“What?” Jenny cut in sharply, “In case I wanted to say goodbye? He said goodbye to me a long time ago. OK, it’s a jolt to hear that he’s leaving but it shouldn’t bother me and it doesn’t.” A fiercely determined look appeared on her face then and she sat up straight in her chair. “At least now I’m rid of Roan Williams - once and for all.”
28
Later, Karen struggled to fit through the front door with all she’d bought on a satisfying bout of retail therapy.
But stopped short when she saw the state of her living room. Granted it was never tidy at the best of times, but today it looked as though a dozen Andrex puppies had been let loose. What looked like a full roll of toilet paper –wettoilet paper – was strewn across a coffee table that now resembled one of Picasso’s rejects.
Green and blue paint handprints had also been smeared on the wall beside the TV, and on the screen itself. Small handprints –children’shandprints.
Karen was trying to make sense of the situation when suddenly realisation dawned.
The crazy gang.
“Hey!” A smiling Shane stuck his head around the kitchen door. “You’re back early.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, still surveying the devastation.
“Hi Karen,” she heard his sister’s voice call out from the kitchen, and was almost afraid to put her head around the door for fear Marie’s errant brood had targeted the kitchen too with their guerrilla warfare tactics.
But mercifully the chaos there was confined to the dining table, now covered with half-eaten chips, half-digested chips and squashed-into-the-kitchen-table chips.
Not to mention the ketchup. If she didn’t know better, Karen could have sworn that Shane’s five-year-old nephew was performing open-heart surgery. While his younger sister was happily dipping Barbie into a jar of Hellmann’s. The little girl licked mayonnaise off the doll’s head before promptly lowering it back in for another helping.
The baby was resting happily in Marie’s lap while Shane sat chatting with his sister at the table, both oblivious to the surrounding bedlam.
“Karen, you’re on babysitting duty tonight. Myself and Frank are going to a show and Nellie thought it might be nice for you two to get in a bit of practice.” She winked.
What!!?
“Ah, can I have a word please, hon?” Karen asked, eyeing Shane.
“What?” He queried, once they were in the next room and out of earshot.
“What do you mean –what? Why did you agree to babysit?”
He shrugged. “I thought it would be nice to give them a break. They rarely get out on their own, so when Mam told me about the show it was the perfect opportunity.”
Karen now understood what it felt like to be a goldfish. She kept opening and closing her mouth but no words would come out.
“I’ve tidied up the spare room so Marie and Frank can spend the night here afterwards,” he said, mistaking her silence for assent. “Then they can both have a few drinks instead of having to travel back to Meath. We can take the cushions off the couch and put the kids on the floor in our room, and she brought a cot for the baby so… what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Shane – did you not think to check ifanyof this was OK with me? I don’t fancy spending my Friday night running around after those three nightmares.”
“Jeez, will you keep your voice down,” Shane said, dropping his own to a whisper in case his sister might overhear, “I know they can be a bit boisterous, but –”
“A bit –are you kidding me? Look at the state of the living room – not to mention the kitchen.”
He looked hurt. “They’re family. Now that we have a place of our own, I can see them more often. I couldn’t invite them to the old flat – you know yourself how crummy that was.”
“But fine to let them loose here?”
“It’s hardly that bad,” he said, following her gazearound the room. “The toilet roll can be picked up and I’m pretty sure that the paint is washable and –”
“Nope, that is – I meanwas, a solid pine coffee table,” Karen interrupted. Despite her offhand protestations to Jenny, she was proud of what decorating they had done. “It’s not varnished. The paint will never come off – they might as well have used Ronseal – beautiful but tough. Which is what your sister would be well advised to be on that lot –tough.”
Shane stepped back. “You’re talking about my family Karen,” he said, his tone changing.
She took a deep, calming breath. “You’re right,” she conceded wearily. “I’m just not used to having children around, that’s all.”
