Full House [Quick Read] (6 page)

‘We might be a bit dull for her.’

‘No, I want her to be safe as well. She’s been a home bird for too long.’

‘She’s your sister’s child, right?’

‘Yes, my sister Laura, that’s right. Lucky Laura they called her.’

‘Was she lucky?’ Dee asked. Miss Mason never talked about her sister at all.

‘She was. She got every single thing she ever wanted.’ There was a big sigh and no more information.

Dee busied herself and finished up. Miss Mason was sitting in her chair, still looking right in front of her.

‘I’ll be off now, Miss Mason. I have put my address on this note and my phone number. I’ll be at home this afternoon if your niece would like to come and see if it suits her.’

‘I’m sure she’ll love it, Dee.’ Her face was still sad.

As they got into Josie’s van, Dee wondered what was the story in Miss Mason’s family.

‘No love between the sisters there,’ Josie said.

‘She’s a nice girl, that Lily. I hope she’ll like the place.’

Lily loved the place.

‘What a beautiful room, all clean and shiny and with a window-box too! It’s beautiful, Mrs Nolan.’

‘I’m Dee and this is Liam. Do you really like it?’

‘It’s great – when can I move in? This weekend?’

‘The smell of paint should have gone by then,’ Liam said.

‘Then I’ll pay you a month in advance – is that all right?’ Lily offered.

‘Well, if you’re sure, here’s the house key,’ Dee said.

After Lily left, Dee showed Liam the money. He couldn’t believe it. They danced together around the kitchen. This was serious money. It meant they might make it through the difficult times. It might, it just
might
be all right.

Anthony came in and watched them for a while. Round and round they went. Then he sat down with his mobile to text his two sisters.

You asked me to tell you how things were going. Well, they couldn’t be worse. There’s been nothing to eat for three days, the house reeks of paint and turpentine and now they’re dancing around the kitchen. Dancing as if there was music. They’ve gone completely mad
.

Anthony

Chapter Six

Lily had settled in very well,
too
well, Anthony thought. It was a different world at home nowadays.

He texted his sisters regularly about it all, but he felt that they hadn’t quite taken on board how serious it all was. And how very much life had altered – and not for the better.

Lily was a nurse at St Brigid’s hospital; she was gone at seven-thirty in the morning and made her own supper when she came back home. There was no sitting around the kitchen table these evenings. Dad and Mam were always busy, looking at maps of Sicily, painting some old back shed or helping Lily in the thrift shop where she worked a few nights a week.

Some days Lily visited her aunt, the one that Mam knew up in the posh flats. She liked to prepare a little supper for the two of them, she said. It was hard to describe her. She had a nice face like a Madonna: she could be any age – twenty-five, thirty-five, forty-five. Impossible to say, really. She had straight fair hair, and she wore a long grey cardigan most of the time. She had her own shelf in the fridge with health foods and funny drinks made from beans or coconuts.

Mam said she was delighted with Lily. A nicer-mannered girl it would be hard to find, and even though she paid good rent she always played a part in the house. She slaved over the place at weekends. There she was now, out digging with Liam in the garden. She was even teaching them to play bridge. That was a
very
complicated game where you were meant to be telling your partner what you had in your hand but mainly you told them something baffling instead.

Helen and Rosie read these texts and were greatly confused by them.

Had Anthony gone mad? Mam and Dad playing bridge? Separate shelves in the fridge? It didn’t bode well for their return.

Helen had offered to pay Maud and Marco for staying in their house but they said no, not at all. She was a friend, she was only going to be there a couple of days, she must stay like any friend. So she thought she must contribute something – maybe bring them food, but then that was ridiculous since they ran a restaurant themselves.

She meant to think of something else they would like, but she was so busy. There was school work and the threats from the travel agency and the worrying reports from Anthony at home. There wasn’t a spare minute in the day until she would come in and flop down in front of a comforting plate of meatballs in tomato sauce or pasta with clams. She slept deeply in their small spare room and had a breakfast of salami, cheese and fresh crusty bread, which kept her going all day.

She meant to take them out for a treat at weekends but somehow that never worked out either. Their restaurant was so busy then, they were never free. And Helen was taking on extra classes teaching English to foreigners to meet the giant bill that she was going to have to pay to this devil travel agency. It was all very tiring, and these useless texts she got from Anthony made things worse.

At least Rosie had calmed down a bit since she had gone to London. She didn’t spend all her time attacking Ronan like she normally did. She didn’t complain about her high heels hurting her legs, and she said that London was very different.

She said that in every text. Helen was getting fed up with this word.

Anthony said home was different, and Rosie said London was different.

In her own life Helen found that things were just the same, with better breakfasts than back home, but the same problems about there being no men about that a sane woman would fancy. But why was everyone so busy talking about everything being different?

Helen sighed.

It would be wonderful to be in love like Maud and Marco were. They hardly had eyes for anyone else. They would laugh together and stroke each other in the restaurant kitchen before going out and being very professional in front of the customers. Back in the flat they would cuddle up together on a very small sofa and mumble at each other. Helen would go out sometimes and give them space; they were too polite to disappear and leave her there alone. It must be great to want somebody that much, Helen thought. So far in her life there had been nothing like that.

There were texts from Maud’s twin brother Simon. Maud would read them out.

Simon wrote of the rave reviews they had gathered in the restaurant where he worked. There were fancy groups who came in – politicians, film stars, business people. He told of the recipes that had been a huge success, how they used seasonal ingredients, and how they had bookings six months ahead.

