Life Drawing for Beginners Read online

  She’d been so sure they’d never lay eyes on him again—or if they did, that he’d just look through them like most people, pretend he’d never met them. She’d been completely gobsmacked when he’d approached them outside the library. What had changed his mind, why had he suddenly decided to help them?

  And handing her a tenner, just like that. She still had eight of it left. She had about €12 altogether, she was hardly spending anything these days now that he was feeding them. Although Barry wouldn’t touch the ham in the sandwiches they got for lunch, and she had to promise him a pack of sweets from the euro shop to get him to eat the brown bread.

  He wasn’t mad about the milk either, always asking her for Coke, but Carmel had persevered, and eventually he’d given in. It felt wrong not to eat and drink what they were getting for nothing. And she knew milk was better than Coke, she wasn’t stupid—it was just that Coke was cheaper, and Barry loved it, and she liked seeing him happy. But that was before free milk.

  The €5 she’d got from the snotty woman in the park had helped a lot, although she’d hated taking it. The way the woman had looked down her nose at Carmel had made her feel more of a beggar than when she was sitting on the side of the street holding out a cup.

  And making sure her handbag was out of reach, as if Carmel was just waiting to grab it. As if Carmel was someone who’d rob a handbag. She felt sorry for the little girl too, with a mother who looked cross when her child hurt herself.

  She thought of Ethan’s father buying clothes for Barry. Going into a shop and buying them specially, brand-new. She’d nearly made a fool of herself when she’d seen them on the bed, the first clothes he’d had that weren’t from a charity shop, or found in a Dumpster. Nobody had been nice to them in so long, it had been all she could do not to bawl her eyes out in front of Ethan’s father. He would have loved that.

  And when they’d come back to the house on Friday a hair dryer was on the floor outside the bedroom door, and a new child’s toothbrush in her toilet bag, and no sign of the old one. She hadn’t said anything when they’d gone downstairs; something told her not to mention it, although she really wanted to say thank you to him.

  Barry stirred beside her. She stroked his hair. “Shh,” she whispered.

  She wished Ethan could see the two of them, all cozy in his father’s house. She wondered if she’d ever be able to think about Ethan without wanting to cry. She pressed her eyes closed until the stinging went away.

  It wasn’t all good, of course. There was the problem of getting a job when she couldn’t read or write. And even if another miracle happened and someone did offer her work, what would she do about Barry? What was the point of even looking for a job, with no one to mind him?

  No—she wouldn’t think like that, or else she’d want to give up, and she couldn’t give up.

  Then there was the problem of what Ethan’s father would do when the test results came out. He was probably hoping they didn’t show Ethan as the father, so he could be rid of them once and for all. What would he do with a grandchild, where would Barry fit into his life? Where would Carmel fit in?

  She looked around the room again, everything becoming clearer as her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. This must have been Ethan’s sister’s room. Ethan had mentioned a sister when Carmel had asked him about his family, but she’d gotten the feeling it was hard for him to talk about her.

  She assumed the clothes she’d been given had once belonged to the sister. They weren’t new, but they were in better condition than anything Carmel had. The skirt was too long and she had to gather the top of it into her knickers to keep it up, but she liked the blouse, and the cardigan was really soft. It was the nicest thing she’d ever owned.

  She wondered where the sister was now, and what she’d think of Carmel if they ever came face-to-face. Imagine if they met by accident, and the sister recognized her clothes on Carmel. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too mad; she mustn’t really have wanted them if she’d left them behind in her father’s house.

  “I don’t want no powwidge,” Barry murmured then, his eyes still closed.

  “Jus’ a little bit,” Carmel whispered. “It’s nice with sugar, isn’t it?”

  He shook his head. He rarely wanted to eat first thing in the morning, so she’d gotten used to letting him ask for something when he got hungry later on. Now they were being presented with porridge much earlier than he normally ate, and it was taking all Carmel’s powers of persuasion to get him to take it. She knew it wouldn’t go down well if he refused it.

  “I’ll get you crisps later if you eat it all up.”

  “Why can’t we go to a diff’went house?” he asked then, burrowing his fist into her stomach.

  She grabbed his hand and held it. “Do you not like this one?”

  His head went from side to side again.

  “Haven’t we a nice bed? It’s better than our last one, isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  “Oh yes it is. An’ a nice carpet on the floor, an’ two nice windows, look. One, two.” Stroking his hair back from his forehead as she spoke. “An’ a nice wardrobe.”

  Barry pushed his head into her chest. “I don’t wike it,” he mumbled.

  Of course it wasn’t the bedroom he was objecting to. Carmel kept stroking his hair. “Don’t worry about your granddad,” she said. “He’s a bit grumpy, but he don’t mean it really. Didn’t he buy you nice new clothes?”

  She heard a door opening on the landing. Ethan’s father was up, which probably meant they’d have to get up soon too. After a minute the toilet was flushed. She felt Barry go still, and knew he was listening for more sounds.

  She squeezed his hand. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’ll mind you, we’ll be fine. Don’t I always mind you?”

