‘Did you buy something for yourself?’ Mr Higgins asks when Jonathan hands his neighbour his change and the brown paper bag with the cigarettes in it.
‘I bought a bar,’ he says when Mr Higgins takes the Carrolls out of the bag and hands them to him.
‘Gude wee laddie. Nie here’s the cigarettes for your mother. It can’t be easy for her being a poor widda woman. I have three daughters of ma own to support but at least I bring home a good wage. Tell her it’s a wee gift.’ His neighbour is not from around Rosslara. He and his family moved into the house next door to Jonathan’s two years ago when Mrs Foley died and sometimes Jonathan finds it hard to understand him if he talks fast. He says ‘nie’ instead of ‘now’ and ‘wee’ instead of ‘small’. The first time Jonathan heard him say ‘wee’ he was shocked because he thought he was talking about wee wees. Until his mammy explained it to him, saying that people from different parts of the country had different accents.
Jonathan’s mammy has to work very hard doing sewing and alterations, as well as working every morning in the doctor’s surgery answering the phone and making appointments for patients. Jonathan’s daddy died when he was three and his mammy has to pay a lot of bills and take care of him and his two older sisters.
Mr Higgins says his mammy is a grand wee woman. He’s kind to her and buys her cigarettes, because she can’t afford them herself. Jonathan thinks this is a great thing to do and so he never minds running errands for his neighbour.
‘Tell your wee mammy, ma missus will be wanting her to make a communion dress for ma wee girlie. She’s away into town to get new shoes for them all and I’m having a grand bit of peace.’ Mr Higgins gives a little laugh and pulls the sitting-room curtains closed.
‘I’ll tell her, Mr Higgins,’ Jonathan says politely, wondering why his neighbour is opening the button at the top of his dirty blue faded jeans. Perhaps he’s going to lie on the sofa and have a nap, he thinks.
‘Before ye go, I want you to do me another wee favour. It’s just between you and me now. Our little secret. And there’ll be another packet of ciggies for your ma and a treat for yourself next week if ye do as I ask,’ Mr Higgins says. His breathing is raspy and his face is very red and Jonathan is suddenly apprehensive. Something isn’t right. Something has changed but he’s not sure what. And then it’s as though everything is happening in slow motion, even the very particles of dust that dance along a stray sunbeam that has slipped through a gap in the closed curtains, and even the pounding of his heart thudding against his ribcage, as Mr Higgins advances towards him.
P
ART
O
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1990
Upwardly Mobile
C
HAPTER
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‘See you tonight,’ Niall Hammond said, planting a kiss on his drowsy wife’s cheek.
‘What time is it?’ Hilary groaned, pulling the duvet over her shoulders and burying her head in the pillow.
‘6.35,’ he murmured and then he was gone, his footsteps fading on the stairs. She heard the sound of the alarm being turned off, heard the front door open, then close, and the sound of the car reversing out of the drive.
Hilary yawned and stretched and her eyes closed. I’ll just snooze for ten minutes, she promised herself, before drifting back to sleep.
‘Mam, wake up, we’re going to be late for school.’ Hilary opened her eyes to see Sophie, her youngest daughter, standing beside the bed poking her in the ribs.
‘Oh crikey, what time is it?’ She struggled into a sitting position.
‘8.12,’ her daughter intoned solemnly, reading the digital clock.
‘Holy Divinity, why didn’t you call me earlier? Where’s Millie? Is she up?’ she asked, flinging back the duvet and scrambling out of bed.
‘She’s not up yet.’
‘Oh for God’s sake! Millie, Millie, get up.’ Hilary raced into her eldest daughter’s bedroom and hauled the duvet off her sleeping form.
‘Awww, Mam!’ Millie yelled indignantly, curling up like a little hedgehog, spiky hair sticking up from her head.
‘Get up, we’re late. Go and wash your face.’ Hilary was like a whirling dervish, pulling open the blinds, before racing into the shower, jamming a shower cap onto her head so her hair wouldn’t get wet. Ten minutes later, wrapped in a towel, she was slathering butter onto wholegrain bread slices onto which she laid cuts of breast from the remains of the chicken she’d cooked for the previous day’s dinner. An apple and a clementine in each lunch box and the school lunches were done. Hilary eyed the full wash-load in the machine and wished she’d got up twenty minutes earlier so she could have hung it out on the line seeing as Niall hadn’t bothered.
She felt a flash of irritation at her husband. It wouldn’t dawn on him to hang out the clothes unless she had them in the wash basket on the kitchen table where he could see them. Sometimes she felt she was living with three children, she thought in exasperation. Typical that it was a fine day with a good breeze blowing and her clothes were stuck in the machine and would have to stay there until she got home.
Millie was shovelling Shreddies into her mouth while Sophie calmly sprinkled raisins into her porridge. Sophie was dressed in her school uniform, blonde hair neatly plaited, and yet again Hilary marvelled at the dissimilarity of her children. Millie, hair unbrushed, tie askew, lost in a world of her own, oblivious to Hilary’s hassled demeanour. At least they’d had showers, and hair washed after swimming yesterday, she thought, taking a brush from the drawer
