It didn’t take long to get all the suitcases and bags in.
Poppy and Callie did it.
‘No, Mam, you’re not touching any of it,’ said Callie.
Despite the speed with which her mother had run down the path to get Poppy out of the car, it was obvious that she was suffering now with severe arthritis: her movements were stiff, her hands misshapen, fingers covered with little arthritic nodules on the knuckles.
‘I’m fine, sure, aren’t I well able to carry a few things in,’ said her mother.
‘No,’ said Callie. ‘You make the tea, we’ll drag it all in.’
Poppy looked like she might object, but Callie shot her a fierce glare.
‘Where will I put it all, Granny?’ said Poppy as she came in with the first load.
‘We’ll worry about that later,’ said Callie, wondering who was still living in the house, what was going to happen. She thought of the phone calls she’d had from Freddie: furious, drugged-induced, raging phone calls where he’d accused her of being a turncoat, of abandoning their family for that bastard Jason Reynolds. If Freddie was around, Callie wasn’t sure they’d be allowed to stay. She’d given up on poor Freddie too.
‘It’s just me here now,’ said her mother as if she could read Callie’s mind. ‘Your Uncle Freddie’s in Kerry, doing well,’ she said, with a nod to Callie. ‘Very well. Very health-conscious, your Uncle Freddie.’
Callie let out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding in.
Health-conscious – code for ‘off the drugs’.
‘Your Auntie Phil is still living in the big house near the golf club. Wait till you see it, Poppy. I’d never seen the like of it. Phil fell on her feet, ah but sure he was a good man, Seamus, a good man, a lot older than her now and I won’t say she hasn’t been through trouble with him through sickness, but they had such love.’
‘Had?’ said Callie anxiously. She’d loved Auntie Phil.
Auntie Phil was the glamorous one in the family, while Callie’s mother, Pat, never went in much for any more than a slash of a bright lipstick, which was always flattened down to the tube end before she thought about replacing it.
‘Lord almighty, Phil, you look fabulous. I wish I could do that,’ Callie’s mother would say as Phil emerged from the attic bedroom, face painted, platinum hair set and ready to go. ‘New perfume?’
‘It’s Dinner in Paris,’ Phil would explain. ‘Or is it Lunch in Paris ...?’
‘Late Night Chipper in Paris?’ Callie’s mother would tease and the two sisters would bend over laughing, delighted with their humour.
They looked so similar, even with Phil all beautified: both a lot shorter than tall, lean Callie; both with hair dyed, home-dye jobs because who in Sugarloaf Terrace could afford the hairdresser. And both with the same hoarse laugh that sounded as if they’d spent years singing torch songs in nightclubs, although the hoarseness was part genetic, part too many cigarettes.
The teenage Callie had loved the sisters when they were like that: laughing and joking with each other, Phil all glittery and done up, with her nails – kept short for the factory – expertly painted bright red. Nobody made her mother laugh the way Phil did.
Pat Sheridan, manageress of the dry-cleaners on Florence Road, could have a sharp tongue on her, but it was softer for her younger sister and softest of all for her beloved daughter, Claire.
She patted Callie’s hand. ‘Seamus isn’t well, but I’ll tell you all about it later, lovie. Phil will be dying to see you both.’
She led the way into the kitchen, which had changed totally. Extended and with lovely wooden cupboards, it was all amazingly different from the mad mustard cupboards that had been there in Callie’s time. The whole place had been extended till it was a lovely family room with a lantern ceiling window that allowed glorious light to shine in. The old kitchen table they’d all done their homework on was gone and in its place was a pale ash table that went with the wood of the floor. A soft couch and a TV in one corner filled it out.
‘It’s fantastic,’ said Callie, looking around.
‘Freddie’s company did it, he’s got a great business now in the building trade,’ said her mother, ‘went into partnership with Seanie down the road. Managed through the crash and I tell everyone they’re the finest builders in Ireland. Been in some of the magazines as well. They work a lot with this architect fella, decent lad. Younger brother of – ah, you wouldn’t know him. They live and work in Kerry mainly. Freddie likes the quiet.’
Quick as a flash, Pat Sheridan changed the subject.
‘He did this up for me, for my seventy-fifth.’
‘You’re seventy-five, Granny?’ said Poppy, always fascinated with people’s ages.
‘Seventy-six now,’ said her grandmother, ‘and still no sense because I’m still going to the bingo. Not that I win very much. Your Aunt Phil’s much better than me. Luckier. Your father always said she had the luck.’
‘And Freddie?’ said Callie. ‘Did you tell him you thought I’d be coming?’