  His bark is worse than his bite. She remembered learning that proverb years ago in school. He was grumpy and he never smiled, but he’d given her €10 and bought clothes and a toothbrush for Barry, and he was letting them stay in his house and cooking breakfast and dinner for them, and giving them sandwiches for lunch. And he’d left out a hair dryer, because she’d asked him for one.

  And he was Ethan’s father. It was important to keep remembering that.

  —————

  James sat on a bench and watched his daughter climbing the metal frame, reaching for the highest bar. With an effort he resisted the urge to rush over and stand underneath, arms spread to catch her. Charlie was fearless, always had been. He remembered her at eighteen months, trying to clamber over the gate they’d put at the top of the stairs every time their backs were turned.

  “Daddy!”

  She waved triumphantly from the top and James waved back, his toes curling at the thought of her plummeting to the ground. Put your hand down, stop waving, hold on tight.

  Frances had never been half as nervous about their daughter. “You’ll stifle her, watching her like that all the time,” she’d say. “Let her off, give her a bit of free rein. What’s the worst that can happen to her in the back garden, for goodness’ sake?”

  James would list the hazards—choking on grass, stung by a wasp, attacked by a wild dog that had managed to jump the fence—and Frances would laugh.

  “Listen to you,” she’d say. “I don’t know how you sleep at night with that imagination. Come on in and drink your tea, she’ll be perfectly safe.”

  And James would make himself turn away, and nothing bad would happen to Charlie in the ten nervous minutes it would take him to finish his tea. And in the end, of course, the horrible irony had been that it was Frances who hadn’t been perfectly safe.

  “Daddy, will you push me on the swing?”

  James got up and crossed the playground after her, and stood behind a swing as she clambered up. This is what his life was now, working at a job he hated from Monday to Friday and entertaining his daughter at the weekends. He began to push.

  “Higher, Daddy.”

  He’d known there was a chance they’d
run into Eoin and his mother at some stage. Carrickbawn wasn’t that big, they were bound to meet up sooner or later. He just hadn’t expected it to be two days after he’d texted her to say they weren’t going to be around for the weekend.

  When the boy had materialized in the cinema James had braced himself for a meeting with the mother. She couldn’t be far behind, she’d surely appear at any moment. He’d already been casting around for an excuse—their weekend trip canceled, her number mislaid—when Eoin had vanished again, and James had been spared an awkward moment.

  But of course she’d know now that Charlie hadn’t gone away after all. What must she think of him? First the abrupt text, and then to be found out in his lie. Served him right.

  And what was he doing anyway, skulking off as soon as someone made contact, someone who’d committed the cardinal sin of inviting his daughter to play with her son? Wasn’t it a bit ridiculous to be running scared when his whole reason for moving was so that he and Charlie could have a normal life, or as close to normal as it could ever get for them?

  And how presumptuous of him to suspect Eoin’s mother of having an ulterior motive—as if any woman in her right mind would choose him.

  He still had her number. He’d text her and suggest another day for the children to get together. She might tell him to get lost, and he could hardly blame her if she did, but he’d take the chance for Charlie’s sake. He’d wait a few days, he’d text her next week sometime.

  “Daddy—watch me!”

  Charlie swung away from him, waiting until the arc of the swing had reached its highest point before leaping off, landing unhurt on the springy surface of the playground, but causing considerable palpitations in her father.

  —————

  There was a scatter of wilting flowers by the headstone. Valerie must have stopped by. Bit of a climb down from her usual offering; this lot looked as if they’d been robbed from someone’s garden.

  Michael placed his far more presentable bouquet in the center of the grave. The headstone needed cleaning, the stone spotted with a greyish-green lichen. He’d get on to someone next week. He stood back and regarded his wife and son’s final resting place.

  RUTH BROWNE, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, he read. Underneath were the dates of her birth and death, just twenty-seven years apart. And below that, separated from the first entry by a couple of inches, ETHAN BROWNE, BELOVED SON, and his dates, even closer together than Ruth’s.

  Ethan had been beloved, whatever Valerie might say. He had been loved fiercely and completely from the moment he’d been placed in his father’s arms, minutes after his birth. Michael’s love for his son had been immense.

  “There’s a girl,” he told Ethan now, “who says you’re the father of her child. I don’t know whether to believe her or not. Wish you could enlighten me.”

  There had been no sign of his two visitors when he’d left the house for eleven o’clock Mass. He’d left them alone, figuring they might as well have a lie-in one day of the week—and what real damage were they likely to get up to, left alone in the house for an hour? The worst that could happen was she’d try to make breakfast and burn a saucepan.

  When he got back from Mass they were up, sitting at the kitchen table. She had a cup of tea in front of her and she told him they’d already eaten, although there was little sign of them having had anything at all.

  Michael hadn’t pursued it. The boy clearly wasn’t a fan of porridge. Probably prefer one of those sugar-laden concoctions that had the cheek to call themselves cereals. If they’d rather eat nothing, that was their lookout. Michael had no intention of feeding them junk.

  Her offer of help in the house or garden had touched him oddly. He supposed it was a good thing she was attempting to do something in return for her keep. He’d brought her out to the garden and shown her how to clear the weeds from between the paving stones with a trowel. The child had sat on the garden seat with his Winnie-the-Pooh book, which seemed to be the only one he possessed.

