‘Oh,don’t you worry,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry. I shall be doing more than talking to him, I can tell you. I shall be giving him a piece of my mind.’
Rosie came downstairs. ‘I’m going out, Mum,’ she said. ‘Oh hello, Granny. I just want to go and see Alice… see how she’s getting on.’
‘Rosie,’ said Celia. ‘You shouldn’t be visiting friends. You should be revising.’
‘I’m not doing them,’ she said.‘Not this year anyway.’
Celia looked as though she had vomited in her own mouth.
Rosie blundered on. ‘I’m taking a year to reassess…’ she said, speeding up, as Celia’s face was a picture of someone witnessing untold horrors. ‘I’m going to reapply to another college. Do something with English.’
‘Not. Doing. Your. Exams? Not. Going. To. Trinity!’ Celia’s wild eyes swivelled to me. ‘What is goingon?SomebodyFOR GOD’S SAKE tell me what’s going on!’ She focussed on Red, who was leaning inconspicuously on the edge of the kitchen counter. ‘Can you tell me?’ she charged at him. ‘Do you know anything? Because it seems I am the last to know!’
Red shook his head.
But then she turned to me. ‘And you’re happy, are you, Tabitha?’ she accused. ‘You’rehappyabout this? I might have known you’dscupper her chances, ruin her future.’
‘Granny, please…’ Rosie was on the verge of tears.
‘Celia, it’s all going to be fine,’ I tried to explain. ‘This year’s been really tough on Rosie and she’s seeing a counsellor to deal with anxiety… there was no way she could do the Leaving Cert.’
‘No way she could do the Leaving Cert?’ Celia repeated, utterly incredulous, looking as though she had swalloweda wasp. She began making weird throat-clearing sounds.
‘Anyway,’ went on Rosie, ‘everything’ll be lovely once the baby’s born.’
‘A baby? You’re not… don’t tell me that… surely you’re not… you can’t be…’ Celia was white with shock.
‘Not me, Granny. Dad and Lucy!’
Celia looked ready to faint. Her hand rattled her cup. ‘Baby?’ Her voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. ‘A baby.’
Time for themedicinal Baileys, I thought but then my phone rang.
‘If it’s Michael, tell him his mother wants a word,’ warned Celia.
‘It’s not, it’s Mary. I have to take this.’
‘Tabitha.’ Mary was crying. ‘Tabitha. I’m in customs in Dublin airport and they won’t let me through. I had my purse stolen in Dubai and I’ve lost my passport and everything. I’m so sorry to bother you, I know you’ve got enough onyour plate because Mammy rang me about Lucy. She’s mortified. Are you all right?’
‘Don’t mind me,’ I said.
‘I tried to call Red,’ she went on, ‘but there was no answer.’
‘You were in Dubai?’
‘Stopover. We were only there for three hours and I just wasn’t paying attention. I was so caught up with…’ She began to sob now. ‘You’ve probably got enough to do but if you could get a message to Red,he might be able to come.’
‘He’s here with me actually,’ I said. ‘But what do you need me to do?’
‘Would you mind going to my house. Key’s under the geranium pot on the window beside the door. There’s a copy of my passport in the filing cabinet in my office upstairs. Top door, marked Personal. They said they would accept a copy for now and then at least… at least we can go home. It’s been sucha long and exhausting week and we just need to sleep.’
We?
When I put down the phone, I turned to Red, ‘we have to go to the airport,’ I said. ‘Mary’s lost her passport. She said she tried to call you.’
He held up his phone. ‘On silent. Sorry. The poor woman.’
‘Do you know what’s going on?’ I said.
