Semi-Sweet Read online

  And afterward, she had no idea how long afterward, the curly-headed guard at the station put a blue-and-white mug of too-hot, too-sweet tea on the table in front of her—her lashes stiff with salt, her eyes hot and stinging, the ball of her sodden tissues lying next to the mug, her skirt creased—and then he sat on the wooden bench beside her and said quietly, “Now, Alice, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  And as he spoke, as he told her, her face crumpled and the screams and the tears began all over again.

  Geraldine unlocked the grille and slid it upward into its casing. She opened the shop door and stepped in, inhaling the robust, leathery scent. She locked the door again and walked through to the rear of the shop, where she hung her coat on the back of the door and stowed her handbag in the small green cupboard that held the accounts ledgers and the petty-cash box.

  She filled the kettle and plugged it in, then lifted the two red mugs from their hooks. The mugs said OXO in fat white letters. She took the milk carton from the tiny fridge and sniffed it. She dropped tea bags into the mugs and added half a spoonful of sugar to hers before she remembered she’d given it up for Lent. She took out the tea bag and poured the sugar into the sink.

  She switched on Alice’s transistor and let the ads wash over her as the kettle began to sing. She didn’t care for the local radio station, but Alice liked it. At a minute to nine, she went out to the shop and unlocked the front door and wheeled out the display of boots on sale. She went back and poured boiling water into her mug, adding milk as the newscaster reported on the latest political scandal, and the shelving of plans for a new motorway in the west, and the protests over the cancellation of another route out of Shannon Airport, and the closing of Carbert Road in Clongarvin following a traffic accident. An accident—that would be what was delaying Alice, who came by Carbert Road.

  At ten past nine, she called Alice’s mobile and got her voice mail. “I presume you’re stuck in traffic,” she said. “No rush—it’s quiet here. See you in a while.”

  At twenty past nine, when there was still no reply from Alice’s phone, she called the house. Maybe they’d both slept it out after last night, or maybe Alice’s mobile was stuck in her handbag, out of earshot.

  But the phone rang and rang, and she finally hung up.

  At half past nine, she phoned the dental clinic. “Is Tom there?” she asked Suzie, the receptionist.

  “No—Stephen says he’s not coming in,” Suzie told her.

  “Has he phoned? Or Alice?”

  “No, I’ve heard nothing.”

  “Will you put me through to Stephen?”

  Stephen had heard nothing either. “He’s not here, so he must be sleeping it off. I thought Alice would have rung, but she didn’t.”

  “Alice hasn’t arrived here either—and she’d definitely let me know if she wasn’t coming. I’ve tried phoning, but there’s no answer.”

  “Maybe they both slept it out, then. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  At a quarter to ten, Geraldine phoned Hannah, who told her that Una Connolly’s four-year-old nephew had been knocked down on his way to school.

  “I’m waiting to hear how he is,” Hannah said. “Una just rang me on her way to the hospital.”

  “Oh, Lord, the poor little thing.”

  “Why were you ringing me?”

  “Alice never showed up for work,” Geraldine said, “and Tom isn’t at the clinic. I can’t contact her.”

  “They could be stuck in traffic. Maybe the accident caused a delay.”

  “But Alice would let me know. It’s not like her at all.”

  “The battery could be gone on her phone—you know how easily that can happen.”

  “Mmm.” But still Geraldine was anxious.

  The main item on the ten-o’clock news was an accident on the Carbert Road in Clongarvin, in which a young boy had been knocked down and fatally injured.

  Alice couldn’t stop crying. She leaned her elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands and sobbed loudly, the tea forgotten.

  “Oh, God,” she wept, thinking of the small blue boy flying upward. “Oh, Jesus, God. Oh, God Almighty.”

  And sometime after that, with the tears finally over and her throat aching and her eyes burning and her head throbbing, Tom walked into the room, chalk-faced, and said quietly, not meeting her eye, “We can go home now.”

  And all Alice could think was how desperately she wanted to hit him.