  When he’d left for the cemetery Michael deliberately didn’t say where he was going, or when he’d be back, still reluctant to get too familiar. She made no mention of Mass: probably hadn’t seen the inside of a church in years. The child in all likelihood not even baptized.

  He pulled grass from the sides of the grave and threw it into a bin. The graveyard was busy on Sundays, particularly on fine afternoons like this one. Families mostly, some older people, a few lone younger adults, some with a young child or two in tow. Widowed early maybe, like himself.

  “I might be a grandfather,” he told Ruth. “Can you imagine me with a grandchild? I’m only fifty-one, for crying out loud.”

  Walking home, it occurred to him that the girl knew where Ethan was buried, if her story was to be believed. She said she’d seen Michael at the funeral, so presumably she’d come to the graveyard. He wondered if she ever visited Ethan’s grave. Maybe she did, maybe she’d been the one to leave the flowers he’d seen. If that was the case, he dreaded to think where she’d swiped them from.

  The patio was spotless, not a weed to be seen. She’d put them into the green refuse bag he’d left out for her. She’d cleaned the trowel under the outdoor tap and replaced it in the shed. As far as Michael could see, neither she nor the boy had moved from the garden since he’d left.

  They sat side by side on the wooden seat. The boy cradled his book and she held a scratched tin box in her lap. Michael recalled seeing it on the bedside locker by Valerie’s bed, the morning after they’d moved in.

  “Will you tell me when it’s ten to six?” she asked Michael. “I want to take him to evening Mass.”

  —————

  “We can’t go on like this,” Irene said to Martin.

  She was on her third very strong vodka and tonic, or she wouldn’t have said it. She would have known, if she hadn’t been a bit drunk, that there was no point.

  Martin looked at her over his iced water. Martin was stone-cold sober. “Irene,” he said, “let’s just enjoy ourselves.”

  They were at Chris and Pamela’s end-of-summer barbecue, which usually happened earlier in the year, the first week of October hardly qualifying as the end of summer. The delay had been caused by Chris surprising Pamela with a monthlong cruise for their twentieth wedding anniversary, from which they’d returned just the week before.

  “You haven’t come near me in two years,” Irene said. “You’re punishing me.”

  “Don’t do this now,” Martin replied calmly, glancing around the crowded lawn.

  “You’re punishing me because I—” Irene broke off as one of the caterers approached with a plate of barbecued banana slices wrapped in bacon. She waved him away but Martin took two and held one out to her.

  “You need to eat,” he said.

  Irene ignored the food. “You always knew I didn’t want children,” she said. “I’m doing my best with Emily. I can’t give what I haven’t got.”

  Martin ate the two canapés. He wore a black shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, and grey jeans. He was easily the best-​looking man in the garden. Irene had spotted two women checking him out earlier.

  “Our marriage is a sham,” she said. “Everyone thinks it’s perfect but it’s a sham. Are you seeing someone else? Are you sleeping with—”

  “Irene,” Martin said, an edge to his voice now. “Don’t.”

  “Daddy?”

  Emily appeared beside them, her cheeks flushed, her dress stained with grass. Martin crouched and hoisted her into his arms.

  “You having fun, baby? You want a drumstick?”

  “I’m thirsty,” she said.

  “Come on then—let’s get you a drink.”

  Irene watched them walk towards the patio, her head spinning gently.

  —————

  Wondering if Eoin would like to meet Charlie next wknd—James Sullivan

  Short and to the point. Clearly not a man given to small talk. At least he’d put his full name to this one.
r />   Not surprisingly, no mention of the children’s encounter in the cinema on Friday night, no explanation as to why he hadn’t come over and introduced himself. But he’d changed his phone setting to allow his number to be displayed when his text had come through.

  Jackie saved the number under Charlie. She wasn’t responding before Thursday at least. And she wouldn’t invite Charlie to their house again. If they did meet up let it be in the park, or let him offer to do the entertaining.

  But at least he was making an effort, he was showing some concern for his daughter’s well-being. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as he seemed, maybe he was just shy. Or maybe Charlie had badgered him into it.

  “Not at the table, dear,” her mother murmured.

  “Sorry.” Jackie slid her phone back into her pocket. She’d say nothing to Eoin until arrangements had been made. Her father cut more slices from the roast beef joint and Jackie held out her plate for seconds.

  —————

  She lifted the boy onto the couch and whispered something to him, and then she vanished. Michael heard her running lightly upstairs. He sat in his usual armchair, already regretting his impulse to let them come into the sitting room for half an hour after dinner. It had seemed churlish to insist that they go straight upstairs to bed, particularly with her spending the afternoon doing his weeding, but now he had to put up with them. And once he’d made the offer for one night, they’d probably expect it all the time.

  He and the boy regarded each other warily. That hair was a disgrace, all crooked fringe and ragged ends.

  “Who cuts your hair?” Michael asked.

  The boy’s mouth opened and he seemed to be saying something, but no sound came out.

  “Speak up,” Michael ordered. “I can’t hear you.”

  “Mammy,” the boy said in a tiny voice, shrinking away from him.