Page 33 of To Hell With It

ChapterNineteen

Una and I didn’t walk up Slievenamon. I ate the bread and she ate the olives and then she listened as I told her how good it had been to have sex with a total stranger and how bad it had felt when he’d left. Una tried to make me feel better by saying that had Jack not turned up and stayed, and had I not had sex with him a handful of times, I would never have felt what it felt like to do something new.

Una also took the opportunity to remind me again that I would live and die in Drangan if I didn’t do something about it, so I promised her that I would step out of my comfort zone and join a club outside of the village – but only after Mr O’Callaghan’s funeral – and maybe even go on holiday with her to the Maldives.

And the thing is, I think I would have actually done all of those things had I not found a note left on my bed when I’d gone up to smell Jack’s bed sheets. Una had found me on the stairs halfway between counting and praying.

‘Oh my God!’ I said as I waved it in her face.

‘What is it?’

‘Fuck!’

‘What?’

‘It’s from Jack.’

‘What does it say?’ she asked impatiently.

I held it against my chest and then read the words again.

‘Tell me!’

‘It says,I’m yours – I’ll be waiting for you, see you in Te Puke! xxx’

‘Oh my God, let me see?’

Una grabbed it from me as if it might not be true.

‘Fuck.’

‘So he does feel the same,’ I said smugly.

‘Looks like it, are you going to text him?’

‘And say what?’

‘I don’t know, that you want to be with him?’

‘But I can’t be with him,’ I said, deflated again.

Una took both my hands in hers then and stared at me with her serious face that she always pulled when she meant business.

‘When does this kind of stuff happen to anyone, Pearl? When does this kind of stuffhappen toyou?’ She squeezed my fingers tightly but kept her eyes locked on mine. ‘There’s a sexy man out there with a turbo cock all for you, who’s just said that he’s all yours!’

‘But he lives on the other side of the world.’

‘Exactly!’ Una beamed.

‘Exactly what?’ I could feel the beat between us.

‘You have to go to New Zealand.’

ChapterTwenty

Ihadn’t seen Niall since Mr O’Callaghan died. I’d dropped a card through the shop letterbox addressed to him and Mrs O’Callaghan and told them how sorry I was for their loss. I’d read it over and over again because I was convinced I’d writtensorry for the loss of Mr O’Callaghan’s penisinstead ofsorry for your loss. The more I read it, the more thoroughly I had to check it, and in the end I had to get Una to look it over for me.

The pub was filled with black; black shirts and trousers, black knee-length skirts and blouses, some opted for hats with a splash of grey, but not a hint of colour. Ian had laid out a grand spread – boiled eggs (sliced), ham and cheese rolls, bowls of chips, some mini pasties (courtesy of Ellie), and a giant flan that Maggie Ryan had made but no one touched. All the stuff you’d expect to see at a wake I suppose, although I had no idea because I couldn’t remember my grandmother’s, I was too busy counting how many people were in the room and pushing incest thoughts from my head.

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