‘He sounds very cheerful,’ Helen said.

Helen had known Simon, of course, as he had grown up just down the street. He was more serious than Maud, a bit intense, she thought, but then he’d gone abroad and she hadn’t seen him since.

‘He has a very good job,’ Marco said approvingly.

‘He’s lonely as hell,’ Maud said firmly.

‘But look at all he says about how well he’s doing.’ Helen was puzzled.

‘A sign he’s homesick.’ Maud was very sure.

‘Well, no point in his coming back here at the moment,’ Helen said briskly. ‘Restaurants are closing at one a week or is it one a day?’ She looked at the stricken faces of Maud and Marco. ‘Not yours, of course,’ she said, too eagerly and too late.

The light had gone out of the evening.

Text from Rosie to Anthony and Helen:

I’ve been a week in London. The course is good and we learn a lot. It’s over at six. They don’t go for coffee or a drink or anything. Most of them live miles and miles away. I go back to the hotel. They allow me so much a day for my meals. I feel a bit silly in the dining room by myself every night so I have room service instead. You can’t go to the bar ’cos people think you are a hooker. It’s a bit odd. I read my notes. I watch telly. It wasn’t really meant to be like this, was it?

Love, Rosie

Text from Anthony to Helen and Rosie:

Glad to hear that you are having a great time in London, Rosie, and that you are fine with Maud and Marco, Helen. I have been very much out of things here. It’s not that Mam and Dad have gone off me or anything it’s just as if I am someone who came in from the street. They seem surprised to see me every day. There’s nothing to eat. They say, ‘Oh are you going to use the washing machine?’ as if I were going to fly to the moon. I get the sense that they are looking at my room. That Lily keeps saying that all the girls who nurse with her would just love to live in our house. I can’t think why. I have a few friends who are going to live in a big flat. I think I might well join them
.

Wish I had better news to pass on
.

Love, Anthony

Text from Helen to Rosie and Anthony:

I never thought I’d say this but I miss the pair of you. There’s a whole lot of things I’m not sure about any more. Maud and her brother Simon always paid at home when they lived with their grandparents, and Marco pays his father every week for the flat. Maybe everyone does and we should have done it too? And another thing, Maud goes up every Tuesday to her grandmother and does her washing and all the ironing and they have a great old chat. We never did that for our grannies. I know we didn’t live with them. But we never did it for Mam and Dad. The people in the staffroom all live in their parents’ houses and they all pay something. I’m just saying that in case you think we should offer something. What do you think?

Love, Helen

Miss Mason told Dee that Lily was more than satisfied with her new lodgings.

‘Yes, it’s perfect in almost every way,’ Dee said. ‘There’s just one thing that worries me. You see, we never told our children that once they started working they should contribute at home, so they didn’t. And I started to get all bitter about having to work so hard while they just sat there and ate us out of house and home. They expected
me
to have got milk for their breakfast and
me
to iron their clothes, and
me
to fill the fridge with all kinds of food for them to eat at any time of the day or the night. And now there’s a bit of bad feeling.’

‘You mean about Lily’s room?’ Miss Mason asked.

‘That’s only part of it. It was time to make a move, it was a hopeless state of affairs. Rosie had to go to England to do a course – and anyway she should go back to that fellow she married. And Helen’s always going on about her friends Maud and Marco who apparently live the perfect life. And someone needed to wake Anthony up to the real world. But I do have regrets. If, years ago, I had asked them all for a contribution every Friday, the house could have run properly and we could have gone on forever.’

‘Would you like me to find a new place for Lily so you can give back their room to the girls?’ asked Miss Mason.

‘No, that’s not what it’s about. I love Lily being there, and now that Anthony is going, Lily’s friend Angela is coming to take the other room. But I’m uneasy about it. I threw out my own children and took in two strangers who pay good money. It looks as if I’m mean and grasping.’

‘You’re far from that.’

‘But I am at fault, Miss Mason. I never asked them, you see. I know they should have known to give something – but they didn’t, and their father kept saying it was their home.’

‘Don’t get upset, Dee. Just make us more tea and we’ll sit down and see if we can work this out.’ Miss Mason loved solving problems. This was a difficult one, for sure. ‘The thing is, you’ll have to do more than just make your children leave. That way, they’ll learn nothing. You’ll have to show them how things
should
have been, by how they are
now
…’

Chapter Seven

When Dee got back home to St Jarlath’s Crescent, her son-in-law Ronan was sitting having coffee with Lily.

Lily immediately leaped up to take Dee’s parcels and welcome her back to her own home. Rosie wouldn’t have raised her face from a magnifying mirror; Helen’s eyes would have remained glued to whatever project she was involved in. Anthony would have smiled at her from under his earphones. Before Lily, nobody was interested in Dee’s day. And because Lily was so interested, Ronan was interested too.

‘How would you cook those leeks, Mrs Nolan?’ he asked.

Dee looked at him. Why had Rosie taken such a dislike to the boy? He seemed perfectly reasonable to Dee. Ordinary, perhaps, interested in football and pints, but then Rosie had known all this about him, so it didn’t come out of a clear blue sky.

‘I’d put them in a dish, cover them with crème fraîche and heat them for half an hour. Then I’d add some grated cheese and breadcrumbs and cook them for another quarter of an hour.’