  “Mum, it’s me. I’m afraid I have bad news.”

  Geraldine’s hand flew to her chest. “Is it Stephen? What’s wrong?”

  “No, it’s not Dad…It’s Claire’s son. He died. Una just rang me.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Geraldine sank onto the stool, her eyes filling with tears. “Oh, the poor little thing—what age did you say?”

  “Four. He was only four.”

  “Oh, that’s so…” She pulled a tissue from her sleeve. “Oh, I can’t believe it.”

  The shop door opened just then. “Someone’s here, I have to go,” she said hurriedly, hanging up and slipping her phone under the counter. She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose and tried to put the news from her mind while she dealt with the customer.

  And after the woman had decided against any of the three pairs of shoes she tried on, after the shop door had closed behind her, after Geraldine had tried Alice’s mobile again and again gotten no response, a terrible suspicion began to dawn slowly inside her.

  Nora strolled along the rails of clothes, running a hand over the different fabrics, occasionally pulling something out to have a closer look.

  “Can I help you at all?”

  She smiled at the assistant, who could lose half a stone, easily. “Not really, thanks—just looking.”

  She wasn’t just looking: She knew exactly what she wanted. In the dressing room, she removed her top and jeans and tried on her selection, turning to see as much as possible in the floor-length mirror. She got dressed again and walked to the checkout desk with a high-waisted purple skirt, a fitted cream top, a black wool wraparound dress, and a deep crimson jacket.

  “Hang on to these,” she told the assistant. “I need to pick up some lingerie.”

  A bustier, maybe—she hadn’t bought a new one in ages. Stockings, of course, and suspenders. A cream bra for under the top, one that gave serious cleavage. A couple of lace thongs.

  And it was so satisfying, as the assistant folded her purchases and wrapped them in tissue, as Nora slid her credit card across the counter, to remind herself that Jackson Paluzzi was paying for lingerie that some other man, with any luck, would get a lot of pleasure from.

  Not that she had any specific man in mind, of course. But with her new job, and meeting all those newspaper employees, somebody would surely come along.

  And if he happened to be out of bounds…well, so much the better. The last thing she needed was another husband.

  “What d’you fancy?”

  Leah, full of heartburn, didn’t fancy anything. She looked for the least offensive dish on the menu. “The poached salmon.”

  “Me, too.”

  Patrick closed his menu as Leah stifled a yawn and eased her swollen feet one by one out of her stilettos. She’d barely made it from the car to the table in them. “No sauce on mine,” she told the waiter as he took their order.

  What she wouldn’t give to be stretched out on the couch in front of the telly, a cushion under her back. What she wouldn’t give for a foot massage—except that Patrick wasn’t talented in that department. His attempts at massage left her more frustrated than relieved.

  He reached across the table and covered her hand. “Good day?”

  She pushed her hair out of her eyes with the other hand. It needed a cut, but she hadn’t the energy. “Fine. You?”

  “The usual.” He filled their water glasses. “Did you hear about the accident on Carbert Road?”

  “I did. Horrible. A child, wasn’t it?”

  His w
ine arrived, and her apple juice. She was sick to death of apple juice. She hoped to God he wouldn’t say cheers.

  He lifted his glass toward her. “Cheers.”

  Irritation flooded through her. She knew that it was her hormones gone haywire, but the knowledge didn’t stop her from wanting to wipe the smug look off his face, whatever it took.

  She looked for something to rattle him, and found it. “By the way,” she said, “did I mention that your new PA is Adam O’Connor’s sister?”

  Patrick’s smile faded. “You don’t say.”

  “Twin sister, actually.” She watched him assimilate the knowledge that he’d just employed the sister of his ex’s best friend. “Not that it matters,” she added, daring him to contradict her. “I mean, now that you and Hannah are history.”

  He shrugged. “Of course not. Why would it? I’m just surprised, that’s all.” He lifted his glass again. “Mind you, she did say she came from around here, so I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me if I know someone belonging to her, in a place this size.”

