbles, as though Anna wouldn’t hear him. Of course, Anna hears everything. Even things that we only half think of, she hears. The way that she’s looking at him could turn him to stone. Weighted air passes through the room. For days now I have felt a storm impending. I wait for somebody to snap.
But with a cool breath, it all passes, and Anna takes Peggy off me. Positioning her in front of the mirror, she pulls Peggy’s hair into two tight plaits. She is more settled with Anna than she was with me. I don’t let myself take offence to this.
