Page 5 of To Hell With It

‘Because he was so helpful the other day when your father was up the ladder, he stopped to hold it and everything.’

‘Anyone would have done that if they’d been passing. Would you have invited Mr Keele over if it was him?’

‘That’s different.’

‘Why? Because he has phone sex with Maggie Ryan?’

‘It wasn’t Maggie,’ my mother snapped. ‘Maggie wouldn’t indulge in something like that.’

‘I think she would.’ I laughed, but my mother kept a straight face.

Maggie is her best friend. They drink tea together on a Monday and gossip about everyone and everything, except about Mr Keele and his wife.

‘Maggie is happily married and wouldn’t do such a thing.’

‘Call the number then,’ I said smugly. ‘Go on, call it and you’ll recognise her voice.’

‘I’ll do no such thing.’

My mother put her empty mug back in her bag and stood up in her electric-blue shoe protectors.

‘Dinner will be on the table at six.’

ChapterFour

Dinner wasn’t on the table at six. My mother had burnt the potatoes and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Niall was sat in the front room, while my dad explained the intricacies of fiddling customers’ books thelegalway. There was no legal way. Everyone knew that, but Niall smiled and nodded in all the right places, while my dad drank rum and ice in his armchair. Niall had made an effort, I could tell that. He wore a pair of dark jeans I’d not seen before, and a green shirt that brought out the green of his eyes. I noticed his brown hair was wet, which made it look almost black, and that he’d tried to flatten down the curls that had already started to bounce back behind his ears.

He got up when I walked into the room, and I wished he hadn’t. It looked like he’d been waiting to take me to the prom or something like that.

‘Dinner’s ready!’ My mum walked into the front room with a spring in her step like all her dreams had come true. She beamed as she glanced at Niall and then over to me. Then she turned on her heel and walked back out of the room and we all followed her like a flock of sheep.

She’d placed me next to Niall who’d sat down like a polite schoolboy, hands on his lap, back straight. I slumped next to him just to piss my mum off. I didn’t need to wipe the cutlery; I knew my mum would have done all of that before I’d arrived to spare me the embarrassment.

My father poured us all a drink, but Niall declined because he had driven over. That had won him even more brownie points because my mother detested anyone who drank and drove – even after just one drink – ever since she nearly got knocked over by Mr Keele, who’d spent the afternoon drinking at the Tally Inn when his wife chucked him out.

Mum had made roast gammon and cabbage and Niall had wolfed it down like he’d never had a cooked dinner in his life, which had pleased her no end because feeding people made her feel good. My grandmother was the same. Everything revolved around food. I couldn’t leave her house without something being pushed into my hand as I walked out – an apple, a cold sausage, a boiled egg.

‘How’s your mother?’ Mum asked.

‘She’s grand,’ Niall said with a mouthful of cabbage.

‘And your father? Did it all go well in the hospital?’

‘It did, thanks,’ Niall said between bites.

‘He’s a fine businessman,’ my father said. ‘Meticulous with his books, made my job much easier. He’ll be retiring soon, do you think?’

My father had been Mr O’Callaghan’s accountant for as long as I could remember. When hehung up his booksas he put it, Mr O’Callaghan had begged him to carry on, even offering to pay him double for his time.

‘No idea,’ Niall said abruptly and his cheeks flushed ever so slightly but I still noticed it.

‘He’ll out work us all,’ my dad continued.

‘No, Mr Dutson will do that,’ my mother said. ‘I don’t think he’ll ever stop working, not since Maeve passed away.’

Maeve was Mr Dutson’s wife of sixty years. They owned the petrol station next door to the shop and worked together right up until she died of a heart attack behind the counter while Mr Dutson was checking the pumps.

‘Stranger things have happened,’ my dad mused. ‘He might meet someone younger and go off travelling the world.’

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