  “I’d be a bit careful all the same, if I were you,” Leah said. “She probably tells Adam everything. You know how twins are.”

  Patrick smiled, his equilibrium restored. “I hardly think Adam would be interested in the comings and goings of a newspaper office.”

  “Probably not.” Leah sipped apple juice. “They’ve moved in together—did you know that?”

  “Who?”

  “Adam and Hannah—he’s moved into her house.” She laughed lightly. “I assume it’s just to help her out financially.”

  He studied her. “I would imagine so.”

  “On the other hand,” Leah said, “I wonder if he was just waiting for you and her to break up.”

  Patrick sipped his wine. “And I wonder,” he said mildly, “why you’re being such a bitch.”

  Leah looked innocently at him. “I have no idea what you mean,” she said. “I’m just making small talk.”

  And for the next forty minutes, while they played with their food and made more small talk, he didn’t take her hand again or touch her foot with his under the table.

  “He ran out in front the car,” Tom said. “There was no way I could avoid him.”

  It was the first thing he’d said to her since they’d left the police station. Alice had refused the guard’s offer to drive them home, dreading their arrival in a squad car, the twitching net curtains all along the road. Not that, on top of everything else.

  But the taxi they’d gotten instead just reminded her of the night before—only one night ago!—and she’d sat rigidly on the backseat, gripping her handbag and trying to think of nothing at all.

  They’d let themselves into the house, and Tom had gone straight upstairs, and she’d let him. She hadn’t called him when the kettle boiled, and he hadn’t appeared by the time Geraldine showed up an hour later, having closed the shoe shop early for the day.

  And only when Geraldine had left and the sky was almost completely dark, did Alice hear his footsteps on the stairs. She picked up the tea towel as the kitchen door opened and he walked in.

  “He ran out in front of the car,” he said immediately, his voice low and broken. “There was no way I could avoid him. It happened in a second—there was nothing I could do.”

  Alice finished drying the cups she and Geraldine had used. She put away the banana bread that neither of them had touched. She kept her back to him as she took potatoes from the vegetable rack and brought them to the sink.

  “You saw it too,” he said. “You saw how he ran out. You were there too.”

  Alice began to peel the potatoes, noticing with some surprise that her hands were shaking.

  “Alice,” he said, “didn’t you? Didn’t you see how he ran out?”

  She faced him then, a half-peeled potato in her hand. “You shouldn’t have been driving,” she said, trying not to make the words too loud. “You should have let me drive. I offered, I said I would—” A wobble on the last word made her stop and take a breath. “You were drunk last night,” she said more quietly, “and you were still under the influence this morning, and a little boy—”

  Her voice cracked again, and she turned back to the sink and tried to finish peeling the potato, but she could hardly see it with her eyes full of tears.

  “I felt okay,” Tom said. “I didn’t feel that I couldn’t drive. I would have let you if I had.”

  Alice wiped a sleeve across her face and went on peeling.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “If you knew how bad I feel—”

  She whirled then, the potato flying from her hand and thumping onto the floor between them, skidding across to rest by the fridge. “You feel bad? You didn’t lose a child today, did you?” The words bursting out of her now, flying from her mouth. “You have no idea how those people feel, no idea, because you’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself !”

  She clamped her mouth shut. She crossed the room and grabbed the potato, her heart thudding, the breath gasping out of her nose in sobs.

  She heard, or sensed, Tom leaving the kitchen. She dropped the potato and the peeler into the sink and held on tightly to the edge, trying to calm herself.

  A file will be sent to the prosecutor, the curly-haired guard had told her. Because your husband failed two breathalyzer tests, he will be charged today with drunken driving. As this is his first offense, we can release him on station bail, and he’ll be summoned in due course, probably in a few months, to appear at the district court and be formally charged with whatever the prosecutor decides.

  And what then? Alice had asked, her hands twisted together around the fresh tissues he’d given her. Terrified of his answer, and terrified of not knowing his answer.

