Claire:He has more important things to do, like save animals, Max.
Marie:Joseph, I’ll be round in half an hour. Just seeing to your dad.
Jackson:No. You did not just put that.
Marie:Put what?
Ava:That you’re ‘seeing to Dad’.
Marie:I meant I was seeing to him in terms of breakfast.
Jackson:Thank god for that. Jesus.
Marie:I saw to him like *that* earlier.
Jackson:Fuck.
Jackson:Where’s the bleach?
“Aunt Marie’s here!”
Shay’s bellow could pretty much wake the dead, even if the dead were down to bone and their ears had long since rotted.
“And I think the whole of the apartment now knows that.” I stepped out of my bedroom, Shay just about to open the door.
“She deserves a loud announcement.”
The door opened and my mother walked in, wearing something that was probably designer and looking like she was about to broker some sort of deal.
“Shay!” Her arms wrapped his. “You’ve lost weight. You need to eat more.”
“And so says every Irish mother.” He patted her on the back and kissed her cheek, stooping to do so. “I’m eating just fine.”
“It’s how he’s burning it that’s the problem.” I made sure I was loud enough for her to hear me, but not the neighbours. Not that they didn’t know what Shay was like: they heard his ‘friends’ enough.
“You work too hard.” She tapped his face, a little too hard which I was pleased to see. “I thought I’d come and sort some stuff out here. Your father, uncle, whoever he is at the moment, is meeting that dick David Hartford for brunch and I wanted to do something useful. Do you have any ironing?”
We both disappeared, each returning with a similarly screwed up pile of shirts.
She shook her head. “I know that by the time you’re showering, I’ll have cleaned the shower, vacuumed, ironed these and thrown out anything in your fridge that’s started its own colony of creatures. If either of you ever meet anyone who can put up with you for more than two nights, they won’t do this. They won’t be your mother or your aunt, because that would be rather… wrong.”
Shay hung his head.
I shook mine.
“We have a cleaner. And she irons when I ask her too.”
“Then you need to pay her more and have her come more frequently.” She held out her arms for Shay’s ironing. “Joseph, go and set up the ironing board for me and make me a cup of tea.”
I did as I was told, knowing better than to argue when she used that tone. I’d seen Jackson try it once and it didn’t end well.
“How’s work?” She began to sort through Shay’s shirts, turning her nose up when a tiny pair of knickers fell out.
I tried and failed not to laugh.
“That bloody boy. I swear he’s worse than the lot of you put together.”
“That’s because I’ve got more charm than all of them.” Shay breezed through, picked up the underwear and threw them in the bin in the corner of room.
