‘Thanks, hon.’
‘You’re a person too,’ she says. ‘You’ve got feelings and stuff. I get it now. I love you, Dad.’ She gives him a quick kiss and goes, leaving both of us flustered.
‘She’ll be in bits when she finds out you’re not coming back at all,’ I say.
‘Yep.’
‘One thing at a time.’
‘Just Neeve to go.’
But Neeve will be glad Hugh won’t be living with us just yet. And when she finds out it’s for ever, she’ll be overjoyed.
She isn’t due home for another couple of hours. In the living room I sit politely with Hugh but quickly it becomes too uncomfortable and I make noises about having to ‘get organized’ and scoot from the room.
Upstairs, I lie flat on my back, staring at the bedroom ceiling. I just want all of this to be over and for it not to hurt any more. I close my eyes for a moment …
… I’m woken by the roar of a car engine outside, followed by the sounds of our front door being shoved open and feet thundering through the hall.
Neeve’s voice shouts, ‘Mum! Kiara! Sofie!’
What the actual …? It’s ten past three in the afternoon. I must have fallen asleep.
‘What?’ Kiara yells.
‘Come outside!’
More thundering of feet, followed by shrieks of excitement out in the road. Someone races up the stairs and shouts, ‘Mum! Mum! Where are you?’ It’s Kiara, and she bursts in. ‘Come, you’ve got to come!’
What’s up? But she seems wildly excited rather than panicked.
A shiny silver car is parked outside the house, an Audi, the cute round one.
‘It’s Neevey’s!’ Sofie exclaims. ‘Brand new, look!’ She points out the ‘17’ registration plate.
Oh, my God, Richie Aldin has bought Neeve a car. He is such a colossal arse. He could be helping her with a down-payment on a flat, giving her some independence, but instead he buys her a flashy toy.
‘Mum!’ Neeve’s eyes are manic and she crushes my hands between hers. ‘It cost sixty-five grand.’
Sweet mother of Jesus, I barely earn that in a good year.
‘You know he’s got an Audi too?’ She’s so proud. ‘We parked them beside each other and they look like the daddy one and the baby one.’
‘Wow, Neevey, that’s amazing.’
‘I know, right! I told him Hugh was home and that I had to give him back his car and he said he’d buy me one and I thought it would be some second-hand yoke. But he called a man and we just walked into the showroom place and Dad said, “That’s the one,” and he paid, like, there, and the man did the plates and I, like, drove it home!’
If Richie Aldin had paid decent maintenance for the first eighteen years of Neeve’s life, it would have come to a lot more than sixty-five grand, but no way would I ever say that.
‘Each of my sisters has one too.’
Who? Oh, she means Richie’s other daughters.
‘But mine’s the newest!’
‘When you come down to earth, can Hugh and I have a little chat with you?’
‘About what?’ She’s instantly suspicious.
‘Hugh won’t be properly back until his six months are up,’ Sofie supplies.
‘Oh, yeah?’ Neeve’s eyes are narrowed. Twirling her car-key fob around her index finger, she says, ‘Now is good.’
Hugh is waiting in the living room. ‘Cool car, Neevey.’
‘Whatevs. So? Story?’
‘The plan was that I stay away six months. So I’m sticking to that.’
‘But where will you be? Living, like?’
‘Uncle Carl’s.’
‘You mean, here in Dublin?’ She sounds furious. ‘No fucking way.’
‘But, Neeve –’ I try.
‘Don’t embarrass my mum,’ she says. ‘Bad enough that in Thailand you were knobbing girls young enough to be your daughter. But don’t do it here. And stay away from that skeevy-ass Genevieve Payne.’
‘I wasn’t –’
‘And all of Mum’s friends. Stay away from them. You’ve no idea what you put Mum through.’
‘Neevey,’ I say. ‘Stop.’
‘I saw her. You wouldn’t let a dog suffer like that.’
98
Tuesday, 10 January
The hotel-room door flies open, Josh hoicks me inside, slams it shut and presses me against it. Into my ear he rasps, ‘Did you sleep with him?’
‘You know I didn’t.’
‘Sackcloth?’
‘I didn’t sleep with him.’
‘I kept thinking about him fucking you. It’s driving me mental.’
During our twelve days apart, this possessive thing, which began in Belgrade airport, has become a sort of game. And I don’t like it. But to be here with him, actual him, overwhelms all rational thought. I pull his face to mine and, God, the heat of his mouth, the swoony pleasure of kissing him, of being kissed. When we break apart, I sigh, ‘I’ve missed you.’
The relief of being with him, to hear his voice, to smell him, that special secret place at the side of his neck, to touch his skin, to slide the pads of my fingers up his back.
I’m pulling off his sweatshirt and he’s unbuttoning my dress, his fingers fumbling. ‘I want you too badly,’ he says. ‘I can’t do this properly.’
He lifts me and I pull my legs around his waist, pressing his hardness right against the part of me that wants him most. The relief and longing makes me groan.
‘The bed,’ I order.
He lays me down and lifts my dress to take off my knickers. ‘Lie on me,’ I say. ‘I need to feel the weight of you on top of me.’
He slides himself along me, pressing his erection against my pubic bone, making me groan again.
‘Has he moved out?’ He means Hugh.
‘You know he has.’ Josh and I have talked almost every day since Serbia.
‘Has he been back to the house since?’
‘You know he has.’ I’m opening his jeans and taking him in my hands, such soft, delicate skin covering such promising hardness. ‘I have to smell you.’ I roll him off me and bury my face in his musky heat – but there’s something else, a faint scent of lemon. ‘Hey, Josh, on Tuesdays, don’t have a shower.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you smell so good and I don’t want shower gel in the mix.’
‘Stop changing the subject – how often has Hugh been over?’
Most days. Picking up his clothes, seeing Kiara and Sofie, there are a hundred legitimate reasons he needs to drop by. ‘Josh, don’t talk about him.’
‘Why? Got something to hide?’
‘Please, Josh. My time with you is so precious, please let’s just …’
‘You’re serious.’ He’s pleased.
I am. This night with Josh has been the only bright spot on the horizon for the past twelve days. Being at home has been tough going: Hugh showing up, looking stunned with grief; Kiara angry and tearful; Neeve seething with suspicion; Sofie blithely – bizarrely – upbeat.
As for me, I can’t contain my sorrow. I keep trying to box it away but it persists in leaking out and, in moments of horrible pain, breaking the surface.
The trigger is the frequency of Hugh’s visits. Carl and Chizo’s house is only a fifteen-minute drive from ours. In addition, Chizo hasn’t let Hugh move all his stuff into theirs, so he often has to call into mine to get things.
In his defence he’s doing nothing wrong. Like, he swung an unexpected meeting with the bank to discuss remortgaging the studio he co-owned with Carl and needed to call in to pick up his lone suit. Or Sofie wanted his insight into a physics conundrum for school.
Even I’ve been complicit. On Saturday night a fuse blew, plunging us into darkness. Flicking countless switches while holding a wobbling torch didn’t restore power. So when Sofie said, ‘We could always call Dad,’ I didn’t take much persuading.
He was over in a quarter of an hour, and after he’d found the right fuse, I offered him a beer.
‘I’ll get it,’ he said.