  He’ll be summoned to the circuit court for trial. That’ll take another few months, probably in the autumn sometime. He’d seen the next question in her face and added, Sentencing will depend on the charge, and on how the case goes in court—it’s impossible to anticipate the outcome at this stage.

  But he could go to prison?

  The guard had met her terrified eyes calmly. Her situation probably meant nothing to him. He must hate Tom, another drunk driver who’d mowed down and killed a little child.

  He could go to prison, yes, he’d said. Quite possibly.

  The worst of all, the part that wouldn’t leave her head, was that she’d made him go to work. She’d forced him to get up, too afraid of what people might say if he hadn’t gone in. She could have left him asleep, she could have phoned Stephen and said he wasn’t well, and everyone would have gotten over it. They’d have dealt with it. And a little child would still be alive.

  After a while Alice pried her hands from the edge of the sink. She went to the cupboard and took down a can of beans. She opened the can and spooned the beans straight into her mouth, standing by the window, looking out into the blackness and seeing nothing except the little flying blue boy, whose life they had ended.

  “He was only four,” Hannah said. “He was in Junior Infants. His mother was walking him to school.”

  They sat at the table, their dinner plates stacked but not removed. She should have been making her usual preparations for the morning, but instead she cradled her coffee.

  “And the driver was Alice’s husband?” Adam asked. He and Alice had talked some years before about setting up a Web site for Glass Slipper, but in the end it hadn’t happened.

  Hannah nodded. “Tom…You’d have met him at Mam and Dad’s twenty-fifth. They’d all been out the night before, and apparently he was quite drunk going home.” She sighed. “He was breathalyzed when it happened, and he was still over the limit, imagine.”

  “It can happen. And Alice was with him in the car?”

  “Yeah…She’s in an awful way, Mam says.”

  Adam reached for a cupcake and peeled off the paper. “That would wreck your head. I’ve often thought I’d rather be run down myself than do it to someone else.”

  Hannah shuddered
. “God, don’t talk like that. Mam was in the shop on her own all day. She didn’t hear from Alice till the afternoon, when they got home from the police station.”

  “He wasn’t kept in after failing the breath test?”

  “No—he was released on bail.”

  They sipped their coffee in silence. The rain lashed in sheets against the window. Hannah imagined the little boy’s parents listening to the same pelting rain, the same howling wind. Or maybe they didn’t hear it, maybe they were beyond hearing it.

  “Una was so upset when she rang me, poor thing. Imagine, she was apologizing for missing work. I told her to take as long as she needed.”

  “What did you say he was? Her nephew?”

  Hannah nodded. “Her sister Claire’s son. Remember I told you I baby-sat for them. He was the first grandchild, on both sides—they all doted on him, apparently.”

  She remembered Claire as a youngster, all wiry and long-legged, mad into sports, couldn’t care less about clothes or boys or anything unless it involved a field and a ball. But it was Claire, and not prettier, quieter Una, who’d gotten pregnant at seventeen, just a few years after Hannah had given up baby-sitting. Everyone had been convinced that the boy, the father, was going to disappear, like so many before him, and that Claire’s parents would be saddled with the child’s upbringing.

  But Dave hadn’t done what everyone expected. He’d stayed around, eventually managing to provide a home for his small family. Hannah had lost touch with the girls by this time, but Una had brought her up to date.

  Dave’s a house painter. He works with his cousins. He and Claire rent a house in Springwood Gardens. It’s nothing special, but Dave has it looking lovely. He’s got an eye for color. You should see Jason’s bedroom—it’s brilliant. The kind of room every boy would love.

  She’d taken out her wallet and shown Hannah a photo of a round-faced, earnest little boy with an unevenly cut, pale-colored fringe and the full Cupid’s-bow lips of the very young.

  He’s a bit older than that now—this was taken last summer. His hair is getting darker, too. Claire hates that. She wants him to stay blond.